Written By: - Date published: 7:54 am, May 17th, 2013 - 120 comments
Nothing on poverty. Nothing on affordable housing. House prices forecast to keep rising. Attacks on local democracy. More fear into the lives of the poor (reviewable tenancies). Stealth privatisation of state housing, sorry, ‘social housing’. A ‘surplus’ of 0.03% of GDP. Weak growth outlook. $200b national debt. And a promise of 171,000 more jobs that’s just as credible as the last one.
Written By: - Date published: 11:46 am, May 16th, 2013 - 213 comments
Budget links and reaction (updates to come).
Four years of misguided austerity have delayed any recovery.
Despite the advance publicity there is nothing significant here for families in poverty.
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, May 16th, 2013 - 22 comments
Hone Harawira challenged the Maori Party for its support of charter schools, at the expense of Maori and public education. He challenged Sharples to resign if today’s budget fails to adequately support kura kaupapa and the Manaaki Tauira programme.
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, May 16th, 2013 - 29 comments
According to Labour: “Judith Collins has claimed that she ‘consulted’ with political parties but was unable to reach consensus. There was absolutely no consultation.”
Written By: - Date published: 8:57 pm, May 15th, 2013 - 45 comments
A reader sent us a comment from another blog by someone who was polled a couple of weeks back. The questions are very interesting, especially once you realise that it’s clearly being done for National and the Right in Auckland (one of the questions gives it away). Have a read, then I’ll tell you why I reckon the Nats are going to fund the City Rail Link in the Budget.
Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, May 15th, 2013 - 24 comments
Thursday’s budget is likely to make businesses central to blunting the edge of child poverty. Campbell Live is concerned about the marginalisation of skilled community organisations. Harawira has delayed the reading of his Feed the Kids Bill & argues for the state to play a stronger role.
Written By: - Date published: 7:43 am, May 15th, 2013 - 35 comments
There’s more than one way to fleece the public of our assets. While attention is the energy companies, there’s also privatisation in the form of public organisations selling of their operations (eg Orcon), and opening public funding to for-profit companies (eg. charter schools). More seems on the cards for our state housing as National offers to give over control to private organisations.
Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, May 14th, 2013 - 32 comments
The compensation part of Joyce’s and Key’s dirty, undemocratic SkyCity deal, could legally be over-turned by a future government, as proposed by the Greens. However, the TPPA could weaken NZ’s parliamentary sovereignty and open the government to claims by secret private offshore tribunals. Opposition needs to step up!
Written By: - Date published: 10:51 am, May 14th, 2013 - 45 comments
We have passed the dangerous and depressing milestone of 400ppm atmospheric CO2. 350.org are calling for a “relentless rise in activism” to match the “relentless rise in carbon”. After Copenhagen I no longer think that’s going to happen.
Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, May 13th, 2013 - 4 comments
Danyl at Dim-Post on the strangely muted media response to the GCSB spying legislation, the witch-hunt against NZ Power, and more. Plus – check out Danyl’s (first) book – looks like a treat in store…
Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, May 13th, 2013 - 28 comments
John Banks has announced that he will stand in Epsom again at the next election. That is, of course, always assuming that he doesn’t get chucked out of Parliament first.
Written By: - Date published: 7:56 am, May 13th, 2013 - 51 comments
Key and Joyce made sure Gilmore was out of the way before they announced their dubious Sky City for (more) pokies deal. The pokies system in NZ is rife with dubious goings on. It’s bad for low income families, communities and their children. [update: responses]
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 13th, 2013 - 92 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Written By: - Date published: 4:42 pm, May 12th, 2013 - 12 comments
There is an award for forestry workers in Australia. It has a whole range of terms and conditions including hours of work and time off, penal rates for overtime including weekend work, travel allowances and training provisions. The accident rate is half the rate of NZ. The economy is also stronger in Australia, unemployment is […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:08 am, May 12th, 2013 - 43 comments
An article in today’s Sunday Star Times, provides evidence of an organised business in providing students with assignments for their tertiary education courses. The focus is on Chinese ethnicity. Ultimately, the blame for such rorts lies with the neoliberalisation of universities: the undermining of the critical endeavour of education.
