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The Government has launched a new suicide prevention action plan. Suicide is a tragedy that has touched several Ministers personally and it is good to see them putting more effort into confronting it. The aim of the strategy is to improve mental and social well-being…
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The report into the Hawke's Bay DHB is out and, like everything to do with DHBs, it makes boring reading. That tireless muck-raker, Tony Ryall, won't like it but the report reveals no corruption just sloppy work by DHB board member Peter Hausmann and the…
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TVNZ had another Colmar Brunton poll last night. The gap between National and Labour remains substantial, but has closed by four points since last poll. UPDATE: In a comical twist that bodes poorly for Jim Anderton and Peter Dunne, it seems Colmar Brunton has the…
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Finnish MP Tommy Tabermann (SDP) has proposed granting all employees a paid 7-day "love vacation" once a year. According to Tabermann, the purpose of such vacations would be to prevent relations from disintegrating and the spouses from drifting apart. During the seven days, couples could…
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Oh dear. It started with Roger Douglas and now political ad-man John Ansell has got on board the ACT train to electoral oblivion as well. Ansell's most famous work to date is the National Party's racist iwi/kiwi billboards of the 2005 election but our sources…
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Rob Stock apparently holds several awards for personal finance reporting but looks unlikely to win another based on his rehash of National Party lines in the SST this weekend. I can understand the desire to get these pesky articles to the publisher when the sun's…
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The clashes between rioters and police in Tibet that have left up to 100 dead are a particularly tough issue for New Zealand to address. Our principles tell us we should support human rights, the Prime Minister has said that New Zealand supports the right…
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Here's a lead line from a Washington Post article that will strike fear and horror into the heart of any self-respecting rightwinger: "Nineteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the old East German Communist Party is making a comeback." "Known these days simply…
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Every year the Remuneration Authority, an independent body, reviews the pay of MPs. It sets the salaries without needing approval by Parliament or Cabinet, to keep the process from being politicised. Every year, our ever mature media gleefully portrays this process as politicians giving themselves a huge pay…
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The somewhat irregular and frequently misguided Chris Trotter occasionally hits it on-the-head. Today's Sunday Star Times has Trotter running over John Key's inability to take the heat when it comes to hard questioning. And he further notes that National will be concerned that their man…
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Do you buy Fairtrade products? Or do you think of it as just another marketing ploy? This recent article "Teach us how to fish - do not just give us the fish" from the Guardian puts a personal perspective on consumer purchasing power. Three producers…
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I imagine this by-line is an error, but given the way the Herald's been evangelising for the Right lately you do have to wonder... (Hat-tip: gobsmacked)
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For those of you who haven't already found it, Left Business Observer editor Doug Henwood has a bloody good economics-based radio show that goes up on the web. I've rediscovered it after being an avid listener some years ago and can throughly recommend it. His…
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Earlier this week a reader drew our attention to Michael Hansen, a candidate in the recent local elections who drew 423 votes in Christchurch's Spreydon/Heathcote community board on the Sabotaged truck under labour ticket. Intrigued, I did a bit of digging, and it just gets…
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Google have just opened a new European engineering headquarters in Switzerland, according to a report from the BBC: "Dotcom companies were defined by beanbags and pizza but Google, a company that came to prominence after the bubble had burst, has taken that image to a…
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Frogblog covers Muriel Newman's column in the Dom yesterday: "Climate change, we didn't do it" [whew! back to my environmentally pollutive and destructive ways then]. Muriel's source for this assertion is the recent (and delightfully innocuously named) International Conference on Climate Change. The purpose of…
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A bad week last week from John Key got worse this week as other National MPs joined Key in a game of drop the ball. Last week, Key didn't know his party's Waitangi and Maori seats policies, and was slippery on the Auckland Airport issue…
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Today oil broke US$111 a barrel. Two weeks ago the record price was $101. Just six months ago the price broke $80 for the first time. Oil prices are rising at an accelerating pace. That flows into New Zealand fuel prices, predicted to top $2…
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Yesterday in Parliament, Winston Peters tabled a letter of protest from the Herald journalists' chapel to APN chief executive Martin Simons. The letter related to Simons' meeting with John Key to draft a ‘clarification' for the Bay Report's quote of Key saying he "would love…
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From the ABC site: "A peak business group says the Federal Government's promised tax cuts should be taken into account when deciding on an increase to the minimum wage. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry is proposing a rise of $10 to $11 - in…
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Following a_y_b's post about the deliciously punny Yes, Pecan! ice cream, we've found some more Obama-flavoured silliness which is also, incidentally, the best campaign song ever. Here's 'Viva Obama', by some random mariachi band: And if that's not enough Viva Obama goodness you can also…
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Ben and Jerry's icecream endorsed Obama when Edwards pulled out. To celebrate Obama's win in Vermont, Slate recently ran a competition to name an icecream in his honour. The winner? "Yes, Pecan!".
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Richard Wagstaff from the PSA was interviewed by Sunrise on John Key's plan to undermine the public service this morning. He notes Key's tactical use of emotive language, questions his distinction between "front-line" and "bureaucratic" staff, suggests that the numbers used by National are possibly…
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Brian Connell won't say whether he's planning on taking his wife on the taxpayer-funded Speaker's tour. In the clip below Faafoi asks Connell 18 times and still can't get a straight answer as Connell gets increasingly abusive. --- Leftie Infighting Alert!!--- Steve Pierson: I back…
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From Radio NZ: National says it will scrap a major new research and development fund for the pastoral and food industries if it becomes the Government at this year's election. Party leader John Key has criticised the fund as a "gimmick" and insists only the…
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We have an interesting mixed message (once again) from National on asset sales. David Carter is quoted in the NZ Farmers Weekly as saying: David Carter: "As Minister of Agriculture I would sell Landcorp. I don't see taxpayer money best invested in farms" (10 March,…
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To follow on from Steve's post earlier today, it looks like National's focus groups have thrown them up another hot-button issue - Key has alliteratively labeled this the "ballooning bureaucracy". Back in December we posted on him effectively saying he was all for sacking prison…
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The Canadian Pension Fund is planning to asset-strip Auckland Airport. Once they have control they would demand 'hyper-dividends' three times the size of the Airports' normal dividends. Where would the money have come from? From funds the airport would otherwise have spent on maintaining and…
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Now to be perfectly honest I've never really thought that seven sins was enough. I was delighted to see that the Vatican has added some extras. They are: environmental pollution, genetic manipulation, accumulating excessive wealth, inflicting poverty, drug trafficking and consumption, morally debatable experiments and…
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It's hard to get a straight answer out of John Key, so this is probably an exercise in futility, but Key's announcement that National would not increase the size of the core public service raises some questions that need asking. So, Mr Key: Saying you would 'get…