When he was Don Brash’s campaign manager, Steven Joyce used to talk about the ‘optics’ being what matters. Well, let’s consider the optics of a fat, bald old man personally insulting three good-looking young journalists every time they ask him sensible questions. If I were Joyce’s media minder, I would have had my head in my hands throughout Joyce’s appearance on The Nation this morning.
Pagani wrote it. Robertson cleared it. And Shearer uttered it. To summarise; those living by sickness entitlements are probably dodgy b’stards. Nice. Before I go on, I should be clear that this post isn’t some insightful fiction. This is the reality of getting by with a sickness benefit.
Fresh ideas to grow a stronger manufacturing sector, on top of the major changes Labour has already signalled featured in a speech given today by David Parker to a union audience in Wellington. David Cunliffe was there too, and I particularly liked the discussion afterwards. The key players are receptive to good ideas and it looks like Labour will have a real alternative to offer at the next election.
I look forward to Trevor Mallard and Andrew Little calling Paula Bennett as a witness in their defamation suit with Judith Collins. Bennett openly admits doing what Collins has sued Mallard and Little for accusing her of doing: using ministerial powers to leak the private details of a political opponent. Bennett even says she’ll do it again. She obviously doesn’t see doing it as hurting her reputation.
Minister after Minister denied it, but it turns out that common sense is right. Private power companies charge more. Privatisation surely means that prices will rise. Is it even news when this government lies these days?
Idiot/Savant at NRT on the need to reform the Terrorism Suppression Act.
It has been an interesting week for the leaders of the two main parties – one I think that they would both rather forget.
As usual it is the kids who will suffer.
Anyone else taking a perverse pleasure in the Pullar-Collins-Boag-Judge affair? They’re all Tory villains. And they’re eating each other alive. Judge was handpicked to privatise ACC. Now, Collins is trying to stick the Boag email leak to him, Did he do it? Who knows. The other most likely option is Collins. So implicating Judge serves Collins’ purpose.
Man, this brighter future sure is sweet. In just four short years, all the country’s problems are solved and the Prime Minister has literally nothing left to do. For a lark, he spends his time playing DJ. Oh… wait. Update- There’s a #DJJohnKey hashtag trending on Twitter in NZ. The Greens inviting suggested songs for Key to play. Pretty funny suggestions coming through.
“At all times, Ministers are expected to act lawfully and to behave in a way that upholds, and is seen to uphold, the highest ethical standards. Ultimately, Ministers are accountable to the Prime Minister for their behaviour.” – The Cabinet Manual. John Banks lied to reporters, and the public, while a minister. That’s not upholding the highest ethical standards. When will John Key hold him to account?
Key says the local elections law is an ass. Presumably, he knows what that phrase means: it delivers unjust results. Key thinks its unjust that Banks has escaped justice for his anonymous donation rort. Well, John you’re not helpless. Banks lied to media. He lied to you. He said he hadn’t solicited the donations. Didn’t know about them. He did. He lied to you and New Zealand. Sack him.
Many of those who participate in the comments here at The Standard also run their own excellent blogs. We regularly feature No Right Turn and Imperator Fish Today we’re reposting (with permission) pieces from two other blogs that attracted some attention in Open mike recently. First up here’s Frankly Speaking…
Finally the truth is out. Gaynor and Armstrong agree – National Party politics are the real reason for asset sales. They make no sense economically. They are not about debt reduction. Key’s asset sales are a political bribe – nothing more and nothing less.
Matt McCarten doesn’t pull any punches, comparing Banks to both Phillip Field and Winston Peters.
After 18 months of doing nothing to fix the insurance crisis that every man and his dog has been saying is crippling the Christchurch rebuild, Overlord Brownlee has finally acted. He’s come out with …. wait for it ….. a big whinge at insurance companies. Oh bravo, Generalissimo Gerry. That’ll get the rebuild started. Well done, oh King of Christchurch. Your belated rant has saved us all.
National is threatening to veto a Labour bill to extend paid parental leave, claiming it costs too much. At the same time, they’re trying to defend writing a blank cheque for looters’ bonuses. And they’re getting nasty about it. Maggie Barry attacked Jacinda Ardern for not having children yet while John Key had a hissy fit at anyone who questioned his looters’ bonuses.
