Darren Hughes has been suspended from his shadow portfolios due to the continuing police investigation. Goff probably should have done this earlier, despite the understandable wariness of a leader can’t punish an MP on the strength of a complaint alone. As Key did with Wong and Worth, Goff has waited until the media issue became too big.
The economy grew just 0.2% in the December quarter, enough to avoid the technical definition of recession but did it feel like that […]
Darren Hughes has identified himself as under investigation by the Police. No details on the issue. Hughes says he did nothing wrong. Clearly not what was needed with Labour hammering National on the economy. Comments off on this post and strict moderation elsewhere for legal reasons.
Owners of businesses in the red zone CBD want brief access to their premises to retrieve items and data that are vital to whatever remaining chance they have of keeping their enterprises alive. The government is refusing access on the grounds of safety. There’s right on both sides of the issue, but whatever happened to informed consent?
“The Prime Minister’s out of touch. Here’s a man who got well over$1000 a week from his own tax cuts… He may know where his bread is buttered on but it’s a different side of the loaf to most Kiwis… who every time they go to the supermarket are asking “how come this trolley of groceries is costing $20 or $50 more than it seemed it did last week’?”
Around 300 hikoi marchers arrived at Parliament this afternoon to protest against the Nat / Maori Party rebranded version of the foreshore and seabed bill. The numbers weren’t huge, but the hikoi brought a powerful symbolic message.
“The worldwide recession is not your fault… You are being softened up for cuts in social spending… It’s easy to see the people this government is looking after. If you are a bank boss on $5.6million, helping cause a recession, you get an extra five thousand a week. If you are on the minimum wage – you get an extra 25 cents an hour.”
There was already going to be too little money in Budget 2011 for maintenance of public services. Now what little there was is being further slashed in the name of Christchurch. An Earthquake Levy is not an option, rather we’ll all pay through increased borrowing and 25% cuts in services like police, transport, justice and social services.
The SST’s John Hartevelt is shocked by National’s decision to pay out millions for Christchurch rugby business while ordinary people live in shattered homes and lose their jobs with meager support. He asks whether the Nats have lost their moral-political bearings. In fact, this is a perfect example of National’s elitist philosophy.
There’s been increasing concern over the past week or two that not only has the government failed to communicate its plan for the Christchurch recovery, it doesn’t actually have one, and isn’t particularly worried about getting one. Yesterday in the House, Labour took Key to task on this important issue. And he was found terribly wanting.
3-time election loser Don Brash spoke at the ACT conference on the weekend. It was an attempt to revive the Owera days with an anti-Maori speech. When he made a ‘they don’t know how lucky they are’ reference to how Australians used to “shoot the natives”, a ACT member yelled “bring that back” and the audience laughed.
So, how are you enjoying your brighter future? Not too flash, eh? GST up. Wages down. No jobs. More crime. Earthquakes. Oil and food shocks. No bloody cycleway. Discretionary income (after tax, housing, food, transport) is down about 15%. No wonder Kiwis don’t believe Key and National can deliver on their promises.
Labour leader Phil Goff has ruled out working with Hone Harawira even if Mr Harawira heads a party of several MPs. I think it’s a foolish decision and I think the reasons don’t stack up. Instead of ruling out Hariwria, Labour should rise to the challenge.
Gerry Brownlee promised the West Coast a stimulus package. The government has now ruled that out. Those with whom John Key so public sympathised will not get what they were promised; they’ll be left to pick up the tab, whilst he works on his next PR opportunity.
National will reject Auckland Council and Aucklanders’ view on what their future city should look like. Instead they propose One ever more sprawling city, with ever more sprawling motorways, ever more cars clogging its veins, ever less community, and ever less government money.
Apparently Christchurch Labour MPs will be putting out their bulletin daily. Here’s the second update from Clayton Cosgrove (Waimakariri), Ruth Dyson (Port Hills), Lianne Dalziel (Christchurch East) and Brendon Burns (Christchurch Central). In future you can get to them here.
Last National government: split Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. This National government: merge Agriculture and Fisheries. In times of economic recession and disaster National know the really important things to focus on. Just as long as they keep those civil servants busy and away from helping the public we’ll all be fine.
