Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, October 27th, 2009 - 10 comments
I’ve heard the State Services Commission are investigating their own demise, by looking into whether its functions should fold into the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Has anyone heard anything similar? If true, it would be an incredible power shift in favour of the office of the Prime Minister. And you have to wonder, […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, October 27th, 2009 - 4 comments
Bill English knows a thing or two about screwing every possible cent out of the system. He gets his generous $276,000 salary. For years he received his unjustified Wellington accommodation allowance. The rules were changed so he could get an even bigger Wellington allowance as a Minister, but he got caught out and grudgingly paid […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, October 24th, 2009 - 69 comments
Well what a fiasco yesterday’s launch of National’s brave new $36 million education policy was. Despite Key claiming the plan was one of the most important steps his Government would ever take, teachers and principals boycotted the event in droves. Even the government’s education policy advisor Prof John Hattie said the new policy was potentially […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, October 24th, 2009 - 14 comments
So – Labour have stood up for ACC. Bravo! History repeats. In the last year of the last National government (1999) they flogged off the profitable parts of ACC cover to their mates in the insurance industry (“opened ACC to competition”). The incoming Labour government reversed those changes and re-instated ACC as the sole provider […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:07 am, October 23rd, 2009 - 16 comments
Picture this scene from times past: Deep in the South Island high country an old sheep musterer with windswept face wakes up to a crisp clear cold morning. He gets up off a hessian hammock hanging between the walls of a small wooden hut perched on a creek between two bald mountains. He heads over […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:28 am, October 22nd, 2009 - 20 comments
John Key says that if school support staff want pay-rises then teachers should sacrifice the ones they bargained for. Tell him to get stuffed. I don’t see him and his rich mates handing back the hundreds of dollars a week each in tax-cuts that National gave. I don’t see Key or his buddies Mark Weldon and Rob Fyfe […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:18 am, October 22nd, 2009 - 5 comments
Rodney Hide was always going to go one of two ways to try to excuse his corrupt abuse of office. Remember the facts: Hide is Local Government Minister. He will be speaking at a breakfast on Local Government issues. The breakfast is called ‘The Future of Local Government’ and the invitation promises attendees that “Minister […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:14 pm, October 21st, 2009 - 40 comments
OK, so this might be only slightly more intellectual than the usual quality of political analysis in our msm, and obviously it could never match the informative value of asking which politician would help an old lady across the street, but a few days back there was some speculation about which Simpsons character best personifies […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:19 pm, October 17th, 2009 - 10 comments
If we’re to believe National’s version of events, Pita Sharples kept secret from his colleagues that he was going to take $3 million from a contestable Te Puni Kokiri (TPK) fund meant for job initiatives and give it to Maori TV (MTS) to subsidise their World Cup bid. When it became a big story Sharples apologised […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:08 pm, October 17th, 2009 - 36 comments
Fran O’Sullivan’s piece today tries to resurrect the ‘Key=Obama’ line for some reason. She even refers to Obama as Key’s ‘alter ego’. I’m not quite sure she understands what the term means. Alter egos are like ying and yang, contrasting parts of the same whole. Does she think they’re one person with different personas at […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, October 17th, 2009 - 24 comments
Last night on TV3’s 7 Days panelist Jeremy Elwood described John Key as “New Zealand’s very own Ned Flanders without a moustache.” Ned’s a pretty complex character, with quite a lot of suppressed rage and a dark side that makes his hyper-cheerful niceness actually more of a necessary coping device than an optional expression of […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, October 17th, 2009 - 16 comments
Key looks like a PM under pressure. He’s started lashing out at random – never a good sign. It happened while discussing Melissa Lee’s repayment of $80,000 of taxpayer’s money that she had somehow managed to forget that she had. (Yes I know – that sort of thing happens to me all the time too.) […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, October 16th, 2009 - 40 comments
The other day, John Key said “ACC’s investment portfolio had not been working well”. Now, if there’s one golden rule regarding people with power it’s never take what they say for granted. And that’s never been more true than with this Prime Minister. So, I took a look at ACC’s annual report (Colin Espiner et […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, October 12th, 2009 - 28 comments
