Planet Key receding from reality at light speed

Written By: Zetetic
Date published: - 37 comments

Law enforcement on Planet Key must be a strange business: “Mr Key says he called in the police on the teapot tapes because he wanted to find out if there had been an offence. He argues Dotcom is different, because his Government has already admitted what it did was unlawful.” So, what do the Planet Key Police do they do when they catch a crim? Tag him and let him go?

Update: Breaking news – we all expected this didn’t we – Key was briefed on the Dotcom case in February.

Why was GCSB spying on Dotcom? Big business is watching you!

Written By: karol
Date published: - 22 comments

Kim Dotcom was arrested on charges related to copyright infringement, not national security or “terrorism”. There is a worrying trend that the GCSB is part of an international security networks that have shifted from their original mission related to national security and is providing support to corporate interests.

Collins’ faction tries to magic up an ally

Written By: Eddie
Date published: - 35 comments

It’s been interesting to watch the Collins Faction of National talk down the Conservative Party all year. It’s not hard to see why – they occupy space/take votes that a Collins-led National would want for itself. What the Collins Faction would like is a decent liberal-right party. That would allow National to swing conservative and give up liberal votes to an ally, rather than to the Left.

Key needs to read the GCSB Act

Written By: Eddie
Date published: - 23 comments

Key says that we would all be very scared if he had control over the GCSB. That’s wrong. Key is the only democratic control on our spies and he has extraordinary oversight. Every warrant the spooks need has to be approved by Key. Is he exercising that role properly, or is he just signing whatever the GCSB puts under his nose?

Key changes tune, orders GCSB review

Written By: Zetetic
Date published: - 71 comments

Last week, Key tried to tell us that the illegal spying on Kim Dotcom – which he, the minister, we’re supposed to believe wasn’t told about for 8 months – was down to one agent’s ‘brain fade’. Uh huh. So, why has he now appointed a senior public servant to review and reform GCSB? You don’t do that when the problem was one person’s human error.

[Update: Lol at Key. Police are launching a high powered inquiry after he said there was no need for one]

Labour leadership

Written By: Mike Smith
Date published: - 33 comments

I’ll be in Manchester tomorrow to hear Ed Miliband speak at the UK Labour Party conference. Labour are ahead in the polls, and Miliband’s leadership is more secure than Cameron’s or Clegg’s. Ed Miliband has surprised those who thought Labour chose the wrong brother. Ed is receiving plenty of free advice about what he should say; I suspect he will continue to be himself. Interesting parallels to New Zealand; I’m looking forward to it.

When memes attack

Written By: Anthony R0bins
Date published: - 22 comments

The speed with which Planet Key caught on is a measure of the public recognition that the Nats have lost the plot.

On Planet Key, the market always provides

Written By: Eddie
Date published: - 16 comments

We’re told 36,000 workers are needed for the Christchurch rebuild. But since the earthquakes began 2 years ago, 9,000 people with the skills needed for the rebuild have left New Zealand. We’re making no effort to keep the skilled workers we have but the Government thinks those 36,000 workers will just magically appear when needed.

The modern religion

Written By: Guest post
Date published: - 10 comments

‘Business Business Business’ is the endless chant from the Nat’s business will be our savour, all business is good of-course. Bad businesses, well they will go out of business, generally because they cant compete or are poorly managed, but mostly not before they have stolen all your savings, which in the case of a good bad business you will never have any chance of recovering.

A vision for manufacturing

Written By: James Henderson
Date published: - 117 comments

David Cunliffe has given another excellent economic development speech. I think what’s interesting is that he’s not really proposing new policy – what he’s saying is largely in line with the platform Labour ran in on 2011, but he’s articulating the vision behind those policies – the why, rather than just the how – which was lacking from Labour in 2011. Great stuff.

‘Children of the Poor’ 1934 – 2012: Social Security for the Future?

Written By: karol
Date published: - 176 comments

Split Enz once sang, “History Never Repeats”…  Or does it?  Destructive prejudices separating  ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor have been around a very long time. When the likes of Paula Bennett pander to such ill-informed vindictiveness with punitive social welfare reforms, they will damage large numbers of children – our future citizens.

