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Night classes - Adult and Community Education (ACE). An incredibly cost effective and valuable part of the NZ education sector for decades. The ACE budget has been eviscerated by National, cut from $16m to $3m. Effectively a death blow, most of the infrastructure and expertise…
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Stuff has announced the resignation of Sue Bradford from parliament. Over the years Sue has championed more pro-worker legislation than just about any MP I can think of and has in the last few years been a backroom powerhouse for the Greens through her ability…
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Colin Espiner: "For some reason that I don't quite understand, unemployment usually continues to rise at the end of recessions, and there's normally a lag time of something like a year before it falls." I can help with that one. When a down-turn starts, employers…
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Tau Henare has put a private members' bill in the ballot that would require ballots by union members on strike action to be held in secret. Henare draws on his memories from the 1980s as a union organiser and reckons that open ballots are used…
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I wish that I got praise heaped on me at my job for exchanging a bit of small-talk with the popular dude. Don't want to take away from Key's achievement. I mean wow, he shook the Obama's hand and didn't muck it up. I'm looking…
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In his speech as Labour climate change spokesperson, Charles Chauvel confirmed the new information on the ETS that Jeanette Fitzsimons revealed today. It was a pretty good speech, especially the conclusion: "Labour will have no option but to repeal these changes when next in power. We…
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Last night, non-government parties finally got a peak at the new emissions trading bill. Nick Smith still didn't have it finished, it was in draft form, and by all accounts it's a mess. As Jeanette Fitzsimons reports, however, the draft ETS did reveal something important.…
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On Tuesday, both Sue Kedgley and Sue Moroney tabled petitions in Parliament with over 15,000 signatures, on food standards in schools and pay equity respectively. That's an incredible achievement. Most petitions get a few hundred, maybe a thousand signatures. Generally, not a lot of organising…
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This was always a favourite of mine.
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I have a lot of respect for Hone Harawira. The voting for a Tory government thing has lessened it but his hatred for the tobacco companies balances things out. Harawira wants smoking banned. Says he would love to whip or worse the smoking company bosses (you know…
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**Wellington** Today - September 24, 2009, from 5.30pm. The Southern Cross Abel Smith Street Phil Saxby on drug law reform *Dunedin** Tuesday September 29th, 2009, from 7pm CIRCADIAN RHYTHM <-- we've changed venue! St Andrew St Green MP Sue Bradford
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Watching the Maori Party get done over by National is getting painful. The MP thought they had a good faith dialogue on the issue of Maori seats on the Auckland Council, but before the select committee process was even finished Key announced that there would…
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The Talleys-owned Open Country Cheese dispute took a new turn today after it was revealed that a senior manager, not content with just bullying workers, has assaulted one of them. Here's what Giovanni Moana, the worker concerned, had to say: "I was told to put…
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Espiner the Younger wrote: Hutch's biggest mistake wasn't reading and driving, in my opinion. It was reading and driving in a sign-written car with his name on it. Now, that is silly. No. The problem is doing something dangerous and probably illegal (got to constitute…
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Reader sent in this cartoon from the latest NZ Farmers Weekly. Things have got to be bad for Open Country when even the farming press is turning on them.
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On Monday, New Yorkers discovered their free rightwing rag, the New York Post, had suddenly come over all green. The front-page was typical NYP: a headline screaming "we're screwed". The difference was that, in a reversal of the norm, the paper was fake but the facts…
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You'll remember that in the Budget National decided to suspend payments to the Cullen Fund, which is designed to help fund the future cost of superannuation. At the time, John Key and Bill English said we were losing money on the Fund and we couldn't…
bill english budget 2009 economy national/act government superannuation
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The newly released figures show 0.1% growth in the June quarter. The March figure was also revised up to -0.8% (from -1.0%). Here comes the sun? Not quite. 0.1% is pretty damn weak. It's below population growth (0.25% per quarter) so, we're still worse off…
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What more can one say. Read it and weep for our country.
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In an extraordinary coincidence, the Attorney-General in the UK is about to lose her job for pretty much the same rort as Bill English has been pulling here: [Baroness Scotland] receives a £38,280-a-year "night subsistence allowance" widely understood to be for ministers whose primary home…
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More at: theyesmenfixtheworld.com
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It seems the trend of rewarding company bosses with extravagant pay rises regardless of performance isn't limited to Telecom's $7 million man, Paul Reynolds. The Dom Post reports the bosses of Contact and Skellerup have been given huge pay rises, despite both companies' profits taking…
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Our readers pointed out some interesting quotes in yesterday's thread on Bill English's attempt to bully journalists into silence over his housing allowance rort. Key on why he fired Richard Worth: "The test of whether someone enjoys my confidence is not a legal test and I…
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The Open Country Cheese dispute is getting nastier by the day. The workers began their eight-day strike last week. The Talley's and National Party-linked company responded by bringing in strike-busters (farmers, apparently) to take the workers' place, which is illegal. On Saturday, one of these…
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Two stories from today's Dominion give a hint as to what might be muttered under their breath as Key and Obama pose for the cameras at the upcoming UN reception: Key to Obama: "I'm sending more troops to Afghanistan - they've promised me verbally they…
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It seems political scientists could learn a thing or two from anthropologists after all. "Neanderthals were not the gentle, almost-human creatures portrayed in the media over the last 50 years..." No surprises there mate.
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On Wednesday last week, Labour released new information on Bill English's housing allowance rort. Naturally, the media raised the issues with English. TVOne and TV3 ran stories that night. They weren't particularly harsh stories. They didn't really editorialise. They didn't even say English should give…
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National are up to their old tricks again - bullying the media to try and shut down critical comment. This time the culprit is Bill English, lashing out* at those who are covering the story of his ongoing hypocrisy and greed: Radio New Zealand's political…
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The outage earlier this evening was due to the hosting company taking the server down.. We will be rebooting the host machine to update its kernel and apply some other fixes. The reboot will occur at approx 2200 PT (10pm Pacific time) on Sunday September…
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It's kind of funny how in a year we've gone from expecting a Prime Minister to be hugely competent and across the details to being used to having a dude who everyone knows is just an actor, playing the part. The other week, Henry told…