Written By: - Date published: 10:21 am, August 3rd, 2009 - 102 comments
Bill English is unrepentant over his $47,000 a year rort of the ministers’ Wellington accommodation allowance. He is claiming the allowance, which is intended to compensate non-Wellington-based ministers for the cost of accommodation in the city due to their ministerial duties, for living in his family home in Karori. This exploitation of the system for […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:10 am, August 3rd, 2009 - 53 comments
Paula Bennett appears to have broken the law in releasing private information on members of the public who were critical of National’s “ambitious” cutting of the Training Incentive Allowance. Bennett says she did this to “round out the story”. John Key is “comfortable” with this abuse of power, so presumably now the law doesn’t matter, […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:39 pm, August 1st, 2009 - 15 comments
Tomorrow John Key will be announcing policies on youth unemployment. Looks like rehashing of the already announced Youth Guarantee and probably something more. Whatever Key comes up with it will be tinkering around the edges. The Nats aren’t willing to spend any money and they don’t have any big ideas. If the cycleway, the tax-cuts, […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, July 31st, 2009 - 89 comments
I’ve been thinking about the different ways ministers from the Left and the Right approach governing. I think it goes back to where they come from, where their ideological roots are. Ministers from Labour and other leftwing parties tend to have backgrounds in serving a wider community. Teachers, professors, union officials, public servants. Those roles […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:55 am, July 30th, 2009 - 96 comments
John Key is “comfortable” with his Minister Paul Bennett releasing private information (in breach of the Cabinet Manual, Privacy Commission guidelines, and the Privacy Act). This was a move designed solely to harass and bully two individuals that Bennett wanted to silence. How could that Nice Mr Key be comfortable with such a gross abuse […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, July 29th, 2009 - 12 comments
Nick Smith is the front-man for this government on climate change, and it appears that he knows absolutely nothing about the numbers. The ones he has been using are not related to his claims. It is puzzling because he was an engineer who are usually accurate users of numbers. It is more likely he is […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:35 am, July 26th, 2009 - 84 comments
Bill Ralston quotes me and some other Left bloggers on the Burgess debacle suggesting it means Goff’s neck is on the line and a leadership challenge might be coming. Well, sorry, but that’s just an old Tory’s daydream. Goff’s leadership is secure. There is no prospect of him being overthrown. His support in Labour is […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:12 pm, July 25th, 2009 - 89 comments
Bill English says he doesn’t much care whether monopolies or businesses with monopolistic power are owned by private companies or the Government does. He doesn’t care whether power companies are publicly or privately owned because he thinks he can make the electricity sector competitive. He’s dreaming like he was in the 1990s. Monopolies are a fact of life […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:50 pm, July 23rd, 2009 - 32 comments
Y’know, as John Key tries to get stuck into Phil Goff, I think it’s time for a quick recall of recent history. Key is a man who lied directly to the New Zealand people about his Tranz Rail shares. Key is a man who hid from the public every time he was asked about substantive […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, July 22nd, 2009 - 83 comments
The ludicrous attacks by the media on Goff over the dole scheme show that this is not an even playing field. Key is allowed to lie again and again. Ministers are allowed to shirk their responsibilities. The fact that 1300 more people on the dole each week barely gets a look in. The journos are […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:10 am, July 22nd, 2009 - 28 comments
Right wing rhetoric can be absurdly stupid at times. IrishBill recently reminded us how crazy things were getting near the last election: One of my favourites was Hooton arguing that a fourth term Labour government would abolish the free press! Then there’s the pet attack bloggers, “dragging the discourse to new lows, with vicious, juvenile, […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:17 am, July 19th, 2009 - 87 comments
After 9 months of watching the rich get richer, with their triple dip cuts, first in taxes, then in private school fees, and now in getting subsidies to upgrade insulation in rental homes, and the poor getting poorer with no wage rises and tax cuts cancelled for the next two years, where are Labour? Phil’s […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:59 pm, July 15th, 2009 - 70 comments
Looking at the centre photo above of John Key gave me pause for thought; I realised that much as I dislike his politics, he is a brave man. Brave because he really does appear to be consistently out of his depth, yet despite being half-dead with a cold or exhaustion, he soldiers on. I somehow doubt […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:10 am, July 15th, 2009 - 19 comments
Today Key is giving a major speech on the economy. He told Oliver Driver on Sunrise yesterday that it would be “pretty high level”, and he wasn’t joking. The Sir Peter Blake Awesome Stratosphere Rollercoaster will rise from Queen’s Wharf, circle the Sky tower, rise to a height of 1500m, and do a twisting loop before plunging […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 am, July 13th, 2009 - 81 comments
Last Monday, John Key said you, the people of New Zealand, don’t have the right to know why a minister in your government was sacked. We think you do have that right. And so do others. We have been told the reason from sources in and around the National party. The only reason for Key […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:58 pm, July 12th, 2009 - 12 comments
