Bill English has attacked the MED numbers showing that private electricity companies are 12% more expensive than public ones saying that argument assumes “that hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders are systematically paying more for electricity than they could?”. Um… Has English heard of Powerswitch? That multi-million dollar government campaign is based on exactly that premise.
The last time Treasury did an economic and fiscal update outside of its use two-per-year schedule, was December 2008, the depth of the recession. So, it’s telling that, just 4 weeks after the Budget, Treasury is looking at doing a revision of its numbers. One thing is certain, National’s last economic (actually, fiscal) promise- surplus in 2014/15 – is out the window. So, what’s National’s goal now?
The Keep Our Assets Coalition has collected a phenomenal 80,000 signatures already, quarter of the way there. The signatures are pouring in. Collecting will get harder closer to the end but we’re going to get our referendum – if we all play our part. If you haven’t signed, or your friends and family haven’t, download the form and send it in.
National has reduced the multifaceted, extremely complex job of economy management to a simple bookkeeping goal: a surplus, whatever its size, by 2014/15. Treasury came to the party, projecting a $200m, 0.08% of GDP, surplus for 2014/15 in the Budget. Now, the Reserve Bank’s projected a 1.1%, $2.5b deficit. Oops.
Peter Dunne would be really, really smart to back the Green amendment. He could still vote for the asset sales law but claim some moral high ground in saying ‘no sales until after the referendum’. Then, when the result is overwhelming opposition, he can do the commonsense shuffle and switch to opposing asset sales. It would be too late to stop the law passing but it might just save Dunne’s skin in 2014.
David Cunliffe went to the lion’s den yesterday with a speech telling a meeting of Kensington Swan’s receivership and liquidation lawyers that there would be a lot less work for them under Labour but saying “the Labour Party is not your enemy. Your enemy is inefficiency, corruption, and the wastage of both public and private wealth. Your enemy is a cosy corruption that helps a few friends of the government get very rich at the expense of the community.”
People are driving less because of high fuel prices. That means less road tax for the government – a $120m shortfall in the last two years -, which pays for the transport budget. The biggest slice of the transport budget – the uneconomic roads of national significance. So, National is quietly delaying the RoNS until after they know they’ll be out of government.
Times are tight, right? You’ve probably been told that when your boss says you can’t have a pay rise that keeps up with inflation. Yeah, well. It seems that doesn’t apply to managers. The largest jump in median weekly income has been for managers – twice the change across all workers. In hourly terms, no-one is keeping up with inflation. Welcome to the brighter future.
When Righties say we can’t afford to support solo mums, what do they think we can afford instead?
After hearing 150 oral submissions and receiving thousands more written ones, National’s members of the Finance and Select Committee shut down the Committee’s consideration of the evidence they had heard on the asset sales bill after just 1 hour. And why not? They had had Treasury write the Committee’s report before the submitters were even heard. Now, the legislation goes back to the House 6 weeks early to be slammed through its final stages.
A year in to its 10-year, $300 million contract, and Serco is making a real hash of running Mt Eden Prison. A second escape this week, along with two late releases, failure to meet drug testing targets and failure to report as agreed. And this is dealing with mostly only remand prisoners. Why are we spending $900m on an unneeded prison at Wiri for these clowns to run?
Remember when John Key promised 4,000 new jobs from the cycleway and, in fact, a few hundred, short-term, part-time positions were created? Remember when John Key promised 170,000 new jobs and unemployment went up instead? Looks like Key’s being making it up on the pokies-for-convention centre deal too, which would create only a fraction of the jobs promised.
We all know National is on a record borrowing binge. But when they say they need to slash education investment to balance the […]
A tattered few on the Right are attempting to stir up an issue over the Greens using a bit of their leaders’ office budget on the citizens’-initiated referendum petition. The use of the $78,000 is completely within the rules and approved by the Speaker. The Greens, and the coalition, are helping us to keep our assets. Meanwhile, the Nats have budgeted $120 million to sell them. Who’s in the wrong?
You know how, whenever someone points out that spending $12 billion on highways that make no economic sense makes even less sense when you consider that people are driving less because of the price of petrol and will only reduce their driving more in the face of even higher petrol prices, some idiot says ‘we’ll just invent alternatives, drive electric!’. Yeah, it ain’t happening.
Winston Peters is on the attack over Tariana Turia’s slush fund again. This time, Turia and John Key find themselves defending a $60,000 grant to a rugby club to investigate “undertake whanau development research”, on the spurious grounds that ‘the old way doesn’t work, this is something new, so let’s try it’. In that spirit, I have a proposition for Mr Key.
Colin James contrasts Shearer with Key: At a post-budget standup on Thursday he lacked leader-like fluency, deferring readily – and necessarily – to finance shadow minister David Parker who had his lines off pat.This factor should diminish over time as Shearer settles – though don’t expect him to become the sort of glib performance artist John Key has become. Shearer is too earnest and too aware of complexity.
National has undershot every one of its growth promises. I bet that doesn’t stop them promising big tomorrow.
It’s an interesting fact that the one area in which National is going against its traditional approach and moving towards what the experts advocate is prisons. And I think I know why. In education, health, welfare etc National’s ideological positions correspond with cutting spending. But ‘lock em up and throw away the key’ costs. When Bill English called prisons a “moral and fiscal failure” his emphasis was on “fiscal”.
