Written By: - Date published: 12:50 pm, February 4th, 2026 - 8 comments
Unemployment hits 5.4% in the December quarter, but that doesn’t include the 140,000 plus Kiwi citizens that have fled in the last 2 years
Written By: - Date published: 12:37 pm, February 4th, 2026 - 9 comments
When the coalition is treating the economy as a game, are they having fun?
Written By: - Date published: 4:11 pm, January 30th, 2026 - 27 comments
There is no evidence of immediate improvement in our economy, or of this government improving it.
Written By: - Date published: 4:36 pm, December 9th, 2025 - 3 comments
Privatisation and Plunder is essential reading for those who want to work for a society where prosperity for all is the aim.
Written By: - Date published: 2:21 pm, December 8th, 2025 - 13 comments
That’s the headline of the pamphlet in the letterbox. But from their own measures is that true?
Written By: - Date published: 7:51 pm, August 15th, 2025 - 67 comments
Industry experts say Chris Bishop and his party are to blame, but Bishop denies it, saying construction industry leaders are just “wrong”
Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, May 24th, 2025 - 22 comments
We don’t know where this country is going and it’s getting worse.
Written By: - Date published: 2:28 pm, May 18th, 2025 - 6 comments
Another science fund bites the dust in New Zealand.
Written By: - Date published: 7:04 am, March 25th, 2025 - 41 comments
In what looked like an early election campaign launch Winston Peters has done his old man shaking his fist at the sky tirade against everything woke.
Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, March 22nd, 2025 - 14 comments
We’re good, but we know we want better leadership.
Written By: - Date published: 5:36 pm, March 13th, 2025 - 12 comments
Science and tertiary education are being ignored in NZ, which is just dumb.
Written By: - Date published: 4:26 pm, August 21st, 2024 - 63 comments
It gets rather depressing reading the statistics on National’s induced recession as they steadily push New Zealand into stagflation. The Reserve Banks unplanned OCR decision last week wasn’t a hopeful sign. We’re in for a few years of a National led and created recession. Get out while you still can
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, May 20th, 2024 - 51 comments
It is sickening to see how economic power is being used against ordinary New Zealanders right now.
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: 10:58 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: 6:05 am, June 12th, 2023 - 160 comments
Poverty is a political choice, and the Green Party is choosing to end it. – James Shaw
Written By: - Date published: 11:21 am, May 4th, 2023 - 21 comments
Prime Minister Hipkins has put Labour on course to win a third term. Here’s how.
Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, April 2nd, 2023 - 36 comments
As we adjust to the advent of civilisation threatening climate change there is a new threat that is emerging, the unregulated development of artificial intelligence.
Written By: - Date published: 10:55 am, January 6th, 2023 - 116 comments
* or is it?
Written By: - Date published: 11:33 am, November 5th, 2022 - 86 comments
National’s recent press releases show that its approach to politics will be relentlessly negative, with no idea of what it will do as an alternative or how it will fund changes.
Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, August 4th, 2022 - 57 comments
Hot on his confusion of Hawaii with Te Puke Christopher Luxon’s has dropped a couple of new clangers by admitting then denying that National will not increase health funding at least by the rate of inflation and then by displaying his class prejudice by saying people are not going to get rich on welfare.
Written By: - Date published: 8:29 am, July 12th, 2022 - 124 comments
Anyone else getting tired of the media presenting the fact that New Zealand essentially has full employment is a very bad thing?
Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, November 24th, 2021 - 120 comments
Remarkably low Covid death and infection rates, good and improving vaccination rates, low unemployment and debt to GDP …
Written By: - Date published: 6:10 am, August 6th, 2021 - 97 comments
Rather than economics, can we talk about the values that underlie how we manage the country?
Written By: - Date published: 8:28 am, August 5th, 2021 - 84 comments
Yesterday Statistics New Zealand announced a dramatic drip in the unemployment rate as well as solid increases in wage rates and average weekly earnings for workers. While the Government celebrated Employers thought it was a crisis.
Written By: - Date published: 7:32 am, July 15th, 2021 - 20 comments
Minister Roberston’s recent speech to the Trans Tasman Business Circle sets out both how this government is using the pandemic to reset whole sectors of the economy, and also how it is getting its head around economic and social challenges. The points made were unsurprising, but his intended direction was unclear.
Written By: - Date published: 12:02 pm, June 20th, 2021 - 59 comments
One of the details announced in the budget was funding to explore a ‘social unemployment insurance’ scheme. This scheme has been pushed by the Council of Trade Unions and Business NZ, which will work with the Government in a newly set-up Tripartite Working Party. When we dig into it though, we realise it is no safety net. It’s a parachute that slows our drop, giving us time, before we hit that real net – down so far below.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, November 11th, 2020 - 36 comments
IF the discovery of a potential Covid vaccine looks like a new dawn, let’s not forget that this is the accelerating point of the K-shaped recovery New Zealand have been dreading. Our already rich are on the line heading upwards. They are getting richer because of a range of our Government policies.
Written By: - Date published: 4:45 pm, September 16th, 2020 - 22 comments
Much has rightly been made of the leadership quality of Prime Minister Ardern this year. But the PREFU results announced today shows that Minister of FInance Grant Robertson is by a long way the most effective Minister of Finance we have had since Dr Michael Cullen.
Written By: - Date published: 12:17 pm, August 5th, 2020 - 16 comments
Defying expectations official labour force data from Stats NZ released today shows that the unemployment rate dropped to 4 per cent from 4.2 per cent in the June quarter.
Written By: - Date published: 3:11 pm, June 19th, 2020 - 8 comments
Is it time to completely rethink how we deal with unemployment? We face a tsunami of job losses not seen in generations. Two ideas — social insurance and a job guarantee — are gaining prominence as ways to change how we deal with the problem. One provides income protection for those who lose employment, the other aims for something bolder: the elimination of unemployment. All welcome; register here.
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