Power and Speed
We are in a power crisis and the government has had to respond, but will their response make any difference?
Politics
Posts on government and governence at national and local level, political parties,politicians, and political participation
Simeon Brown peddling porkies about gas shortage
Energy Minister Simeon Brown is peddling lies about a gas shortage. The country exports around 40 percent of its annual gas production as methanol. More is used to make synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, a nasty greenhouse emission source, for our farms. We don’t need expensive LNG distribution facilities while exporting the bulk of our own gas.
Is Casey Costello Corrupt?
Casey Costello and the Coalition government have already halved tobacco excise at a cost of up to $216mn. Today RNZ reports there remain more questions on who wrote her Ministerial papers begging for tobacco industry benefits.
Where Does Labour Rebuild?
It won’t come from the working class. But we know where it will come from.
Government contributes to developing homeless crisis
There is increasing concern that recently introduced policy changes by National have made housing for the most needy amongst us more tenuous.
Roger Douglas Has a Lesson for the Left
Roger Douglas, the most revolutionary minister in the postwar history of Aotearoa, knew how to exert change in three years. Rogernomics transformed the economy with dizzying speed, from protectionist welfare state to a neoliberal free market. Elliot Crossan argues that the left needs to take the same approach to end the era of neoliberalism.
Culture wars are a diversion from addressing class struggles
Ditch the NZ culture wars if we really want challenge status quo.
David Seymour’s Ministry of Regulation costs $80mn
David Seymour’s new Ministry has 91 staff, including 3 Deputy CEOs who earn up to $348K each – more than Ministers. Seymour wants to use it as a vehicle to change how NZ makes laws and invokes Ruth Richardson in his vision.
So much for Localism and Devolution
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced that the Government will do away with Local Government’s obligations to consider the social, cultural and environmental implications of their decisions.
Is the Treaty Principles Bill dead or has it just suffered a flesh wound?
Even though National and NZ First have ruled out supporting Act’s Treaty Principles Bill beyond the first reading David Seymour thinks that the Bill has a chance of succeeding and wishes to proceed with introduction of the bill.
Lester Levy Asks Kiwis To Pray For Him – Again
Lester Levy again asks Kiwis to pray for him. But who will pray for us, Dr Levy?
Luxon’s Support for AUKUS 2 is Against Our Interests
It is well time the Prime Minister set out how it is in our interests to move against China by buying into AUKUS.
Is a Transformational Left-Wing Leadership of the NZ Labour Party Possible?
It is a painful experience, to have fought long and hard for something you knew was inadequate and to have even that taken away. The Labour Party has long urged activists to be ‘realistic’. Elliot Crossan argues that it will not return to be a socialist party of the working class.
Waitangi Tribunal slams Treaty Principles Bill
The Waitangi Tribunal has in a scathing interim report slammed Act’s Treaty Principles Bill. And Christopher Luxon has underlined his weakness by refusing to halt the bill.
Chhour needs to go
It is a shame that Ipredict is not still around. Otherwise I would be putting money on Chhour being the first to go.
Lester Levy: “Significant, Not Painless” Changes Needed
Lester Levy gave a keynote address this weak signalling painful, strong medicine is needed for Health NZ. But his claims contradict frontline staff and experts.
Mountain Tui: Luxon’s $1000 A Week Is His “Entitlement”. Just Not Yours.
When Luxon claimed $1000 a week of tax-free, taxpayers money for accommodation, because he didn’t want the 2 free properties he was offered, he said he was entitled to it. But according to the government, all beneficiaries now require harsher rules or risk having their entitlements stripped. Yet only ~5% aren’t compliant and last quarter, 1500 were cut off. What do the numbers say?
Mountain Tui: Beneficiary sanctions & targets don’t add up
The jobseeker beneficiary sanctions and targets are not adding up. It also inflicts a lack of dignity and shame on recipients at a time when austerity is actively increasing unemployment.
NZ not attending Nagasaki event, insists decision unrelated to Israel invite snub
New Zealand’s decision to stay away from the event in Nagasaki paying tribute to victims of the city’s 1945 nuclear bombing called outrageous.
What does this Government have against Te Ao Māori?
Te Ao Māori forms an increasingly important part of our cultural identity. And most of us realise this and celebrate it. This Government’s stance is at odds with this increasingly strong consensus.
Gender Essentialists Hate the Olympics
The Olympics are a real persistent problem for gender essentialists.
We should have kept the power company shares
Shane Jones, went onto radio yesterday and pledged a solution to high power prices. What are his chances and why are we in this mess?
Maritime Union v Willis
National’s decision to cancel the replacement Cook Strait ferry project is developing into a full blown political crisis for the Government with estimates that it could cost the Crown up to a billion dollars and with further costs to come.
Don’t give me culture, I’m not hearing you Chris
“Don’t give me culture, I’m not hearing you Rob. I can buzz around like a Beehive boy, but I’d like to see you do my job”
Luxon is numerically illiterate
National has been caught out yet again using dubious analysis of data to justify policy.
David Seymour and his relationship to Atlas Network – Could this affect the fate of 7AA?
Seymour was once called the “most dangerous man in Aotearoa right now.” But is he just misunderstood? Let’s revisit Section 7AA and Karen Chhour’s tears too.
Another Minister lauds their own incompetence
Another minister is lauding themselves falsely. David Seymour bragged about school attendance at the start of term three, and claiming the credit for that happening. The problem is that it was worse than the attendance for the start of term two. It was a worse school attendance after he tried to improve attendance. Is he competent as a minister?
Mountain Tui: New Zealanders are now dying from an underfunded health system
After months of warnings from doctors, nurses and hospitals, a Northland patient is dead after no doctors were present at the hospital. The budget cuts and chosen austerity measures are hurting us all. Here’s more.
The Promises of Lange, Moore, Bolger, and the WTO
In 2024 we ought to ask if the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s has delivered on what was promised.
About Karen Chhour’s future
Act minister Karen Chhour has recently adopted the mantle of victimhood and claimed that she has been under attack and feels unsafe in Parliament. But the attacks are not personal and are motivated by the damage her party is causing to Oranga Tamariki as well as to the country’s race relations.
ALP knows how to redress wrongs. NZ dithers
God Bless the ALP, Bill Shorten and all the Labour MP’s across the ditch for tackling the real issues facing people with disabilities in Australia. It takes courage, fortitude, a good heart to seek redress to wrongs done to the weakest amongst us. They are taking those steps.
NZ government are just good at dithering.
Luxon is accused of spreading “disinformation”
The PM of NZ is accused of spreading intentional disinformation on Health NZ as the evidence piles up against the Coalition government. Here’s how it went down.
Act plays the race card and the victim card
Yesterday in Parliament was pretty weird. Act MPs staged a show down event and expressed increasing dissatisfaction with their Government’s speaker Gerry Brownlee.
Woefully misinformed or intentionally mangling the truth?
Senior medical figures have questioned the accuracy of what the Government is saying about the health crisis in Northland. And in an example of unbelievably bad timing it has been revealed that the Goverment put aside $216 million to fund a exise duty reduction for Phillip Morris.
Mountain Tui: Who will hold Chris Luxon and Shane Reti accountable for the Health NZ deception?
Since Shane Reti and Christopher Luxon announced the Health NZ cost “blowout” and an unexpected deficit, the truth has emerged, and it’s all becomes stranger than fiction. Which claims were accurate? And which seemed to be a case of misrepresentation?
They are going to privatise health, aren’t they
This Government continues its trend to resembling something akin to Liz Truss’s rule of England. And Health is clearly among its targets.