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I know it's not The Standard's style to follow the media in the disgusting practice of turning real people's lives into soap opera but there is a political aspect of the Veitch saga that is worth commenting on. 30 years ago, a story like this would have…
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This post was originally published last year but it's relevant in the light of the naive comments from McCully on Q+A today about China cooperating with New Zealand on aid to Fiji. _________________________________________ Liberal democracy (ie. democracy where there are truly competitive elections) is the…
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Head of the Unite union, Matt McCarten, writes about the Synovate lockout and how foreign-owned businesses try to exploit New Zealand workers: [The] owners offer workers essentially nothing above the minimum wage then expect everyone to roll over and accept it. The normal threat is…
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The best news source in America, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, interviews the woman responsible for making sure their bailout money is being spent well. Illuminating and a little scary. In the second part she puts this whole financial crisis in a historic and…
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Unlike some of the other Standard writers, I don't usually find Fran O-Sullivan too bad but her reporting of Key's trip to China has been disappointing. Here's how she describes Key's failure to stand up for human rights: "Key is also quite pragmatic on human…
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Brian Rudman has a piece in the NZ Herald looking at the good side of the Auckland reorganisation. The potential for pooling resources. This was one of the reasons that there is widespread support for some kind of reorganization of Auckland into a single political…
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This morning I picked up the local newspaper out of the mailbox - Harbour News. On the front page was this extraordinary editorial - "Who stole our Voice". The editor of the Harbour News tears Rodney Hide and the NACT government a new excretory orifice.…
auckland supercity democracy under attack national/act government
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One of these things is not like the other... One of these things is not quite the same. Can you guess which one is not like the other... Can you tell me before I finish the game?
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A reader writes: $30 million for an expo pavillion? Sounds a bit steep. Why, John Key could could build you a cycleway 60% of the length of New Zealand for that price. Seriously though, Key's going to spend 50% more on a pavillion than he's…
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The current financial crisis originated in America with a wave of defaults in "sub prime" mortgages. The excellent presentation found here covers a lot of data in a lot of detail (step through the slides), and shows why there is more pain ahead in the…
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Peeking through the OECD policy brief there were some interesting issues when looking at the short-term economic issues over the next few years. As usual Granny Herald in their usual editorial policy of supporting NACT has it wrong. On their front page article they said...…
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Five months in office and ministers are already so aloof and out of touch that you can read things like this in the media almost without raising an eyebrow: The Government says it will listen to the wide range of concerns about its plans for a Super…
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(click the picture for the video) Why would Worth visit the Sandhu family to whom he was a stranger and who had nothing to do with his portfolio? What did he say to them? Why would he introduce himself as the Minister of Internal Affairs to the family?…
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We should expect National as the political arm of business to surround itself with dirty money and conflicts of interest. As a self-proclaimed social democratic party Labour has no such excuse. So: - What is Labour's education spokesperson Chris Carter doing accepting election donations from…
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In two days, John Key will be bouncing from cloud to cloud on his way back home from China. With him on the plane will be a group of businessmen that Fran O'Sullivan (in shockingly bad taste) calls the 'gang of seven'. These include: the…
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The Herald covers some of the donations to parties and candidates before the election. One of the big donors was the Road Transport Forum, the trucking lobby, who were behind the famous 'truck strike'. They're getting value for money eh? National's Transport Minister Steven Joyce…
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Remember when John Key used to say "New Zealand has a growth problem, not a debt problem"? He doesn't say that anymore, which is a pity because we do have a growth problem, not a debt problem, but the Government is acting like we've got…
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As if any more evidence was needed that National's Paula Bennett is completely out of her depth as Minister of Social Development, it appears Work and Income is turning away the hungry while Paula can't even get her lines straight: Despite a high court ruling…
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Last week, John Key was bouncing on a new cloud. The Australian Government had teamed up with banks to help stop homeowners defaulting on their mortgages. Key publicly mused that 'his' government could do the same here. We said it was only a matter of…
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Indymedia reports that the lockout at research company Synovate has been lifted and a settlement has been reached: Late last night, union and company negotiators reached a settlement at the Department of Labour. Pay rises will be 50c now and 50c in 6 months. People…
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In 1773, a group of Bostonians who objected to being forced to pay a tax on tea by the British Parliament, which they didn't get to elect, boarded a ship carrying tea and threw the cargo into Boston harbour. The Boston Tea Party became an…
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I've just stumbled across this killer graph from the PSA on public service numbers under Labour and National. It helpfully puts in graphical form what we've known all along - that for all the bleating we've heard from National and its sycophants about how Labour's…
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The Maori Party MPs always read from pre-prepared speeches in the House. Here's one they might like to read on Budget Day: We refuse to vote for more money to lock up poor Maori and poor Pakeha. We voted against National's reactionary crime laws, now…
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Restaurant Association chairman Mike Egan on how to treat your staff during a recession: "if some of our employees cannot adapt fast enough we will drag them out of the cave and leave them to the sabre-tooth tigers and find staff who can and will…
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Forwarded to us from Indymedia: Call centre workers at Synovate in South Auckland were today locked out by their employer. The workers had been negotiating for secure hours and a pay rise of a dollar when they received word by text last night that they…
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For the last two election campaigns we had to put up with National, aided and abetted by many commentators, dominating the agenda with its incessant calls for tax cuts. Last year they promised "meaningful cuts", "North of $50", a promise repeated even in the face…
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Remember the oil spike? Over the course of the last 4-5 years, oil kept on breaking records, culminating in a massive spike to reach $150 last June. Why did that happen? Some people want to dismiss it as just a speculative bubble but they forget…
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Back during the election campaign, the Standard writers wrote a lot about the need for Labour's leaders to talk more from their values, values that they quite happily talk about in private. Well, Phil Goff did exactly that on Q+A yesterday (video here). Here's the…