Did John Key pick up a pair of cowboy boots on his latest trip? Because he’s come back talking like some kind of macho macho man: My message to the gangs is clear. This Government is coming after your business and we will use every tool we have to destroy it. We will be ruthless […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, October 9th, 2009 - 17 comments
Some of you will get the Trans-Tasman emailed to your work each Thursday. For those of you who don’t know it, it’s a little rag written by anonymous Tory hacks. Purports to have the inside word on goings on in politics and business on both sides of the Tasman. It’s one of those publications which uses that odious, […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:05 am, October 9th, 2009 - 20 comments
Stabbing a kid to death is OK because it’s: “expressing frustration over [tagging]” Taking away people’s access to the most effective ‘flu and cold treatment because it’s a minor source for an ingredient(less than a third of pseudoephedrine comes from pharmacies according to Key), for a drug the use of which is already in decline: “a […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:42 pm, October 5th, 2009 - 14 comments
This the kind of garbage isn’t usually worth my time, but that’s what wee gripes is for: Why are Key, Henry and Watkins so excited that the Youtube vid of John Key’s clowning on Letterman has more hits than the vid of Obama on the same show? For a start, Obama’s vid has more hits. Anyone who […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:09 am, October 5th, 2009 - 55 comments
I love that, after studiously ignoring Bill English’s housing rort, Farrar’s now got unending questions for the Greens. Pretty desperate stuff too – ‘sure, you paid the money back of your own accord after you yourselves discovered you had over-claimed but why did it take so long? huh?! huh?!’. Hilariously, he claims that the superannuation fund […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:02 am, October 5th, 2009 - 31 comments
When they’re struggling to defend Bill English’s housing rip-off, or John Key’s clowning, or Richard Worth’s dodgy dealings, or Anne Tolley’s incompetence, or Paula Bennett’s bullying, righties will still often try to deflect by recalling the time the car Helen Clark was in sped in Canterbury. Speeder-gate remains one of the worst things idealogs of the […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:29 am, October 5th, 2009 - 20 comments
Greetings to the good people of Dipton. Must be fun to be so much in the news lately! I hope some local entrepreneurs are working out how to make good on all the free publicity. I’d expect Dipton’s high profile in the media to last a bit longer, as Bill English continues his belated attempts […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:36 pm, October 3rd, 2009 - 29 comments
Colin Espiner: “To start with the ironical, Acting Prime Minister Bill English had no sooner hauled his protesting family back to Dipton for the parliamentary recess to prove that it was still really his home than he had to come straight back to Wellington again [to deal with the tsunami]. It neatly illustrated his argument, […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, October 3rd, 2009 - 23 comments
Fran O’Sullivan has laid out the business elite’s preferred successors to Bill English: At this stage English is not mortally wounded. But his reputation as one of the Mr Cleans of New Zealand politics has been damaged. And – more importantly for the Deputy Prime Minister’s political future – some of the more ambitious among […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:39 am, October 2nd, 2009 - 78 comments
That last post was probably a bit dull for a Friday morning, so now for something completely different. I was a little surprised last night to see on Scoop the following worthy publication: Plain English – No. 2, 2009 Welcome to Plain English, my regular newsletter aimed at Clutha-Southland residents. It covers local issues as […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:37 am, October 2nd, 2009 - 11 comments
Bill English keeps claiming that he has “no pecuniary interest” in his family trust. What does that mean? A while back John A did a post on pecuniary interest. Time for Part 2 in the series. As John A noted, the main case which seems to be cited in defining pecuniary interest (at least in […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:20 pm, October 1st, 2009 - 95 comments
I have to disagree with my comrade Zetetic’s post arguing that it’s best if Bill English stays in office. Yes, this scandal has permanently destroyed English’s credibility and I can see how having a lame duck Deputy PM and Finance Minister plays into the Left’s hands. But I do think our touchstone should always be […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, October 1st, 2009 - 42 comments
Around the media, they’re talking about the growing odds English will be sacked. The other day, my mate Marty asked ‘who would replace Bill?’ and I said Key should show him the door. I’ve changed my mind. The corrupt prick’s clearly set up his finances to scam the max out of the public. He tried to get away with […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, September 30th, 2009 - 6 comments
subversifpoet sent us this song about our corrupt government:
Written By: - Date published: 8:34 am, September 30th, 2009 - 33 comments
Bill English is teetering on the edge. National spinners are claiming that he has done what is needed to “close the issue down”. Labour are going to keep pushing. National’s next step will be to run a “poor Bill” defence. “Poor Bill has paid it back, what more can he do?”, “Poor Bill was just […]
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