Open mike 12/11/2013
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step right up to the mike …
Caption Competition
The Conservatives latest billboard is apparently saying what everyone is thinking. What are we thinking?
Why insurance should be a state monopoly
The seeming purpose of having competition is to prevent monopoly pricing and excessive profits but, as Steve Keen shows, all businesses use the same pricing model with about the same level of profits. If they did use the pricing model that economists say that they should use they’d actually go broke. Having a state insurance system has a whole different economic basis.
Rorty rorty
You’ll remember that, back in 2009, Bill ‘Double Dipton’ English was caught claiming an ‘out of town’ allowance – intended to pay for non-Wellington-based MPs’ accommodation in the capital – to pay the mortgage on his family home in Karori. Key’s solution was to let all his ministers claim the rort. Now, it turns out some of them are doubling down on the rort.
Open mike 11/11/2013
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step right up to the mike …
National’s litany of economic failure
I finally got up the courage to trawl through Tracy Watkins’ hagiography to John Key and found something interesting at the end. The Dom has made a table of main economic and fiscal measures comparing where they are now to where they were in 2008 and, crucially, where they were projected to be now in the forecasts Treasury made immediately after National came to power. It’s a list of National failure.
Will JT be a Labour MP?
John Tamihere’s public comments this week raise deep concerns at the possibility that he could again become a Labour MP. If it was not before it must be abundantly clear that his attitudes and beliefs are too extreme.
Open mike 10/11/2013
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step right up to the mike…
‘Locked Up Warriors’: 101 East
On 101 East on Al Jazeera. Too many people in NZ prisons, especially Maori: too many in poverty; too much money spent on prisons; not enough for low income communities; some very good community initiatives. Is this a fair representation?
Open mike 09/11/2013
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step right […]
National day of action against rape culture: 16 Nov
Important day of action against rape culture, 16th November. The distressing Roastbuster case set off very important discussions, in-depth examination of the issues, & possible ways to dismantle the rape culture that is embedded in our mainstream culture. [Updates of demo locations & links on-going]
Bring back Simon Power
This week in Parliament Judith Collins was in full-on “no” mode – no to alternative trial process for sexual abuse cases, and no to changes to the law of evidence in sexual abuse cases rising from Law Commission work commissioned by Simon Power. This morning on National Radio Jan Jordan of Victoria University called for that extensive work to be revisited. I think she is absolutely right; if carried through it can only lead to a better outcome than what we have at the moment.
Like nats leaving a sinking ship …
So far seven National MPs have announced they will not stand in next year’s general election and more announcements are rumoured to be in the pipeline. Is the writing on the wall for this Government and will it become the first two term National Government in history?
Open mike 08/11/13
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step right up to the mike…
Perhaps the NZ Police should do their frigging job properly!
The police have censored a satirical image of their policy towards juvenile rapists. It suggests that such outstanding citizens might make good police recruits. Based on past experience that may be the case. It has been most of a decade since the Bazley report. Less than a month since they ignored the IPCA about unlawfully breaking a kids neck at a party. Their actions or lack of them are both a subject of satire and intensely political… Stuff them. They need civilian criticism because they sure as hell don’t listen to their oversight bodies.
ImperatorFish: UFB Project: Terms of Tender
Scott has found the tender document for UFB rollout.
Kate Wilkinson to stand down and Matthew Doocey may seek nomination
Kate Wilkinson has announced that she will stand down at the next election as the MP for Waimakariri and National candidate for Christchurch East, Matthew Doocey is said to be in the mix for the nomination and has not ruled this out. Shouldn’t he be focussing on helping the good people of Christchurch East?
The sound of feet dragging: after Bazley
The police yet again apologise for the continuing support for rape culture within their ranks. As a result, young (alleged) rape victims have been re-traumatised. The Bazley Report recommendations should have prevented this from happening. From Key, Collins & Tolley we have been hearing the low-key sound of feet dragging.
The Prime Nanny
Parliament’s Chief Nanny has been in full flight this week, trying to slap down questions from Jan Logie and Andrew Little about trial processes for sexual abuse cases. Nanny was very strict. Everyone else had got it wrong, and needed to be corrected. When Nanny got it wrong herself, as she did when answering Andrew Little, she backed off quickly. When he challenged “so you don’t want to change anything”, she found the mild heckling “abusive”, which certainly does raise the bar, at least for herself.
