Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, May 24th, 2013 - 31 comments
Nick Smith has a long history of slippery dealings. He apologises but accepts no blame, then is resurrected: contempt of court, a defamation case, the Pullar-ACC “conflict of interest”, bad faith negotiations with Auckland Council, the Denniston Plateau deal. Yesterday on RNZ, Smith exposed the government’s agenda on mining conservation land.
Written By: - Date published: 3:37 pm, May 23rd, 2013 - 22 comments
Labour will hold three selection meetings in the very large electorate, in Seaview, in Tolaga Bay, and the final one in Napier on Sunday. Labour has a very strong slate of six high-calibre candidates. New members are flocking to the party, and with over 500 electorate members having a say this time the meetings will be full on as well as full. All Party members can attend; anyone can register to get the result.
Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, May 19th, 2013 - 65 comments
No Right Turn on National’s science funding scam. Read it in conjunction with this piece in Stuff today on falling numbers of senior students following National’s axing of the postgrad student allowance. Welcome to the Brighter Future.
Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, May 19th, 2013 - 75 comments
A new Sunday feature – each week a random section scanned from a copy of The Standard, September 15th, 1938.
Written By: - Date published: 8:11 am, May 18th, 2013 - 92 comments
Welcome to Poverty Watch, a weekly update on National’s lack of response to the urgent and growing issue of poverty in NZ. This week – reaction to the budget’s lack of significant action on poverty, and CPAG’s court case on the In Work Tax Credit.
Written By: - Date published: 9:47 am, May 17th, 2013 - 82 comments
A video of John Key’s “Labour is the Devil Beast” budget speech.
Written By: - Date published: 7:54 am, May 17th, 2013 - 120 comments
Nothing on poverty. Nothing on affordable housing. House prices forecast to keep rising. Attacks on local democracy. More fear into the lives of the poor (reviewable tenancies). Stealth privatisation of state housing, sorry, ‘social housing’. A ‘surplus’ of 0.03% of GDP. Weak growth outlook. $200b national debt. And a promise of 171,000 more jobs that’s just as credible as the last one.
Written By: - Date published: 11:46 am, May 16th, 2013 - 213 comments
Budget links and reaction (updates to come).
Four years of misguided austerity have delayed any recovery.
Despite the advance publicity there is nothing significant here for families in poverty.
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, May 16th, 2013 - 29 comments
According to Labour: “Judith Collins has claimed that she ‘consulted’ with political parties but was unable to reach consensus. There was absolutely no consultation.”
Written By: - Date published: 8:57 pm, May 15th, 2013 - 45 comments
A reader sent us a comment from another blog by someone who was polled a couple of weeks back. The questions are very interesting, especially once you realise that it’s clearly being done for National and the Right in Auckland (one of the questions gives it away). Have a read, then I’ll tell you why I reckon the Nats are going to fund the City Rail Link in the Budget.
Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, May 14th, 2013 - 32 comments
The compensation part of Joyce’s and Key’s dirty, undemocratic SkyCity deal, could legally be over-turned by a future government, as proposed by the Greens. However, the TPPA could weaken NZ’s parliamentary sovereignty and open the government to claims by secret private offshore tribunals. Opposition needs to step up!
Written By: - Date published: 10:51 am, May 14th, 2013 - 45 comments
We have passed the dangerous and depressing milestone of 400ppm atmospheric CO2. 350.org are calling for a “relentless rise in activism” to match the “relentless rise in carbon”. After Copenhagen I no longer think that’s going to happen.
Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, May 13th, 2013 - 28 comments
John Banks has announced that he will stand in Epsom again at the next election. That is, of course, always assuming that he doesn’t get chucked out of Parliament first.
Written By: - Date published: 7:56 am, May 13th, 2013 - 51 comments
Key and Joyce made sure Gilmore was out of the way before they announced their dubious Sky City for (more) pokies deal. The pokies system in NZ is rife with dubious goings on. It’s bad for low income families, communities and their children. [update: responses]
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 13th, 2013 - 92 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: 4:42 pm, May 12th, 2013 - 12 comments
There is an award for forestry workers in Australia. It has a whole range of terms and conditions including hours of work and time off, penal rates for overtime including weekend work, travel allowances and training provisions. The accident rate is half the rate of NZ. The economy is also stronger in Australia, unemployment is […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:16 pm, May 10th, 2013 - 26 comments
KiwiBuild has already been a success, scaring the Nats in to producing, in conjunction with Len Brown’s Auckland, a more significant housing policy. The “Unitary Plan” is woefully short on detail, but it concedes that KiwiBuild’s target of 10,000 new homes a year is easily achievable (I guess it’s only impossible when Labour propose it).
Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, May 10th, 2013 - 60 comments
Key on Gilmore on front page of today’s DomPost: “In the end, to make a contribution, you have to have integrity, and to have integrity there has to be a directness and fullness in your answers.” That’s why Key has no integrity about GCSB – there was no directness and fulness in his answers about it, either in Parliament or to the “knucklehead” media.
Written By: - Date published: 1:07 pm, May 9th, 2013 - 31 comments
The latest Household Labour Force Employment statistics are out, and on the surface, look good for John and Bill. But this is driven by improved employment in Canterbury over the last quarter. Grant Robertson says, “Disaster recovery is not a plan for jobs”.
Written By: - Date published: 4:02 pm, May 8th, 2013 - 35 comments
We don’t often take Key’s side here at The Standard, but I think that most of us here would agree that on this occasion John Key has been cheated out of a victory that was rightfully his.
Written By: - Date published: 2:25 pm, May 8th, 2013 - 105 comments
Stuff is reporting that John Key is signalling for Aaron Gilmore to stand down. What are the possible implications? [update: information about Claudette Hauiti, next National’s list]
Written By: - Date published: 12:24 pm, May 8th, 2013 - 20 comments
This morning David Shearer gave Labour’s “pre budget” speech. No new policy, but plenty of good one-liners and a strong statement of Labour’s position.
Written By: - Date published: 10:21 am, May 8th, 2013 - 47 comments
John Key is using “urgency” to push through his anti-democratic Big brother GCSB surveillance Bill. Dotcom’s lawyers have released a 39 page white paper making a range of allegations against the FBI, Obama & NZ authorities. Peters is keeping his cards close to his chest. Update: Peters’ calls government “bully boy” & will vote against the Bill.
Written By: - Date published: 8:25 am, May 5th, 2013 - 45 comments
John Key promised a “brighter future” – “wave good-bye to higher taxes not your loved ones”; a higher standard of his MPs, and honesty for the PM. John Key’s NZ is actually one of callous entitlement of the elite, and dis-entitlement and Struggle Street for battling Kiwis.
Written By: - Date published: 12:25 pm, May 2nd, 2013 - 18 comments
John Key’s networks of influence include the bosses and directors of Anadarko Petroleum, which is doing some oil exploration in NZ. Gordon Campbell’s excellent piece of investigative journalism shows Anadarko and it’s bosses are not to be trusted.
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, May 2nd, 2013 - 156 comments
John Key has gone hard negative, with his rants about North Korea and communism, and now an attack on the Greens. Negative is where you go when you don’t have a positive story to tell the electorate. I wonder if the Nats’ internal polling has got Key spooked…
Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, April 30th, 2013 - 21 comments
An Advantage New Zealand conference at SkyCity is the centre of major PR for John Key-backed, big oil exploration in NZ. While promoting and backing each others’ destructive profiteering, and endangering NZ’s environment, they are nurturing their networks of influence over expensive dinners and on the golf course.
Written By: - Date published: 9:03 pm, April 29th, 2013 - 11 comments
Geoff Bertram states in today’s DomPost that he advised the Select Committee on the Mighty River Power sale that power companies’ excessive profits were potentially subject to regulatory interest by any government that placed consumer interest ahead of the companies’ interests, and that this would significantly affect their values. The Government and the companies cannot say they were not warned.
Written By: - Date published: 6:09 pm, April 29th, 2013 - 37 comments
Parekura Horomia died this afternoon following a short illness. He was a great Totara in the Labour forest and will be greatly missed.
Updated: NZLP Tangi arrangements
Written By: - Date published: 10:01 am, April 29th, 2013 - 31 comments
MSM articles show the big Aussie banks are making record profits, Kiwis can save, and Adam Smith worshiping think tanks are not to be trusted. Cunliffe & Norman said it a while back – NAct policies and government spending cuts are not the answer.
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