Posts on government and governence at national and local level, political parties,politicians, and political participation
Today in the House David Cunliffe took Bill English on over his lies regarding Labour’s record on economic growth. Rather than admit that he had been using the wrong figures in an effort to make Labour’s record look worse, English compounded his sins by lying to the House.
No Right Turn covers the latest UMR poll on MMP, which shows a good but by no means unassailable lead for MMP over less representative systems.
With the forces of reaction once again emerging to undermine our democracy we all need to get in behind the Campaign for MMP.
According to Stuff Housing Minister Phil Heatley has resigned and the PM has rushed back to Wellington to hold a press conference. Apparently MP spending records for the last three months of last year were released this morning. Coincidence? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Updated.
Auckland is being stolen from the people who live there. It will end up like a christmas turkey – “decapitated, plucked, gutted, stuffed, stitched up, roasted and carved up. And when the diners have eaten their fill, all you have left is a dead carcass.”
The Save Radio New Zealand group on Facebook now has 13,600 members and today (the 25th) there will be an event at Parliament between 1 and 2. It won’t be your typical rowdy protest, instead the idea is to bring along your radio and something to eat and drink, and have a mass picnic on the lawn.
A certain National Party pollster is having a cry over the story I ran yesterday on Murray McCully’s shares in Widespread Portfolios.
The story got widespread media coverage because it raised legitimate questions that needed to be answered.
The faulty logic behind Roger Douglas’ bill to cut the wages of young workers could just as easily be applied to any number of groups hit hard by the recession – Maori, students, men, dropouts, singles, people in Northland. What if we were to change a couple of key words in his bill?
Success for Opposition frontbenchers largely consists of embarrassing their opposite number by forcing them to answer questions they would rather not. Labour showed both how to do that and how not to do it in the House yesterday.
Yesterday the Dominion Post caught out National Party Ministers using their taxpayer funded credit cards for personal use. This was a gross betrayal of public trust. Housing Minister Phil Heatley knew what he was doing, but did it anyway. John Key should sack Heatley for turning his nose up at the Kiwi taxpayer.
Britain could be heading for a hung Parliament, according to the latest Guardian poll.
With no more than three months to go until polling day, the Conservatives have fallen to 37%, down three, while Labour’s support, at 30%, is up one. The Lib Dems are unchanged on 20%.
The National / ACT “three strikes” policy on violent crime sentencing is the worst kind of law.
It has been thoroughly condemned by the Justice Ministry, who were blocked from giving advice to select committee.
Recent polls highlight how important turnout will be at this year’s local body election.
Sam Cash takes a look at recent history and how attitudes to the supercity and the themes of this election could increase participation.
This morning the DomPost ran an article by Tracy Watkins about several ministers misusing their ministerial credit cards for personal entertainment. They obtained the information by doing OIAs (Official Information Act requests). Now I’ve come to expect that NACT ministers will do (in John Keys words) “stupid” things in office. But what I found significant was that John Key appears to have discovered the use of a new word “disappointment”. This is a major advance for the NACT political vocabulary.
Duncan Garner: “Key must get the compensation [for GST] right or there will be a backlash from voters” Problem is, you can’t get everyone to put some money in a bucket, give a large chunk of it to the rich and then compensate everyone else for what they put in with what is left. It can’t add up.
BLiP puts his distinctive view on why the police have been losing “the respect of the community” with one of his locally famous lists. He attributes it to ‘Crusher’ Collins and wonders why John Key is cluessly fronting PR wanting stronger sentences for disrespecting police.
The Government is driving ahead with its plans to open up our National Parks and other protected environments to mining. The Standard can now reveal that Murray McCully has shares in a company that stands to benefit directly from National’s mining policy.
Bill English’s argument that cutting taxes for the few at the top can cause an economic step change has always been nonsense.
His appearance on Q&A yesterday simply confirmed it.
A group called PublicZone have just released an iPhone app aimed at staying in contact with (UK) MPs a little easier. The app […]
Over 2,000 people a day are joining the Facebook group to save Radio New Zealand from National’s cuts, which would turn it into another crap commercial outlet. There are a lot of outraged people who voted for a ‘brighter future’ among those 10,000. The backlash is growing.
Labour is a pretty risk-adverse organisation. Making those two unorthodox attacks on those two ministers, and pulling it off both times, shows that Labour has got the measure of Key’s drop-kick ministers and is feeling more confident in itself.
Prime Minister John Key is the worst enemy New Zealand’s conservation estate has had in decades. Not content with the destruction caused by mining our most precious conservation areas, Key is pushing to sell off access to the conservation estate to the highest bidders.
Tracey Watkins writes that National is pissing off important constituencies and Labour’s messages are resonating. Key promised the world to everyone, he has failed to do anything for anyone except the wealthy elite. And public opinion is turning.
So Key’s “party central” plan for Queen’s Wharf seems to be dead in the water, after Auckland Mayors labeled it a “monstrosity” and refused to fund it.
Are these the prudent decisions of leaders who don’t want the city saddled with expensive white elephants, or the timid decisions of leaders who are without vision and averse to risk?
If you’re not familiar with the manifold reasons why the news you get from corporate media is crap, here’s Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe. It’s funny, incisive and merciless.
It’s also a very damning indictment of the modern Fourth Estate that explodes the myths around corporations acting as watchdogs on behalf of citizens against powerful anti-democratic interests.
The letter warning school boards not to speak out over national standards is an outrage, but John Key and his National Party have a long and dishonourable record of trying to shut down those who speak out to oppose them.
When you’ve got a Finance Minister who can’t get stats right, a Social Welfare Minister who can’t define her flagship policy, and an Education Minister who can’t explain her flagship policy, it’s easy for an incompetent Women’s Affairs Minister to slip through.
John Key’s recent stint at the Big Gay Out wasn’t all target marketing and niche political branding. He also had a run in with living-wage campaigners who took him to task for his government’s poor response to minimum wage earners and asked if he could live on the minimum wage.
The Northern Action Group has, with the support of 80% of Northern Rodney District, been petitioning the Government to leave Northern Rodney out […]
Click through to see Phil Goff take John Key down a peg. Sloppy home insulation. Sloppy, broken cycleway promises. Sloppy, unfilfulled Youth Guarantee. Sloppy & uncaring on unemployment. Sloppy abuse of the people of McGehan Close. A sloppy, do nothing PM.
The backlash to National’s attack on Radio NZ is beginning, and it looks like Jonathan Coleman may have bitten off more than he can chew.
Take the Save Radio New Zealand group on Facebook. In less than 24 hours it has 1700 2800 3500 supporters, with 10 more joining every minute.
Have a listen to today’s interview of Helen Clark by RNZ’s Kathryn Ryan on the UNDP and aid strategies during times of international […]
BLiP gives the best definition of the Key Government’s billion dollar Whanau Ora plan to date: “Whanau Ora = privatisation of social services.â€
Yeah, it does. But I’m still struggling to understand what social services. Will Whanau Ora providers be running hospitals and clinics? Will they be running schools? Will they be making dole and super payments?
It’s hard to decide which is worst: Do Nothing John Key flouncing around the country while thousands of Kiwis lose their jobs, the Joyce cabal pushing their hard-right economic agenda, or the rest of them who don’t have two brain cells to rub together.
According to The Press Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee is denying he trimmed a South Island conservation park after being lobbied by mining company L&M. However, documents posted on The Standard and No Right Turn show he was lying.
