Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, March 28th, 2013 - 57 comments
John Key often lives in a different world than us – and not just in that he doesn’t mix with us. Over Sky City and Anzac Day he is very much in his own bubble.
Written By: - Date published: 10:41 am, March 27th, 2013 - 55 comments
Opposition MPs (e.g. Ardern & Mathers) and Sue Bradford highlight that the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill destroys lives, furthers NAct’s elitist agenda, & is more propaganda than social security or job creation.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 pm, March 26th, 2013 - 47 comments
Paula Bennett has found one group of beneficiaries who she doesn’t think are bludging scum! Surely this is a feelgood story, and not a workaround tactic to bash other beneficiaries, right? Bueller?
Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, March 26th, 2013 - 14 comments
The Green Party held a public meeting in West Auckland, on their Home for Life, Affordable Housing policy – it prioritises children in poverty. It was informative, questions were raised. Mindsets need to change to achieve a good quality of life & strong communities for all.
Written By: - Date published: 9:58 am, March 25th, 2013 - 120 comments
National, the party of beneficiary bashing that has lead a crusade against parents on the DBP, appears to have triggered a surge of new births to DPB parents.
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 25th, 2013 - 127 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: 10:25 am, March 24th, 2013 - 27 comments
Today we again have the Herald’s resident ignoramus Damien Grant sounds off about something he knows nothing about. As usual just looking at numbers without understanding what they represent and leaps to wrong conclusions. For a start he tries to compare the $8000 Watercare charge for a new water supply connection with the much smaller […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, March 23rd, 2013 - 187 comments
Oh look, once again Family First’s rhetoric fails to match its reality.
Written By: - Date published: 5:26 pm, March 23rd, 2013 - 57 comments
The funeral was a very full house and hard. You may have even seen it on Campbell Live; The Herald gave it front page this morning. Now comes the hard part, surviving the aftermath, the years with a hole in your heart, the family with a missing part. We never really had a cycling culture […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:31 pm, March 22nd, 2013 - 82 comments
The poor tend to be understood as the rational inferiors of the well-off, to the extent that political arguments now largely revolve around their management rather than their representation.
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, March 22nd, 2013 - 47 comments
No Right Turn asked an interesting question yesterday about how the appointment of Susan Devoy was made.
..it is highly doubtful that Devoy meets that statutory criteria for the office she has been appointed to. The advice on her appointment should make very interesting reading…
Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, March 22nd, 2013 - 150 comments
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. The revenue portfolio looked like a big step down for Cunliffe but already he’s made a mark as the parliamentary voice of a business/union coalition against Dunne’s stealth taxes. The result: humiliating backdowns for Dunne, a stain that may threaten his hold on Ohariu, and Cunliffe and Labour on the side of the winners.
Written By: - Date published: 6:28 am, March 22nd, 2013 - 36 comments
The latest Herald Digipoll is mixed news for the left, but good news personally for David Shearer. Even John Armstrong is cautiously impressed…
Written By: - Date published: 10:57 am, March 21st, 2013 - 49 comments
The current Speaker in the House, David Carter, is a disaster. Yesterday he let the government get away with avoiding providing serious answers to important questions: a government ploy? Russel Norman has complained. Democracy needs the government to be held to account.
Written By: - Date published: 10:28 am, March 20th, 2013 - 48 comments
The Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill second reading is first up on the provisional order paper for today. It is a further step in Paula Bennett & NAct’s vicious, punitive, bennie-bashing campaign. MPs are urged to vote against it!
Written By: - Date published: 10:12 am, March 20th, 2013 - 221 comments
Key hid his Tranzrail shares while asking questions about Tranzrail because he’s a sneaky, avaricious bastard.
Banks filed a false election return keeping his big money donors secret because he’s corrupt.
Shearer forgot to declare his UN Bank account because he’s a bit of a munter.
Time will tell which the public tolerates more.
Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, March 20th, 2013 - 28 comments
The Roy Morgan polls continue their mad merry-go-round, and we bloggers continue to get too excited about it. The latest RM projects a win for Labour / Greens.
Written By: - Date published: 1:54 pm, March 19th, 2013 - 35 comments
Profit-driven private sector cowboys are damaging the reputation of our education system. Naturally, National wants to make matters worse by subsidising foreign owners of profit-driven charter schools. Brilliant.
Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, March 19th, 2013 - 7 comments
I/S at No Right Turn on the insanity of scrapping the home insulation programme.
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, March 18th, 2013 - 48 comments
Apparently the government is concerned for the general health of people in New Zealand. Apparently, an expression of this concern is the roll out of policy initiatives that will result in New Zealand being smoke free by 2025.
Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, March 18th, 2013 - 32 comments
Irrelevant fringe group “Family First” really only has one drum, so I guess that they have nothing better to do except continue to beat it.
Written By: - Date published: 7:26 am, March 18th, 2013 - 5 comments
I’ve just been alerted to the fact that Danyl from the dimpost has a novel out called Unspeakable Secrets of the Aro Valley.
Written By: - Date published: 10:44 am, March 17th, 2013 - 39 comments
The Draft Auckland Unitary Plan has much to commend it. It focuses on resource management, responds to the reality of climate change & aims for a more dense but ‘liveable’ city. It has weaknesses, embraces destructive “growth” and raises questions: e.g. about affordable housing & environmental management.
Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, March 17th, 2013 - 61 comments
Remember the “underclass”? John Key pretended to be concerned about them for a while as a gimmick for the 2008 election. Thanks to Matt McCarten, Rodney Hide has been reminded of their existence. He then goes on to diagnose the wrong problems and the wrong solutions (of course). I’m sure that Standardistas can do better…
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, March 15th, 2013 - 96 comments
A survey of real estate agents has revealed that 9% of house sales result in the house going to an overseas buyer. Half say they plan to come and live here – that leaves 5% going to overseas investors. For some reason, the BNZ is trying to pretend that’s a small number. I find it a staggering number. Until now, I would have guess maybe 1 in 50 house sales went to overseas buyers.
Written By: - Date published: 12:57 pm, March 14th, 2013 - 49 comments
Phil Twyford is the Labour MP for Te Atatu, and Labour’s spokesperson on Housing and Auckland Issues. He is also asking the same questions that many Aucklanders keep asking as they watch a succession of government ministers trying to valiantly advance backwards into Auckland’s past with no obvious purpose.
Written By: - Date published: 5:05 pm, March 13th, 2013 - 124 comments
David Shearer won’t rule-out asset buy back (at cost), and a great blog post on “Climate Change: The New Normal”
Written By: - Date published: 11:09 am, March 13th, 2013 - 26 comments
Apparently quite a few teachers got tempted from the fold and voted for John Key in 2008… it’s hard to imagine many of them wanting to do so after the Novopay debacle. But Novopay seem determined to make sure of it. Not content with failing to pay large numbers of teachers, it’s now persecuting those it overpaid, even when they give the money back.
Written By: - Date published: 3:18 pm, March 12th, 2013 - 64 comments
On Morning Report this morning there was a clip of John Key (in Brazil) saying that David Shearer had signed up to buy shares in Mighty River Power – and he was welcome at the front of the queue like all New Zealanders. Shortly after there was a rushed response from a Labour spokesperson to […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:07 pm, March 8th, 2013 - 8 comments
Happy International Women’s Day; the fight for equality still has some way to be won…
Written By: - Date published: 8:07 am, March 8th, 2013 - 277 comments
John Key’s decision to not attend Hugo Chavez’s funeral is a snub of a major trade partner at a crucial time. Remember, this junket’s justification is that, for some reason, Key’s presence in these countries will improve trade. But, in snubbing Venezuela, he is insulting our largest export destination in South America. Venezuela matters more than all the countries Key is visiting combined.
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