English says higher wages mean better results
National’s been working hard to keep wages down for the 5 years. They’ve weakened union laws, introduced fire at will, opposed $15 minimum wage and the living wage. And it’s worked: 46% of workers got no raise last year, another 18% got less than a 2% raise. 5 years ago, 59% got a raise above 2%. Strangely, though, English says high wages are good for the economy.
Len Brown will today propose a living wage for Auckland Council employees
Len Brown will today propose to Council that it funds a living wage for all Council and CCO employees. It is intended that this is funded through savings, particularly with high level wages, and efficiencies and will be brought in over three years if supported by the Council.
Open mike 07/11/13
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step right up to the mike…
Sir Edmund Thomas: “Reducing Inequality” – new ‘Values’
Sir Edmund Thomas’s recent Bruce Jesson Lecture is now online. He argues for a need to reduce inequalities, via a change in values away from those directed by “neoliberal” economics, & for a struggle from “below”. Is this intended to soften capitalism & not replace it?
Everything you wanted to know about the Chorus deal …
The Chorus fibre roll out deal with the Government is one of those issues that promises to embarrass the Government deeply, more deeply than us lefties may think. Because amongst the ranks of this Government’s supporters are those who hold close to principles. They not be our principles but nevertheless from the view of the right are just as if not more important than ours. One of the most important is the sanctity of the market. This is why some on the right are distraught at the generosity being shown to one of our largest corporates.
Couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery
National was warned not to give the main ultrafast broadband contracts to Chorus. All it would do would restore and strengthen the monopoly that had kept internet prices too high (which Cunliffe has addressed). Of course, National ignored that. And now, once again, National finds itself in a corner, about to bailout out a large corporate that is using its market power to threaten its political agenda.
Open mike 06/11/2013
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Gambling harm: “commercially sensitive”
Are we to expect that next time a cigarette company wants to withhold the evidence that smoking will take 11 years off the life of every second smoker, they just need to do a dodgy deal with National to build a convention centre with added ciggie sale points right? Or the booze barons could build a convention centre / mega-bar and no papers will be allowed out on alcohol harm either presumably? At what point do the best interests of New Zealanders get to trump the best interests of foreign corporates?
Don’t Wring Your Hands.
The attitudes put on display by the young men calling themselves the ‘Roast Busters’ aren’t a glitch or the product of some unsavoury sub-culture. Those young men and the attitudes they hold are the product of very long and complex processes whereby some very fucked up shit has become normalised.
Does Key want to nationalise Chorus Soviet style?
The Commerce Commission has now decided that there should be a significant reduction in broadband costs although not as much as previously proposed. Chorus has responded by saying that it may not be able to complete the fibre outlay. John Key is suggesting that Chorus could be nationalised. And the right wing are in revolt. How has National been able to muck this issue up so badly?
ImperatorFish: Please, please, stop your raping
Scott brings us a message from the NZ Police.
Open mike 05/11/2013
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step […]
ImperatorFish: Revolution!
Scott thinks we should all join the nz taxpayers’ union. Comrades, he hasn’t seen such a fabulous undemocratic union since the Soviet one, so what could go wrong?
Populists v Plutocrats
Democrat Bill de Blasio is almost 40 points clear of his Republican rival in the race for Mayor of New York City. His parents were investigated for communist sympathies. An anti-apartheid poster hangs on his kitchen wall. He loves Europe’s social democrats, admires Latin American liberation theology and is poised to confound the conservative trend in US politics by sweeping to an improbable triumph as the next Mayor of New York in this week’s elections. There are some lessons from our local elections too.
It’s not just about cyber-culture, Judith
The reports of the Roast Busters are chilling. Watching 3 News tonight was very upsetting. Reported responses by the police, John Key and Judith Collins are inadequate. Key & Collins seem to be shifting the focus to cyber-bullying and away from the brutality of the physical acts. [Update: Scuba Nurse – positive steps to make a difference]
Govt responsible for 7 NZ deaths
National has agreed to lower the drink drive limit. Over 2 years ago they blocked a Labour amendment to do exactly the same thing. Their dithering has cost 7 New Zealand lives by their own measurements – 7 lives unfulfilled and families faced with unnecessary grief.
The Kiwibuilt announcement
David Cunliffe has announced further proposals regarding Housing with a Christchurch flavour. The temporary use of red zone houses that are otherwise habitable, the proposed construction of 10,000 houses over four years and the recreation of New Brighton into a vibrant and modern beachside community are amongst the announcements.