Tv1 has revealed that our daydreamer PM had much much bigger plans for the cycleway. Like excited schoolkids, he and good mate Mark Weldon of the NZX drew up plans for a grand cycle race to be called the Sir Edmund Hillary tour that would go the length of New Zealand along the cycleway. They […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:56 am, July 8th, 2009 - 12 comments
From Key’s post-Cabinet press conference: Journo: You don’t believe that the public have a right to know why a minister in cabinet would suddenly be booted out of cabinet and resign? Key: No. So, there you have it. This isn’t your government anymore. It’s his. You had the right to know under every previous government. […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:55 pm, July 5th, 2009 - 23 comments
What a world where a supposed journalist writes this: The trouble is Key’s desire to be reasonable. Despite his intention to say no more about his reasons for losing confidence in Worth, he keeps responding to the media interrogation and seems unable to draw a line under the question. The best approach would be, simply […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, July 4th, 2009 - 26 comments
Fran O’Sullivan, who championed National most ardently in Opposition, has become disillusioned with Key as PM. She savages him today, saying he has a “deep need” to be “Mr Popularity”: Prime Minister John Key’s practised inclination – crack a few jokes about daughter Steffie usurping his credit card and/or messing up her en suite and son Max telling […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, July 3rd, 2009 - 28 comments
The woman has dropped her criminal complaint over Worth. Says she is satisfied now the scumbag has lost his career. Police are expected to drop the investigation. Now, can we (pretty please) know why a minister in our government lost his job? Can Key, just for a day, pretend to give a damn about transparency […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, July 3rd, 2009 - 91 comments
Yesterday in Question Time, Bill English sent a message loud and clear to teachers, police, doctors, nurses, and all other public servants (‘frontline’ or not): under National, you’ll be getting pay-cuts, don’t expect cost of living adjustments, watch as your pay-packet buys less and less. Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Government has stated a number of […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:14 pm, July 2nd, 2009 - 48 comments
Remember the hip-hop tours ‘scandal’ the National Party used over and over and over again to attack the previous Labour-led government? They went as far as to put it in their 2005 election billboards. It was a minuscule amount of money, yet National used it as one of their prime examples of wasteful spending. Now […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:39 am, July 2nd, 2009 - 26 comments
National is overseeing the most dramatic rise in unemployment on record (yep, 2000 a week is more than the 1980s, more than the 1990s). They’ve got no answers, no ideas. All they can talk about is what Goff said 20 years ago and laugh. Like 2000 people a week losing their livelihoods is some kind […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, July 1st, 2009 - 24 comments
I see John Key is promising new ideas to stop job-losses: We’ve got an economic strategy … and I intend over the next few weeks to spell out my thinking in that area It strikes me as another one of his vague PR-driven promises. Like the promise he made in March about the initiatives that […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:54 pm, June 30th, 2009 - 38 comments
The last few Question Times, the Tories have been whipping out old Goff quotes. Patsies are set to bring them out. Key goes off on wild side-tracks as an excuse to use them. Labour asks serious questions like ‘what are you doing about jobs’ and get back: ‘In 1986, Goff said we have to get the […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:04 pm, June 30th, 2009 - 23 comments
John Key has a carefully constructed image as a “nice guy”, with a self professed “sunny nature” no less. There is ample reason to believe that the image is far from the reality. In his previous work Key appeared proud of his ability to fire, without emotion, hundreds of people (earning himself the nickname of […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, June 30th, 2009 - 11 comments
In 2007, in election mode, John Key was talking up National’s commitment to the environment and the Enviroschools programme: Without a trace of irony, the video ends with ‘join the conversation’. It’s clear now that you can converse all you want with Key. He won’t listen. They’ve cancelled Enviroschools. Undermining education and the environment with […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:58 am, June 30th, 2009 - 33 comments
In the face of widespread criticism that his government is asleep at the wheel, John Key has boldly relaunched some tired old spin. See, we’re meant to believe the reason why our government, alone amongst the developed countries, has done bugger-all to save and create jobs is that, rather than a ‘big-bang’, Key has adopted […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:41 pm, June 28th, 2009 - 3 comments
I was in relaxed, Saturday mode, perusing the Dom Post at my leisure. Then I read this from Tracey Watkins and checked that the world had not shifted in alignment: Has the Government lost its mojo? How else to explain the uncanny quiet that has descended on the Beehive in recent weeks? It may be […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, June 27th, 2009 - 72 comments
National’s 2008 election victory was undoubtedly a great success for the Party. Just two terms after humiliating defeat under the leadership of Bill English, National rose from the ashes to claim a convincing win. Forming a broad coalition that brought the Maori Party into the fold, thus simultaneously broadening National’s coalition options and lessening the necessity to […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:16 pm, June 25th, 2009 - 38 comments
Tuesday’s post, A Rankin headache started: There must be an automatic recoil on the Government benches when Christine Rankin’s name is mentioned. In the comments, “gobsmacked” makes the observation [abridged]: John Key has decided to respond by indulging in some very nasty mud-slinging. This what he said in the House on Tuesday: ‘When National was in […]
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