Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, September 19th, 2012 - 16 comments
Only 12 people turned up to Key’s first sham talks with iwi. He might have gotten a better turnout if he had come with cupcakes or, you know, a genuine intention to negotiate in good faith.
Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, September 18th, 2012 - 14 comments
It seems that whenever a matter arises that involves some claim of collective ownership or control by Maori, John Key comes up with what he describes as an ‘elegant solution’. If Key can come up with a string of such solutions I thought maybe I could give it a try. Therefore, this is my attempt at developing an ‘elegant solution’ to the matter of Maori claims to the ownership of water.
Written By: - Date published: 8:18 am, September 18th, 2012 - 13 comments
The Nats are beginning their sham consultation with a handful of tame ‘Iwi Leaders’ today. The hui will be by invitation and will not include the Maori Council, which iwi have appointed to lead for them on the water rights issue. Of course, National doesn’t want a real debate. It won’t genuinely discuss shares plus. This is a fake process. And it will all end up in court next year.
Written By: - Date published: 5:50 pm, September 17th, 2012 - 34 comments
Guest poster Andy-Roo reflects on a ride through the Christchurch Red Zone, the social contract, and Gerry Brownlee…
Written By: - Date published: 6:43 am, September 17th, 2012 - 175 comments
With proposed ETS changes National is abdicating our responsibility on the world stage, and sending the bill to the taxpayers. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment calls it ‘a farce’. It’s cowardly, it’s weak, and it’s shafting the working Kiwi.
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, September 16th, 2012 - 8 comments
My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. This week: torture, charter schools, economics and development.
Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, September 14th, 2012 - 126 comments
Yesterday’s national hui on water rights has resulted in the best possible outcome for Maori, a decision to present a unified front in the face of National’s divide and rule tactics.
Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, September 13th, 2012 - 15 comments
Puddleglum at The Political Scientist has written an encyclopedic and scathing critique of the Nats’ dictatorship in Canterbury.
Written By: - Date published: 6:31 am, September 12th, 2012 - 248 comments
So the government is announcing the “lifetime cost” of social welfare payments today to soften the ground for cracking down on beneficiaries.
By coincidence they’re also in the process of rushing through changes to the emissions trading scheme that will cost the taxpayer billions of dollars in corporate welfare.
Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, September 10th, 2012 - 13 comments
While Labour and the Greens are laying out concrete policies to tackle poverty and its consequences that lead to life-long problems (child payment and home insulation from the Greens, food in schools and reading recovery from Labour), National MPs are acting as slum landlords, refusing to spend a few thousand dollars to bring their rentals up to standard.
Written By: - Date published: 9:14 am, September 8th, 2012 - 25 comments
No Right Turn on the Nats’ continuing contempt for democracy in Canterbury.
Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, September 6th, 2012 - 27 comments
Something struck me as weird about the Spring Creek closure. Why have they stopped mining immediately even though the future of the mine hasn’t been decided and the miners are still being paid? Why did Solid Energy consider it more economic to pay the miners to leave the coal in the ground than dig it up? The answer has big implications for the government’s mining obsession.
Written By: - Date published: 8:37 am, September 6th, 2012 - 115 comments
It’s easy to see why Key has forbidden National MPs from attending the national water rights hui – he’s playing divide and rule with Maori. More difficult to understand is the Maori Party’s craven decision to stay away. Hone Harawira condemns them in the strongest possible language.
Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, September 5th, 2012 - 53 comments
There are perfectly good reasons that NZ as a country should remain GM free. And we should stand up and say so in the face of inept and blatant lobbying from the GM industry.
Written By: - Date published: 7:38 am, September 5th, 2012 - 27 comments
There’s a major housing crisis in Christchurch. People are living in unsafe, cold houses and their health is suffering. Rents are at criminal levels. And people are still fleeing the city. So, what’s the Government doing about it? As I/S at No Right Turn reports, OIA requests show that they are doing nothing and leaving it to the market to house people after a national disaster.
Written By: - Date published: 3:02 pm, September 4th, 2012 - 13 comments
Greenpeace has a case in front of the Court of Appeal today. It is going to be important for any number of small charities who do some advocacy work that may be considered to be ‘political’.
But Greenpeace deserves a resounding cheer for taking this case when it is far more important to other advocates from poverty groups to churches to climate deniers than it is to themselves.
