The backtrack is under way. Last week National was not budging on refugee numbers. Today they will announced an urgent passage allowing for the intake of more Syrian refugees. The focus groups have spoken. Update: and the announcement is for 600 new refugees over 3 years and $4,9 million in increased aid.
Naomi Klein recently visited Australia and amongst other things described climate change as a crime, criticised the Abbott Government attack on renewable energy and described the importance of grassroots action and indigenous rights.
Yesterday Melbourne stood up for human rights. Would we in NZ have done the same?
Recent analysis of different Governments’ greenhouse gas reduction pledges for the Paris Conference suggests that New Zealand’s is behind that of Windmill hating Tony Abbott’s Australia.
Following on from New Zealand, Ireland and many other states the United States Supreme Court has recently ruled that banning same sex marriages is a breach of the 14th amendment’s right to life and liberty. It makes you wonder when Australia is going to institute change.
Refugees are people, but they get treated as a political football, as recent events in Australia and NZ have demonstrated once again. It is long past time that NZ raised its refugee quota.
It is looking likely that the Australian Government has broken its own laws and international treaties by paying off people smugglers. Did John Key know? Did he approve of what may be criminal activity?
In Australia a recent attempt by Abbott and some supporters to give the Minister of Immigration the power to cancel an Australian’s citizenship status was met by a cabinet revolt. In England there is talk of the UK withdrawing from the European Convention of Human Rights. So much for the Conservative commitment to the rule of law.
A recent cartoon summarises Tony Abbott’s views of babies perfectly.
Miranda Devine is the person who recently wrote a really obsequious article on John Key in the Daily Telegraph where she described him as one of the best Conservative Prime Ministers in the world. But a reading of her other published material suggests that caution should be applied before applying too much weight to her opinions.
As New Zealand’s dollar approaches parity with Australia’s a responsible Government should be pondering the implications and acting in the country’s best interests. No such luck in Aotearoa …
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Labor Government’s majority is on a knife edge after recent revelations that Labor MP Billy Gorton had criminal convictions he did not declare to the Labor Party and after a former partner alleged that he had subjected her to sustained domestic violence.
The Liberal National Party Coalition in Australia want to overturn a requirement for corporations with a turnover of $100 million to disclose tax information on the grounds that kidnapping will occur even though the rich’s ostentatiousness is plain to see without the information being published. And in America it has been estimated that Wall Street’s bonus pool is twice the amount paid to full time American employees living on the minimum wage.
So much to sell, so little time… When this Government is finished selling, we will have sold our right to make laws for ourselves too. Be under no doubt, if the effect of bringing in a law for the health and well being of Kiwis will cost a corporate millions of dollars, part of their lobbying after the TPP, will be threatening to sue the taxpayers of NZ and watch such a Bill slip into obscurity. And those corporates wielding that power? Most will never pay a cent of tax into the coffers of NZ taxpayers.
Leaving Mike Sabin in charge of the Law and Order Select Committee was certainly a captain’s call by John Key. Just like Tony Abbott’s award of a knighthood to the Duke (as if he needed more fruit salad), this was a judgment call. And it does call Key’s judgment into question. It’s not about when he knew what he knew, it’s about what he did when he knew.
Over in Australia a spill motion scheduled for tomorrow may end Tony Abbott’s reign. Former PM Julia Gillard who famously lectured Abbott on his misogyny must be grinning from ear to ear. Update: Abbott has survived with the vote reported to be 61-39 against a spill. I suspect the left will be pleased …
Seems like Australian PM Tony Abbot might be facing a leadership challenge.
The Queensland State election is on today. At the last election Labor was reduced to 7 out of 89 seats as punishment for its privatisation program. But the current Government has been that bad that the Premier may lose his seat and a resurgence by Labor looks likely. Update remarkably a change of government is on the cards …
Queensland Liberal Country Party Premier Campbell Newman has claimed that the Queensland Labor Party is funded by gangs because some people have told him so. Yet he refuses to acknowledge the urgency of climate change even though pretty well every climate change scientist in the world is telling him it is real and we need to act now. Can you detect the scent of hypocrisy?
