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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…
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So trucking companies are unwilling to pay for the extra damage that 53 tonne trucks will do. Companies trying to privatise the gains and socialise the losses? Gotta love those capitalists. And there's Joyce telling us to harden up and cop it. Thank goodness we've got the…
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Eddie's piece on the importance of joining your union if you want to avoid a pay cut reminded me of another Peter Seeger classic:
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The Global Climate Wake-up Call is happening today. It's a grassroots way for people to say we want our leaders to do more about climate change before it's too late. There are flashmob gatherings all over the country this lunch time. The list is here: http://www.avaaz.org/en/tcktcktck_map/
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From Paul Krugman's review of Skidelsky's latest book on Keynes: "At research seminars, people don't take Keynesian theorising seriously anymore; the audience starts to whisper and giggle to each other". So declared Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago, writing in 1980. At the time,…
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Right now, spurred on by the hypocritical words of Bill English and John Key, employers in the public and private sectors are saying they can only offer a 0% pay increase this year - and many are trying to cut conditions like redundancy and overtime. 0% is…
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Rod Oram, as usual, has set the standard in commentary with his piece on the National-Maori Party ETS. The full article is here but I'll lift the core points: Oram argues a climate change policy package needs three things: Put a price on emissions to…
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The latest Roy Morgan poll puts National down 5% and Labour up 4%. Still a big gap, but it seems at last New Zealanders' patience is waning over this Government's competence and honesty issues.
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I've posted before on "mainstream" media editorials, their variable quality and the paradox (in this world of blogging) of their anonymity. Every now and then it means that even The Herald can come up with a scorcher. And the Saturday Editorial on Bill English is…
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One of these things is not 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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The Sunday Star Times reports [page 4, currently offline] that Telecom has hired a private investigation company, Corporate Investigations, to spy on the lines engineers it sacked and is now trying to force into dependent contracting. That's right, not content with ripping these workers' livelihoods…
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I get sick of hearing our illustrious fourth estate refer to some piece of politicking as 'good politics'. Who decides what's 'good politics'? The commentators, of course. And they define good politics as maneuvering to ones advantage, rather than getting good policies in place. Take the ETS…
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We haven't seen much of this myth in NZ. However it shows some good examples of selective reading of news articles and papers by CCD's in support of the "Martians drive hummers" line. Thanks to Andrei for reminding me why videos like this have to…
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Climate change and the Emissions Trading Scheme are front and centre of political comment at the moment it seems. I thought this item from Patrick Smellie was a cut above the rest: No matter whether you're up or downwind of it, this week's political bargain…
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The Talleys and National Party-linked Open Country Cheese is currently trying to run its factory without its workers as it attempts to bust the union and casualise its workforce. They've said they're running the factory (arguably illegally) with local farmers and strike-breakers flown in from…
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If you are in love with the concept that 1998 was the warmest year on record (wrong by the way), don't watch this. This runs through exactly why you don't know what you're talking about. Check out this
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We're probably all now aware of the idea of peak oil. The earth is finite, and we can't suck an infinite amount of oil out of it. But oil isn't the only resource which is reaching its peak. Various important metals are running out even…