Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, October 17th, 2011 - 70 comments
“Show me how you’d do anything different” says John Key. Let me count the ways. Increase the liability limit and get specialist vessels beforehand as was recommended. Get salvors and the Awanuia there quicker than 4 days. Take assistance offered. Organise the locals immediately. Put a hold on deepsea drilling. Replace Joyce.
Written By: - Date published: 12:35 pm, October 15th, 2011 - 82 comments
The Herald has produced an extremely useful and detailed timeline of the Rena disaster. It raises several questions that you can divide into two categories: first, did the government have the plans and equipment it needed to deal with a spill and, second, was its response carried out effectively? The Nats know the lack of good answers hurts them.
Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, October 15th, 2011 - 42 comments
3News reports that: Key dismisses Goff’s oil drilling moratorium as ‘pure politics’. He’s right. But not in the way he thinks.
Written By: - Date published: 1:55 pm, October 14th, 2011 - 55 comments
Labour has announced it will put a moratorium on deepsea oil drilling until it’s proven safe. Good. Basic precautionary principle. Clearly necessary given the piss-poor handling of a relatively small spill. Besides, there’s no rush to dig this stuff up. It’s not going anywhere and we can only extract it once. Will only become more valuable over time.
Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, October 14th, 2011 - 20 comments
From my facebook. Some opportunistic bugger is trying to offload their boat. TomScott in Weellington does his cogent best as does the Herald cartoonist. Then there is my favorite (despite its grammar error).
Written By: - Date published: 9:20 am, October 14th, 2011 - 14 comments
Thanks also to the volunteers who are turning up in their hundreds for the Rena cleanup effort. We’re lucky to live in a country with such a generous and active volunteer tradition.
Written By: - Date published: 10:35 pm, October 13th, 2011 - 60 comments
* Tupperwaka: $200K per day
* Specialist environmental response vessel: Dunno, didn’t bother buying it.
* Leaving scene of shipwreck/oil disaster to open fake boat made from oil products: valueless
Just me or is he developing a severe list? Could be in danger of breaking up.
Written By: - Date published: 11:29 am, October 13th, 2011 - 30 comments
The Rena disaster has put the spotlight on the environmental risks of National’s deepsea oil drilling plans. Yes, they’re not the same thing. In fact, an oil spill from a drilling platform or one of the ships serving it is more likely than from a freighter plowing into a well-known reef.* And there’s a hell of a lot more oil involved.
Written By: - Date published: 7:16 am, October 13th, 2011 - 213 comments
One of the turning points of Bush’s presidency was the failed non-response to Hurricane Katrina. It’s starting to look now very much as if the wreck of the Rena is John Key’s Katrina moment.
Written By: - Date published: 12:50 pm, October 12th, 2011 - 184 comments
In a depressingly familiar pattern, National is more interested in avoiding responsibility than fixing the Rena disaster. They left it to Maritime NZ. Who left it to the shipping company. Now, the oil’s coming ashore. The promised soldiers didn’t show up yesterday. All the Nats can do is criticise locals for acting on their own.
Written By: - Date published: 6:37 am, October 12th, 2011 - 55 comments
3News has him caught out lying, The Standard has his office caught lying, and his government’s failed to act on the worst environmental disaster New Zealand has had.
Not to mention the crisis at first five-eighth.
Written By: - Date published: 9:25 am, October 9th, 2011 - 60 comments
National’s handling of the Rena oil spill is fitting into the same depressing pattern as Pike River and Christchurch – hands off, leave it to the private sector, ministers trotting out excuses rather than leading. We’re even getting the mandatory Key photo-op today, doubtless accompanied by a hollow promise.
Written By: - Date published: 9:50 am, October 8th, 2011 - 71 comments
The stranding of the Containership Rena on Wednesday morning, occurred in clear fine weather which has persisted for 3 days now. This clear weather is due to deteriorate starting today with a change in wind direction around midday. It is expected that by the middle of the week it will be too late. That before the next calm period the ship will be broken on the reef. What should have been done?
Written By: - Date published: 8:07 am, October 8th, 2011 - 15 comments
If we can’t deal with a small oil leak from a grounded ship, what are we doing planning deepsea drilling on a grand scale?
Written By: - Date published: 12:11 pm, October 2nd, 2011 - 5 comments
Gerry Brownlee has, predictably, been incredibly high-handed and insensitive in his handling of the Christchurch earthquake, especially when it comes to the red-zone. He created a clumsy, one-size fits all, buyout system and a Catch 22 for homeowners wanting to appeal by denying them access to the geotech data they need. Labour’s done much better.
Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, September 28th, 2011 - 19 comments
250 jobs lost at Chch meatworks.
55 jobs lost at Canterbury leather.
Insurers warn they’ll pull out.
Kaiapoi redzoners to be $24K worse off. That’s before they get screwed by the landbankers.
10,000 Cantabrians left for overseas in the past year.
The recovery ‘delayed‘ again. It’s clear we still haven’t hit bottom.
The Nat’s plan: “muddling through”
Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, September 21st, 2011 - 29 comments
A guest post from Jarm Ohnstrong: I want to start this article with an apology. A couple of weeks ago, I attacked Labour for its criticism of National’s performance on the Christchurch rebuild while not having released its own recovery policy. That was unfair and petty. Now, Labour has released its policy. It’s deserving of the highest praise.
Written By: - Date published: 12:13 pm, September 19th, 2011 - 109 comments
Today Labour released another substantial policy, a plan for recovery in Christchurch. It’s a policy that works for ordinary people, and a much needed helping hand for displaced red-zone residents.
Written By: - Date published: 8:04 am, September 19th, 2011 - 24 comments
The Press reports: “The Central Christchurch recovery is under threat as quake-weary property owners start using their insurance money to buy new buildings in Auckland and overseas.” Hmm. If only they had been repeatedly warned about this for the past seven months. Hopefully, we’ll see a real plan from Labour today.
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 15th, 2011 - 76 comments
Duncan Garner has demolished the government’s disgraceful excuse-making over its woeful lack of preparation for the World Cup. “I was there. It was scary. It was a disgrace. There were few police. There were no barriers. It was NOT family friendly. It was a tragedy waiting to happen.And that’s just Party Central. That’s the bit the Government was responsible for. Don’t forget that.”
Written By: - Date published: 11:43 am, September 12th, 2011 - 39 comments
Which minister(s) will John Key fire this week? Bill ‘Double Dipton’ English, is embroiled in yet another personal corruption scandal involving a job for his brother. Gerry ‘The VIIIth’ Brownlee’s Christchurch fiefdom is seeing a peasants’ revolt among redzoners. Murray ‘drowned rat’ McCully delivered Key a huge embarrassment on Friday at the RWC opening.
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, September 9th, 2011 - 25 comments
Interesting to see the truth coming out about the NZ media’s hero Peter Whittall. Pike River was very much Whittall’s baby. 29 of his employees died in the mine he designed and ran. I’d be interested to hear from a journo the story of why the NZ media chose to portray this as an unavoidable accident, and exonerated the company from the start.
Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, September 7th, 2011 - 25 comments
“Just keep to your promises. I was at some of the family meetings where you promised off camera to parents who were in tears that you would do your utmost to try to get the men out. Money was not a problem. Those same parents have gone home and cradled their kids that are crying. Do what you say and just pull your finger out and do it.”
Written By: - Date published: 6:49 am, September 5th, 2011 - 56 comments
“Happy” anniversary Christchurch. And with it comes a broken promise, and an interesting legal decision.
Written By: - Date published: 7:25 am, September 1st, 2011 - 44 comments
Fran O’Sullivan calls on the government to act on Christchurch. Good luck with that. This is not a government of action. It is the wrong government for these challenging times.
Written By: - Date published: 1:27 pm, August 30th, 2011 - 51 comments
The estimate of the liability for costs of the Christchurch quakes has just been more than doubled. Thank goodness or the foresight of the first Labour government who set up the EQC in 1947.
Written By: - Date published: 7:23 am, August 30th, 2011 - 53 comments
Irene is yet another example of the significant increase in extreme weather that we’re seeing all around the globe. But this warning will be ignored like all the rest.
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, August 29th, 2011 - 32 comments
We know that our carbon pollution is damaging the climate – making the atmosphere warmer and less stable – but it also makes the sea more acidic. Ocean Acidification means the aquaculture industry could be in big trouble by the middle of the century, not to mention the rest of the fishing industry. But the government blithely ignores the problem.
Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, August 28th, 2011 - 44 comments
What provokes a populace to take to the streets in violent uprising? Is it the inexorable power of a demand for justice and democracy? Or is it something much simpler than that…
Written By: - Date published: 12:24 pm, August 12th, 2011 - 23 comments
Anyone else feel their heart freeze a little more when Brownlee labeled Christchurch’s rebuild plan “a pretty big wish list”? Here’s a once in generations chance to rebuild a city from the ground up. Going to cost tens of billions anyway. Why cheapskate by a few hundred million? Better to build a truly world-leading city designed for the future.
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