Written By: - Date published: 4:08 pm, September 2nd, 2024 - 44 comments
Yes, Labour can restore its woeful tax position.
Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, August 31st, 2024 - 69 comments
Guest post by Nigel Haworth discussing recent publicity given to the Labour Party’s debate around tax reform.
Written By: - Date published: 4:57 pm, August 17th, 2024 - 79 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 10:52 am, August 16th, 2024 - 24 comments
It is a shame that Ipredict is not still around. Otherwise I would be putting money on Chhour being the first to go.
Written By: - Date published: 1:06 pm, August 14th, 2024 - 32 comments
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?
Written By: - Date published: 1:23 pm, August 13th, 2024 - 9 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 12:44 pm, August 13th, 2024 - 36 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 12:16 pm, August 7th, 2024 - 49 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, August 7th, 2024 - 18 comments
“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”
Written By: - Date published: 11:06 am, August 3rd, 2024 - 27 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, August 1st, 2024 - 27 comments
Yesterday in Parliament was pretty weird. Act MPs staged a show down event and expressed increasing dissatisfaction with their Government’s speaker Gerry Brownlee.
Written By: - Date published: 9:24 am, July 30th, 2024 - 26 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, July 17th, 2024 - 9 comments
“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.”
Written By: - Date published: 2:44 pm, July 16th, 2024 - 15 comments
The drumbeat of health warnings continues from hospitals, doctors and nurses. But is the Government prepared to listen?
Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, July 16th, 2024 - 5 comments
how’s it going five years on?
Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, July 14th, 2024 - 142 comments
In breaking news Donald trump has been shot in a Pensylvania. Film suggests that he is fine although suffered a wound to his ear. The implications for the US elections are profound. This is a post for general discussion and will be updated as matters develop. Updates 1305: BBC interviewed a witness who is talking […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:10 pm, July 7th, 2024 - 53 comments
When NATO leaders meet in Washington, what they should be doing, apart from figuring out how to comply with Article 33(1) of the UN Charter, is conducting a clear-eyed review of how this organization that claims to be a force for peace keeps escalating unwinnable wars and leaving countries in ruins.
Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, June 19th, 2024 - 28 comments
Christopher Luxon has accused senior business leaders who travelled with a trade delegation with Chris Hipkins of being “C listers and tag alongs”.
Written By: - Date published: 10:57 am, May 16th, 2024 - 40 comments
Listen to the detransitioners.
Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, May 6th, 2024 - 39 comments
The Government has announced the reaching of an agreement with Auckland Council about Watercare which will over time be more expensive than Labour’s Tree Water alternative.
Written By: - Date published: 4:35 pm, April 29th, 2024 - 8 comments
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has resisted attempts by the Waitangi Tribunal to get her to explain how removing requirements to improve outcomes for Māori children is not a breach of the Treaty.
Written By: - Date published: 11:05 am, April 24th, 2024 - 5 comments
It is almost as if the environment was really cruel to senior members of the Government when they were kids. But whatever the reason this Government appears to be intent on wrecking the local environment with a degree of vengeance and stupidity not seen before.
Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, April 21st, 2024 - 35 comments
Liz Truss’s short reign as UK Prime Minister foundered after her budget requiring borrowing to fund tax cuts was released. The budget tanked the UK economy and caused Truss’s resignation. This week amongst announcements of massive cuts it has emerged that the Government is also planning borrowing for tax cuts.
Written By: - Date published: 1:56 pm, April 16th, 2024 - 14 comments
In the Trump felony trial now underway, there’s a yawning gap between media attention paid to this and the actual scale of the crime and its potential punishment. Trump is not indicted for trial for electoral fraud. He’s not on trial for paying a porn star for services. He’s not on trial for adultery. He’s […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:41 am, April 1st, 2024 - 13 comments
Guest post by Brian Tamaki where he shares his change of thinking about rainbows.
Written By: - Date published: 12:13 pm, March 18th, 2024 - 12 comments
The Maritime Union of New Zealand has set up an online petition urging Auckland Council not to privatise Auckland Port and also a very helpful web page allowing people to make submissions on Auckland Council’s draft long term plan, where the privatisation proposal is being considered.
Written By: - Date published: 12:37 pm, March 10th, 2024 - 5 comments
Respects to the falling of the Rt Hon Jonathan Hunt.
Written By: - Date published: 10:38 am, March 9th, 2024 - 18 comments
in a war over Taiwan” is the title of an Atlantic Council paper produced last September. They mean nuclear weapons. These are serious people; Undersecretary Bonnie Jenkins addressed them last year about AUKUS.
Written By: - Date published: 12:07 pm, February 25th, 2024 - 51 comments
From Election 2023’s result through to February 2024 there has been massive loss and damage to the Parliamentary capacity of Labour and Greens. Who still has the capacity to lead? What’s left?
Written By: - Date published: 4:49 pm, February 21st, 2024 - 17 comments
Very sad news today with news of Fa’anana Efeso Collins’ untimely death.
Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, February 17th, 2024 - 124 comments
The National Government’s repeal of the Three Waters Legislation and its pursuit of “new forms of infrastructure funding and financing” suggests that privatisation of water is on the drawing board.
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