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Tony Ryall said on Q+A today that the government would not sell assets if they did not get a good price. He wouldn't tell Shane Taurima what a good price would be but wanted to be very clear that a sale was not necessarily a…
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I'm going to try and put up a piece each Sunday of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It's also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. Those stimulating links you wanted to share, but just didn't…
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John Key must be getting a bit nervous about his falling polls and lack of viable coalition partners. He started preparing the ground to work with NZF: Key not ruling out deal with NZ First Prime Minister John Key is not ruling out working with…
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The Keep Our Assets Coalition has collected a phenomenal 80,000 signatures already, quarter of the way there. It took them a while to get the organisations going. Now, the signatures are pouring in. Collecting will get harder closer to the end but we're going to…
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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The sun shone brightly in Dunedin today (as it usually does of course). Between 1 and 2 thousand people (ODT estimate) turned out to march in protest at the National government's plan to sell our assets. The March was organised by Grey Power, and supported…
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For 10 years, the IRD has been investigating the tax dealings of the country's 250 richest people and their 7,500 companies and trusts. It turns out they had underpaid $500m of tax - $2m a piece- with hundreds of millions more in dispute. If you…
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Well, the same old lines just aren't working now. Maybe its a factor of having 3 journos interviewing him (3 young, hungry journos enjoying the opportunity to take on a Prime Minister on the way down, not comfortable, old members of the club), but they…
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We've written before about how misguided a program of economic austerity is, and in particular how the fantasy of expansionary austerity doesn't work in the real world. In both the UK and NZ recently elected tory governments have doomed their countries to years of austerity…
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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Iain Lees-Galloway has been leading an admirable campaign to keep Palmy North's Capital Connection. His latest effort is to have petition (online & offline versions) to present to Parliament at the end of the month. It has to be then, because it's expected that the…
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Weekend social is for non political chat. What's on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever. No politics, no aggro, why can't we all just get along?
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National has reduced the multifaceted, extremely complex job of economy management to a simple bookkeeping goal: a surplus, whatever its size, by 2014/15 (usefully, we won't know if it has happened until after the 2014 election). Treasury came to the party, projecting a $200m, 0.08%…
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You know Peak Everything is making the mainstream when it hits the business pages. But the era of abundant cheap resources is drawing to an end, for reasons equally straightforward. [...] And while demand for resources from an exploding and wealthier population soars, finding and extracting…
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Most Kiwis won't be able to afford to pay to buy what we already own when National sells our assets. When they sold Contact, only 5% of us got shares. You know who will buy the shares. Not your working families. Not Key's new army…
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The asset sales petition is going gangbusters. Various groups in the coalition are reporting they're already 20-30% of the way to their targets after only 5 weeks. The Greens have collected a massive 30,000 signatures already of their 100,000 target. So, there's going to be…
democracy under attack petition political education privatisation
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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National rushed its Asset Sales Bill back into the House today. Stephen Joyce argued that its purpose was to reduce debt, deepen capital markets, and invest in schools and hospitals. One-off sales of productive assets don't reduce debt, they increase it. If our future schools…
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Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here. The coach of the Greek football team is hailing the decision to bail his team out as an "historic moment". Intense negotiations between Greece and UEFA officials…
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No-one seems to know why the fish keep dying at King Salmon’s Waihinau farm in Pelorus Sound - or if they do they aren't telling us. King Salmon’s aquaculture general manager Mark Preece recently commented that up to seven per cent of fish were dying…
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David Cunliffe went to the lion's den yesterday with a speech telling a meeting of Kensington Swan's receivership and liquidation lawyers that there would be a lot less work for them under Labour but saying "the Labour Party is not your enemy. Your enemy is…
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Economic commentators are now openly speculating about "the D-word" - Depression. Even our own Treasury are in on the act: Eurozone 'depression' possible - Treasury The head of Treasury, the Government's chief economic adviser has gone where few others dare to venture. He used the…
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John Key's days are numbered. His personal popularity is falling. His brand is tied to unpopular asset sales and a pokies for convention centre deal that is now subject to an Auditor-General investigation. He's not winning the next election. So a change of leader is…
bill english Hekia parata john key Judith Collins national Steven Joyce
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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So the Asset Sales Bill will be back in Parliament for its second reading tomorrow. It's a further abrogation of due procress, as it comes back 5 weeks early, curtailing proper scrutiny. National, by wait of select committee numbers, ended deliberations after only one hour,…
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Can this year get any worse for Key? I'm starting to feel sorry for the guy. In latest news: Auditor-General to probe Sky City deal The Government's controversial deal with SkyCity casinos for a $350m national convention centre will be investigated by the auditor-general's office.…
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Another housing bubble. Just what we need. House prices up 5.4% in a year, 7.8% in Auckland. Inflation is 1.6%. Billions are being funneled into housing by banks who can make a buck off importing cheap credit from offshore and lend it to homebuyers here.…
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We should remember to celebrate our victories, and yesterday was a day full of them. First, there was the announcement of a settlement in the Oceania rest-home dispute - the workers held out and got the additional government funding passed on as they should. This…
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...