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.
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.
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 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 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’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?
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.
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 is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step […]
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?
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.
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?
Scott brings us a message from the NZ Police.
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step […]
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?
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.
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]
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.
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.
One of Steven Joyce’s favourite refrains is that Labour is trying to take us back to the 1970s. You know, those dark days when unemployment was near non-existent, wages were high, growth was strong despite external shocks, we had nearly no foreign debt, profits stayed here, were we one of the richest and most egalitarian countries. He’s not far wrong.
Ad reports on the 2013 Labour Conference and why the left should take heart for the next election.
National and the Insurance Council are in lock-step in their opposition to KiwiAssure. That’s no coincidence, the two are very closely linked. We know that the Insurance Council’s head was Bill English’s Chief Advisor. But the links go deeper. The insurers gave National a million dollars for its ACC privatisation policy in 2005, they colluded to keep the details secret.
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step […]
While some hold that the Labour Party conference being held this weekend could mark a watershed in NZ politics, something else that might constitute a somewhat more marked watershed is happening across the Pacific.
Well that didn’t take long. The Insurance Council has come out attacking Labour for KiwiAssure. Which is odd really, given the claim that […]
David Cunliffe’s speech is now on youtube. Enjoy …
Labour’s new KiwiAssure policy has been welcomed by John Armstrong as good politics. And it is. But it’s also good policy – at the same time we’ve got a government hell bent on making sure electricity profits flow to overseas investors, David Cunliffe’s policy is about giving Kiwi’s the ability to ensure that any money made from their insurance stays in the country and pays for hospitals, schools, and New Zealanders’ retirement.
David Cunliffe announced yesterday Labour’s intention when it becomes Government to set up Kiwiassure, a NZ Post Insurance Company that will go in direct competition with the Australian owned insurance companies that dominate the local market. And today there is talk about an announcement on affordable housing.
Yesterday David Cunliffe told a Tale of Two New Zealands. Today 2 NZ Herald articles show where NZ has gone wrong with its fractured and increasingly unequal society: our ailing state supported TVNZ; a high-living property-buying elite. Will Cunliffe talk about state housing today?
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…
Reflecting on the generational changes of the Labour party membership, it isn’t hard to see why the more elderly have problems with such large changes. But after all not all of the population are dependent on their daily statins like me. Some of them are interested in if their kids will grow up to have jobs and will stay in this country.
David Cunliffe’s speech notes for his speech to today’s Labour Party Conference
Over the last year or two, our prescient oracle Irishbill has been writing posts on need for the Labour party to make themselves relevant. As the number of regular lurkers on this site are somewhat larger than the number of members of the NZLP, I suspect that he has done more than his share in assisting the doubling of the size of the party.
The social was rather packed last night. Unlike the 2012 conference where I started optimistic and wound up as depressed the following day after […]
John Armstrong’s column in this morning’s Herald is an interesting collection of ideas. Apparently David Cunliffe is too left yet too wishy-washy, a remit that was voted down is offered as evidence that the party is “lurching” to the left, and the party is too boring. And he decries the lack of new material before David Cunliffe has given his keynote speech. Don’t you think you should wait for the speech first John?
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…
