Posts on government and governence at national and local level, political parties,politicians, and political participation
Treasury in their first year under National tripled their expenditure on contractors whilst forcing all other departments into cuts. Bill English decided against having any public accountability, and left Tony Ryall talking rubbish trying to explain it.
Remember how John Key used to talk about GST? Here is a video reminding everyone of the past before he did his usual flip-flop to favour the rich while increasing costs on most people. The GST increase and the consequent inflation will make almost everyone worse off unless they are wealthy enough to bribe the NACT’s.
The Herald’s editorial today is a strong rebuke of National’s anti-democratic power grabs. Close on the heels of CERRA is the World Cup Empowering Act, giving unfettered powers to ministers that they don’t need. The Herald’s opposition shows, again, how badly wrong Labour and the Greens got it when they voted for CERRA.
John Banks has been slagging off South Auckland. Ooops. That’s the same mistake that Melissa Lee made in the Mt Albert by election. The same mistake deserves the same fate. Banks cannot credibly operate as mayor of the SuperCity.
Danyl over at DimPost has produced an excellent graph of the gains from National’s Tax Swindle. It uses the Government’s figures, it is generous in showing average rather than median incomes…
And it doesn’t look good for average kiwis.
After picking up my award for worst ever ‘Standard’ post title, I’d just like to say that there seems to a penchant these days to leave too many things up to higher powers, or perceived authorities. And authorities and those who are ideologically aligned with them or reliant upon them, naturally enough encourage such a giving away of agency. It’s not always deliberate. And it’s certainly not a conspiracy. It’s just the way it is and is borne of habit. This morning afforded a fairly clear example of it.
Ever since Kris Fa’afoi put his name forward to be Labour’s candidate in the Mana by-election, the National smear machine attacked him on his Tokelaun heritage. First it was ‘oh, they’re only going to choose him because he has a brown face’. Now, apparently, the problem is that he isn’t Pasifika enough. In truth, it’s National with the problems.
Anne Tolley, Minister for wrecking primary education, doesn’t have the first or faintest idea of what “national standards” are actually going to mean in practice. She is “appalled” at the idea of labelling children as failures. But that is exactly what the standards are designed to do.
A group of 27 legal scholars from New Zealand and overseas has written an open letter outlining their deep concerns over the constitutional implications of the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act 2010.
While the cat’s away the mice will play. And while the clown’s sunning himself in Hawaii the ideologues in his Cabinet will launch vitriolic attacks on public service workers. As teachers are forced to endure another day of the country’s most powerful figures attack them, lets consider the consequences of undermining vital public services.
It’s worth having a look at Bill English’s performance on Q+A the other day. What’s telling, to my mind, is that English can’t present a real vision or even any spin-free information. Why not? Because his tax swindle is about taking from us and giving to the elite, and he can’t just come and say that.
Life isn’t hard enough already for solo parents, according to the Nats. So they’re going to make it harder.
While the Anglo – Saxon or English speaking left seems unable to shake a deep malaise that began afflicting it some thirty years ago, the left in the Spanish speaking world is making some remarkable strides forward.
No Right Turn has covered todays announcement about policy changes for GST on fruit and vegetables. Since it is pretty comprehensive we will reproduce the two posts here.
The voluntary student union membership bill is based on a false premise, and a reflexive tory hatred for the word “union”. I have a suggestion for students…
It looks like a Labour candidate may be involved in electoral fraud.
If this is the case the party says it will come down on them hard.
But it may also have to take a look at how local body candidates get on the Labour ticket.
Leaked notes from a meeting between Peter Shirtcliffe and Wayne Eagleson have revealed backroom dealings to kill off MMP.
We shouldn’t be surprised that the party of big business and the big-business-backed anti-MMP lobby would be colluding.
After all, it’s in all of their interests to take power from the voters and put it back in the hands of the elite.
Matt McCarten’s website for who to pick for a progressive Super City is finally up. If you’re in Auckland and haven’t voted yet – make sure to have a look.
In the aftermath of the twin towers, the dust that accompanied their collapse gave rise to a health crisis in the medium/long term that continues to play out to this day. And given the prevalence of asbestos in Christchurch buildings, it just might be that the earthquake will result in a number of preventable deaths after all…
Long serving Dunedin North MP Pete Hodgson is stepping down at the next election. The local Labour party today selected their next candidate, the Rev Dr David Clark.
4 out of 7 of Switzerland’s cabinet are now women – a progressive surprise from a conservative country.
Check out Hilary Calvert’s interview in the ODT. It’s, um, extraordinary and hilarious. Calvert can’t remember whether she was ever a member of a different political party, when she first stood for ACT, or whether she has any convictions.
More evidence of the depth of talent in ACT these days.
A reader has sent us a Lefty’s guide to voting in the Dunedin City Council elections. With the huge numbers of candidates and the relatively small amount of information we get on them, this kind of guide is really useful. If anyone else wants to put together a voting guide for their local bodies we’ll (almost certainly) publish it.
You’ve only got a day left to see “Dave Kent, a Listening Eye” at Enjoy Gallery on Cuba Street. If you’ve got the […]
Rodney Hide and David Garrett would have us believe that Garrett’s downfall is about youthful indiscretions and skeletons in closets. Let’s nip this in the bud straight away. It wasn’t Garrett’s “foolish actions 26 years ago” that sealed his fate, it was the confirmation that even to this day he is still a liar, a criminal and the worst kind of hypocrite.
A few days ago Charles Chauvel wrote a piece on Red Alert on why Labour voted for CERRA. I have two big problems with it. 1) Labour may have won concessions that improved CERRA but they didn’t get the key one. 2) There’s a dangerous mindset in the position that Labour had to vote for dictatorship or get pilloried in the media and lose votes.
Lockwood and Nick did good work yesterday. So praise where praise is due: Keep it up boys.
“I also want to pay a special acknowledgement to my friend and deputy, Bill English. What a great job he is doing as Finance Minister. He’s delivered two Budgets that have steered New Zealand out of recession and put the economy firmly back on track to grow and create jobs”. Or has he?…
The suspension of normal democratic processes in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake should be an occasion to pause for thought in the light of likely future events.
The latest GDP figures are awful. the Reserve Bank had predicted 0.9% growth in the June Quarter. It came in at 0.2% – far worse than anyone expected and slower than population growth. The Key Government’s reaction? Deny there’s a problem and spin, spin, spin.
Great video of Clayton Cosgrove getting right stuck into the Sensible Sentencing Trust’s Garth McVicar over his hypocrisy on David Garrett. Cosgrove’s certainly no bleeding heart liberal so I’d say McVicar’s credibility on law in order is now pretty much shot.