Where are the resignations?

Written By: James Henderson
Date published: - 87 comments

John Key refuses to accept any responsibility for what his spies get up to. The only point of democratic responsibility for our spies doesn’t monitor them and won’t take the blame for failing to do so. He won’t fire a corrupt, lying minister, either. The rot is spreading to the public service. There has been not one resignation, not a single one, due to the Dotcom debacle.

Sunday Reading

Written By: Bunji
Date published: - 17 comments

My regular Sunday piece 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. This week: Obama the Tory, fish, Planet Key and the UK’s hit political single.

Poverty Watch 5

Written By: Anthony R0bins
Date published: - 23 comments

Welcome to Poverty Watch, a weekly update on National’s lack of response to the urgent and growing issue of poverty in NZ. This week, right wingers whine about the focus on poverty, 3 News and Kidscan try to do something about it.

Neazor report proves inadequate cover for Key

Written By: Eddie
Date published: - 83 comments

Labour has written to Key calling for a much wider-ranging investigation into the Dotcom spying affair than Neazor’s narrow, tell-us-nothing-we-don’t-already-know report. They would have been better to go straight to the Auditor-General. The Greens have gone for the established illegality and called in the cops on the GCSB – cleverly citing the same offence Key claimed in the teapot tapes.

Shearer Says

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 60 comments

David Shearer’s weekly e-newsletter, this week on privatisation, jobs, and Dotcom.
We’re happy to post similar newsletters from other opposition leaders – our email is on our contact page.

On the trailing edge: Brownlee on Rena

Written By: lprent
Date published: - 11 comments

I was reading an article looking at the aftermath of the Rena shipwreck in the Herald. In it I read some ridiculous statements by Gerry Brownlee that seemed (like so much from him) to come from the early part of the last century. It appears that he (and his minons in the M0T) haven’t quite caught up on rapid progress of the digital age in nautical circles. Hasn’t he heard about AIS? Or computers?

Joyce’s desperate shill for Bathurst mining

Written By: Guest post
Date published: - 17 comments

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce has launched a broadside against the environmental opponents of the privately owned Denniston mine project. To do this Stephan Joyce has tried to draw a bow linking those who wish to stop the opening of the Dennistion mine, with the closing of the Spring Creek mine.

The cost of doing nothing

Written By: Anthony R0bins
Date published: - 34 comments

Another report confirms the findings of the 2006 Stern Report. The future economic costs of doing nothing far outweigh the current costs of taking action on climate change. But National is taking us backwards…

Ombudsman: Government secrecy “highly dangerous”

Written By: Anthony R0bins
Date published: - 31 comments

The Chief Ombudsmen has attacked the government’s moves to keep official information secret, calling them “highly dangerous”. The ongoing GCSB and John Banks scandals show just how important it is to be able to hold the government – at all levels – to account.

Key fails to guard the guardians

Written By: Eddie
Date published: - 87 comments

Our government’s spies are overseen by two people – the Prime Minister and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. The former asked the latter to investigate he found out the GCSB had been illegally spying on two Kiwis. And, guess what, the report blamed underlings. It didn’t even investigate the question of oversight.

EPA seems fishy

Written By: Guest post
Date published: - 7 comments

MrSmith has been following National’s new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hearing considering an application by New Zealand King Salmon for a plan change and resource consents so it can create nine new fish farms in areas of the Marlborough Sounds where aquaculture is prohibited. It seems fishy and at odds with the stated intent of the EPA.

Social Democratic Economy: Part 2

Written By: Guest post
Date published: - 32 comments

Draco gives his long awaited second part on his views on a social democratic economy.

..the present socio-economic system that we use, namely Free Market Capitalism, is a failure. When thinking about the economy and how it works I realised I had to go back to basics as almost everything that’s taught about economics in the mainstream theories is bollocks – most of its assumptions aren’t even close to being realistic.

 

Austerity vs. stimulus

Written By: Anthony R0bins
Date published: - 53 comments

The UK and USA make for interesting case studies in their differing responses to the global recession.  A pity that NZ followed the wrong leader.