Nat Vote: And the Loser Is ….
The Nation holds its breath as the dullest political leadership race in a generation snores to a close. Who will win by losing? Who will lose by winning? Who cares?
UPDATE: It’s Mullertime!
UPDATE: Bennett dumped!
Economy
Posts on the economy, work, business, income, and labour
Work ideas
Jacinda Ardern has floated the idea of a four day working week and Grant Robertson wants to change the future of work. Maybe they should get on and do it.
The International investigation into Covid-19
More than 110 nations have backed a call for the World Health Organisation to investigate the origins of the Covid-19 virus outbreak.
Newshub Poll Shock!
The May 2020 Newshub/Reid Research poll is astonishing. You’ve have, quite literally, never seen anything like it.
Should Parents and Teachers Defy the Government?
School’s back on Monday, but the medical community is still struggling to understand covid 19
Oh Sweden
Just when we thought liberal democracies meant real freedom was an absolute written into human rights stone, by mid-March this year almost all OECD countries had implemented the most draconian reversal of lockdowns on every single human to combat Covid19. Except Sweden. How is it working out?
What the Greens did
A round up of the Green Party’s achievements in the 2020 Budget: funding for nature, the commitment to ending violence, and public housing and insulation. And a look at the pragmatics of what the Greens can currently accomplish.
Budget 2020
The budget site is up and running. Some links here along with Robertson’s speech. This post may get updated if authors feel like it. Otherwise commenters can praise or criticize. Preferably constructively rather than with mindless waffle.
Viruses love liberty – they can breed more.
Viruses and other diseases simply don’t care about abstractions like ‘human rights’. They just want to breed. We need a better legislative toolkit to deal with epidemics. There is only so long that a draconian state of emergency should be maintained. Like 1918 we need to start thinking about the future Health Act with reserve powers like level 2 and 1. In the meantime, we’ll deal with the virus with this imperfect act as a tool.
Budget 2020: biggest and best from PM Ardern
Text of a pre budget speech given yesterday by Jacinda Ardern.
Jacinda is not like Muldoon
National has decided to play politics with Covid 19 and is opposing the Government’s attempt to pass legislation to secure level 2 arrangements. And has made the extraordinary claim that Jacinda Ardern is just like Rob Muldoon but with slogans.
Bloomfield and the empire strikes back
Dr Ashley Bloomfield has responded to allegations by Simon Bridges that the government has suspended the Official Information Act and the Emergency Response Committee has made multiple requests for information from the Ministry that it is waiting for by advising publicly there are no outstanding requests for information.
Covid19 and the Stock Markets
In this time of uncertainty when mass unemployment beckons you would expect that stock exchanges would be plummeting. But think again. Because they seem to be doing fine.
Covid-19: down to L2 Thursday
In the ongoing press conference (RNZ): Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced a staggered move into level 2 starting on Thursday, with schools […]
Covid19 is a bastard
We are heading towards decision time. Does Aotearoa New Zealand loosen up and head back to a semi normal life?
Parker gives Bridges a lesson in constitutional law
In a Facebook Live event David Parker has schooled Simon Bridges on basic principles of constitutional law. And it appears that Bridges demand that legally privileged advice be handed over is heading to the Privileges Committee.
Bridges pulls a stunt
Simon Bridges threw two stunts yesterday, firstly threatening to try and summons senior Public Servants to publicise confidential legal advice and then by attacking Dr Ashley Blomfield for not answering emails quickly enough despite the existence of a pandemic which the country appears to be handling pretty well.
The Green Party’s proposal on essential workers’ pay
Low-wage essential workers are getting New Zealand through this crisis and continue to do so. They went to work when the rest of us were told to stay away – and people would be horrified to hear many of them barely earn enough to live on.
Top ten things we have learned already
The top ten things that the Covid pandemic has taught us as a country.
Roger Douglas attacks economic privilege and inequality
Roger Douglas has reverted to his socialist roots by going back on his pro market mantra and criticising the economic privilege and inequality that he helped create.
The Post Covid Blues
No new COVID 19 cases today!
UPDATE: No change to Level 2, decision in a week.
What would President Biden do?
With President Trump doing what we all expected, and killing 67,000 people and counting through chronic poor leadership, and utterly ruining the U.S. economy as well, it’s time to look at what policies the alternative candidate has on offer.
Covid-19 and climate change
The International Energy Agency is forecasting that disruptions caused by Covid-19 will reduce CO2 output this year by 8%. To avoid the worst excesses of climate change the world has a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 7.6% for the next decade. How are we going to keep repeating the reductions that we achieved this year for the next decade?
Rebuild better post COVID
A Guest blog from E tū Assistant National Secretary, Annie Newman. “Democracy creates a space for the market, civil society and the government but it doesn’t guarantee a balance between these spheres. That is government’s role. Right now, there is an opportunity for our government to do more than protect the future of business; it can address the imbalance in our democracy where the market dominates the agenda.”
His work here is not yet done
Former Prime Minister John Key has said that under current conditions employers are going to sack 20 per cent of their workers even if the company is doing well and that employers should never waste a crisis.
No Exit.
Reaction to Covid 19 has done more in a few weeks to blunt the drive behind climate change than anything the environmental movement has managed to do in over thirty years.
How to kill the car
What would you do so that instead of wandering endlessly through tilt-slab monstrosities soaked in 80s music and fluorescent lighting, surrounded by oppressed minimum-wage slaves who hate being there and you hating being there worried about your wheeled asset damaged in their carpark instead you get freedom?
The class politics of the Covid-19 pandemic response
National economics spokesperson Paul Goldsmith has advanced a plan to address the Covid 19 pandemic which includes union bashing and privatisation.
Green Party: COVID-19 recovery and investment in people and nature
Most of the funding will go directly to employing people – the tools needed for wetland restoration such as spades and seedlings are far cheaper than big excavators and asphalt.
Draconian Tourism or no Tourism?
If overseas tourists want to visit NZ, they may have to give up a little bit of their privacy to keep all of us safe.
How Covid-19 is smashing councils
Just as most industries in New Zealand are firing thousands of people to cut costs, local government is getting ready to do the same.
dear sysop: on covid-19 debt
We put in guest posts occasionally. These days I’m the person who runs the email account and sees the general ones. Mostly I don’t give any feedback as much as anything else because a lack of time. But I should. This is the first to get that editorial attention. The topic itself is worth discussing. What is the process of raising debt for the cobid-19 economic response.
The “Others”.
“Othering” has long been a staple of Governments that want to remain in power for the benefit of an Oligarchy, an “Elite”, a small ruling class, or the ones with, “the money”. Deflecting blame for economic and social issues on, an ethnicity, a class, the elderly, the poor, the young, the unemployed, young solo mothers, the disabled, immigrants, or any other convenient group that can be demonised. Very soon more of us may become the “others” we didn’t care about.
“The government will never do that”
Say it out loud: Degrowth.
Pandemics and our privacy
The Ministry of Health is checking with the GCSB to enable full tracing of people to slow further outbreaks. Should we be afraid?
Eat the rich
Richard Branson, who has arranged his affairs so that he pays tax to no government, is upset that Governments are not bailing his empire out. And an idea has been floated to allow billionaires to set up boltholes in New Zealand.