Explore the archive
Find articles and conversations by date, subject or search expression.
Searching: posts Sorted by: newest Results: 151–180 of 210
Post
The economists think the recession is probably over (for now). If you're one of the lucky ones, you may very well be thinking 'well that wasn't so bad' but what does the end of the recession mean? All it means is that the economy is has stopped shrinking.…
Post
"I'd really like to know what Treasury is on for it to be so bullish about the economy, as it must be good stuff." - Federated Farmers press release, 09, Sep. 2009 The day after Herald and TV headlined a Treasury report announcing a recovery,…
Post
r0b's post on John Key's 'uprising' comment (which was written last night) seems grimly ironic in light of this morning's news. Someone has thrown some kind of incendiary device, like a molotov cocktail, through a window of Key's electorate office. Obviously, such actions are to be…
Post
There was an odd little piece in The Herald on Tuesday: Uprising would force Super City changes: PM Prime Minister John Key says the Government will back down on the new Super City boundaries for Rodney and Franklin if there is enough of a community…
Post
National and the business elite led by former Telecom chairman Peter Shirtcliffe (who led the pro-FPP campaign back in the 1990s) want to replace MMP with a voting system called Supplementary Member. SM is kind of a halfway house between FPP and MMP. Rather than…
Post
An email doing the rounds of the women's networks found its way to me today. It's link to an article about the late Sophie Elliott, fomerly of Otago University and the essay she wrote on equity and and equality. Sophie may have been heading to…
Post
Fran O'Sullivan has rather given the game away on the MMP referendum. Frog has explained it so well, I can't do better than repost it: Holding a referendum on MMP was discussed at cabinet on Monday 31 August 2009. Yesterday Ms O'Sullivan informed Newstalk ZB drive time…
Post
John when you say 'overtly' you mean 'overly'. Like on Monday when you told Paul Henry "I'm not overtly stressed..". Sometimes, you say something like 'we're not overtly planning X' when you just mean 'we're not planning X'. Here's a little hypothetical test. What's wrong with…
Post
John Key has admitted he didn't bother to get detailed briefings before sending our SAS to kill and possibly die for a corrupt regime in Afghanistan: Hon Phil Goff: Was the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade, John Allen, correct in stating on Q+A on Television New Zealand…
Post
That prolific climate campaign - Sign On - has been casting its mark across the Capital, with a new motif popping up on some unlikely arms and paws. The blue cast, which appears to have replaced Keisha and Lucy as the face of the campaign,…
Post
National put Parliament back into urgency yesterday. It is ramming through the extension to the retail deposit guarantee, the RMA amendments, changes to the Biosecurity Act (and something else that escapes my memory). The RMA changes are particularly contentious but we won't get to know…
Post
Does anyone really believe a Treasury official just happened to accidentally drop a notebook full of secrets on The Terrace then one of only a couple of dozen political reporters in the country, Julian Robins from Radio New Zealand, just happened to pick it up, read it, and…
Post
As I alluded to yesterday, the claims from John Key that he has slashed hundreds of thousands of dollars from the cost of ministerial housing are rubbish. The media did a pretty good job of exposing the lie (except TV3 who just had some junior…
Post
Infratil-run NZ Bus has called off its planned capital strike for tomorrow. The company had been going to prevent bus drivers and other staff who wanted to work from working. It has withdrawn that lock-out notice and presented a better offer to the workers. The…
Post
Last Friday the report of the Select Committee on Auckland was tabled in Parliament. The lack of media attention is a measure of how almost irrelevant this committee was. It has been clear for a long time that the decisions are being made by a…
Post
By John Ryall, SFWU National Secretary While The Standard readers know that the air traffic controllers were the excuse that Kate Wilkinson used to signal a repeal of parts of the 2008 Employment Relations Act (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Act, they are probably not…
Post
And by any other name it smells as bad. John Key has annouced a reform of the rules for ministerial accommodation allowance. A fixed, automatic allowance will now be paid to all out of Wellington ministers of $37,500 a year for their Wellington accomodation (or $30,000 if they…
bill english corruption housing national/act government parliamentary spending same old national
Post
Coming soon to a workplace near you, if Kate Wilkinson gets her way: According to this report by Roll on Friday, a receptionist formerly employed by a major US law firm is suing the firm, saying she had no choice but to wet herself. Rebecca…
Post
Yesterday Infratil got their NZ Bus hand-puppets to announce that they will be going on strike. On Wednesday, if the bus-drivers refuse to donate their time freely to increase Infratil returns to investors, the company will remove bus-services from the commuters of Auckland. If the…
Post
As usual Rod Oram presents an insightful argument: New Zealand's climate change credibility is hanging by a thread. If the government indulges in bad politics on the Emissions Trading Scheme, the thread would snap. We would suffer instant, serious and long-term damage to our economy,…
Post
Five years ago Tim O'Reilly coined the phrase "Web 2.0". Now, in this post at TechCrunch, he argues it's time for "Gov 2.0". Gov 2.0 is about more than politicians using Facebook or Twitter or whatever, more than increased transparency, more than the government moving…
Post
From The Guardian: It used to be loony left local government that attracted ridicule. Now it is the outpourings of mad mayors. ...[UK mayoral problems seem] mild in the pointlessness stakes compared with New Zealand mayor Michael Laws, who scribbled furious replies to two children when…
Post
Michael Laws: get on with your job and stop prancing around on the media stage. Laws has put out a second (yes, a second) press release justifying being rude to some schoolkids who wrote to him. Apparently, Laws can think of no better use of…
Post
Like r0b, I'm the new kid on The Standard's block. Sounds like he got the cool initiation. I, on the other hand, had to go to a three hour meeting and, under brutal interrogation, denounce all my previous boyfriends with dubious political credentials. Plus they…
Post
Auckland bus drivers have been in negotiations with NZ Bus (which is owned by Infratil) for a 70 cent an hour pay rise. Currently, they're on between $14.05 and $16.75 an hour for 13-hour shifts. Many workers are on split shifts, which means up to…
Post
The last video I posted had Democratic Congressman Barney Frank taking the fight to a woman in the audience of a townhall meeting who had just compared the proposed health care reforms to Nazism. He finished by saying: "trying to have a conversation with you…
Post
Larry Baldock (organiser of the "smacking" referendum) has decided to launch a petition for another referendum on whether such referenda should be binding. His agenda of course is to keep flogging the dead horse of the s59 debate. Two more years? No thanks. The only…
Post
Marty G's last post just reminded me of this - visualise who goes under as the oceans rise with Flood Maps. And yeah, before you start, 14m is a big big rise. Just let it serve as a warning to all you Aucklanders to swap…
Post
The world's oceans reached a record high temperature in July of 16.37 degrees, 0.59 degrees above the 20th century average. That might not sound a lot, and it wouldn't be if we were talking about the variation in day to day temperature where you live, but we're…
Post
Last month's Time magazine has an article that starts "to understand why the United States is losing in Afghanistan..." It's a bombshell phrase, all the more for the fact that the reporter makes the statement in passing, as accepted fact. The article goes on to…