Bexley, eventually
Resources for the poor, eastern Christchurch suburbs have been lacking but everyone accepts things are stretched. Key did himself no favours trying to […]
Social issues
Unemployment tsunami hits Chch
3065 people have already claimed the special benefit for people left unemployed due to the Christchurch earthquake. Once that payment expires in a […]
Football news
New Zealand has won the rights to host the U20 Football World Cup in 2015.
Farrar illustrates WfF folly
John Key has tidied up the confusion he caused yesterday and says that the quakes will cost the government $5 billion in rebuilding and $5 billion in lost revenue over the next 4 years. Big bikkies but easily covered by an emergency levy and canning the white elephant motorways. So, why are the Nats obsessed with tinkering with Working for Families?
Lhaws’ lhabours lhost
Michael Lhaws has done more to hurt ethnic relations in this country than, arguably, anyone else in the past decade. He chose the most racially divided city in the land and cynically exploited those divisions to get the attention his pathetic ego craves. Now, one of his greatest ‘achievements’ has been ruled illegal.
Drinking Liberally – Dunedin
The first Drinking Liberally for 2011 is to be held in Dunedin. Pete Hodgson Thursday March 3rd 7:30pm Circadian Rhythm (72 St Andrew […]
Christchurch rentals
As the long haul gets under way in Christchurch there are going to be many flash points for conflict. One of the first to emerge is the tension between landlords and tenants, as the following selection of articles makes clear.
English on Working for Families
English on Working for Families cuts: “around 1,000 families earning over $100,000 receive WFF, and payments to those families total only $1.1 million … Taking higher-income families out of WFF saves very little money …
In this uncertain economic climate, we want to give all families certainty about their incomes”
Powerless
The man tipped to be National’s next leader, Simon Power, has announced he will not be standing at the next election. The reasons are obvious. As a decent man and an old fashioned caring Tory, Power has no heart for the direction National want to take New Zealand. His resignation is a sign that within the party, the dry right have finally taken total control the idealogical reigns and there is no longer a place for liberal wets like Power.
A Reassuring Rebuild: The Freiburg Parallel
Christchurch has been called “Victorian planning at its most remarkable”. It needs to be rebuilt in a style that retains or even amplifies as much of its formerly cosy, reassuring character as possible, for the sake of the tourism industry, the locals, and its cultural legacy. Germany’s Freiburg is a useful example of restoring a city to former glory.
Christchurch power chart
They are doing pretty well on restoring the power. With the exception of some small outlying areas, along the strike line and the CBD most of the city has power again as you can see from this chart. At a guess it will probably take some time on the major remaining areas simply because these are the areas that had the most vertical acceleration during the quake.
In praise of the bureaucracy
The Civil Defence centre, the police, the ambulance services, the firemen, the hospitals, the army, the search and rescue specialists, the social services – they’re all part of the bureaucracy, as are all those who provide their back office support.
They don’t get a great press and are often described collectively as a block to progress. They’re not called public servants for nothing. Thank God they’re there when we need them.
Welfare Working Group promotes eugenics
The Welfare Working Group wants to get poor women to breed less by giving them free long-term contraception. Sure, this is all an ‘Overton window‘ exercise but eugenics? Seriously? Trying to stop one ‘undesirable’ strata of society from breeding is one step from forced sterilisations. Has the Right reverted 80 years?
Sickening
Key has blamed a soldier being killed in Afghanistan for the limo affair. This is just an attempt by Key to protect himself from criticism by hiding behind a soldier’s death. This is just sickening. The very worst kind of politics from a man who can’t take responsibility for his actions and is happy to take advantage of others’ tragedy.
Trends good for Left, much work to do
It can be depressing to see a week of the government on the ropes and then polls showing National with an apparently commanding lead. But lets go beyond the shallow analysis offered by the talking heads and look at the trends. The Left has more than halved the Right’s lead since its peak. The question is: can the Left close the remaining gap in time?
Compare and contrast
Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn compares the bailout of SCF investors with the Nats’ threat to change the law to deny some workers the minimum wage.
Good company?
Our PM in the company of his peers?
News round-up
Another 1,000 Kiwi jobs at risk – this future… it’s too bright
New right Reform NZ Party forms – will big names join?
Old man Douglas thinks Parliament rises at 9pm – It’s 10pm. Hope he stays retired this time.
Nats preparing to legislate away more workers’ rights
$2 petrol now – wait until the Northern summer
Milked
Our wages are so low that we can’t keep paying “international prices” for basic necessities. GST off food is just tinkering at the edges. We need more radical action.
Not for sale – first flyers
To avoid another three years of backhanders to the rich, falling wages, rising unemployment, and asset sales, we have nine months to chip away at National’s support. As in 2008, The Standard will be running a campaign offering flyers etc for your to print off and deliver around your neighbourhood. Privatisation is an obvious first target.