Written By: - Date published: 11:15 am, May 11th, 2013 - 127 comments
The story this morning of a hotelier in Whangarei causing a lesbian couple to seek another place to sleep. That she was worried about them doing “sodomy” under her roof might be amusing. However the coprolalia syndrome that it displays has been tiresomely endemic amongst the self-ordained fuckwits in recent months. When will they take time to educate themselves so they don’t look like they just have brain defects?
Written By: - Date published: 6:16 pm, May 10th, 2013 - 26 comments
KiwiBuild has already been a success, scaring the Nats in to producing, in conjunction with Len Brown’s Auckland, a more significant housing policy. The “Unitary Plan” is woefully short on detail, but it concedes that KiwiBuild’s target of 10,000 new homes a year is easily achievable (I guess it’s only impossible when Labour propose it).
Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, May 10th, 2013 - 60 comments
Key on Gilmore on front page of today’s DomPost: “In the end, to make a contribution, you have to have integrity, and to have integrity there has to be a directness and fullness in your answers.” That’s why Key has no integrity about GCSB – there was no directness and fulness in his answers about it, either in Parliament or to the “knucklehead” media.
Written By: - Date published: 1:07 pm, May 9th, 2013 - 31 comments
The latest Household Labour Force Employment statistics are out, and on the surface, look good for John and Bill. But this is driven by improved employment in Canterbury over the last quarter. Grant Robertson says, “Disaster recovery is not a plan for jobs”.
Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, May 9th, 2013 - 24 comments
Because things aren’t quite tough enough for first-time home buyers yet.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 pm, May 8th, 2013 - 61 comments
Abortion has a long and dramatic history in NZ, but it’s not a history we talk about, or remember. And remembering that history is vital to our continuing push for reproductive rights today. That’s where Alison McCulloch comes in, with a new, brilliant, history of the struggle so far.
Written By: - Date published: 4:02 pm, May 8th, 2013 - 35 comments
We don’t often take Key’s side here at The Standard, but I think that most of us here would agree that on this occasion John Key has been cheated out of a victory that was rightfully his.
Written By: - Date published: 2:25 pm, May 8th, 2013 - 105 comments
Stuff is reporting that John Key is signalling for Aaron Gilmore to stand down. What are the possible implications? [update: information about Claudette Hauiti, next National’s list]
Written By: - Date published: 12:24 pm, May 8th, 2013 - 20 comments
This morning David Shearer gave Labour’s “pre budget” speech. No new policy, but plenty of good one-liners and a strong statement of Labour’s position.
Written By: - Date published: 10:21 am, May 8th, 2013 - 47 comments
John Key is using “urgency” to push through his anti-democratic Big brother GCSB surveillance Bill. Dotcom’s lawyers have released a 39 page white paper making a range of allegations against the FBI, Obama & NZ authorities. Peters is keeping his cards close to his chest. Update: Peters’ calls government “bully boy” & will vote against the Bill.
Written By: - Date published: 1:57 pm, May 7th, 2013 - 7 comments
The new GCSB spy bill is out. For the short version, as @lyndonhood commented: “Admittedly it will be easier for the GCSB to act within their legal boundaries if they don’t have any”. For the long version see the excellent I/S at No Right Turn…
Written By: - Date published: 11:46 am, May 6th, 2013 - 32 comments
Family First have been deregistered as a charity, and they are pushing the line that it is because of their “traditional view of marriage”.
Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, May 6th, 2013 - 30 comments
John Key’s excuse for the planned veto of the extension of paid parental leave is that it would put the 2014/15 surplus at risk. There’s several reasons that’s bullshit, the main one being: why is going just under or just over some arbitrary line in the Crown’s books the Nats’ one aim for the economy? The truth is, Key’s using the surplus as an excuse for not doing the right thing.
Written By: - Date published: 8:25 am, May 5th, 2013 - 45 comments
John Key promised a “brighter future” – “wave good-bye to higher taxes not your loved ones”; a higher standard of his MPs, and honesty for the PM. John Key’s NZ is actually one of callous entitlement of the elite, and dis-entitlement and Struggle Street for battling Kiwis.
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, May 4th, 2013 - 192 comments
Supporters of the sale of the powercos, portray the Labour-Green NZ Power policy in terms of political strategy and game-play. They focus on the “market”, risk, profits & “fat cat hatred”. They avoid dealing with the guts of the issue: fuel poverty, income inequality & damaged lives.
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