Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, May 27th, 2013 - 161 comments
John Key has been shamed by Hone Harawira’s “feed the kids” private members Bill. Key’s approach to child hunger is a sly use of Dickensian-type PPPs & charities to absolve the government of responsibility, while falsely presenting a caring face.
Written By: - Date published: 7:26 am, May 27th, 2013 - 57 comments
When even the notoriously right-wing NZ Herald Editorial is pleading for Meridian not to be sold (just now), you know that the government’s asset sell-down is in trouble.
But the Herald assumes that getting the best dollar possible is the plan here.
It’s not.
Written By: - Date published: 1:22 pm, May 25th, 2013 - 23 comments
Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy has been quick to try and blame his own staff for the Chinese meat fiasco. But ultimately it is the fault of National and their war on the public service.
Written By: - Date published: 9:02 am, May 25th, 2013 - 28 comments
Welcome to Poverty Watch, a weekly update on National’s lack of response to the urgent and growing issue of poverty in NZ. This week – a final look at the OCC report, and in current news an Amnesty International report cites child poverty as a stain on NZ’s human rights record.
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, May 25th, 2013 - 11 comments
A surveillance device, Thin Thread, was probably sent from the US to NZ’s GCSB in 2000-2001 for testing. ThinThread collects local meta data, and can pass it on to foreign agencies. This raises fresh calls for an inquiry into GCSB activities.
Written By: - Date published: 8:59 pm, May 24th, 2013 - 89 comments
A recent survey of two thousand Kiwis show that a third cannot afford to heat their homes properly.
That’s a third of the population who are vulnerable to illness, whose children are at risk, and who are being left behind as the electricity companies continue their price gouging.
This is why we need NZ Power.
Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, May 24th, 2013 - 31 comments
Nick Smith has a long history of slippery dealings. He apologises but accepts no blame, then is resurrected: contempt of court, a defamation case, the Pullar-ACC “conflict of interest”, bad faith negotiations with Auckland Council, the Denniston Plateau deal. Yesterday on RNZ, Smith exposed the government’s agenda on mining conservation land.
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, May 24th, 2013 - 121 comments
The myth that National sold Mighty River Power to ‘mum and dads’ is dead. New analysis shows that half the retail shares went to just 12,844 people. A tiny group of 394 people bought 10% of the retail shares. Only 13.4% of the company is owned by what you might call ‘ordinary Kiwis’ – less than the amount owned by foreign investors. But the truth is, ordinary Kiwis are the 98% who bought nothing.
Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, May 23rd, 2013 - 82 comments
It looks like Nick Smith will today grant access to West Coast conservation land for mining. This looks like a cynical attempt to enforce the government’s anti-conservation agenda by avoiding the legal and democratic requirement for public consultation. When will the NZ Herald headline: “Democracy Under Attack!”? [updated]
Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, May 22nd, 2013 - 37 comments
John Key has been caught in yet another lie, over his claim that Solid Energy asked for a $1 billion injection of taxpayer’s money.
Written By: - Date published: 5:57 pm, May 21st, 2013 - 8 comments
Hamilton City looks like it’ll be the first Council to pay a Living Wage, as it fulfils its obligations as a good employer, following the likes of The Warehouse and Progressive Enterprises.
Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, May 21st, 2013 - 2 comments
NZ’s Fair Deal Coalition launched a new website, ourfairdeal.org, networking globally with others concerned about intellectual property & the TTPA. The FDC includes those supporting global “neoliberal” commerce, & others supporting community & public sector activities, democratic freedoms and privacy rights.
Written By: - Date published: 7:23 pm, May 20th, 2013 - 99 comments
That’s what Mighty River stocks closed at today. Down on their issue price within ten days.
Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, May 20th, 2013 - 92 comments
The Right’s fairytale machine makes a lot of Key’s supposed ability to charm foreign leaders and open doors for Kiwi trade. Well, the door slammed shut for meat exports to China at the end of April. National managed to keep that secret until after the budget. No wonder, it exposes the failure of Key’s international relations style.
Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, May 20th, 2013 - 38 comments
I had heard that National’s internal polling was showing they were becoming vulnerable on social equity issues. For some reason New Zealanders are coming to think of them as a government that looks after its rich mates at the expense of everyone else
Written By: - Date published: 7:21 am, May 20th, 2013 - 31 comments
As I/S pointed out yesterday, the Government’s “innovation” agenda is nothing more than a cuts to R&D and hidden subsidies.
Today in the Herald that’s confirmed
Written By: - Date published: 8:11 am, May 18th, 2013 - 92 comments
Welcome to Poverty Watch, a weekly update on National’s lack of response to the urgent and growing issue of poverty in NZ. This week – reaction to the budget’s lack of significant action on poverty, and CPAG’s court case on the In Work Tax Credit.
