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John Key on the coming tax money go round: "it will make the bulk of New Zealanders either better off or a lot better off, and on a straight GST income tax no one will be worse off" The tax changes leaked to the Sunday-Star…
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OK, I don't get it, I really don't. Can someone please explain. For a long time now Marty G and others here have been pointing out that National's claims on tax cuts and GST increases don't add up. They are promising (1) that the "vast…
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Deborah Coddington writes: "In 1994, not long after Rodney Hide became leader of Act,..." Hide became leader in 2004. I know the papers don't demand any kind of intellectual rigour or evidence-based argument from their celebrity columnists but jeez. To be fair, the rest of…
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As previously posted, there is a Auckland seminar running this afternoon on options for the future direction of the New Zealand economy. Bold Choices for a Better Future is the provocative first seminar in the Resilient Economy Series, entailing a pragmatic 360Ëš view of the economy, its…
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Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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On Monday this week the front page of the Auckland Herald's print edition announced that the paper was going to run a campaign to fight what it called "the lockout of democracy" in the Super City. There was nothing on the Herald website all week,…
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You won't see many nice words written about John Ansell on this site. He's the guy who came up with the Iwi/Kiwi billboards which were a key feature National's racist campaign in 2005. Still, he is a voice of the Right and he takes John…
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I was going to do a post about how National's implementation of national standards is driven by pure ideology, and appears to be based on no evidence whatsoever. Key and Tolley keep making statements about education that make no logical or factual sense at all.…
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Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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Check out this video of Fox News talk host Glenn Beck. It's a compilation of his week-long series on how "America is burning to the ground". I think he's trying to argue that Barack Obama is plotting some sort of communist-inspired coup, but it's hard…
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You'll have seen the government's furious response to the Sunday Star Times "commission[ing] people masquerading as terrorists to attend Super 14 Games". From the sound of it, the SST got some people with fake explosives on their person (sticks saying TNT and an old timey…
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British American Tabacco's Graeme Amey has the brazen lie down pat. The guy quit smoking himself but wants Kiwis to keep smoking and dying to make his company profits. When asked why he quit he said "it was just a personal choice". But why? "It…
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We all knew Bill Ralston had become a nutty fringe right-winger despite how much he likes to play the slighted liberal. But his decision to start a Facebook group attacking public broadcasting, and to do so with two nutty Objectivists (one of whom did National's…
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Looking at the leaders for the Fabians seminar on Sunday, it looks to me like it is going to be quite interesting because it is likely to focus more on incremental rather than radical methods. One of the major issues to me with the existing…
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Who would have thought that a Facebook group advocating to keep Radio NZ funded and commercial-free would overtake Prime Minister John Key's fan group for number of members? Well, yesterday at 9.30, just over three weeks since it was founded, the Save Radio New Zealand…
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This year the government will spend $65,520 million. I say 'about' because the government itself only has a vague idea. That estimate came out in December and already it's $678 million out (less spent). It expected gross debt to be $51,716 million. In fact, it's…
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Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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A reader reports on our abysmal Minister of Education's latest stop on her bus tour to try to sell national standards: Interesting public meeting in Onehunga Thursday night, with Minister of Ed Anne Tolley seeking to sell her controversial National Standards policy. About 80 people…
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Have a listen to Education Minister Anne Tolley on Morning Report today trying to explain the $25 million cut to the education budget. It really was a shocker, even for her. Tolley claimed the cuts would increase frontline services, but couldn't say how. She claimed…
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The Local Government Commission released its final ward boundaries for Auckland today and the result is a city gerrymandered by ACT to favour the interests of the rich. That's the verdict from No Right Turn: There is significant deviation from equal representation, with wards ranging…
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Is race a factor in the NZ legal system? The answer seems to be yes. In a couple of recent high profile cases where the victim is an ethnic minority, killers have received extraordinarily light sentences. In early 2009 Tane wrote: Bruce Emery's sentence of…
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When a guy who was imprisoned and tortured by Idi Amin calls the conditions in which prisoners are kept in New Zealand "a source of shame and disgrace" you know we have problems. Unfortunately, it has become acceptable to view prisoners as less than human…
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Solid Energy has been caught out commissioning future leaders to pen fantasy stories in school hours. The company is inviting high school students in key coal-mining areas to submit an essay on: 'The role of coal in sustainable energy solutions for New Zealand'. The lucky…
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Sometimes you get a really pleasant surprise and I got one today from Garth George. I'm going to reproduce a pretty big chunk of his piece below because it is remarkably good. Despite being a pretty old school conservative he gives a stunning rebuke of…
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There was an article a while back about how Norway was bearing up in the global economic crisis. Pretty damn well. And it wasn't thanks to the oil, not directly. Oil prices had actually plummeted and yet the Norwegian economy was going strong and unemployment…
capitalism education national public services unemployment wages
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The more I think about the 'Wellywood' sign the angrier I get. Who does Wellington Airport think they are imposing this monstrosity on the people of Wellington without any consultation? If you don't know the city, the sign will be sitting above a roundabout at…
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Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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I see the latest Roy Morgan is out and with it we're seeing no change for Labour. To a certain extent that's to be expected as this government is only a year and a half old and there's still a residual media honeymoon. Which means…
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Good on Chris Carter. He's the only politician on Left taking some leadership in opposing the National Government's abandonment of New Zealand's anti-whaling stance. Today he launched an online petition against the government's position. Carter writes: "John Key's great plan to save the whales is…
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The first Drinking Liberally - Wellington of the year is being held in conjunction with the annual Roger Award. The Roger Award is presented each year to the worst transnational corporation operating in New Zealand, and the winner of the 2009 Roger Award will be…