Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, April 21st, 2011 - 76 comments
Key’s helicopter rides. Huge waste of money for what? A V8 photo-op then a golf club dinner. Why are we paying this guy $7750 a week to do nothing but photo ops? Where’s the recovery package for the West Coast? Where’s the Chch plan? Where’ the brighter future? Sorry, PM’s been too busy playing race cars and eating fancy dinners.
Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, April 20th, 2011 - 108 comments
John Key says that the government can’t help Kiwis who are struggling with rapidly rising costs. Rubbish. There’s plenty that they could be doing. If they wanted to…
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, April 19th, 2011 - 10 comments
Michael Bott takes John Key to task for his claims over the South Canterbury Finance debacle. Key and English have tried to blame Labour for the deposit guarantee that covered SCF. But the truth is that National extended SCF’s coverage under the scheme again and again, despite knowing that SCF was in breach of the rules.
Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, April 17th, 2011 - 21 comments
Young John Hartevelt has obviously decided it’s a good idea to cozy up to our new dictator. How else to explain the fawning piece in today’s Sunday Star-Times? Hartevelt heaps plaudits on Gerry Brownlee for deigning to have a one day select committee and swipes at Labour’s Lianne Dalziel for daring to demand better for her constituents.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 pm, April 16th, 2011 - 9 comments
John Key wants to talk about how average after tax wages have gone up since he became Prime Minister. But as Brian Fallow says in today’s Herald: Averages are all well and good. If John Key walks into a room the average net worth of the people in the room shoots up, but the rest […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:01 pm, April 16th, 2011 - 7 comments
Brian Fallow is one of the Heralds more understated columnists. Brian and I probably vote differently, but I find his articles usually worth the read. But there is understatement, and then there is deliberate obfuscation. His column today starts out workmanlike enough, repeating the PM’s case how average wages/salaries have increased in real terms around […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, April 15th, 2011 - 26 comments
Yesterday, under the cover of CERA, the government released hundreds of documents relating to South Canterbury Finance, it’s use and abuse of the deposit guarantee scheme, and the bailout. They show SCF broke the terms of its guarantee but National turned a blind eye. Someone needs to resign.
Written By: - Date published: 10:05 am, April 15th, 2011 - 10 comments
I was going to write about how ludicrous it is that National is abandoning the idea of a warranty or bond system for builders in the new Building Act designed to stop a repeat of the leaky homes debacle, given that we’re about to embark on the largest rebuilding programme in the country’s history. But then I realised it no longer matters what laws say.
Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, April 15th, 2011 - 62 comments
There are many significant changes to our legal and democratic rights that are going on under this National government. Each on its own might look like a small thing, but collectively they add up to a major erosion of our freedom.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 14th, 2011 - 77 comments
Update: bollocks. Clayton Cosgrove has announced Labour will vote for CERA “even though we have grave concerns”. He then spent 10 minutes whining how Brownlee had lied to Labour repeatedly during this process and wasn’t to be trusted. He warned Brownlee he would be accountable if CERA stuffs up. Brownlee responded “so will you”. Labour wonders why it is stuck in National’s shadow unable to get traction – It’s decisions like this one.
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, April 13th, 2011 - 52 comments
Just before the second Christchurch earthquake, Gerry Brownlee was being criticised for the lack of progress in recovery. People suggested what was needed was an independent commissioner to lead the rebuilding – an ‘earthquake Tsar’. Brownlee responded “the last Tsar got shot“. Now, the new CERA law makes Brownlee our Tsar in a very literal sense.
Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, April 13th, 2011 - 20 comments
Bill English managed to cause quite a fuss this week with his claim that New Zealand had a “competitive advantage” due to factors like our low wage economy. Another of the factors that English cited was how “pragmatic” the public are as the Nats ram through their economic changes…
Written By: - Date published: 2:22 pm, April 12th, 2011 - 10 comments
The Government will let us see the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority bill today, then slam it through under Urgency. Hopefully, it won’t be a repeat of CERRA, which made Gerry Brownlee our de facto dictator. In honour of this ominous event, here is a classic piece of satire from Danyl at Dim-Post.
Written By: - Date published: 12:50 pm, April 12th, 2011 - 16 comments
One of the Nats’ few constructive policies at the last election was Steven Joyce’s ultra-fast broadband project. The Nats promised $1.5 Billion investment to deliver UFB to 75% of New Zealand homes within 10 years. Almost 3 years in, their proposals have just been met with almost universal rejection from industry and consumer groups.
Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, April 12th, 2011 - 138 comments
Protest action by Greenpeace has disrupted prospecting activities in the Raukumara Basin by Brazilian petrochemical giant Petrobras. John Key has come out swinging for Big Business, and wants to send in the navy to sort out the protesters. But Greenpeace has it right. We shouldn’t be drilling for oil…
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, April 11th, 2011 - 19 comments
The Crown BMWs are back in the news. One will have a $1000 underseat heater to keep a worthy’s arse toasty. Based in Dunedin. For “long-distance and long-duration movements”. Hmm. Who flies to Dunedin for a 3 hour drive to Dipton occasionally? Guess you need that heater against the Southern cold when you’re used to balmy Karori.
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, April 11th, 2011 - 105 comments
National came to power promising to close the wage gap with Australia. Not only have they failed to fulfill that promise but Bill English now portrays it as a good thing. His appearance on Q+A yesterday only confirms how out of touch National is: determined to sell our assets for no good reason, against our will, and happy with our low wages.
Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, April 10th, 2011 - 21 comments
Two good vids. Seeing the history of Key’s ‘forgotten’ or ‘blind’ shareholdings laid out compared to how sharp he supposedly was as a money-trader is edifying. And the song is actually pretty good. Well done, NZtrillion.
Written By: - Date published: 11:41 am, April 9th, 2011 - 56 comments
Bill English has given up any pretense of closing the gap with Australia by 2025. Now, he is claiming the wage gap is a good thing and admitting higher productivity isn’t the cause of the wage gap. Meanwhile, Fran O’Sullivan slams Key and English’s ‘fingers crossed’ approach to handling financial crises.
Written By: - Date published: 9:18 am, April 9th, 2011 - 85 comments
Following the release of OIA documentation and questioning in the House, John Key has recanted his earlier statement that he hadn’t met with MediaWork’s Brent Impey to discuss a $43 million Government loan. The PM has now admitted that he did indeed meet with the head of Steven Joyce’s former company MediaWorks, which owns TV3, TV4, […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, April 8th, 2011 - 13 comments
As it is the end of the working week many people are likely in need of a good laugh. With the budget due out next month it’s worth reviewing the words of well known comedian and magician (able to make economic growth disappear before your eyes) Bill English. Minister English cracked this opening joke during his 2010 delivery.
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, April 8th, 2011 - 68 comments
Labour’s candidate for Wairarapa, Michael Bott, on this out of touch government: “John Key smiles and waves for the cameras in Christchurch then jumps on a plane to Cape Kidnappers to spend the equivalent of a pensioner’s yearly income on one-off novelty dining with his wife – you can’t get more different than that.”
Written By: - Date published: 12:19 am, April 7th, 2011 - 20 comments
Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee has unveiled plans for a giant inflatable plastic CBD and inflatable plastic suburbs to replace buildings damaged in the Christchurch earthquake. The inflatable CBD will include a number of office buildings and a bouncy castle. To save costs, the government has rejected making the buildings here and will buy them from China.
Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, April 6th, 2011 - 29 comments
The saga of South Canterbury Finance just keeps getting worse and worse, with news yesterday that the taxpayers’ bill for the bailout rose by a further $300 million due to the costs of “insider loans”. Why are we spending $1.2 Billion (and climbing) on a stuffed company?
Written By: - Date published: 12:55 pm, April 5th, 2011 - 9 comments
A unemployment disaster is slowly unfolding in Christchurch. For now, the tide of job losses is being partially held back by wage subsidies supporting nearly 70,000 workers, but those will be phased out by June. Then, all hell will break loose. The Government has no plan for this and, according to Key, hasn’t even bothered to understand the scope of the crisis.
Written By: - Date published: 6:43 am, April 5th, 2011 - 41 comments
Under Key’s government we are seeing an escalation in violence committed by children. Why? TV and media violence hasn’t noticeably step-changed in the last year. More likely it is a symptom of the stress that families are under. Children are the canaries in the coal mine…
Written By: - Date published: 11:29 am, April 4th, 2011 - 4 comments
A UMR poll shows that 40% of Kiwis support paying an earthquake levy to help pay for the Christchurch rebuild. 22% prefer more borrowing, and 29% want spending cuts. Asked just whether they supported or opposed a levy – 57% supported it. Yet the Nats are choosing cuts instead.
Written By: - Date published: 7:27 am, April 4th, 2011 - 100 comments
With news now that a starving boy was found eating cockroaches, and that impoverished elderly are eating catfood, the plight of the underclass is getting nothing but worse. Is this the “brighter future” that National promised?…
Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, March 31st, 2011 - 72 comments
In a raucous public meeting in Timaru last night, John Key said “The entire time I’ve been Prime Minister I’ve had Treasury in my office week after week, month after month telling me South Canterbury Finance was going bankrupt”. So, why did National sign SCF into the scheme and renew its deed three times?
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