The State of the Nation speeches provide an interesting start to the political year. John Key’s speech borrowed Labour Green policy that until now the Government has consistently derided and tried to present it as a “kickstart” while Andrew Little’s tertiary education policy announcement has received almost universal support and National is struggling to work out what attack lines to use.
Although there have been predictable howls of outrage from the usual suspects, the media reaction to Labour’s bold tertiary education policy has been generally great.
Labour has rolled out another big bold policy that will shape the national discussion for years. Critics, most of whom received a free tertiary education themselves back in the day, want to deny a younger generation the same right (and pocket a tax cut instead). Enter Steven Joyce…
The text of Andrew Little’s state of the nation speech delivered this afternoon.
Goff and Shearer’s disloyal and self serving support for the TPPA has backfired. They’ve shown that the ABC faction are now a spent force and that Andrew Little has the overwhelming support of caucus. The sun has set on the splitters and there is a new day rising.
All good progressives are invited tomorrow afternoon to Albert Park in Auckland to hear Andrew Little’s state of the nation speech. Update: because of possible bad weather the speech will start at 1 pm. Bring an umbrella!
Yesterday the Nats confirmed the closing of a failed Northland charter school. Turns out we’ll be paying an extra $400,000 for the first quarter of this year, even though the school will not open. Brilliant.
The text of an email Andrew Little has sent to members.
Record debt, a higher than expected deficit and a credit rating downgrade on our economic outlook. All thanks to National’s genius economic management!
New Zealand used to be rated as the least corrupt country in the world. Over the past couple of years we have dropped to second and now to fourth. The cynical way that the Government handles OIA requests is the main reason for this occurring.
The news that the TPP is likely to cost 5 to 6,000 jobs in NZ seems to have been the last straw.
How many more lies will John Key tell today in his so-called State of the Nation address? Virtual chocolate fish to whomever guesses the closest number.
Metiria Turei is due to deliver her state of the nation speech today at 12:30 pm. This post contains links to the livestream of the speech and the speech notes will be added when they are available. Updated with speech notes.
Te Reo Putake is live blogging the visits of politicians to Rātana pā during the weekend celebration of the life of church founder Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana. The shadow of the TPPA hangs over the weekend; how will our political leaders address this latest attack on Te Tiriti o Waitangi?
Let’s get this straight. Fisiani’s on-going sycophantic love-in with John Key may be nauseatingly embarrassing to read, but this does not make him […]
Bennet’s proposal to incentivise / coerce state housing applicants to leave Auckland for housing elsewhere seems to have hit a snag…
Education is a public good, but tertiary education in NZ has been undermined by high student fees and debt. So it’s very encouraging to see a proposal from Labour for reducing fees (and not ruling out free education!).
The Herald has printed an opinion piece by ex ACT candidate Robin Grieve Robin Grieve which claims that the IPCC has said we have nothing to worry about climate change when a cursory reading of the report suggests otherwise. What is it with the quality of Herald opinion pieces presented by former ACT candidates?
This morning’s Herald contains a story about a young man who with a family gift has managed to purchase eleven houses over the past five years and can afford to pay World of Warcraft all day.
Labour Leader Andrew Little has announced that the next Labour led Government will defy the TPPA’s attack on our sovereignty. Good on Labour – that’s the leadership we need.
Jamie Whyte yesterday wrote an article for the Herald claiming that child poverty does not exist in New Zealand. But he wrote essentially the same article in 2005 about child poverty in Great Britain.
David Shearer has disagreed with the Greens that New Zealand should suspend negotiations on the free trade agreement with Saudi Arabia until it improves its human rights record.
New research from Morgan Foundation suggests that poverty can be alleviated by increasing incomes and that the beneficiaries will be children of poor families not vendors of alcohol and cigarettes.
On December 17, 2015 the Government released a series reports suggesting that New Zealand is complying with Kyoto Protocol obligations. A dig into the reports confirms however that the compliance is in name only and is for spin purposes rather than a real attempt at addressing the world’s most pressing problem.
Some random musings on what happened in New Zealand’s media this year.
There’s still a few MPs “on duty”. Their function is to maintain the semblance of active government and to roll out a bunch of announcements they hope will escape full scrutiny.
Video of John Key’s recent interview with The Rock.
Rachel Stewart has penned an opinion piece highlighting John Key’s avoidance of serious media in preference to engaging in rude, crude and highly unattractive stunts on commercial radio.
Justice Clifford’s decision that the police raid of Nicky Hager’s home was illegal raises serious questions about what political pressure was applied on the police.
Structural problems need structural solutions. Progress on this major public health issue has been set back by a decade because we elected a useless National government.
The Nats want to wallow in the feel-good rhetoric of COP21 action to address climate change. But it’s clear that they don’t intend to take the “ambitious action” they are heralding.
The Government has responded to the COP21 convention agreement with the suggestion that little will need to change. And John Key has put the likely annual cost of fulfilling our pledge at less than a tenth of the figure that Tim Groser has used.
COP21 has set the benchmark, no greater than 1.5 degrees increase in global temperatures. But current national pledges suggest that the world is on track for at least 3 degrees. And if New Zealand’s effort was replicated throughout the world the increase would be more like 4 degrees or more. So what should New Zealand be doing?
A public private organisation with the acronym CERT was announced this week along with the new cyber security strategy. CERT’s role is to provide information to government so it can protect against cyber threats. Which is one of the roles of the GCSB.
Details of a mess in tertiary education published yesterday. On top of the mess in charter schools. National aren’t very good at this.
Labour MP and associate spokesperson for Foreign Affairs (Pacific Climate Change) Sua William Sio describes the repercussions of a COP21 conference that does not agree to limiting global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees.
