On the tenth day of Christmas Chris Luxon took from me …
A lot actually.
Social issues
uncategorized
Much ado about nothing
There has been recent controversy because a District Court Judge and a renowned surgeon in a private setting chose to criticise NZ First policies.
Festive Cheer, Hear Hear !
Some end of year politics videos – 2024. Happy Christmas, folks.
Police private trip to China – who to believe?
The Police say it was a private trip to learn about Chinese culture, presumably because it would help their work here. Andrew Little and Anne-Marie Brady without any evidence gave it a sinister cast.
Unacceptable
It appears that the Government’s intent to politicise youth offending by making an elite few dress up in army uniforms and march around in an effort to solve a lifetime of neglect is not working out so well.
Creative accounting
It has emerged that Health NZ attempted to include hundreds of millions of dollars in redundancies and holiday pay remediation chargeable this year in last year’s Health accounts and this would have made the current deficit smaller but last year’s deficit larger.
Reti secretly wants to privatise Health
Shane Reti has said publicly that privatising health is not his overt policy. Which suggests strongly that it is his covert policy, especially given that he wants to increase the relationship with and outsourcing to private operators.
National’s dodgy health announcements
National yesterday made great fanfare about an extra $30 million being spent on doctors and nurses. But news today of 1,500 health job cuts in the pipeline clearly shows how the extra funds are to be sourced.
The Left Trumped?
We woke up last week to the post-mortem on the US election. How and why Trump won, and their implications for political alignments everywhere, are front and centre. A fundamental issue, explicitly identified when Trump won in 2016, is the presence of large sections of the working class vote into the Trump camp. So why has that happened – again?
The Treaty of Waitangi Principles Bill gets slammed
The Treaty of Waitangi Principles Bill has now been released and it appears that the provisions take away more rights from Māori than originally proposed.
The Government’s cynical manipulation of the Treaty Principles Bill
In a cynical manipulation of Parliamentary Processes the Government is changing the date of introduction of the Treaty Principles Bill. And the Waitangi Tribunal has said that the bill is a deliberate attempt to destroy the treaty relationship.
Who is undermining the Government’s approach to reducing smoking rates?
The Government’s offensive on public servants who express privately held strong views continues with Casey Costello attacking a public servant who alleged that her private research had come up with some papers that were “crap”.
The strange case of the I am Hope funding
National is scrambling to justify designated funding to the I am Hope charity after Mike King claimed alcohol was good for mental health and preventing suicide.
When a right becomes a wrong
The Free Speech Union is wanting an extremist right wing shock jock who the Christchurch Killer described as the person who most influenced him the privilege of visiting New Zealand to host a fundraising event.
Labour day
Enjoying your weekend? Thank a unionist!
Will This Be a One-Term Government?
Elliot Crossan at System Change Aotearoa reviews the past year. Despite the tepid public support for this government’s problematic actions, he warns that ‘The Right Is United By Power — Don’t Underestimate Them’
Where’s The Opposition?
Labour, Green Party and Te Pati Māori have been relatively quiet as the Coalition government move at breakneck speed to roll back laws and transfer wealth. Is it a matter of resources, media coverage, or will?
The best Government that money can buy
Radio New Zealand has reported that $500,000 in donations to National, Act and NZ First were made by entities associated to those who had their projects included in the recently released schedule to the Fast Track Projects Bill.
Submit as if your grandkids’ lives depend on it
The Government plans to smash through the reintroduction of off shore oil and gas drilling under some urgency and has given the people of New Zealand only five days to submit.
New Zealand treats the wealthy better than comparable nations
A recently Tax Justice Aotearoa study suggests that the country could impse a capital gains tax or wealth tax and the wealthy would still be better off than they would be in similar countries.
Free School lunches have a profound beneficial effect on learning
This is what David Seymour was told. But he and the Government still chose to push through significant cuts to the scheme.
Let’s Talk About Tax
Yes, Labour can restore its woeful tax position.
About David Parker’s and Labour’s debate about taxation
Guest post by Nigel Haworth discussing recent publicity given to the Labour Party’s debate around tax reform.
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.
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.
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”
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.
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.
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?