A climate change induced drought from 2006 to 2009 appears to have sparked the instability that has caused the Syrian Civil war. The mass exodus of citizens that we are witnessing may be the first of many climate change induced events.
Today the government announced the four candidates for John Key’s vanity flag referendum: three ferns (one of them the logo of Immigration NZ and the Companies Office) and a koru. And really, all I can say is “meh”. So how about defining a good way of doing a informal or invalid vote on this stupid first referendum on selecting John Key’s underwear..
John Key has ruled out an emergency intake of refugees and claims that New Zealand is doing its bit and that bit is enough.
The ANZ survey shows business confidence at the lowest levels since the financial crisis. Yesterday John Key insisted that it was “reasonably positive”. He was either completely wrong or lying through his teeth. Either way it’s unacceptable.
All Black fan boy John Key opened up Parliament to allow the New Zealand Rugby Union announce this year’s world cup All Black squad on the weekend.
Black Monday on the casino Chinese stock markets wasn’t a particular problem for NZ. John Key’s short-term thinking government will be. Both us and our next biggest trading partner Australia are now heavily exposed to falling Chinese imports and falling commodity prices. That is going to hurt over the coming years.
They were, until a few months ago, the biggest company you’d never heard of. They failed in the UK, they failed in Australia and they’ve failed here in our prisons. But they are still making good profits here. They’re a company dedicated, it seems, to making a profit while failing to deliver lots of different public services. We don’t need or want them here.
Simon Louisson recently made a post about National’s profligacy, and all of the debt they have racked up. Guest poster Michael disagrees with Simon and says that “Yes, National was profligate.” and “No, National should not have balanced the books.”
National are trying to evade even the simplest questions on the TPP – because the truth is profoundly undemocratic. As usual Groser and Key turn to insults instead of engaging with people’s legitimate concerns.
I/S at No Right Turn writes on the latest abuse of the OIA process.
John Key says New Zealand has options in the face of a share market meltdown and is not like Greece (well that’s a relief). Simon Louisson asks how real are John Key’s options? Thanks to this Government’s profligate past spending, including irresponsible tax cuts, our options have narrowed drastically.
Shane Reti lied about the process of ratifying the TPP. In a Press Release to the Northern Advocate, Reti states “. . . the agreement comes before parliament and opposition parties and select committees for debate and modifications . . .”
Another entry in the ongoing story of Steven Joyce’s ego-ministry – $600K for a web site.
I/S at No Right Turn on the OIA into communications between Key and Glucina.
While beneficiary numbers decrease the incidence of beneficiaries being trespassed and the numbers of pregnant women living homeless is increasing. Are we really seeing things improve or are more and more people falling through the cracks?
Nanaia Mahuta is calling on the Māori Party to do the right thing for Māori workers and vote to strengthen the Health and Safety Reform Bill.
The Ombudsman is to investigate John Key’s office’s refusal to provide information about what contact occurred between Key and Rachel Glucina during ponytailgate.
Unbelievable.
Yesterday a debate that has occurred on the Standard about how main stream media has a right wing bias became mainstream when Winston Peters accused Mike Hosking of being a National Party Stooge. An online poll provided overwhelming support for his statement. And recently Steven Joyce attacked Rod Oram because his analytical thoughtful analysis critical of the Government displayed evidence of left wing bias.
John Key made some outlandish claims about TPPA opponents this morning on the Paul Henry show. And in response, as usual, he was not pulled up on his claims by his interviewer.
The old myth that National are good managers of the economy should now be well dead and buried. For a recent case study see Robertson vs Joyce on dairy prices…
Keep it seemly …
… and why is Solid Energy removing links to its Annual reports from its website?
An open post to cover the TPPA protests today. In Auckland it was big and noisy with an estimated 10,000 plus people attending. Congratulations […]
Two breaking news stories as Jordan Williams gets in first and sues Colin Craig and Martyn Bradbury is spoken to by police about a blog post advocating civil disobedience.
The Labour Leader gave a powerful speech to the Environmental Defence Society conference today.
Tautoko Mangō Mata has discovered the words to a mystery song buried deep in a Crosby Textor staff manual.
Diversion alert. The Government considers that urgency should be given to changing the law to allow more beer to be drunk when the All Blacks are playing during the Rugby World Cup.
The war of metaphor requires the continuous repetition of a simple statement in the hope it becomes the accepted truth. Most of the time it works. But with #sheepgate it is starting to unravel.
John Stringer has accused Colin Craig of filing a false electoral return. But even now it looks like the complaint may be doomed to failure.
A brief analysis of a number of deals that National has negotiated suggests that its reputation as a supposedly tough dealmaker is misplaced.
As milk prices plunge and Fonterra’s expected payout is cut to a level that will cause most farms to run at a loss John Key’s promised brighter future is disappearing fast.
John Armstrong thinks that National has bested Labour over #sheepgate because Key keeps saying it is all Labour’s fault. And Hosking thinks the payment has a good business case despite the payment having not achieved the result that was being sought,
John Key thinks the new flag will make us all rich and be worth billions.
I am getting a bit bored with pundits proclaiming the imminent demise of NZ First. Over it’s 25 year life this has been the constant refrain from the likes of John Armstrong. The reality is that they appeal to a conservative mindset that traditionally had been part of the National parties internal coalition. They will keep eating at it.
