More questions for Double Dipton
A Colmar Brunton survey out yesterday showed that by a two to one margin Kiwis believe Bill English has acted wrongly and his […]
Marty G
Power’s electoral finance reform proposals out
Justice Minister Simon Power has released the Government’s proposals for reform of electoral finance law. Remember, Labour’s reforms of electoral finance law were […]
Four day week, way of the future?
How would you like to work a four-day, ten-hour per day week, rather than a five-day week? A number of organisations in the […]
Informative journalism
Colin Espiner: “For some reason that I don’t quite understand, unemployment usually continues to rise at the end of recessions, and there’s normally […]
Chauvel on the ETS
In his speech as Labour climate change spokesperson, Charles Chauvel confirmed the new information on the ETS that Jeanette Fitzsimons revealed today. It was […]
Nats to subsidise big polluters by $2 billion a year
Last night, non-government parties finally got a peak at the new emissions trading bill. Nick Smith still didn’t have it finished, it was […]
John and Bill cost us $7 million in two months
You’ll remember that in the Budget National decided to suspend payments to the Cullen Fund, which is designed to help fund the future […]
Back into growth
The newly released figures show 0.1% growth in the June quarter. The March figure was also revised up to -0.8% (from -1.0%). Here […]
Billy and the Baroness
In an extraordinary coincidence, the Attorney-General in the UK is about to lose her job for pretty much the same rort as Bill […]
Talking union
Eddie’s piece on the importance of joining your union if you want to avoid a pay cut reminded me of another Peter Seeger classic:
Nats’ ETS a polluters’ charter
Rod Oram, as usual, has set the standard in commentary with his piece on the National-Maori Party ETS. The full article is here […]
Politics more than politicking
I get sick of hearing our illustrious fourth estate refer to some piece of politicking as ‘good politics’. Who decides what’s ‘good politics’? The commentators, […]
Nick Smith’s dirty dealing
Labour’s Charles Chauvel has released the paper records of Labour’s attempts to agree a bi-partisan ETS with National. In total, Labour presented three […]
Corporate bully-boys step it up a level
The Open Country Cheese dispute is underway. Workers are striking against the bosses’ attempts to casualise their hours and reduce their conditions. They […]
The bigots beneath
Last night, Sandra Goudie, the big-mouth of the National Party caucus, said the words out loud that the Nats usually keep in their […]
Sell state houses? Not like this
National has announced that it will begin offering to sell 3,800 state houses to tenants living in them on market rents. I don’t […]
What next, Soylent Green?
The Wall Street financiers crapped out on their sub-prime gambles, inflicting economic devastation on the taxpayers who generously bailed-them out in return. Now, […]
No deal
Hot Topic has obtained a copy of a draft memorandum of understanding for a meeting on the ETS that was meant to take place […]
It’s the economy, stupid
What a lot of people don’t seem to understand is that an emissions trading scheme has two points: 1) encourage reductions in emissions […]
Maori Party to help Nats kill carbon emissions cap
Nick Smith has just announced a deal with the Maori Party to replace the existing Emissions Trading Scheme with a do-nothing joke. The […]
Another lagging indicator
The New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services has released its annual Vulnerability Report. Due to rising unemployment, 219,000 children now live in households […]
No good faith from Nats
Finance Minister Bill English has told doctors, teachers, and other public servants that they will not be getting pay-raises when their collective contracts […]
Which side are you on?
Following on from the workers’ rights/class war theme of the last few days, here’s an old classic:
Redundancy protection – it’s only fair
A coalition of unions, Labour, the Greens, the Maori Party, and community groups has come together to support Darian Fenton’s Redundancy Protection Bill. […]
It ain’t over ’til it’s over
The economists think the recession is probably over (for now). If you’re one of the lucky ones, you may very well be thinking ‘well […]
Why Supplementary Member sucks
National and the business elite led by former Telecom chairman Peter Shirtcliffe (who led the pro-FPP campaign back in the 1990s) want to […]
Clueless
John Key has admitted he didn’t bother to get detailed briefings before sending our SAS to kill and possibly die for a corrupt regime in Afghanistan: […]
Abuse of process
National put Parliament back into urgency yesterday. It is ramming through the extension to the retail deposit guarantee, the RMA amendments, changes to […]
Key’s lies on housing rort exposed
As I alluded to yesterday, the claims from John Key that he has slashed hundreds of thousands of dollars from the cost of […]
A rort is a rort is a rort
And by any other name it smells as bad. John Key has annouced a reform of the rules for ministerial accommodation allowance. A […]
Climate change in action
The world’s oceans reached a record high temperature in July of 16.37 degrees, 0.59 degrees above the 20th century average. That might not […]
The mire
Last month’s Time magazine has an article that starts “to understand why the United States is losing in Afghanistan…” It’s a bombshell phrase, […]
A return to elected dictatorship?
Back in the days of First Past the Post elections, we had what Geoffery Palmer termed ‘the fastest law in the West’ and […]
OECD child poverty report
I’ve been having a look at the OECD’s report on child poverty. A lot of the data is quite of of date and […]
10:10
The scientists say we need to reduce our greenhouse emissions by 40% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 if we want to even […]
Are you smarter than a 10th year?
Meet Robert Wadlow. When he died in 1940, he was the tallest ever recorded person, standing 8 feet, 11 and a half inches […]