Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, March 11th, 2024 - 127 comments
Recently the Government has been working out how to cut funding for school lunches for poor kids while at the same time it has also announced that it will restore interest deductibility for landlords.
Written By: - Date published: 8:51 am, March 5th, 2024 - 73 comments
David Seymour has stated that funding for free school lunches will be cut by up to half.
Written By: - Date published: 8:21 pm, March 3rd, 2024 - 32 comments
US Undersecretary of State Bonnie Jenkins is in Wellington this week with a hard sell for us on AUKUS Pillar 2 wunderwaffen maybes. We should say tai hoa.
Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, February 20th, 2024 - 102 comments
So what does National do when its minor support party tries to steal media attention with dog whistling racism? It reverts to some good old beneficiary bashing.
Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, February 17th, 2024 - 124 comments
The National Government’s repeal of the Three Waters Legislation and its pursuit of “new forms of infrastructure funding and financing” suggests that privatisation of water is on the drawing board.
Written By: - Date published: 10:39 pm, February 13th, 2024 - 103 comments
Attacking leftists attempts to expose the Atlas Network of right-wing think tanks, Chris Trotter offers this gem “Morally speaking, is taking money from oil companies really all that distinguishable from giving money to oil companies every time we fill up our petrol tank?”
Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, February 11th, 2024 - 147 comments
Faulkes describes himself as a staunch Eco-Socialist and trade unionist
Written By: - Date published: 6:54 am, February 5th, 2024 - 12 comments
Originally published on Nick Kelly’s blog Many question the value of the performing arts and drama. At the start of 2024, the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office did what journalists, politicians and broader civil society have failed to do over the last 25 years. It raised public awareness of the injustice faced […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:20 pm, February 3rd, 2024 - 12 comments
Coffee and Cigarettes is an in-depth study of the human condition by Jim Jarmusch.
Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, January 27th, 2024 - 26 comments
This week there were two pieces of economic news showing a dramatic improvement credit for which should be given to the last Labour Government.
Written By: - Date published: 12:38 pm, January 25th, 2024 - 31 comments
CNN reports that the US has named the ongoing operation against Houthi in Yemen “Operation Poseidon Archer, suggesting a more organized and potentially long-term approach.” New Zealand has joined it – cue the slippery slope.
Written By: - Date published: 9:25 am, January 14th, 2024 - 65 comments
New Zealand has gained prosperity over 40 years within a free flow of trade under peacetime supported by minor attacks to shipping and planes, low international trade costs such as tariffs, and confidence that international trade disputes will be settled by law rather than by might is at risk: all of that required a United States President prepared to support that.
Written By: - Date published: 1:13 pm, January 13th, 2024 - 14 comments
But the ones that run US foreign policy are. Matthew Hooton in a typical smear wants to label Helen Clark as anti-American because she warned that involving us in attacking Houthis was a ”slippery slope.” She’s not and he’s wrong.
Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, January 13th, 2024 - 21 comments
An expanding Middle East war that puts the Red Sea and Suez tanker route at risk is a major risk to us because it could hit the global price of oil.
Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, January 11th, 2024 - 7 comments
There are still groups of people in New Zealand who can and do organise to resist the damage of the right.
Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, January 7th, 2024 - 115 comments
A George Monbiot article in the Guardian made me wonder what effect the Atlas Network is having on New Zealand politics through the Taxpayer’s Union. Publicly available information suggests considerable funding is being made available and that the current Government’s priorities are precisely those that the Atlas Network would approve of.
Written By: - Date published: 9:03 am, December 31st, 2023 - 64 comments
New Zealand’s rich are endlessly fascinating, but as wealth concentrates ever tighter we are poorer.
Written By: - Date published: 5:06 pm, December 28th, 2023 - 47 comments
The purpose of everyone in New Zealand is to keep Wanaka pure.
Written By: - Date published: 9:23 am, December 24th, 2023 - 20 comments
Someone should tell the Taxpayer’s Union. Some Local Councils are planning to put rates up by double digit figures. And the Government is planning on exempting them from discussing this with ratepayers.
Written By: - Date published: 4:10 pm, December 22nd, 2023 - 19 comments
The coalition government robs Pita to pay Paora to appease its voter base.
Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, December 20th, 2023 - 70 comments
Don’t let anyone be fooled this Christmas dinner by what National is setting out today.
Written By: - Date published: 8:31 am, December 19th, 2023 - 49 comments
“A Left government with any claim to progressive credentials will focus on three policy areas – first, high-quality, high value production; second, taxation measures to reduce significantly wealth differences; third, strengthened democracy, including industrial democracy beyond collective bargaining. These three are indispensable. A Left politics, which does not build on these three, will founder.”
Written By: - Date published: 8:36 am, December 18th, 2023 - 65 comments
This coming week, under urgency and leading into Xmas, the Coalition government will expand 90-day trials to all workers, in yet another payback to National/ACT/NZ First’s (NAF) business backers.
Written By: - Date published: 11:06 am, December 15th, 2023 - 30 comments
National has this week chosen to smash through under urgency legislation that will increase unemployment and interest rates, reduce workers wages and increase the country’s emissions of greenhouse gasses.
Written By: - Date published: 12:39 pm, December 7th, 2023 - 33 comments
My initial impression was that the person who leaked the Fair Pay Cabinet Paper to the media was probably a disgruntled Public Servant but was it?
Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, December 5th, 2023 - 75 comments
Recent claims by Nicola Willis that the Governments Finances are full of fiscal cliffs is evidence either that National will cynically make baseless claims to attack Labour or that Nicola Willis has no idea about what she is talking about and has not been doing her most basic job of reading and comprehending previous budget documents.
Written By: - Date published: 9:49 pm, December 4th, 2023 - 15 comments
The Cabinet Paper dealing with the Government’s proposal to do away with fair pay agreements has hit the media. And the advice suggests that Cabinet is completely disinterested in the on the ground reality of what their shitty policy will do to ordinary Kiwis.
Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, December 1st, 2023 - 18 comments
National’s 100 days of action is to address the rhetoric of economic difficulties but the announced policies will do nothing to help the pressure that ordinary people are feeling.
Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, November 28th, 2023 - 130 comments
An increase in lung cancer rates and a decrease in the amount that working families receive so that tax credits for landlords can be put in place tells you everything you need to know about the priorities of this Government. Your blood should be boiling by this stage and it is only two days in.
Written By: - Date published: 11:06 am, November 26th, 2023 - 47 comments
The new Government’s policies give the impression they were formulated by members of a Workingman’s club in the 1970s and negotiated over a few beers.
Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, November 25th, 2023 - 73 comments
Some of the more unusual policies from the National-New Zealand First coalition agreement.
Recent Comments