Last Budget, National promised 36,000 jobs in the year to March 2012. We got 20,000. They promised 1.8% growth. We got 1.1%. They promised a $9.8 billion deficit. Now, it’s heading for over $12 billion. Ready for a repeat on Thursday?. English will say last year’s failures were all someone else’s fault. Key will grin and make some weak jokes, the beakbenches will hoot and holler. But will anyone outside National be smiling this time round?
Remember ‘ambitious for New Zealand’? Remember ‘brighter future’? National used to at least say they wanted to do something significant. At what point did all that get replaced with ‘surplus by 2014/15’? Key and National have $70 billion a year to play with to better this country, and the best thing they can come up with is making sure government operating revenue exceeds operating spending by about half a percent in three years time.
Another poll to add to current mix. Not a big shift, but in the right direction, and getting the right kinds of headline. And here’s another headline that isn’t going to help the Nats – the wage gap with Australia is growing at the rate of $1 a month.
The government is, softening us up for higher prescription charges, fewer teachers, and a further assault on beneficiaries. Meanwhile, they’re spending billions on “Roads of National Significance” that do not meet basic cost-benefit tests, to service a declining demand for road transport. The Greens are right: this is not “fiscally responsible”.
No Right Turn on the latest case of Banks failing to declare donations. Banks has broken the rules. The credibility of Parliament is at stake.
Today there was the characteristic signature of a Talley’s Group company spin that I’ve observed over the last five years on this site with their worker relationships. They lie, prevaricate, and fracture the truth. They appear to be completely untrustworthy and incapable of good faith bargaining. In my view they are the absolute arseholes of NZ managers and companies.
If there was any doubt that National has an anti-teacher, anti-education agenda, it’s gone. Increasing class sizes will ‘save’ $43m a year by reducing the number of teachers that would otherwise be required by 500. National standards will be used for performance pay. It’s a cut to the frontline, a cut to our kids’ learning. And Parata’s comments suggest more to come.
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
The Jackal raised the issue of corruption in relation to John Banks in a comment here and has written more about it on his blog. It appears on the evidence of DotCom’s lieutenant that when he was a Member of Parliament Banks was offering to accept a financial consideration in respect of any act to be done by him in his capacity as a member of Parliament. This makes Philip Field look like a Good Samaritan. Banks has to go.
His policies (such that they are) aren’t working, his government is now being questioned, his economy is stuck in the doldrums, so naturally Key is looking for someone to blame. The media!
Rebekah and Charlie Brooks have been charged with perverting the course of justice in relation to the News International phone-hacking affair. Now it’s in the courts, this albatross will hang around Cameron’s neck through to the next election.
Unemployment’s up, wages are flat, retail and export prices in freefall. Last budget National promised 4% this year – it’s 1%. But never fear, the brighter future is just around the corner – again. Key says growth will be strong in 2013/14 -2 years from now. Does anyone still believe him?
Remember National’s ‘fiscally neutral’ tax cuts? Turns out they’ve cost $2 billion in their first 18 months. Now, the Right’s story changes, of course. Without those reckless tax cuts, we wouldn’t be facing zero budgets. They were never meant to be fiscally neutral, they were stimulus spending – right, cause this economy is so stimulated.
Labour has gambled on Shearer’s broad real-world experience and appeal to the electorate. Over time the contrast with Key, who is now well and truly just “another bloody politician”, will be more and more pronounced.
Key looked the Pike River families in the eye and promised to get their mens bodies out. It was a promise he never should have made. But he did to make people like him. He wouldn’t even talk about it today. Coward. And what of his promise to make things right for Christchurch? Or his promise of an aggressive recovery? Or his promise to help the underclass? Or that brighter future?
Bet there’s some last minute changes to the Budget happening. A few mil to reverse the bio-security cuts now the fruit fly’s in. A few mil for monitoring MSD contracts – Bennett’s ‘high trust’ (ie too lazy/cheap) model clearly isn’t working. They could find savings by not giving money to fronts for gangs and other corrupt groups, predictably, sucking on the Whanau Ora teat.
Dr Sandra Grey from the Tertiary Education Union has a look at Stephen Joyce’s proposals to changing the governance of tertiary education institutions. She suggests that he has a look at what happened in the changes to the polytechs in 2009. And also points out that his proposals don’t follow what is known about good governance for universities.
But it has been apparent to readers here that Joyce prefers to be a fiddler rather than being effective..
Amnesia is a song about the John Banks donation saga in New Zealand – from “MrKimDotcom” on YouTube. Help it go viral…
So much of what shapes the current political landscape traces its roots back to the fateful tea party. But at the personal level, there was some welcome news for cameraman Bradley Ambrose recently.