John Key’s grasp of his own asset sales policy is being revealed to be shakier by the day. He doesn’t know how it would hurt the government books. He flips his position on water rights each day. He doesn’t know how much a looters’ bonus of free shares would cost. And, yesterday, he didn’t even realise that $56m is budgeted to cover sharebrokers’ fees for the looters.
When the Nats created CERA – the Gerry Brownlee Enabling Act – they tried to make it so no-one could challenge his decisions under the Act in court. The Courts hate such ‘ouster clauses’ and react by allowing cases on whether a decision was made under the Act or was so wrong it wasn’t an exercise of the powers granted. Brownlee’s just found that it ain’t easy to make yourself dictator in a free society.
There’s been some talk around the ‘sphere about a speech where David Parker made comments that some (*cough* Chris ‘the Right’s favourite Leftie’ Trotter *cough*) thought meant he supported asset sales. That obviously caused confusion because Parker and Labour are clearly against asset sales. Now, someone’s taken the innovative step of asking Parker what he meant (spoiler: it’s not what Trotter thought).
Loyalty Scheme: $360 million.
Brokerage Fees: $90 million.
Advertising/PR: $30 million.
Iwi Settlements: $unknown.
Lost Revenue: $100 million/year.
Ha ha ha! Wasn’t it funny when Judith Collins brandished a TASER at the National Party conference and said she wanted to use it on Trevor Mallard. I guess it’s alright for me to whip out an airgun or a knife next time I’m at the pub. You know, as a joke. Oh? It’s only OK when Ministers are using to further their phony tough guy brand? Must have missed that section of the Arms Act.
Imagine a place with a stagnant economy; led by a government that is anti-growth, doesn’t have any plan, and is not prepared to make the tough decisions needed to ensure the future prosperity of its people; where most people struggle to get ahead; and where those who aspire for better things are probably thinking of leaving.
Key has been giving different messages on the water rights issue to the Maori Party and to the wider public. No one knows what, if anything, his “promises” mean. Why isn’t the Maori Party (which has been burned before) seeking urgent clarification?
On Breakfast just now, Petra Bagust asked John Key what’s so great for the economy about listing our assets on the stockmarket. A good question. In his answer, Key tried to make out that floating these companies on the stockmarket would give them more cash to grow. But not a cent of the revenue will go to the companies and Key knows it.
An all-time record 53,900 people left New Zealand for Australia last year. Remember when John Key was going to stop the exodus by closing the wage gap? Yeah, that was a pretty funny joke. Now, here’s the punchline: Bill English now says that it’s a great thing that everyone is leaving for Australia. And the kicker, he wants to attract talent by driving down wages.
Key is already qualifying a promise he’s made on Maori water rights. Does the promise mean anything at all?
I/S at No Right Turn on yet another example of misleading Parliament – but it doesn’t matter because “the current Speaker has ruled that a Member can only mislead the House in ‘a statement of some formality'”.
The meeting between Key and the Maori Party leaders last night reached it’s predictable conclusion. From his point of view Key has played this brilliantly.
I don’t know which is stranger, a currency-trading capitalist denigrating people for maximising their economic opportunities, or claims dating back to The Treaty being passed off as somehow superficial.
Today’s DomPost says David Parker’s recent speech “criticised National for failing to boost imports and control housing prices.” That didn’t sound like David Parker. Sure enough he had put his finger on the real problem, the government’s failure to boost exports. Key’s reported “putdown” was Labour is “a joke.” One thing is certain, New Zealand’s ever-receding “brighter future” is no joke. I’d like to see the DomPost put it right. Tell us all what Parker actually said, then let us decide which party is the joke.
With news that there are now more Kiwis living in Australia than either Christchurch or Wellington, here’s “John Key’s” latest press release on the topic.
Gerry Brownlee is in court as some property owners challenge his decision to open up some blocks of land for new sections post-earthquake and not others. One of those property owners is Independent Seafoods. They would also have been one of a hundred to have benefited from a 2009 private members’ bill by Clayton Cosgrove. One of Cosgrove’s donors was IS. Brownlee’s shopped a smear based on that, and The Nation ran it.
What do our leaders in parliament have to say about the latest developments at the Large Hadron Collider?
There’s a new member in the ‘sphere, a cheeky little blog called Twisted Hive that appears to be a member of what you might call the Labour Ulterior, that great mass of Labour people who are unhappy with and feel excluded by the way things have been managed lately. This post, though, is about Steven Joyce’s white whale.
