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Voting starts. What will the new president do about Climate Change? For good or ill, America has a tradition of global leadership. When it comes to climate change America needs to lead more actively in the world - not from behind, but from the front. It's…
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Today is Housing Crisis Day of Action with a march on parliament in Wellington (see Facebook page). The government's response is "cautious" as it doesn't want to interfer too much in the housing market. It is putting too much emphasis on encouraging the building of…
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Yesterday, 60 highly paid jobs at Rakon where lost and we learned 5,700 manufacturing jobs had been lost in the past year. The reason, the high dollar made manufacturing here untenable. Steve Joyce shrugged his shoulders and said it was the company's call to do…
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John Key says whatever it is convenient for him to say at the time. Usually he can keep track of his many faces well enough to avoid blatantly contradicting himself. But maybe the strain of his recent string of batshit behaviour is starting to tell,…
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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While the news is full of the Pike River debacle (yet another failure of National's self-regulatory fantasies) and the blogs are full of derision on John Key's idiotic statements and 'clarifications', I'm more interested in the MMP review. Colin James has expressed my response to…
democratic participation electoral systems MMP Politics referendum
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I just wonder in what world John Key thinks that it's OK for the PM to go around slagging off and insulting people in public. Planet Key, perhaps. Why does he think it's OK for him to call a visitor to our country '"thick as…
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Good to see a prominent and widely respected gay person take Key on for his thoughtless and damaging language: John Key is left looking like a foolish little Hobbit this morning by the man who plays the Tolkien wizard in the Peter Jackson films, Sir…
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Our human cognitive systems are a flawed hodge-podge of evolutionary hacks. Among our many failures of reasoning, we tend to believe what we want to believe (irrespective of the facts), and we tend to be bad about taking future consequences into account (we focus on…
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National's strategy around the Pike River report is to try to get the media story over in a day. That's why Wilkinson waited until now to resign - no punishment as she'll still be a Cabinet minister and her resignation will come in handy in…
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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I've got to say I'm pleased to see the recommendations of the Pike River report and the fact that it looks like the government will be putting them in place. I'm not so happy about the reaction to the the resignation of Kate Wilkinson. She's…
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The Electoral Commission's report is out. Now we need to make sure that the Government follow through on what an independent board have decided having listened to ordinary New Zealanders' submissions. Personally I would have liked the threshold suggested to be lower, and indeed the…
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Stuff and NZ Herald are reporting Breaking news that Kate Wilkinson has resigned her portfolio as Minister of Labour, due to the findings in Pike River Mine report. It's about time a government minister was held accountable for some of the destructive things that they…
accountability disaster Mining national/act government workers' rights
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So John Key had a very ordinary Friday apparently. Not only did he deride a kind international celebrity who took 45 minutes out of his day to spend time with his son as "thick as batshit," he also was out there telling a radio host…
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John Key won't be on the West Coast today when the Pike River report will be released. He'll have a tightly managed press conference at the Beehive, instead. Key promised that he would stand by the Pike River families. He promised that all efforts would…
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It looks like Darien Fenton's "Keep Public Libraries Free" Bill will soon be getting its first reading in parliament. Public libraries are an important community resource. Keeping their resources and services free contributes to social inclusion and participatory democracy. Fenton reports that her Bill will…
community democracy democratic participation local government public services
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The estimated population of New Zealand reached 4,444,444 on the 1st of November 2012. Nothing special other than a rare moment of symmetry in an otherwise random and chaotic world. Interestingly the number 4 is associated with death in Chinese, and this population occurred the…
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On Breakfast just now, Tourism Minister Key tried out his line on the international debacle arising from his insulting a prominent visitor to our country who was forbearing enough to spend time talking to Key's kid. His plan is to try to stymie the story…
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The bosses justify their huge pay packets by saying they're the elite, the wealth creators. They get the money because their genius makes sure things work. But, when it all goes to hell it's the minions who get blamed. While the CEO gets a $100K…
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...