Our National dipshit ministers have decided to start a new growth industry. They importing low-skilled to extract their savings, using them to generate artificial heat in the service economy and to slow wage growth. On the way through they’re also screwing the housing market. Our current net permanent long-term migration is completely unsustainable. Perhaps it is time to vote NZ First?
I/S at No Right Turn writes: If the ruling stands, it won’t just kill the dam, but also National’s policy of trying to crack open reserves for development through an ideology of “net conservation gain”.
Philip Patston writes about the important difference between autonomy and independence.
We have had years of systematic under funding of the police and front-line numbers are falling. None the less police are now expected to attend every burglary. For the sake of this exercise in public perception other areas of police wrok will suffer.
John Key has used some very dodgy figures to claim that the housing crisis was worse under Labour than it is now.
John Key is defending his handling of Auckland’s housing crisis on the grounds that Auckland’s prices have only risen as much under him as they did under Labour.
So the prices that he said were a crisis in 2007, have risen by as much again, and thus… no problem?
The latest Roy Morgan is out. A solid 7% drop for National.
New Zealand’s record is shameful. It is long past time or equal pay. You can sign the petition here.
Hekia Parata has stooped to a new low. She has lied. Openly and blatantly. I do hope the media and opposition MPs take this further.
As the average Auckland house price hits $1 Million, the Special Housing Areas fail, and Real Estate agents openly promote land banking, what does National do? Why, they give up, of course.
Illustrator and commentator Toby Morris has animated TA’s story: “What do you want most in the world,” John Campbell asks TA, who has been living in a van with her family since February. “A library.”
The closure of 19 mostly rural Westpac branches is indicative of the ongoing hollowing out the regions. Neglecting Northland cost the Nats the last by election. Neglecting regional NZ as a whole might cost them the next general.
Great news everyone! On The Nation this morning Nick Smith committed to raising average NZ wage to $250,000!
It has been over a year since the Auditor General announced an inquiry into the circumstances around Sheepgate. Why has it taken so long?
The Spinoff: “Lose the top of your party vote in Auckland, with Labour making ground, and the picture for the general election in 2017 looks like, walks like and quacks like a crisis.”
New research on homelessness from Otago University sheds light on the depth and breadth of the problem. Naturally Paula Bennett says she doesn’t believe it, and that she won’t read it. Because of course.
Most of the media has reported the Government’s “3%” spin on the extent of residential property purchases in NZ going to foreign buyers pretty uncritically. There have been honourable exceptions, and yesterday property editor Anne Gibson in The Herald joined them.
Dr Kate Amore and Rev Tric Malcolm will discuss this issue on Friday 26th August at 5:30pm at Connolly Hall, Wellington. Amore’s research released today shows “As the housing market gets tighter, single people have more flexibility and potentially more options open to them, whereas families with children don’t. People [landlords] are less likely to want them, and they have more requirements of housing,” she said. All welcome.
Spinoff: “The Spinoff/SSI survey reveals the extraordinary impact of housing crisis on residents of New Zealand’s biggest city – and the extent to which Aucklanders blame foreign speculation.”
It’s not April 1st, so I’m forced to conclude that this is a genuine announcement: Students to learn online from home instead of at school under major education reform.
Andrew Little: “John Key will give you all the excuses you can stomach for his failure to stabilise house prices and boost incomes but the truth is clear: if we want to change the path we’re on, we need to change the government.”
After National blocked a proposed official inquiry into homelessness, Labour, The Greens and The Maori Party went ahead with their own. It will no doubt come up with useful recommendations. But to see them implemented we will need to change the government.
Extracts from a long piece by Rutger Bregman in The Guardian. Plenty to disagree with perhaps, but plenty to ponder too.
What a surprise that the news that NZ’s worst ever waterborne disease outbreak is most likely caused by livestock should be the subject of a classic Friday 5pm news dump.
Clean up our water!
America is bailing on private prisons because they don’t work. What’s the bet that National is ‘too proud and arrogant’ to follow suit.
Tents and warehouses have been considered as emergency housing. Working people sleeping in cars are looking for driveways to rent. Say – has anyone seen John Key lately?
An excellent piece by Matt Nippert, Caleb Tutty, Olivia Carville in The Herald is generating a lot of discussion this morning. Are you unknowingly investing in tobacco and munitions?
A right wing “think-tank” wants to load students up with even more debt.
I/S at No Right Turn does great analysis of legislation. His coverage of the new spying laws has been excellent. Here he is on National’s clumsy and misguided attempt to re-impose official secrets. Criminalised for reading The Guardian?
To the complete surprise of no one, private sector developers have largely waited out the “affordable houses” requirement in the special housing areas. Another National failure.
Fuck the whole “Brighter Future” New Zealand.
The damage so far in the Havelock North “gastro” outbreak is one possible death, two older people in intensive care, 18 hospitalised, 50 making their way to the emergency department, 280 notifications, and hundreds of kids staying away from school.