How many governments are using the Paris / Charlie Hebdo attack as an excuse to increase surveillance or otherwise remove civil protections? The UK and Australia for starters…
While the west of the world mourns the murders of the journalists associated with Charlie Hebdo and protests attacks on freedom of speech in Australia the police have arrested a man for wearing a t-shirt that says “I’m with Stupid”.
The failed estate is a blogsite run by veteran Australian Journalist Jim Parker. He writes occasional but perceptive posts primarily on media issues. This current post, reprinted with permission, provides a damning critique of main stream media coverage of the Sydney Siege.
As anticipated, the Sydney cafe siege was caused by a lone nutter with a dubious history. He committed suicide by cop apparently after killing a hostage. Meanwhile we have had opportunistic jerkoffs like National MP Mark Mitchell displaying their paranoid fantasies (probably as urine dribbles down their leg) to justify recent poorly written and rushed legislation.
The Sydney siege has now finished. Three people including the gunman are dead. And it is clear that the siege was caused by a lone person rather than a terrorist group.
Up to 20 civilian hostages are being held in a Sydney chocolate shop in a developing hostage situation.
Update: The siege is over, reports suggest two dead and three injured.
Labor’s win in the recent Victorian state election was historic – the first time a one-term government had been turned out for more than 60 years. It was also a fantastic example of how organisation can win elections. Labor leader Daniel Andrews’ focus was on having 5500 active volunteers behind him.
Poor old Tony Abbott. Thrust into the limelight of hosting the world’s biggest economic meeting, and his true colours come out for everyone to see. Not a happy weekend for Tony Abbott and, by extension, for Australia. Perhaps “bumpkin” would be a better title
Jason Wilson in the Guardian has asked a very relevant question. Why is the right currently dominant in the English speaking Western World and what does the left have to do to change this?
Latest developments in Australia are relevant in the context of the recent focus on surveillance in NZ. What are the odds that the Nats will pass similar laws here during their current term?
Meet Australia’s President of the United States, Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the instigator of a wink-related scandal. He sometimes puts his foot in his mouth and other times chooses to say nothing at all. 665,777 page views.
I was listening to Wallace Chapman interviewing Professor David Farrell, from University College, Dublin this morning on Radio New Zealand on compulsory voting which he was strongly in favour of. At one point the discussion veered on to the issue of “none of the above”. I think that this is the key to compulsory voting. Add “none of the above” and “I don’t know”
New Zealand isn’t the only place currently seeing a cash-for-access scandal. In Australia, the federal Treasurer has a similar arrangement to the National Party, selling access to a donors by membership of a “club”. And in the UK, the co-treasurer of the Conservative Party has said publicly that £250,000 gets you a private dinner with the Prime Minister.
Recently Australian PM Tony Abbott decided to speak to a group of 14 year olds who were visiting Parliament. Unluckily for him this particular group of 14 year olds were very sophisticated and asked him a series of questions which neatly skewered four of his main policy positions.
Tony Abbott’s Liberal Government has acted to undermine New Zealand’s push for a United Nations declaration that it is in the interest of humanity that nuclear weapons never be used again under any circumstances. Having the option of killing millions of human beings and devastating major urban centres either by way of a first strike or a retaliatory strike is obviously something he thinks should be preserved.
One of the most effective political videos that I have seen from a country that is coming to specialise in them. I’m unsurprised that it went completely viral. It was a great description of all of the ways that Tony Abbott is beholden to the interests of those made insane by idiotic greed – and welcoming him to Western Australia. All expressed in a polite quiet voice enumerating exactly how much of a arsehole Abbott is. He even makes John Key look sort of rational – in a traditional junior partner kind of way