Banks is deadmeat. It’s just a matter of time before Key gives him the boot. Politically, he must. He has grounds, even on the limited ‘ethics while a minister’ test he has created. We’re now just waiting for something sufficiently new that Key can use it as justification for an about face. Then comes the question of a by-election. And that’s where it gets tricky for Key.
Does he believe Banks’ on the Dotcom donation? What corroborating evidence has he sought to confirm Banks statement? Why is he applying a legal test to behaviour before Banks was a minister but ethical standards only after? Why did he apply ethical standards to Pansy Wong’s behaviour before she was a minister but not to Banks? Was it unethical for Banks to lie to the media and fake memory lose while a minister?
The media are doing a good job investigating John Banks’ donation history. The Police are presumably also doing theirs, and it seems clear that the matter must end up in Court and the issue of who is telling the truth will be decided by a judge. Some in the media have dismissed the question of any threat to National’s majority. Short-term maybe, long-term I’m not so sure.
Number of additional jobs per year needed to match population growth: 25,000 * Jobs promised by National last Budget to be added in March 2012 year: 36,000 * Actual number of jobs added: 20,000 * Additional unemployed: 5,000 * Change in number of fulltime jobs: -6,000 * Change in number of parttime jobs: 25,000 * Growth in underemployment: 4,000 * Broken promises: 1 really big one
Why did Banks lie about a discount hotel room where Dotcom was staying, then say he bargained it himself? Who made $15K of radio ad donations to his campaign? What did Nats on Banks’ ‘mentor group’ and ACT leaders know about the anonymised donations? How much info did Banks get from Williamson on Dotcom’s OIO application? Why has Key still not spoken to Banks to ask any of these question?
Slippery old Key said on Monday and Tuesday that he had to apply a legal test to whether John Banks should stay on as a minister. The Cabinet manual demands the highest ethical standards. Now, Key’s flip-flopped: ethics are required – but only after one becomes a minister. Which would be worrying if true. Pansy Wong won’t be the only one to note Key’s standards a slipping.
Such was the magnitude of the Nat’s “big win” in 2011 that Key has to wake up every morning and do the numbers. His government hangs by a rotten thread. That rotten thread is John Banks.
ACT Party President Chris Simmons – who opposed the Brash coup that lead to John Banks being ACT’s sole MP – ‘accidentally’ dropped Banks right in it on Radio New Zealand’s Checkpoint. He said “[Banks] made the suggestion to Dotcom” to split his donation into two $25,000 pieces and implied the purpose was to have a number of identically-sized donations he could claim were anonymous.
There’s the facts, the questions and the legal opinions. Today in Parliament John Key stuck to his lack of interest in detailed questions, and adherence to Banks’ reliance on legal opinions. He even alleged that the Labour Opposition agreed with these opinions. Not likely. The Police need to ask all the relevant questions that have so far not been answered by Banks or asked by Key, then their veracity and reliability should be established by a judge.
For the first time in 3.5 years, Lockwood Smith didn’t preside over question time yesterday. The hapless National backbencher Eric Roy took his place resulting an awfully convenient farce. Key refused to answer questions, going so far as to say he wasn’t responsible for who is a minister. But, like the sudden slew of ministerial announcements, Key’s evasiveness will not distract the media, which smells blood.
David Cameron was summoned to Parliament to explain why he has not called an enquiry into Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt’s backdoor contacts with the Murdochs. Cameron accepted verbal assurances from Hunt but did not ask for evidence, and Hunt was “not aware” of what his now-sacked confidential adviser was doing. Sounds very familiar here; both Ministers are on the slippery slope and both PM’s evasiveness is costing them at the polls. Question Time should be interesting today.
A by-election in Epsom. If ACT or National win, the Right retains 61 votes. But, between resignation and swearing in typically takes 3 months during which the Right would have 60 v 60. Legislation fails on draws. Asset sales, SkyCity, welfare cuts, even the Budget could all fail if the Maori Party wants. And what if the Conservatives win? They’re anti-asset sales and crony capitalism. You can see why Key is turning a blind eye.
In 2008 John Key was loudly telling us about his high standards and principles. The Banks case is yet more proof that it was all a prattle of empty rhetoric.
John Key has refused to sack John Banks saying “The test is, did he breach the law or not? If he hasn’t, then he’s not guilty”. That has never been the standard ministers are held to. Ministers are required to uphold “the highest ethical standards“. It looks like Banks traded an ‘anonymous’ donation from Kim Dotcom for his political influence. Is that Key’s idea of the “highest ethical standards”?
