This is what happens when you give landlords a big tax cut #1
No funds to continue to give families of disabled people
Politics
Posts on government and governence at national and local level, political parties,politicians, and political participation
Peters gets knocked down but may not get up again
Chumbawamba have threatened legal action against Winston Peters for NZ First’s use of their song “I get knocked down” and have described him as having divisive, small-minded, and bigoted policies.
Amateur hour
Government members of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee have managed to vote to support a Labour amendment that would make electric vehicles more attractive but submit a report to Parliament that suggested that the amendment had been lost.
National’s Overseas Gambling Levy policy figures are not rock solid
The IRD has estimated that National’s proposed Overseas Gambling Levy Policy will bring in $500 million less than it promised during the election campaign.
Rock Solid Financial Geniuses
The right has this belief that they are economic geniuses. Occasionally this belief is shown to be faulty. Like this week when National’s costings for tax cuts to Landlords was $800 million more than previously estimated.
Tax cuts for landlords will not reduce rents
Recently the Government has been working out how to cut funding for school lunches for poor kids while at the same time it has also announced that it will restore interest deductibility for landlords.
Chloe Swarbrick’s first words as new Green Party Co-Leader
In her first speech as Green Party Co-Leader, Swarbrick brings the party’s Charter to the fore, and talks about mobilising citizens to be part of democracy.
Vale, Magista
Respects to the falling of the Rt Hon Jonathan Hunt.
“Deliberate nuclear use
in a war over Taiwan” is the title of an Atlantic Council paper produced last September. They mean nuclear weapons. These are serious people; Undersecretary Bonnie Jenkins addressed them last year about AUKUS.
News and New Zealand Democracy
How do we prevent the decline of broadcast tv news being a deep wound to our democracy?
Luxon crashes in latest Curia poll
The Atlas aligned Taxpayer’s Union has released its latest Curia poll results. And the results are bad news for Christopher Luxon.
Open letter to Judge Glubb
… the assault had the very real potential to cause serious, possibly fatal injuries.
That fact should have featured in your sentencing, if only to use the opportunity to send a message to all men who punch women, and to young men who punch anyone in the head but especially old women, that it is an extremely dangerous act.
Let them eat cake
David Seymour has stated that funding for free school lunches will be cut by up to half.
Where is Melissa Lee?
The New Zealand media sector has been in turmoil during the past week. But Broadcasting Minister has refused to publicly discuss what is happening or what her government proposes to do about it.
USUKAs
US Undersecretary of State Bonnie Jenkins is in Wellington this week with a hard sell for us on AUKUS Pillar 2 wunderwaffen maybes. We should say tai hoa.
Dune 2 and Gaza
What if life followed fiction and Gaza was explained by Dune 2? Sigh. It isn’t.
Who is treating taxpayers as an ATM?
It has been revealed that Christopher Luxon receives $52,000 a year from the taxpayer to pay for him staying in his own apartment. Update within the space of an hour he has said that it was his entitlement but then said that he will pay the money back.
What does the Government have against Maori health?
National spent much of yesterday ramming through under urgency and without a select committee process two measures which will have detrimental effects on Māori health.
Newshub Closes
One can hate the mainstream media but OMG you sure will miss it when it’s gone.
Guns and gangs
The Government has announced yet another tough on gangs policy involving a severe restriction on the rights of freedom of expression at the same time that gun ownership laws will be liberalised.
What’s Left?
From Election 2023’s result through to February 2024 there has been massive loss and damage to the Parliamentary capacity of Labour and Greens. Who still has the capacity to lead? What’s left?
About the promoters electoral returns
The Electoral Commission has released the major promoters’ electoral returns. These show significant amounts of money being spent on getting Labour unelected but give no detail about how the campaigns were funded.
The problem with corporate money in electorate campaigns
The 2023 candidate election returns have released and it has emerged that Bathurst Resources Ltd contributed $32,600 to Patrick Phelps, who ran a spoiler campaign against Damian O’Connor in West Coast Tasman.
Go well Grant Robertson
Yesterday it was announced that Grant Robertson was leaving politics.
Bene bashing 6.0
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.
About the One News Poll
The latest One News Verian poll suggests that there has been absolutely no honeymoon for the Government.
Get ready for your water to be privatised
The National Government’s repeal of the Three Waters Legislation and its pursuit of “new forms of infrastructure funding and financing” suggests that privatisation of water is on the drawing board.
A sad lament from the serial left
Attacking leftists attempts to expose the Atlas Network of right-wing think tanks, Chris Trotter offers this gem “Morally speaking, is taking money from oil companies really all that distinguishable from giving money to oil companies every time we fill up our petrol tank?”
National and the Gutting of Local Democracy
We have remarkably little democracy left in New Zealand.
A Trump-led Withdrawal from NATO
Just as he did in 2017, Trump is clear in 2023 that the United States should withdraw from NATO.
Who are the four lobbyists with Parliamentary swipe cards?
National has trashed its comment last terms that lobbyists should not have special access rights by handing out four swipe cards to lobbyists and refusing to say who they are.
The apparatus behind the curtain – Part 2: The mainline
In a guest post Seddonville Miner explores links between the Atlas Network and the Taxpayer’s Union.
Should America elect a well intentioned but hapless President or an evil and dangerous President?
Robert Hur, the Republican prosecutor investigating President Biden’s retention of classified documents has concluded he should not face trial because he was “well-intentioned, but sometimes hapless and forgetful”.
Alex Foulkes To Stand For Green Party Co-Leader
Faulkes describes himself as a staunch Eco-Socialist and trade unionist
Simeon Brown works to make transport system less sustainable
This week we have seen National confirm it will cancel the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax and this will cause the cancellation or suspension of many projects designed to address congestion. And it has been confirmed that axing the clean car discount has seen sales of electric vehicles plummet. And that electric vehicles will shortly pay more to use the road than petrol vehicles.
Laura Norda strikes again
National has announced the cancellation of funding for Cultural Reports because of the cost and the abandonment of Labour’s plan to decrease the muster despite the cost.