Competition, cooperation, schools
Competition is the wrong model for education, and National’s nonsense “league tables” are going to make it worse…
Facepalm
There ought to be a question asked of all prospective candidates: ‘when is it OK to compare a political opponent to Hitler’. The only acceptable answers: ‘when they start killing Jews’ or ‘when they invade Poland’. Anything else and they don’t get to be a candidate. Basic litmus test of political nous. All you do is taint your own side.
Rio: another chance lost
How do we move forward from here? How do we get the consensus we need? How do we get more politicians around the world making not just speeches like David Cunliffe’s, but acting on them? Setting the targets and the plan behind them to avoid the brutal logic of climate change.
When photo-ops backfire
3 years ago, a National minister dancing on a flattened boyracer car would have been a PR coup. And certainly that’s how National’s spin doctors expected it to play out last week. But times have changed. Now, it’s being criticised as an unseemly act and a waste of money through-out the media. These tipping points creep up on governments. Strengths suddenly become weaknesses.
Open mike 27/06/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Privatisation bill passed
They’re quite literally selling our country down the river.
ImperatorFish: More Futile and Cynical Policy
John Key must think the New Zealand public have the memory of a goldfish. He’s put forward bold plans before, but they usually end in failure. Closing the income gap with Australia, creating more jobs, reducing the number of people fleeing to a better life in Australia. And now the promise to get back into budget surplus, which he’s already backtracking on.
Save TVNZ7 March
After a large number of meetings around the country in the lead up to the turn off of TVNZ7, we finally get to the rallies:
Wellington 28th June – 12 noon from Civic Sq to Parliament
Auckland 30th June – 4.30pm from QEII Sq (bottom of Queen St) to St Matthew-in-the-City
Doubts over Cameron’s welfare blitz
That’s the Guardian headline. Supposedly designed to give the Tories “political momentum”, it is late and over budget. The Treasury is resigned to the programme costing money rather than providing savings. The LibDems won’t have a bar of it. Critics describe it as “pitch-rolling”, preparing the ground for further “reforms”. More like spin-bowling here.
Bye bye Local Government 2
National’s Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill will do significant damage to local democracy as they seek to restrict councils to “core” services, […]
It’s for efficiency
Now we learn that directors’ fees are set to double after National sells or assets. Who pays for the fat-cats to get twice the cream for the same work? We do. Through higher power prices. It’s just another cost of privatisation that we all pay – despite the fact that Treasury reckons 95% of us won’t buy shares. No wonder 100,000 of us have signed the referendum petition already.
I’m sorry, where was the plan?
“More than 20,000 unemployed people will be moved off the benefit within five years if the Government manages to meet its newly announced targets.”
Yes, but a target isn’t a plan.
A meaningless list
National’s latest plan to save the country – make another list of targets! What no-one has pointed out yet is that we won’t know whether these target have been achieved or not until 2018 – National would need to be a 4 term government to ever be held accountable to these targets. The list is a curious mix of the utterly unambitious, the impossible, and the deceptive.
Open mike 26/06/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Spot the difference
There – “Cameron announces Tory plan to slash benefits.” Here – “The Government wants Work and Income to cut the number of long-term beneficiaries on a working-age benefit, John Key has just announced.” Tories normally do this when they are in trouble.
Knee-benders
You’ll really want to know this – the queen has just updated the curtsy order. “Blood princesses” come first, so if William isn’t there Kate has to curtsy to Anne, Alexandra, and even Beatrice and Eugenie!!! Will be interesting to see how low Bronagh goes when Charles and Camilla come to spend our money later this year.
Ninny state
National are so scared of the “Nanny state” hysteria that they drummed up from opposition that they’re now ignoring official advice and killing off law changes that would save lives.
David Craig on Inequality in NZ – Winner takes all
This free Fabian Society seminar is on tomorrow Tuesday in Wellington at Connolly Hall in Guilford Street, starting at 5:30pm All welcome; you can register here. Will be interesting.
Nats to mine world heritage areas
The Greens have discovered that National is having world heritage areas in Northland and the West Coast aerial surveyed for minerals. They’re exploiting a loophole where some of the heritage areas haven’t been included in Schedule 4 of the Conservation Act. The next stage will be to give away the data to miners and let them rip up our world heritage areas.
About that mandate
The Right would have us believe that the election was a referendum on asset sales and nothing else. Well, let’s take a closer look at the results of that ‘referendum’. Yeah, there’s no mandate there.
Nats order ACC to cut claimants
There is a sociopathic policy of the leadership at ACC, which sees staff financially incentivised to push long-term claimants off ACC leading to many of them going on the benefit rather than getting rehabilitation. Now, we have proof that this policy came right from the top. National ministers set arbitrary targets for the number of long-term claimants to be booted.
Bye bye Local Government
National’s record on local government is horrific: the lack of consultation as they rammed through the Supercity, the canning of ECAN, and continued suspension of democracy in Canterbury, the pushing of asset sales on an unwilling Christchurch.
And their latest attack – the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill – will do significant damage to local democracy.
Open mike 25/06/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
What’s in the TPPA?
While we the public distract ourselves with trivia like car crushing, and focus on other important matters like asset sales, the TPPA which is quietly unfolding in the background is actually the most important ongoing political issue. It has potentially disastrous implications for our sovereignty and our future.
Endless greed
It’s sickening to see rich ministers and columnists saying ‘of course we need to green the economy’ and then turnaround and promote fossil fuel extraction and agricultural intensification – things that will ultimately wreck the environment and the economy that is built on it. The truth is, we’re a hugely wealthy country already – it’s just most of the wealth is with the endlessly greedy elite.
Sunday Reading
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 fit in anywhere (no linkwhoring). This week: Greece, Watergate and Tax avoidance.
Open mike 24/06/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Muddling through with “intelligent austerity”
It’s our official policy according to Treasury’s Chief Economist at a seminar yesterday. A questioner asked “What’s intelligent about it?”, citing anti-tradables bias and income inequality as examples. There is a more intelligent approach says Krugman citing IMF research. We could use it here.
I am the Markets
“Markets have become increasingly concerned that the austerity programmes in the eurozone are causing a vicious circle of recession”, and “Markets were confused by mixed messages from European capitals”. I have only one word of reply: Bollocks. Did anyone phone me to ask how I, The Markets, was feeling about these subjects? Did they hell!
Nats’ pollster reveals asset sale plan
National pollster and Herald columnist (I know!) David Farrar has revealed what National has up its sleeve for asset sales. No, I’m not talking about how they would put ‘mums and dads’ at the ‘front of the queue’, or any such nonsense. I’m talking about how they will attempt to de-legitimise the referendum or, alternatively, try to slam the sales through before it happens.
Open mike 23/06/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Robertson and Cunliffe on the Environment
Grant Robertson and David Cunliffe will be talking environment & economy at Titirangi Saturday at 1pm.
It’ll be interesting to watch how Labour positions itself on this pivotal question vis-a-vis the Greens.
ImperatorFish: Love, People, Love!
Scott exhorts us all to just get along. If we could just love each other and the Dear Leader, wouldn’t things be better?
Weekend social 22/06/2012
Weekend social is for non political chat. What’s on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever. No politics, no […]
All the news that’s fit to print – Rupert & Gina’s way
Major changes in the media in Oz will have their impact here – some already have. Interesting times ahead for all, including the Standard.
Undeniable logic