Written By: - Date published: 10:09 am, May 17th, 2013 - 55 comments
Air NZ has recently posted a $138 million profit. It now forecasts that it will double that profit in the next financial year, and is offering a sale of shares in the near future. So a few months after concluding a collective agreement, they’re indulging in bad faith and illegal practices. This is how you embroil yourself in keeping share prices low.
Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, May 17th, 2013 - 130 comments
Yesterday’s budget is a sop to affordable housing & aims to privatise state housing. Penny Hulse says the government’s related “housing accord” Bill is at odds with the agreement her council has not yet ratified. It overrides local democracy & endangers the AKL “agreement”. [Update] Waitakere News analysis
Written By: - Date published: 11:46 am, May 16th, 2013 - 213 comments
Budget links and reaction (updates to come).
Four years of misguided austerity have delayed any recovery.
Despite the advance publicity there is nothing significant here for families in poverty.
Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, May 16th, 2013 - 26 comments
“When National is not selling something like Mighty River Power, it is busy selling out to the likes of SkyCity” – John Armstrong. He could have added ‘or defending the elite’s rentier profits’. To fudge the fact that National works for the elite, there”ll be crumbs for the poor in this budget. Something’s better than nothing but, unless it matches the $2b tax cuts for the rich, it’s just window-dressing.
Written By: - Date published: 8:10 am, May 16th, 2013 - 56 comments
The Right unleashed the most brutal campaign in living memory against an opposition policy when the Greens and Labour announced the NZ Power plan to bring down power prices. They (rightly) saw it as a challenge to the whole rentier class that has been bleeding NZ dry for quarter of a century. It’s heartening, then, that the Right hasn’t managed to fool people.
Written By: - Date published: 1:02 pm, May 15th, 2013 - 27 comments
The whole austerity driven focus of the budget and National’s economic policy is based on a premise which is in turn based on a spreadsheet error.
Written By: - Date published: 10:46 am, May 15th, 2013 - 37 comments
The GCSB won’t “confirm or deny” if they spied on individual Kiwis. Concerned citizens might contact the Privacy Commissioner or start a class action. John Key’s rushed GCSB Bill won’t prevent mission creep, surveillance to support international corporate interests or inadequate oversight of the GCSB. [Update]: link to Waitakere News
Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, May 15th, 2013 - 24 comments
Thursday’s budget is likely to make businesses central to blunting the edge of child poverty. Campbell Live is concerned about the marginalisation of skilled community organisations. Harawira has delayed the reading of his Feed the Kids Bill & argues for the state to play a stronger role.
Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, May 14th, 2013 - 32 comments
The compensation part of Joyce’s and Key’s dirty, undemocratic SkyCity deal, could legally be over-turned by a future government, as proposed by the Greens. However, the TPPA could weaken NZ’s parliamentary sovereignty and open the government to claims by secret private offshore tribunals. Opposition needs to step up!
Written By: - Date published: 7:36 pm, May 13th, 2013 - 130 comments
Over at Kiwiblog David Farrar’s having a big cry about the Greens indicating they’d legislate against the dodgy contract this government has struck with Sky city. To David, the property rights conveyed by contract law are paramount above all other rights. Including the rights of the people of a sovereign nation to direct a government to exercise their will.
Written By: - Date published: 10:45 am, May 13th, 2013 - 15 comments
Who was missing from the Mighty River and SkyCity launches? Being seen at the front of positive government stories is a big part of the PM’s job, unless concerns over protecting Brand Key override that. The fact Key has been a no-show at these two announcements of central planks of National’s agenda tells you a lot about what the Nats’ polling says about them.
Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, May 13th, 2013 - 220 comments
SkyCity will get more pokies and cashless gambling in return for building the convention centre that it always wanted to build. (…excuse me, I’m just trying not to puke watching Len Brown on Breakfast as he shrugs off the problem gambling increase from this deal…) The convention centre will be a white elephant. SkyCity should know that what’s done can be undone.
Update: Anyone buying in to the Nats’ “Labour did it too” line should read Russell Brown’s demolition of that lie.
Written By: - Date published: 7:56 am, May 13th, 2013 - 51 comments
Key and Joyce made sure Gilmore was out of the way before they announced their dubious Sky City for (more) pokies deal. The pokies system in NZ is rife with dubious goings on. It’s bad for low income families, communities and their children. [update: responses]
Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, May 12th, 2013 - 242 comments
Rob Stock at the Sunday Star Times reports that National plans to dump state housing on NGOs and flog land to developers.
National are governing for their rich mates again.
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