Today leaders of 3 opposition parties took part in an historic press conference. Winston Peters, David Shearer and Russel Norman jointly announced the launch of a parliamentary inquiry into the crisis in manufacturing. Update: Links to articles added. One News Video.
Unions, businesses, and political parties will come together today to form a united front on the need for change to save manufacturing in New Zealand. If National want to stand isolated against the new consensus, that’s their problem.
This week I’ve been to see the surrealists at the Tate Modern in London, and read about the surrealists at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham. God knows what Cameron was talking about, with his line about spreading privilege – Knighthoods for all? Everybody off to Eton and Oxbridge?
Youth rates are an admission of economic failure.
National promised us an “unrelenting focus on jobs” and delivered record highs in unemployment and emigration. Now Key is refusing to even attend a Union jobs summit, because on Planet Key everything is just fine. The unwillingness to admit that anything is wrong is just blind arrogance.
40,000 manufacturing jobs gone in four years. Manufactured exports in free-fall. Tourism revenue collapsing. If that’s not a crisis, what is? Why is […]
Welcome to Poverty Watch, a weekly update on National’s lack of response to the urgent and growing issue of poverty in NZ. This week, immigrant Pacific Island families in poverty, and a thoughtful and challenging piece on the role of philanthropy in NZ.
David Shearer’s weekly e-newsletter, this week on trust, household incomes, and the brighter future.
We’re happy to post similar newsletters from other opposition leaders – our email is on our contact page.
It’s now clear that National are unfit for office anywhere but Planet Key. Which is unfortunate, because here on Planet Earth, things aren’t going so well. We need new ideas, we need action, we need results. We aren’t going to get them from National.
As Shane Jones makes a complete dick of himself in public yet again in a traditional display of Labour party backbench egotism. I’m left shaking my head at the apparent complete inability of the Labour caucus to settle down to the task of being an effective opposition.
Parata is trying to close schools based on data that is (as even the Ministry now admits) massively incorrect. The attack on the social fabric of Christchurch was already inexcusable. This latest fiasco makes it even worse.
The latest Roy Morgan poll has National at its lowest level of support since before the 2008 election
David Shearer still doesn’t get why judging beneficiaries from across the road isn’t compatible with leading the Labour Party. QoT perseveres in trying to explain it to him, using short words.
Split Enz once sang, “History Never Repeats”… Or does it? Destructive prejudices separating ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor have been around a very long time. When the likes of Paula Bennett pander to such ill-informed vindictiveness with punitive social welfare reforms, they will damage large numbers of children – our future citizens.
Welcome to Poverty Watch, a weekly update on National’s lack of response to the urgent and growing issue of poverty in NZ. This week, right wingers whine about the focus on poverty, 3 News and Kidscan try to do something about it.
QoT has a shiny new author login and she’s not afraid to use it! And Labour? You definitely still need feminism.
David Shearer’s weekly e-newsletter, this week on privatisation, jobs, and Dotcom.
We’re happy to post similar newsletters from other opposition leaders – our email is on our contact page.
Another report confirms the findings of the 2006 Stern Report. The future economic costs of doing nothing far outweigh the current costs of taking action on climate change. But National is taking us backwards…
The Chief Ombudsmen has attacked the government’s moves to keep official information secret, calling them “highly dangerous”. The ongoing GCSB and John Banks scandals show just how important it is to be able to hold the government – at all levels – to account.
There’s a lot of it about in right-wing parties at the moment. For John Key, John Banks and David Cameron it appears to be becoming the strategy of choice. It’s not working very well for any of them.
Colin James writes good political analysis. His ODT article from yesterday resonates with me. It is time to look for a new economic model as we watch “..central banks – supposed to epitomise the straight and narrow – print money like 17th century monarchs.” as they recirculate the stupidities of the past like any National government.
National has a plan to deal with their crisis of job losses, GCSB illegality and bad polls. Tomorrow will probably see another welfare crackdown, although with the number of groups left to target rapidly diminishing, could it be the turn of one-legged Dutchmen to feel Paula’s wrath?
But if that plan doesn’t work, National has another up its sleeve: blame Labour. Go on, sing along.
Welcome to National’s economy: Kiwirail has just announced 158 infrastructure and engineering job losses, and this afternoon Solid Energy will probably announce the loss of 300 jobs at Spring Creek, and 200-250 elsewhere. This on top of the swathe of job losses in Huntly and Christchurch Solid Energy announced a month ago.
Welcome to Poverty Watch, a weekly update on National’s lack of response to the urgent and growing issue of poverty in NZ. This week, a new Labour Bill, an Otago University study, and Live Below the Line.
John Key is one kind of Wizard all right – a Wizard of Oz. He can make people disappear there. Duncan Garner rips in to him.
You, the Prime Minister, have to write personally to 175 employers to implore them to pretty please take some of these boot camp kids so the scheme doesn’t look like quite as much of a failure as it is…
Over the last week, the government’s off-world set of distorted realities has come to the foreground: those of “Planet John Key” and “Planet Paula”. These worlds highlight the way Bennett’s latest welfare reforms wage war on the poor and undermine fairness and democracy.
I saw this story on Friday saying about how the number of jobs available on seek.co.nz is up. Paula Bennett and John Key regularly come up with stories about how many jobs there are out there – you only need to look at trademe or seek – but they don’t mention that…
Slater/Lusk are spending a hell of a lot of time talking about how the Key Government’s one-seat majority is at stake if a dissatisfied, bored backbencher decides to quit. One name that keeps popping up is Sam Lotu-Iiga. I understand the next stage will be a ‘Draft Sam’ faux mayoral campaign to pressure Key and Joyce into making him a minister.
The Collins Faction is tooling up again. While Judith Collins herself has been trying to present a more reasonable face in the House, her Slater/Lusk campaign team is trying to undermine her challenger, Joyce, and the incumbent, Key. Upping Tau Henare’s ridiculous run for Speaker is naked opportunism – but a closer read of Whaleoil, and some inside tips, point to a far more ambitious play on the way
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.
Welcome to Poverty Watch, a weekly update on National’s lack of response to the urgent and growing issue of poverty in NZ. This week: Shearer’s education speech stirs up the debate, the Greens start Champions for Children, and the Nats are in denial…
“When you take a long-term model, there’s no place to hide”. Interesting, don’t you think, the issue – the only issue – that the Nats have chosen to take a long-term model of?
Brownlee and Parata announced school closures and explained the rationale. Now they’ve backed down and they’re trying to blame a Ministry mistake. This was the quickest U-turn in the history of politics. Update: And this morning it seems that closures and mergers are back on again – does anyone know what is going on?