Last Budget, National promised 36,000 jobs in the year to March 2012. We got 20,000. They promised 1.8% growth. We got 1.1%. They promised a $9.8 billion deficit. Now, it’s heading for over $12 billion. Ready for a repeat on Thursday?. English will say last year’s failures were all someone else’s fault. Key will grin and make some weak jokes, the beakbenches will hoot and holler. But will anyone outside National be smiling this time round?
Across the country, the number of party votes National received fell in 2011, except for in Christchurch. Given turn-out fell 10%, the fact more people voted National was a sobering moment for critics of how the rebuild is being handled. Or perhaps not. Now, 87% of Press readers think the government isn’t doing enough. National just got lucky with the timing of the election.
If there was any doubt that National has an anti-teacher, anti-education agenda, it’s gone. Increasing class sizes will ‘save’ $43m a year by reducing the number of teachers that would otherwise be required by 500. National standards will be used for performance pay. It’s a cut to the frontline, a cut to our kids’ learning. And Parata’s comments suggest more to come.
Sometimes during union bargaining that has hit a wall, workers will vote to ‘work to rule’ – ie not do extras beyond the terms of you contract. It’s perfectly legal. In fact, it should be what we all do every day. Working beyond rule is gifting time and effort to the boss for no compensation. But National wants employers to be able to cut your pay for doing your job.
We’re in a second mini-recession/stall since the Great Recession began in 2008. As in 2010, oil prices ramped up and growth petered out. Now, oil prices have dropped back a little. But the moment the economy shows mild signs of life, they’ll be back up again. Short periods of weak growth, oil price shocks, recessions – sounds like the cycle peak oil economists have predicted for years.
Remember when John Key said that rebuilding Christchurch wasn’t just that city’s challenge, it was New Zealand’s challenge? Yeah, well, now Gerry Brownlee and Bill English are pressuring the council to sell off its assets to pay for the rebuild. Green figures show the madness of that. This is a 20-year rebuild. The dividends over that period are more valuable than one-off sale revenue.
You know how the government’s short of cash, eh? Well, the guy spending $14 billion on highways that don’t make sense on the government’s rosy numbers, isn’t even going to consider whether they’re still a good idea now the IMF says petrol is heading to $5 a litre. Nor is he concerned about the $6 billion shortfall because that’s in ‘the future’ – because he’ll be out of office by then (seriously)
The Nats say they won’t sell more than 49% of our energy companies and AirNZ. As if that’s a good thing. As if it doesn’t carve a $100m per year hole in the budget. But, it turns out its worse than that. The Greens have discovered that every power station in the country is a wholly-owned subsidiary. After privatisation there will be nothing to stop them being flogged off one by one.
The Environmental Protection Agency, bastard child of Nick Smith chaired by National crony Kerry Prendergast, has given draft approval to Transmission Gully. This billion dollar project returns 60 cents of benefits for every dollar spent. Worse than a night on the pokies. And that’s NZTA’s estimate assuming traffic growth that isn’t happening, and not accounting for $5 a litre petrol.
Number of additional jobs per year needed to match population growth: 25,000 * Jobs promised by National last Budget to be added in March 2012 year: 36,000 * Actual number of jobs added: 20,000 * Additional unemployed: 5,000 * Change in number of fulltime jobs: -6,000 * Change in number of parttime jobs: 25,000 * Growth in underemployment: 4,000 * Broken promises: 1 really big one
Last week, the IMF warned that oil prices will double over and above inflation in the next decade. The Greens crunched the numbers and say that means we’ll be paying $5 a litre for petrol in 2022. If it wasn’t clear before, it is now. A handful of white elephant highways is a poor use of $14 billion, especially when petrol is only getting more expensive.
OK. I’m officially confused. Is National plummeting or holding? Is Labour gaining or falling? Are the Greens becoming the second party or slipping back? 5 polls: 5 different answers.
What your ruling party got up to at its South Island Regional Conference. Michael Woddhouse, list MP and failed candidate for Dunedin South, speaking at a podium behind a toilet seat with Dunedin South MP Clare Curran’s face attached. It’s witty, too. That’s what I like about it.
The case for the Puhoi to Wellsford Holiday Highway just got even worse. Before, officials reckoned it would return net benefits worth ten cents for every dollar spent. Now, the cost will equal the benefits – if traffic volumes double in 15 years. Problem is, traffic volumes in Northland are flat or falling in the Peak Oil Age.
Remember when we elected that guy with all the financial experience because he would be able to guide us through the tough time better and close the gap with Australia? Oops.
The FYI project and I/S at No Right Turn have uncovered what appears to be massive abuse of expenses by Genesis CEO Albert Brantley, whom we pay $1.2m a year. It puts me in mind of Marie Antoinette. And we know what happened to her. Almost as shocking is the small stuff. Lucky Genesis is subject to the OIA, for now, so this guy could be found out.
John Key likes to trade on his experience as a, well, trader. You know, he’s the deal maker. The one to steer us through tough economic times, to get our exports growing. He understands the markets and that knowledge will benefit New Zealand. But, how well has he really done? Let’s start this series close to home for Key: the exchange rate.
