So much for Localism and Devolution
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced that the Government will do away with Local Government’s obligations to consider the social, cultural and environmental implications of their decisions.
Social issues
Lester Levy Asks Kiwis To Pray For Him – Again
Lester Levy again asks Kiwis to pray for him. But who will pray for us, Dr Levy?
Is a Transformational Left-Wing Leadership of the NZ Labour Party Possible?
It is a painful experience, to have fought long and hard for something you knew was inadequate and to have even that taken away. The Labour Party has long urged activists to be ‘realistic’. Elliot Crossan argues that it will not return to be a socialist party of the working class.
Chhour needs to go
It is a shame that Ipredict is not still around. Otherwise I would be putting money on Chhour being the first to go.
Lester Levy: “Significant, Not Painless” Changes Needed
Lester Levy gave a keynote address this weak signalling painful, strong medicine is needed for Health NZ. But his claims contradict frontline staff and experts.
Mountain Tui: Luxon’s $1000 A Week Is His “Entitlement”. Just Not Yours.
When Luxon claimed $1000 a week of tax-free, taxpayers money for accommodation, because he didn’t want the 2 free properties he was offered, he said he was entitled to it. But according to the government, all beneficiaries now require harsher rules or risk having their entitlements stripped. Yet only ~5% aren’t compliant and last quarter, 1500 were cut off. What do the numbers say?
Mountain Tui: Beneficiary sanctions & targets don’t add up
The jobseeker beneficiary sanctions and targets are not adding up. It also inflicts a lack of dignity and shame on recipients at a time when austerity is actively increasing unemployment.
Calculated cruelty
National has engaged in more performative and calculated cruelty designed to make some poor people’s lives worse and all so that the Government can feed its base.
What does this Government have against Te Ao Māori?
Te Ao Māori forms an increasingly important part of our cultural identity. And most of us realise this and celebrate it. This Government’s stance is at odds with this increasingly strong consensus.
Gender Essentialists Hate the Olympics
The Olympics are a real persistent problem for gender essentialists.
Maritime Union v Willis
National’s decision to cancel the replacement Cook Strait ferry project is developing into a full blown political crisis for the Government with estimates that it could cost the Crown up to a billion dollars and with further costs to come.
Don’t give me culture, I’m not hearing you Chris
“Don’t give me culture, I’m not hearing you Rob. I can buzz around like a Beehive boy, but I’d like to see you do my job”
Luxon is numerically illiterate
National has been caught out yet again using dubious analysis of data to justify policy.
Another Minister lauds their own incompetence
Another minister is lauding themselves falsely. David Seymour bragged about school attendance at the start of term three, and claiming the credit for that happening. The problem is that it was worse than the attendance for the start of term two. It was a worse school attendance after he tried to improve attendance. Is he competent as a minister?
Mountain Tui: New Zealanders are now dying from an underfunded health system
After months of warnings from doctors, nurses and hospitals, a Northland patient is dead after no doctors were present at the hospital. The budget cuts and chosen austerity measures are hurting us all. Here’s more.
About Karen Chhour’s future
Act minister Karen Chhour has recently adopted the mantle of victimhood and claimed that she has been under attack and feels unsafe in Parliament. But the attacks are not personal and are motivated by the damage her party is causing to Oranga Tamariki as well as to the country’s race relations.
Luxon is accused of spreading “disinformation”
The PM of NZ is accused of spreading intentional disinformation on Health NZ as the evidence piles up against the Coalition government. Here’s how it went down.
Act plays the race card and the victim card
Yesterday in Parliament was pretty weird. Act MPs staged a show down event and expressed increasing dissatisfaction with their Government’s speaker Gerry Brownlee.
Woefully misinformed or intentionally mangling the truth?
Senior medical figures have questioned the accuracy of what the Government is saying about the health crisis in Northland. And in an example of unbelievably bad timing it has been revealed that the Goverment put aside $216 million to fund a exise duty reduction for Phillip Morris.
Mountain Tui: Who will hold Chris Luxon and Shane Reti accountable for the Health NZ deception?
Since Shane Reti and Christopher Luxon announced the Health NZ cost “blowout” and an unexpected deficit, the truth has emerged, and it’s all becomes stranger than fiction. Which claims were accurate? And which seemed to be a case of misrepresentation?
They are going to privatise health, aren’t they
This Government continues its trend to resembling something akin to Liz Truss’s rule of England. And Health is clearly among its targets.
A short history of National’s fascination with boot camps
Just as with the Three Strikes Policy National has never seen an irrational itch it will not scratch for political advantage. Despite the reality.
National sneakily reduces child poverty targets
It has emerged that National has sneakily reduced child poverty targets.
The Abuse in Care report and the Government’s boot camp proposal
The Royal Commission’s recently released report into abuse in care has highlighted how unsuccessful and how damaging boot camps can be at the time the Government is celebrating the opening of its latest attempted version of a boot camp.
Mountain Tui: Can we talk about New Zealand’s health system?
Christopher Luxon and Shane Reti took the extraordinary step of removing the Health NZ Board and replacing it with a Health Commissioner. Why did they do that and will it help the real issues facing our health system?
Mountain Tui: ‘Corruption First’ Strikes Again – Is the National, ACT, and New Zealand Government in tobacco’s pocket?
A track record of deception and pro tobacco industry policies is becoming evident in the Coalition. Casey Costello is at it again, this time quietly halving excise tax for some tobacco products. This is the first time in NZ’s history to have reduced excise on tobacco. We should all ask ‘Why now?’
Minister Bishop’s Misguided Legislation
Chris Bishop’s plan to “flood the market” with housing development described as being “unaffordable, unworkable and unfair” is also “unsustainable” and even “unhinged”.
A nation reinvented: 40 years on from its 1984 victory, the Fourth Labour Government still defines NZ
“After nine years of economic nationalism and social conservatism under National prime minister Robert Muldoon, David Lange’s new broom left no corner unswept. In the space of a few short years, fuelled by a high-octane blend of neoliberal theory and neoclassical state minimalism, it reinvented the nation.”
Mountain Tui: Crashing New Zealand’s health system is not the way to prosperity, Prime Minister
The drumbeat of health warnings continues from hospitals, doctors and nurses. But is the Government prepared to listen?
Remember that time we had a global pandemic?
how’s it going five years on?
Government wins pay dispute with police: National Party 1, Police 0, Public -1
The National Government has won in its long standing pay dispute with New Zealand police. With Australia offering $20,000 cash bonuses and attractive packages to poach our cops, what’s going to happen to an already demoralised and stretched police force?
Trump shot
In breaking news Donald trump has been shot in a Pensylvania. Film suggests that he is fine although suffered a wound to his […]
Conflict what conflict?
National activist Sunny Kaushall is to head a committee with a budget of $3.6 million over two years to advise the Government on complex legal and privacy issues for which Kaushal’s qualifications are not clear.
Code Pink at NATO: Negotiate for peace.
When NATO leaders meet in Washington, what they should be doing, apart from figuring out how to comply with Article 33(1) of the UN Charter, is conducting a clear-eyed review of how this organization that claims to be a force for peace keeps escalating unwinnable wars and leaving countries in ruins.
The rise of the bastard son of the three strikes law
The bastard son of the three strikes law alka the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill was introduced into Parliament. And other measures announced will mean added cost, misery and injustice to the operation of our justice system.
Government is cutting funding for food banks
Are things back on track? How about for those who can least afford to feed themselves? It appears not with reports that funding for food banks is being slashed. And the consequence could be dire.