Boot camps yet another Key failure
Key ignored all the experts with his boot camp policy. But it turns out that the experts were right. Reoffending rates are 50% within the first year, and likely reach 65 – 70% two years after course completion. Add boot camps to the ever growing list of Key’s failures.
Lessons in hatred and tolerance
There are some ugly things going on in England at the moment, with PM David Cameron feeding an already eager fire of anger directed at Muslims. Meanwhile in Egypt thousands of Muslims acted as human shields to protect Christians from terrorist attack. “It is up to the press to report these positive stories and not exaggerate the sway that extremists hold over the global Muslim community.”
Kiwiblogblog is not completely dead
Archiving websites is a bloody good idea because the public debate and emerging history of NZ society is shifting more and more into these electronic media. So I asked NatLib about one of those political blogs that disappeared from the blogosphere – KiwiBlogBlog. It still exists…
As much as possible for the underclass
The PM has obviously been stung by the surge of negative publicity generated by the TV3 piece on the residents of McGehan Close. The revival of this particular piece of exploitative hypocrisy risks tarnishing the sacred Key brand. Can’t have that. So Key is trying to convince us that the Nats have done “as much as possible” for the underclass…
In Defence of the Nanny State
I get frustrated with the right claiming “Nanny State” on everything (except when it’s them banning cell-phones when driving etc). So it was with interest I read famous philosopher Alain de Botton’s piece on the BBC yesterday: In defence of the nanny state.
Michael Lhaws’ irrelevancy proven
Yesterday, Lhaws’ SST piece called for involuntary sterilisation and reproduction licences (ie. forced abortions). Pure fascism. Today, no uproar. Once, his stoush with some school kids was news. Now, he offers a eugenic ‘solution’ to the underclass and not a peep. He’s truly a has-been. He won’t have that SST column for long.
Kiwi dream RIP
Owning your own home was the foundation of the “Kiwi dream”. Now it seems that we’ve let that dream slip further out of reach than almost anywhere in the world. Houses in Auckland are less affordable than in New York. Demand in the rental market is far outstripping supply. What should the government be doing?
Nats drop 6% on privatisation announcement
OK, that title is pure spin. National has dropped from 55% to 49% in the latest Roy Morgan, and Labour’s up from 29% to 34.5%. But that just shows the last poll was a rogue. Now, normal transmission, and National’s decline, has resumed. When you look at the Nat/ACT and Lab/Green/New Zealand First potential coalitions – the race is tight and closing fast.
Our election
John Key has been less cunning than some thought he would be. Going for a November election, he thinks, will let him leverage off the World Cup mini-boom, and enhance running Michael Jones and Inga Tuigamala as candidates. But it means 5 months for the Budget cuts to hurt and gives us 5 more months to work. So, what are we going to do?
Dealing with the DIA website-harvest parasite
Periodically I run a scan to identify network parasites that are sucking up our bandwidth and processing resources in excess. Of course I leave the benign parasites that provide search facilities alone. But I stomp on the nasties.
Tonight the biggest parasite appears to have been a New Zealand government department – the Department of Internal Affairs.
Principles
So John Key has flip flopped and decided to rule out working with Winston Peters again. He’s trying to portray that as a principled decision, about running an “aspirational” government. So why did he need to spend so many months working out what his principles are? No, it’s a political decision. Key thinks he can squeeze a little more milage out of flogging the dead horse that is Winston Peters.
Key press conference: November 26 election
The PM has called a surprise press conference for 12:45 today, and is tipped to announce a November 26th election date. A further “major announcement” is also expected.
Update: Election date November 26 confirmed.
ECE – cuts bite today
Today is the day that Anne Tolley’s $400 million dollar cut to early childhood education bites. A sector which delivers $13 value for […]
What will Key cut?
The early childhood education cuts have hit – families will face an average $20-$45 a week increase in the cost of sending a kid to kindy. And Anne Tolley is signaling more to come. But it’s not just the education of the next generation that’s for the chop as National seeks to balance the books after its tax cuts for the rich binge.
Time for the Goffice to step up to the plate
We face a stark choice this year: a Labour-led government, which will create fairer tax and invest in jobs and innovation, or National-led government, which will govern for the kleptocracy, giving them tax cuts, then selling our assets and slashing our public services to pay for them. So why is the Goffice doing such a bad job making the case?
Slash & sell … then crash
Ironically, the best response to Key’s ‘slash and sell’ agenda came from Obama, whose spotlight Key is always trying to share: “Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine. It may feel like you’re flying high at first, but it won’t take long before you’ll feel the impact.”