Chances are pretty high that you would have heard National party MPs claim that there will be an extra 220,000 jobs over the next few years. Turns out that the net figure is closer to 30,000 and relies on population growth.
Despite the Iranian war threatening supplies, the Methanex plant closure creating an LNG surplus for the foreseeable future, and enabling legislation still pending, National wants to rush through a construction contract for the LNG terminal before the next election.
Christopher Luxon has asked Air New Zealand to explain what caused its recently announced significant loss. The answer appears to be a decision made by Air New Zealand while he was Chief Executive.
After the 2005 election, the Chinese Embassy sent Zhang Wei to ask me if Winston Peters would follow Labour government policy. I said I didn’t know, but would ask.
When it is a right wing astroturfing front.
Christopher Luxon has implied that a junior staffer met major polluters and received submissions urging him to sink Mike Smith’s bid to hold them to account which were then hidden. But it was his Chief Policy Advisor.
The Government’s complete reluctance to do anything about the approaching oil crisis is in stark contrast to the approach adopted by more progressive administrative governments overseas.
A prime minister who does not understand how vulnerable New Zealand’s economy is to a Middle Eastern war as we have now, is a Prime Minister who should be removed from office.
In the midst of multiple states of emergency caused by climate change induced rainfall Mark Mitchell and Christopher Luxon have reverted to Oil Industry talking points that what is happening is “just weather” and that “weather changes.”
Sean Plunket has threatened to sue the Broadcasting Standards Authority after it released a draft opinion suggesting that broadcasters using the internet should be subject to the same requirements as traditional broadcasters.
‘Shared values,’ ‘like-minded partners,’ the ‘rules-based order,’ and the ‘Indo-Pacific’ have become the Five Eyes nations’ favourite rhetorical weapons in their contest with declared adversaries.
Yesterday Christopher Luxon broke an embargo, claimed credit for an announcement that was made in 2021 and gave cover to an American corporate backtracking on an earlier promise to construct new data centres.
Ani O’Brien thinks that claims by Chloe Swarbrick that the Government is intentionally increasing homelessness are engaging in hyperbole and are not true. But who is the person engaging in hyperbole?
Winston Peters is proposing to engage in a Nigel Farage Reform style circus relying on racial division to get him over the line at the next election.
* according to Seymour when it comes to International and Domestic condemnation of his Regulatory Standards Bill.
UN Special rapporteur on Gaza Francesca Albanese’s latest report highlights the corporate role in enabling genocide in Gaza. Utterly predictably, she has been sanctioned by the United States.
Reality Check Radio has on the eve of the Royal Commission of Inquiry’s hearings into the Government’s Covid response released a petition suggesting that Jacinda Ardern and others have been put on trial.
When the history of the sixth National Government is written I am confident that the events of this week when the Pay Equity system was smashed up will be described as the the beginning of the end.
Nick Mowbray, who has supported and promoted a number of right wing causes, finds himself losing out big time because of Donald Trump’s tariffs. And is complaining.
The Justice Select Committee has returned Act’s odious Treaty Principles Bill to Parliament. And in its report it has noted that the overwhelming majority of submitters opposed the bill.
Recent events in the US involving the use of Signal to discuss top secret military news and accidentally including a reporter in the chat suggests that the US of A is currently resembling a dark satirical cross between Monty Python and The Thick of It.
Luxon’s team have delivered zero deals out of the multibillionaire conference on infrastructure. This is a fail.
David Seymour’s handling of changes to free school lunches has been an unmitigated disaster. Is the plan to make the scheme that bad it can then be cancelled?
Chris from Marketing’s latest gimic to lead us to economic nirvana is to use money that is meant to be used for environmental enhancement to run a campaign in Australia with a slogan that is awkward and negative.
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.
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.
The Goverment has bowed to pressure from the Sensible Sentencing Trust and made the Three Strikes Bill even more unworkable.
The question has to be asked, can we trust National to do anything that it has promised?
On the same day that National had Parliament pass onerous anti gang laws to address allegedly dramatically increasing numbers of gang members Christopher Luxon lost his cool when it was pointed out to him that the Government is purging the list to reduce the numbers.
Nuts and loose screws are holding together this callous coalition government.
The Court of Appeal has ruled that the summons issued to Children’s Minister Karen Chhour was valid but decline to enforce it as the date has passed. And the Government has hastily introduced the bill to stop any further action being taken by the Tribunal.
A bright star in the firmament of justice has gone out. One of the greatest journalists of our era has passed away. John Pilger was always on the side of the oppressed.
In one speech Shane Jones has talked about the “hysteria surrounding climate change”, promised to disregard targets agreed to under the Paris Agreement, ordered the halting of work at the Ministry for the Environment, promised the lifting the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration at pace, and said that Mining on Department of Conservation (DoC) and Stewardship land is also in the pipeline.
National has suffered further damage to its credibility with its promise of a $250 tax cut per fortnight for an average family only being realised if that family spent at least $300 per week on childcare and was a two income family with each adult earning between $53,500 and $66,000.
Winston Peters clearly hopes that enough of us have short memories. He was an integral part of the 2017 Government whose Covid policies saw our death rate from the disease amongst the lowest in the developed world. But now his party is clearly courting the anti vaccination community.
National has this propensity of announcing policies that scratch conservative itches, cost nothing and hog media attention. Yesterday we had a classic example of this as they announced that cell phones would be banned at schools.
