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No Right Turn points out in What's in the urgency motion? exactly how much of shambles the NACT government is. At present they are busy ramming through legislation that has no titles, that hasn't been drafted or presented to politicians to read, and they don't…
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This from Lew in the comments section of my last post: Shortly after the House resumed at 0900, Darren Hughes requested that the bills about to be debated be tabled so members could read them before debating them. Just before 1000 he asked what progress…
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Have you heard the sad news that the EU may be next to join the international communist nanny-state conspiracy against incandescent bulbs? It seems EU bureaucrats have published a "report" which calls for a ban on the freedom-loving inefficient bulbs which have kept our planet…
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There has been a on-going issue with some readers not getting updates through in a timely fashion in the sidebars when posts and comments are updated. A similar issue has shown with people using the same proxy server winding up sharing their cookies. I've checked…
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Yesterday, the MPs were sworn in. After the section 'pledge true allegiance to Queen Elizabeth the Second, her heirs and successors, according to law', some of the Maori Party MPs (reading the oath in Maori) inserted, 'and the Treaty'. They were asked to repeat the…
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No Right Turn has an excellent post pointing out that National is misusing urgency in a manner unseen since the bad old days of Douglas and Richardson: You have to go back to Douglas and Richardson to see this sort of abuse of the Parliamentary…
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Kate Wikinson, John Key's hapless Minister of Labour, has told NZPA the public shouldn't get to have their say on the fire at will bill because, apparently, we already had our chance with Wayne Mapp's private member's bill back in 2006. This argument is complete…
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I've just watched the first part of the Address in Reply debate which included maiden speeches by two new National Party MPs - Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga and Melissa Lee. They were impressive. This in itself should provide some cause for concern for Labour but more…
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Rodney Hide on National and ACT's select committee into the ETS: "I am especially pleased to see that the issue of the scientific and trade implications will be considered alongside the impacts on the economy. "There is definitely not a monolithic view on the fact…
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National has been working hard to push the idea that its fire at will policy introduces a 'probationary period' of employment. This is not true. The Employment Relations Act already allows for probationary employment periods, it simply requires that workers are given the right to…
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The Greens have joined in opposing National's "Fire at Will" Bill which they say puts "jobs and democracy at stake". They're calling on the Maori Party to stand strong in its previous opposition to the bill. Only two years ago Hone Harawira said when voting against…
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These ads made by the ACTU to oppose John Howard's removal of unfair dismissal rights sure bring home what National's fire at will law will mean for working families. No wonder National wants to curtail any real debate by ramming it through under urgency. Part…
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I've just been informed that the National/ACT Government has put its 90 day fire at will bill on the Order Paper and could ram it through under urgency as early as tomorrow. This is frankly an astonishing abuse of our democracy. A piece of legislation…
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Word is National's David Bennett will be chairing the Transport & Industrial Relations select committee. After his unhinged performance over the youth minimum wage bill (audio below) where he screamed that the bill was "communism" and that we need to protect our hierarchical society, I'm…
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Tracy Watkins reports that the National/Act government will be taking all work rights from anyone in a new job in a firm with 20 staff or less and they're going to do it under urgency. I've heard that the question of whether to proceed with…
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In case, like me, you tend to mainly read the news online, here's what was stuck to the Dominion Post this morning:
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NZPA reports that the Government is looking at reviewing its changes to Kiwisaver so that workers who don't earn enough to get the full $20 tax credit in a revised 2% scheme are not unfairly discriminated against. The changes are expected to cost $700 million…
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During this morning's Nine to Noon politics segment Matthew Hooton was saying how he thought the Government's 100-day action plan would only include policies signalled prior to the election when he let slip: "And I'm sure while there will be some complaints about one measure...…
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Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis describe in the New Statesman how: [a]lmost entirely under the media radar, workers in Argentina have been responding to rampant unemployment and capital flight by taking over businesses that have gone bankrupt and reopening them under democratic worker management. Full…
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If someone sent me this to put up as a guest post on The Standard, I would probably reject it as too childish. But seeing as the Dompost printed it and it is pretty funny, here is Bob Jones' The Secret Diary of Prime Minister…
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National/ACT has cancelled the Buy New Zealand Made programme. So, this is that ambitious and positive vision for New Zealand we've been hearing so much about?
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Since the 16th of November, I've been running an experiment with the Alexa ranking system to look at the site sensitivity in rankings from what is hopefully a single new person using it. This is one of the factors used by Tumeke and Halfdone's rankings.…