Oh dear. This is not what National needed on the back of Goff besting Key in the first debate. National’s new TV ad is on the world-class infrastructure they claim to have built. But it was all planned, funded, and mostly built by Labour. Have National accidentally revealed their real achievement: taking credit for others work?
Labour has just over-shadowed Key’s big smile and wave show today – where he is expected to reannounce spending – with another big policy. Labour will cancel National’s Holiday Highway. With the money saved, they will make the existing road safe, and go 50-50 with the Auckland council to fund the CBD rail-loop and get Auckland moving sustainably.
Five million kilos of radioactive yellow cake uranium are being shipped through New Zealand ports every year. ERMA was unaware this practice has […]
KJT looks at how the neoliberal fly-by-night attitude set the grounds for the Rena disaster and the inadequate response.
I/S looks at two dividing lines between left and right that may help your choice in a month’s time. The first is Afghanistan. Labour has promised to bring the SAS home within 90 days. National won’t commit to withdrawing. The second is water: National wants more subsidies to polluters; Labour and the Greens want businesses to pay for their use of public resources.
You won’t find much praise for Talley’s on this site. But, fair dues, they harvest their fish with Kiwi crews and have this to say on slave fishing: “If it is uneconomic to harvest a New Zealand resource under New Zealand labour conditions and costs then it is not a resource. Blood diamonds and Asian textile sweatshops use the same justification”
New Zealand’s economy, Christchurch, Pike River, Rena – all terrible disasters to befall our country and our Government. It’s a massive challenge to […]
A recent poll confirms that the expected loss of Nat votes over the Rena disaster is a real effect.
Did Hone Harawira call for Steven Joyce to be hanged? Ahh – no. Someone at 3News needs to switch to decaf.
Update: 3News – who are very responsive with this sort of problem – have tidied up their reporting of this issue. Bravo.
Clarke and Dawe on maritime disasters, all good build up to our own home-grown version…
The Nats are clearly at panic stations. They’re trying to minimise the Rena disaster by comparing the number of dead animals to those killed by other means. As one emailer put it: “it’s like saying the Christchurch earthquake was no big deal because more people die of cancer”. Meanwhile, Key visits oiled birds and says they’re the price of economic ‘progress’.
“We need more cheap foreign fishermen” says the slave fishing lobby group. They say that it’s just like Fisher & Paykel moving their production offshore for cheaper labour. Well, tell you want, slave-fishers, how about you fuck off to China and we’ll stay here and fish our fish ourselves without breaking labour and environment laws? NoRightTurn takes up the story.
“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.
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.
3News reports that: Key dismisses Goff’s oil drilling moratorium as ‘pure politics’. He’s right. But not in the way he thinks.
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.
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).
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.
* 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.
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.
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.
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.
Remember when New Zealand used to lead the world on the environment? Yeah, well not under the Key Government. Now, New Zealand is preparing to veto making the Ross Sea a marine protected area. Why are we alone in blocking this last pristine sea from protection? For the sake of a $18m fishery, probably fished by slave ships.
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.
It’s scary ‘coz it’s true.
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.
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?
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?
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died today at the age of 56.
Remember when Key had a super-duper secret plan to end whaling? Turned out the ‘plan’ was to restore commercial whaling as long as they promised to stop some time (the draft ‘phase-out’ plan didn’t actually have any reductions in it). Well, over-promise, under-deliver Key’s made no progress and whaling is resuming.
The low-lying island nations of Tuvalu and Tokelau have declared water emergencies and parts of Samoa are rationing water. Climate change has raised the sea level so that what little freshwater lens the islands have has been reduced. Higher temperatures evaporate more of it. Climate change is also causing more frequent and severe La Ninas, which causes droughts.
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.
The crime of ecocide will be tested, as if it is already law, by barristers before a judge and jury, at the UK Supreme Court in London.
