This is a massive market and moral failure. The problem isn’t going to go away, it’s going to get worse, and the media are going to stay on the case. Time for National to borrow some more Labour / Green policy thinking.
On Stuff: “Little said cannabis products should be available to anyone suffering chronic pain or a terminal condition if their GP signed off on it.”
Here’s some more science for the government to hate on: “Paris climate agreement cannot be met without emissions reduction target for agriculture”.
The Government’s promised funding for 3,000 new beds for the homeless will not create any but will make sure that existing beds are kept available.
Coverage of Auckland’s homeless goes international. The working poor are now the working homeless.
Despite record Crown debt and a crisis in the social sector National is getting ready to campaign in 2017 promising a tax cut.
Speculators keep buying houses while families live in garages and cars. This is a moral failure, a leadership failure, a market failure – it is every kind of failure.
Radio New Zealand recently published a piece penned by well known supporter of the right Matthew Hooton. What has happened to the concept of balance?
John Key thinks that he was thrown out of Parliament straight after Helen Clark a few years ago. The only problem is that Hansard thinks it was Don Brash.
The $25 million deal prompted considerable curiosity because it involved an off-market purchase of shares from Sanford’s second biggest shareholder, Avalon Investment Trust, which is run by the family of Peter Goodfellow.
A post to illustrate how fixed term parliaments work…off the back of some really woeful reportage.
National is hoping to avoid a proper debate about issues raised by the Panama Papers by raising a series of idiotic diversions.
John Key was given his marching order from the House today for repeatedly disobeying the speaker.
This morning John Key refused to be interviewed on Radio New Zealand after learning that they intended to ask him questions about the Panama Papers. And some elements of the media are for some strange reason trying to say there is nothing to see because he personally has not been implicated.
A new release of Panama papers absolutely confirms New Zealand is a tax haven says Nicky Hager. And ironically, it is because of New Zealand’s squeaky clean reputation that tens of thousands of foreigners have come flooding here.
Rather than actually dealing with the issue, John Key is using his old classics “nothing to see here” coupled with “Labour did it too”, “nicky hager is a conspiracy nut”, and “wait for the (Shewan) whitewash enquiry” defenses.
Why, out of all the rotten, corrupt and unprincipled nations of the earth, did the Panama Papers hacker single out New Zealand’s John Key for special mention?
I/S at No Right Turn on the irony of sending Judith “Minister of Corruption” Collins to an an anti-corruption summit in London next week.
Over the past week the Government has gone from “there is no problem with the Overseas Investment Office” to announcing an urgent review and a staffing boost to make sure that approvals of foreign purchases of land are being properly processed.
After eight long years of National there are almost 40,000 more unemployed than when they came to power.
Last night Andrew Little’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill passed it’s first reading. Bravo to Andrew Little, Labour, The Greens, NZF, The Maori Party, and Peter Dunne, who voted in support.
And this time it might get through.
They say in politics that a news story is good for the opposition/bad for the Government if it hits the media cycle two days in a row. If it appears for a third or a fourth day then it is a crisis and urgent action is required. Louise Upston’s handling of the OIO is clearly a crisis.
National told us “New Zealand elected a Government that promised to introduce national standards so that every single child could read, write, and do maths when they left school.”
Radio New Zealand has reported that Compass, supplier of our substandard hospital food, appears to be taking steps to minimise the tax it pays locally.
The weekend saw the pressure stay on National over our tax haven status, and the role Key might have played in protecting it.
Duncan Garner reckons the government is “missing in action” on housing. Similar pieces could be written about poverty, pollution, the rising debt, carbon emissions, the use of NZ as a tax haven, etc.
Labour had a strong week this week with the disclosure of individuals behind a Mossack Fonseca related entity had criminal convictions for environmental damage forcing the OIO to review its original decision. Grant Robertson has correctly called for a full inquiry into the circumstances relating to the Government stopping a review of the Foreign Trust regime. And Phil Twyford has persuaded the OAG to rule that Housing New Zealand’s handling of parts of the housing sale process were sub standard.
Or waterways are starting to stink as much as our murky tax havens.
So Key’s lawyer reckons the PM directly requested that trust industry leaders lobby the Revenue Minister. On the other hand, PM DunnoKeyo reckons he did no such thing. That leaves some really big questions …
“Nick Smith reckons Akld housing’s more affordable now than before National came to power”
Grant Robertson is calling for a full inquiry into circumstances surrounding the Government’s 2015 decision not to review the country’s foreign tax rules.
John Key is facing some problems describing how a Mossack Fonseca company ended up owning a New Zealand farm and how after his lawyer asked the Government not to change the rules surrounding foreign trusts the Government moved to make sure that no rule change would occur.
Add it to our record debt, our record pollution, our record housing unaffordability, our rising inequality, our terrible carbon emissions…
The Herald castigated the Government over its inaction over climate change in an editorial released this morning.
