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I was looking back at posts from last year to get some idea of traffic patterns over the December period. I found this interesting post from Tane titled Personal responsibility. It made me think of the poor performance of the National-led government over the last…
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According to the BBC: US Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen thought she was being hoaxed when a man who sounded a lot like Barack Obama called her - so she hung up on him. In fact, the man at the other end of the line was indeed…
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Well, if that was the best they could manage for the final Agenda then we haven't lost much. There was one decent question in an hour. That was from the business editor of the Press asking Rodney Hide why if people wanted their councils owning…
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Christmas is coming. We want to feel like we're part of the sustainable, clean and green in action movement. So what sort of Christmas tree should be twinkling? Leo Hickman of the Guardian asks these questions and more: Aren't they just a colossal waste of money? Can…
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A mate just pointed out that the metadata of David Farrar's election analysis document suggests it was authored on a Parliamentary Service computer. With the document open in Microsoft Word go to the 'File' menu then down to 'Properties'. You'll see something like the image…
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At the election, National won a mandate for its platform to review the Work Account of ACC, to see whether privatisation might make it better. Of course, we know that they're not interested in the findings of any fair review, which would show ACC is…
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It's good to see Treasury's extreme right-wing prescription for New Zealand has not been wholly embraced by the National Party - and it's easy to see why. While Bill English (a former Treasury wonk himself) no doubt agrees with the policy ideas and direction outlined…
community democracy economy Environment national/act government public services workers' rights
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We've covered the National/ACT government's latest ACC beat-up extensively already. IB spelled out rather well here the techniques being used by the government to undermine ACC in order to create a sense of crisis and soften up the public for privatisation. And it pains me…
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Treasury's briefing to Bill English as the new Minister of Finance must've pissed him off big time. Aside from the expected ideological burp (already covered in depth by No Right Turn) it reads like a long list of Labour achievements and calls on National is…
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Murray McCully has just used his recently acquired ministerial discretion to allow Fiji's under-20 soccer team to enter New Zealand in transit on its way to a tournament in Tahiti. This is broadly at odds with the Labour government's sanctions following the coup in 2006…
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What would you guys think about us taking on advertising? A few months ago, I saw Public Address's advertising rates card and it turns out there's a fair, but not by any means huge, amount of money in advertising for a blog of our size.…
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The Herald continues its campaigning today with a puff piece about a poll that claims business wants National's 90 day 'fire at will' policy enacted as soon as possible. The policy would remove the right of any worker in a small business to appeal against…
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There's a lot of talk about the ACC budget deficit and National's use of the issue to create an environment in which their privatisation scheme can roll with the minimum political fall-out. Any doubt I had that this was their plan evaporated this morning when…
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I despair at the mentality behind this ad. Why should universities, which are all publically-owned, be advertising to try and take students off each other? I mean, it's one thing to compete on quality but this kind of vacuous 'marketing' nonsense just shows we're losing…
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The Reserve Bank has cut 1.5% off the official cash rate, bringing it down to 5%. The rate has now been cut 2.5% in just six weeks, an unprecendented slashing. Mortgage rates will drop as well, but perhaps not by as much because the banks…
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Let's not fool ourselves that what we've seen from National over the last 24 hours on to the shortfall in the ACC non-earners account hasn't been carefully managed in a way to lay the foundation for their arguments in favour of privatising the scheme. I…
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It often provides an interesting take on what's on people's minds. The top ten was filled out by: Vet Socialism Maverick Bipartisan Trepidation Precipice Rogue Mysogeny Turmoil Here's the link.
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"Far too much irksome regulation is putting unnecessary burdens on households and businesses," says Rodney Hide. Problem is, for all his rhetoric, Rodney can't actually name any 'irksome' or unnecessary regulations. Now, he is "appealling" to us to stop him looking like a puffed up…
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Matthew Hooton calls Drinking Liberally 'a trendy leftie clique'. Well, I'm not sure I would agree with mad Matt on the 'clique' bit, four chapters around the country with as many as a hundred people coming along to events seems a bit bigger than a…
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Armstrong's a little more charitable in relation to National's dithering on the evacuation of Kiwis from Bangkok than I would have been. Yes, Key got there in the end but we had to endure yet more of the painful "there are a range of options…
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Now that didn't take long. Well rehearsed from the 1990s, National has already started using the privileged position of government to conjure up bogeymen to get their unpopular privatisation agenda past the public. John Key called an urgent press conference yesterday to beat-up a $1b…
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More gold from Lyndon Hood: Blogger Still Maintains Clark Just Like Mugabe The power-sharing arrangement Helen Clark has permitted after the opposition National party's election victory may dissolve into violence at any time, reports an anonymous blogger who continues to insist New Zealand has become…
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John Key's first test as Prime Minister in a crisis is turning into a bloody fiasco, with the leader of the opposition having to tell him how to do his job through the media. Read the linked article, it's extraordinary. For the sake of the…
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Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesman Garth McVicar's analysis of prisons today: "Under our present prison policy the inmates are basically running the prison" Why does anyone take this man seriously?
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The journos don't seem to have been very impressed by Key now that he has returned to take up the reins of government. Several journos criticised his performance at his first post-Cabinet press conference. There is growing criticism of Key's response to the situation in…
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This classic myth is used by National/ACT as an excuse to not do anything about climate change and, now, to attempt to undermine emissions reduction targets in the international climate change agreement to succeed Kyoto. And it is nothing more than a myth. Between 1990…
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John Key said yesterday that he expects growth in "the next financial year to be pretty close to zero". That means he's anticipating a serious recession. That's our national wealth shrinking for two years, even as the population continues to grow - a smaller pie for…
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The Sunday Star Times reported yesterday that ACT had "snapped up" former Brash advisor Peter Keenan, one of the lead stars of Nicky Hager's The Hollow Men. The Hollow Men revealed, among other things, that Mr Keenan counselled Dr Brash to campaign on populist issues…
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The Council of Trade Unions is calling on National to re-jig its tax package to give it more balance. And fair enough too - despite the media narrative about National's 'moderate', 'centrist' policies the figures show its tax package is actually incredibly regressive. In fact,…
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Good housing is a foundation of a healthy society, and it is something that New Zealand has long lacked. Despite leading the world with our state housing in the 1930s, we have fallen behind. Housing in most other first world countries is much warmer and…