Written By: - Date published: 6:50 am, September 4th, 2012 - 52 comments
It is two years since the first big Christchurch earthquake. For far too many families the aftermath lingers on…
Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, September 3rd, 2012 - 33 comments
Spring Creek miners and their families will lead a community March for Work in Greymouth tomorrow calling on Solid Energy and the Government to secure the future of the town and ensure the mine stays open.
Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, September 1st, 2012 - 156 comments
Planning permission has been sought to construct the world’s largest windfarm off the Scottish coast. Estimated to cost around 4.5 billion pounds and cover some 300 square km of ocean, if the project receives the green light, it will produce up to 40% of Scotland household power use. When compared to other forms of energy […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:06 pm, August 29th, 2012 - 8 comments
Gerry Brownlee has announced $12.3 billion of road spending over the next 3 years. Asset sales will pay for less than half of it. Does it really make sense to lose control of our strategic assets – with all the income they bring in – for just over 1 year’s worth of roads?
Written By: - Date published: 3:32 pm, August 26th, 2012 - 80 comments
Like many people I’m always bemused by the lack of logic that the climate change deniers (CCD’s) have in their extremely selective picking of things to get wound up about – especially about climate models. But when an actual self-evident flaw shows up in the models, well they simply seem to miss it entirely. Like it is now evident that the climate models used to predict Arctic melting vastly underrate the speed at which it is happening. The consequences are going to be unpleasant for the north.
Written By: - Date published: 1:34 pm, August 26th, 2012 - 26 comments
National’s asset sales programme is in crisis. Key has three options on asset sales – plow ahead, cut a deal with iwi, or call it quits. The smart thing to do, for the good of the country and for National’s own good, remains to drop the policy altogether. But they won’t. Instead, they’ll play the race card. But that old joker isn’t the trump it once was.
Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, August 22nd, 2012 - 210 comments
Z has set a new record for petrol prices with 91 up to $2.23. The others are expected to follow. We are in a new oil shock due to peak oil. The once unimaginable $2 a litre is now the low price. Ironically, the high dollar that is killing our exporters is protecting us from much higher petrol prices. So why is our government investing $12 billion on deepening our oil addiction?
Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, August 16th, 2012 - 76 comments
So, let me get this straight. Debt is bad. So bad, in fact, that the Government is willing to sell assets that produce higher returns than its cost of borrowing to free up money and avoid taking on more debt. But this same Government is now planning to borrow to fill a $5 billion hole in its transport budget caused by its unneeded motorway projects.
Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, August 15th, 2012 - 44 comments
Transport spending has always been paid for out of road taxes. But National’s roads to nowhere cost too much. They’ve added huge top ups from general tax but it’s still not enough to meet the rising costs of the motorways. They’ve cut every other area of transport spending to the bone. Still not enough. Now, National’s going to start borrowing for their motorways.
Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, August 12th, 2012 - 58 comments
Research from the Green Party shows that the $12 billion ‘Roads of National Significance’, the bulk of the next decade’s transport budget, would be on routes that carry just 4% of the country’s traffic. So, the other 96% of us are paying nearly $3,000 a head for roads that bugger all people will use. Traffic on many of the routes is actually falling.
Written By: - Date published: 8:17 am, August 9th, 2012 - 36 comments
Buying back Kiwirail was a chance for building a cost-, oil-, and carbon-efficient transport network. Instead, its been a tale of false economies: cheap trains from China, cheap sleepers from Peru, cheap labour from contracting out. In the end, it all costs more for worse results.
Written By: - Date published: 7:33 am, August 8th, 2012 - 43 comments
How does it cost $75m to dig a 220m long tunnel? The Government is planning to tear up the 5-year old bypass road and put it underground to give space for the National War Memorial for $75m. You’re never going to win opposing a war memorial – even though the Nats cancelled it in 2009, which is why the cost is so high doing it at the last minute before the centenary of Gallipoli – but $350,000 a metre for a tunnel?
Written By: - Date published: 10:16 am, August 7th, 2012 - 8 comments
David Farrar notes that 4 of the 10 worst congestion points in New Zealand are in Wellington. He concludes “Transmission Gully will help with some of that, but not all”. Quite the opposite, old boy. Transmission Gully will not create any new capacity at any of these congestion points. In fact, NZTA says it will create more traffic heading into 3 of them.
Written By: - Date published: 3:40 pm, August 6th, 2012 - 106 comments
At around 5:30pm this evening Curiosity will either touch down safely on Mars, or make (another) expensive smudge on the surface. Various links below – tune in. Good luck Curiosity…
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