Wee gripes: temporal confusion and the recession
The Herald editorial this morning calling for mining DoC land: “That resource represents wealth which this country is in little position to ignore. […]
Marty G
Wee gripes: Business confidence
Question: ‘Do you expect business conditions to improve in the next 12 months?’ Answer: ‘Well, we’re in the worst recession in a life-time […]
Always an excuse to do nothing
Remember FART (Farmers Against Ridiculous Taxes)? Shane Arden driving Myrtle the Tractor up the steps of Parliament? Bill English with his poster carrying […]
Devil in the detail
I’ve had a further read of the select committee report on the Emissions Trading Scheme, and found a huge problem – National, United […]
NZ for sale
I was browsing through our image archives and came across this, which I think is from a protest before the election: Well, they […]
Emissions Trading Scheme report released
The report of the special select committee on the Emissions Trading Scheme has been released. I’ve only had a chance to read the […]
The emerging landowner class
Why are house prices rising at the same time as mortgagee sales are hitting record highs? More people than ever are unable to […]
Sharemarket/Hitler lolz
Trippin’
How’s this for some positive spin? Australia is coming off worse in the battle for trans-Tasman tourism, with New Zealand reporting a record […]
Minority Report
National is attempting to re-write the Emissions Trading Scheme. The new version it has come up with through the special select committee would be weaker […]
Transport: on the wrong track
The government’s 3-year transport spending plan is out. Where’s all the cash going? Surprise, surpise it’s state highways. We’re going to spend $1.5 […]
S59, an opening for Winston?
In 2007, 113 MPs voted for the Bradford amendment to s59 of the Crime Act. Eight voted against it. One of them was […]
Apply the brakes, before it’s too late
The real estate agencies and the newspapers, both of which have an interest in a booming property market, are predicting that housing prices will surge […]
Basher bill puts pressure on Key
John Boscawen’s private members’ bill to amend s59 of the Crimes Act has been drawn from the ballot. Essentially it would take us […]
If you believe in it, put something on the line
It’s a strange day when you’re praising Tau Henare. But at least he’s standing up for Maori seats, unlike the pathetic display from […]
Healthcare – need or wealth?
I don’t know if you’ve been following the healthcare debate in the States. Obama’s trying to bring in a plan that gets their […]
Ultra-fast broadband? Eventually, but not now
For what seems like the fiftieth time, we’re being told to expect an announcement from Steven Joyce on the shape of the Government’s […]
More than just a job
Recently, Bill English has been trying to make excuses for not doing anything about the spiralling numbers of unemployed. He says that the […]
Playing catch up?
In the 1980s and early 1990s, during the Right’s neoliberal economic revolution, New Zealand’s economic output per person stalled – growing just 0.01% per […]
Tax reform mustn’t be a gift for the rich
Vernon Small’s pieces on tax in the Independent and Dom this week have been interesting. He provides a good overview of the issues around […]
Telecom’s profits first, NZ second
You’ve heard about the Telecom dispute. But while a lot of the focus has been on what it means for the lines engineers […]
GST up? It depends
The Government’s Tax Working Group has proposed increasing GST to 15-20% to pay for cuts to income tax. I’m not automatically against GST […]
A question of trusts
Here is Bill English in the cocktail tapes talking about Working for Families: “the reality is if we had been the government, with […]
Breeding for a business
In 2002, John Key (then a free-speaking backbencher) told the Sunday-Star Times: “We’ve seen enormous growth in the number of people on the […]
On their coat-tails
Jon Stewart talks to Austan Goolsbee, Chief Economist for President Obama’s Economic Recovery Board: “when you’re looking in the face of the next […]
On cultural relativism
It’s a pretty rare thing for a conviction for manslaughter not to lead to some jail time. In the past 28 years, only […]
Nip it in the bud
Reading the Herald on Sunday piece about this senior political figure in the domestic violence dispute, I’m surprised his party hasn’t made him step down […]
On the scrap heap
Call me old fashioned if you will, but I like the idea that reforms of government activity should be concieved and implemented by […]
The great leader
Something about the title of this press release from Peter Dunne yesterday just made me laugh: Call for leadership, vision from pharmacy […]
It’s Labour’s fault it didn’t rain!
One of Bill English’s favourite lines is that New Zealand entered recession ahead of the rest of the world ‘due to Labour’s mismanagement […]
Malthusian merriment
In the wake of a rather nasty piece of ‘satire’ on another blog earlier this week, I’ve been thinking about over-population. It’s a […]
New Zealand’s global shame
Well, there goes our clean, green image. After Key announced the pathetic 10-20% emissions reduction target, we were declared ‘fossil of the day’ […]
Double bubble trouble
It’s a rare day that I agree with Bill English but he’s right about the danger of another housing boom. The last bubble […]
Recreating the reserve army of labour
Unemployment has shot up to 133,500, nearly doubling in 18 months. But that’s not the whole story. The official ‘unemployed’ are only the […]
Wellington fundraisers
Two cool fundraisers coming up for the Greens and Labour. The Greens are holding a screening of Kiwi ‘s The Age of Stupid, […]
Big issues in Telecom lines strike
It’s great to see all the lines engineers standing up to Telecom’s attempt to strip away their employment rights and turn them into […]