Hone Hariwira’s speech on the second reading of the Marine and Coastal Area Bill. Agree with him or not, there is no denying the passion. The Maori Party may have made a huge mistake in pushing him out, thus leaving him free to speak his mind…
The Labour Party’s Christchurch electorate MPs are today starting a regular bulletin designed to keep people in their electorates and media informed about what is happening at grass roots level in their electorates.
National are to allow battery farming style early childhood education. From July the government will allow 75 stressed under-2 year-olds in one room, unable to form a relationship with any one teacher.
Hey National – stop lying and inventing dodgy stats to try and prove that we’re all better off. The tax cut received by most people was derisory, and the cost of living is shooting up fast. Even the Kiwiblog heartland isn’t buying the lies. If you can’t convince them, you can’t convince anyone…
There isn’t just one hard truth to NZ politics at the moment. The second is equally unpopular with people, but if it doesn’t offer a clear way forward it at least suggests a fixable problem. At the same time, it’s not the kind of thing Labour/the Left want to have bandied about too publicly in an election year.
Today Parliament sits in full for the first time since the second earthquake. There’s lots to attend to: the government is required to explain the state of national emergency, change the census law, create a one-off provincial holiday, and alter the law on school zoning. But it looks like the Nats are more concerned with slipping through their foreshore and seabed bill.
TVNZ7, and New Zealand public service television as a whole, looks to be coming to an end in June next year. TVNZ has been told their only responsibility is to return to the government a 9% return on investment per annum; their response is that they see pay-TV as their future. Sky is now “a frenemy”.
So another corrupt Nat minister has gone and Jami-Lee Ross has taken her seat in Botany. What an embarrassing resulting. The majority reduced […]
John Key has tidied up the confusion he caused yesterday and says that the quakes will cost the government $5 billion in rebuilding and $5 billion in lost revenue over the next 4 years. Big bikkies but easily covered by an emergency levy and canning the white elephant motorways. So, why are the Nats obsessed with tinkering with Working for Families?
The man tipped to be National’s next leader, Simon Power, has announced he will not be standing at the next election. The reasons are obvious. As a decent man and an old fashioned caring Tory, Power has no heart for the direction National want to take New Zealand. His resignation is a sign that within the party, the dry right have finally taken total control the idealogical reigns and there is no longer a place for liberal wets like Power.
Last week, Treasury issued a press statement saying it had commissioned research on the impact of governments’ fiscal stimulus packages, now published in the influential publication the Economic Journal. One article, “Tax policy for economic stimulus and growth”, had this to say:
Radio New Zealand are reporting that Hone Harawira and the Maori Party have decided to go their separate ways after the Maori Party […]
With everyone quite rightly focussed on the destruction in Christchurch, the Maori Party have kicked out Hone Harawira and cancelled his membership.
National’s grand plan for the economy in the age of peak, peak food, and climate change: give tax cuts to the rich and take from the poor. It’s classic Nat class war. They want to force 100,000 people off the benefit in the ludicrously long time-frame of 10 years. But they won’t be creating any jobs so other workers will be displaced and wages will be forced down.
Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn compares the bailout of SCF investors with the Nats’ threat to change the law to deny some workers the minimum wage.
Even the most optimistic lefty can’t deny that National are continuing to dominate the opinion polls. That must be quite a source of […]
Key says he didn’t know about the BMW purchase. Funny cause on Tuesday, English was taking responsibility: “we could go out and buy second-hand cars but one way or another cars need to be maintained”. The Nats try to blame Labour but the contract Labour signed says replacing the cars was optional without penalty.
The Maori Party handling of rebel MP Hone Harawira has been a complete mess. The latest bizarre chapter in the story is the gagging of Harawira with “a complete media ban” to be “strictly observed by the Maori Party”. I’m trying to recall any precedent for such an extreme gagging of free speech by a political party…
It seems odd at first, blocking our closest friend’s leader from speaking in our Parliament, but the Greens were right to look at the higher principle. The debating chamber is where our sovereign assembly meets, it is not a place for foreigners to come, at the government of the day’s invitation, and lecture our elected representatives. I think the NBR put it best..
