A correction
I’ve long held to the principle of owning your mistakes and as such I’ve gotta say I was wrong about one aspect of the “stop asset sales” campaign – the signs are authorised.
IrishBill
Amateur hour – or how to take a good idea and turn it into a bad campaign
Labour’s stop asset sales campaign should have been good but it wasn’t.
Not because of its legal cock-ups (okay not just because of its legal cock-ups) but because it was rolled out in a vacuum.
Some Epsom arithmetic
Unsurprisingly it’s taking the nats a wee while to decide who to stand in Epsom.
I’d imagine that’s because they’re struggling with the maths.
Welcome to the Stroppery
The brilliant haranguer and occasional guest poster here Queen of Thorns and a few of her mates have launched a new blog, The Stroppery.
It looks like it’ll be a bloody good read.
Helen Kelly on the Hobbit dispute
Helen Kelly has published a full and detailed account of the Hobbit dispute.
The result is a story that leaves you in no doubt about big business’s class war on workers.
Or which side this government has taken.
On NZPA’s demise
Yesterday it was announced that NZPA would be closing.
That’s bad news for us all as a news audience and as citizens in a democracy.
RESIGN
Actually Phil Goff has it right – these clowns should resign – all they seem to be able to do is screw the economy and cut juicy public-money deals for their mates.
Oh yeah, and photo ops. Can’t forget the photo ops.
Whatever happened to “we’re all in this together”?
Displaced Christchurch residents are being told they need to pay at least $190 a week to stay in emergency campervan housing.
Meanwhile picking up the tab for wealthy SFC investors just got another third of a billion more expensive.
A class massacre
The number of New Zealanders desperate for food is increasing.
But the government’s priority is to look after its wealthy mates.
What a joke.
Heroic cynicism
The government is backing a call for “heroic” student loan holders to pay their loans back asap to help fund the earthquake recovery.
But there doesn’t seem to be a similar call for “heroic” high earners to return their unaffordable tax cuts.
Show some leadership, please
Key has been caught out bullshitting about the earthquake again.
This time about how many houses will have to be destroyed.
With so much uncertainty surrounding the quake and its aftermath already that’s not good enough.
Key needs to show some leadership.
Welfare reforms will drive wages down
The coming welfare reform is less a welfare policy and more another industrial relations policy in drag.
That’s because it won’t just be beneficiaries that suffer under this new regime but the majority of Kiwi workers too.
Big quake hits Christchurch
Christchurch has been hit by another serious earthquake. Reports are pretty thin on the ground but it seems to have been 6.3, 5km down and 10km SE of the city. A strong shallow earthquake in the middle of the day.
Key’s “unpopular concessions”
With the TPP being negotiated in secret today the signs from John Key are that he’s planning to sell us down the river.
But given the way he sold out our work rights to Warner Brothers we shouldn’t be surprised.
Whose RWC is it?
While those with $1500 to spend will be enjoying the world cup up close the rest of us have to pay for it.
Somehow it seems appropriate the game that once symbolised New Zealand’s classless society is now only available to the wealthy few at the expense of the many.
Reagan’s legacy
It’s 100 years since the Gipper was born. That’s right, 100 years since the ball started rolling on a project of smiley-faced neoliberalism that we’re still suffering under.
I was going to write a tribute but John Dolan does it so much better than I ever could…
Sunday Star’s top ten
At a time when so much political journalism is focused on analysis of image management it’s nice to see a major Sunday paper throwing its weight behind a push for some real world issues.
Anthony Hubbard’s piece in the Sunday Star Times today looks at 10 real issues the election should focus on:
The everyman spin
More and more often Key is being reported as a product of spin – a man carefully cultivating his celebrity.
For now that means the political class will heap praise on him for “doing politics” well.
But as time goes on and the economy worsens and the only hard policy that comes out is about looking after the rich few at the expense of the many, this “everyman” schtick will wear very thin.
A few thoughts on the reshuffle
Labour had its reshuffle today.
There’s some good, some bad and some business as usual.
Key’s mistake
So I reckoned the election would be in July. That’s because July would have been a good call. And I thought Key and his wee crew were good.
Turns out they’re locking in November 26. That’s a big mistake – he would have had the opposition on the ropes if he’d called July or earlier.
Hey Laydeez
Is it just me or is the idea of our Prime Minister joking around with Tony Vietch (a guy who threw his fiance […]
Political “courage”
Just what is this political “courage” the Herald speaks of?
Nats start the election campaign
Halfway through last year I suggested we’d see a July election as National raced to lock in a second term before their numbers fell.
I reckon that’s exactly the strategy we’re seeing today. The tories know that their numbers are only going to go down this year as their policies bite so they’ve decided to put the pedal down.
Toe the line or hit the road – the new political norm
Fran O’Sullivan makes a good point in today’s Herald about the new political taboo of speaking out against leadership.
While we agree that it’s a Bad Thing, I doubt we agree about how it’s come about.
Rise of the right-whingers
In the last decade or so the right have taken the rhetoric of grievance and victimhood and used it to stifle debate. But there’s a big difference between real grievances like racial oppression and the so-called grievances rich, powerful right-wingers (or should that be right-whingers) subscribe to.
Farrar’s pike river smears
The National Secretary of the miners’ union has warned important evidence may be lost if Pike River mine is sealed.
For making that rational observation he’s been smeared by National Party blogger, David Farrar.
It seems the Nats don’t just want to seal the mine, they want to seal the whole issue and they’ll be quick attack anyone who raises any awkward points.
What will 2011 bring?
Well 2010 has been a year for some political surprises such as Brown’s landslide victory over Banks and Celia’s win in Wellington and some not so surprising moments too such as Gerry and John’s lies about the Hobbit and the announcement of ACC privatisation just a few days before Christmas.
The big question is what will 2011 bring? Here’s a few things I reckon we’ll see…
Last poll of the year
With only a couple of days left in 2010 the Herald has released its latest digipoll showing a slight closing of the gap between National and Labour. But that’s not the interesting part…
Pike’s interference could compromise investigation
Pike River Coal has been pushing for access to investigation interviews.
This kind of interference needs to be stopped before the investigation is compromised.
Cunliffe’s bad politics
By backing private public partnerships David Cunliffe has potentially given the government a free pass on privatisation – one of the biggest issues of the next election.
That’s bad policy and bad politics. I expected better from him.
Hone and the holidays act
Who would have thought that while Hone was talking up Matt McCarten in Mana the other day he was getting ready to vote […]
In the hole and still digging
Tax take is down due to reduced spending and the government’s response is to urge “restraint” and keep cutting. These cuts will, of […]
The dust settles on the Hobbit fiasco
Eventually the dust was going to settle on the Hobbit fiasco and the truth was going to come out.
Fortunately the media has done a bloody good job of making sure that happened.
So what have they been saying?
The changes to employment law
The government is currently rushing through changes to employment law.
But the change won’t make any difference to the kind of action Actors Equity took.
So what’s the point?
Tax breaks and the Hobbit
From Stuff: A meeting between Warner Brothers and senior government ministers has ended, with studio executives asking for larger incentives to keep The Hobbit movies in NZ. The two-hour meeting, which included New Line Cinema boss Toby Emmerich, ended with no resolution to the Hobbit standoff…
Some clarity on the Hobbit dispute
After days of trying to read the media and rumour mill tea-leaves on the Hobbit it was time to do some fact checking.
It turns out this has been a hard lesson in how the international film industry works.