Paid Parental
Sue Moroney’s 6 months of Paid Parental Bill looks like being a second Labour private member’s bill that will proceed against National’s wishes.
A three-legged stool
Ruth Richardson has forced every subsequent policy to be sized up for ‘fiscal responsibility’. I’d like them to be sized up for ‘social responsibility’ and ‘environmental responsibility’ as well.
Grubby politics
Cronyism. The politicisation of the public service. Internal power struggles. It’s all just grubby Nat politics as usual. Why do we put up with it?
Intro for International Organisation for a Participatory Society
Revolution in Springfield 😉
Nat Civil War: The perils of monolithism
Despite losing nearly 1 in 4 of its supporters, 300,000 voters, in a little over 6 months according to the Roy Morgans, National’s 44% still looks superficially impressive. Until you realise they need to be able to form a majority more or less alone. The Right’s monolithism doesn’t just place extraordinary demands on National’s leader, it’s the root of the current civil war.
Open mike 10/04/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Participate: a better criminal trial?
The Law Commission is reviewing trial process. Can we have a fairer justice system?
How wealthy do you feel?
If everyone earned the same amount (including babies) across the entire world, we’d each get about $USD10,000 each. So a family of four anywhere in the world would get about $NZD49,000. That figure makes world poverty pretty hard to stomach. It’s not that there’s not enough in this world – only that some people haven’t learnt to share.
Open mike 09/04/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Both sides of Joyce’s dirty deal bad for NZ
We know that giving SkyCity more pokie machines will mean more problem gamblers, more crime. The Right says it’s worth it for the convention centre. But the official numbers show that’s a dog and we would pay for it in the long-run. It’s not one side of this equation that is bad for New Zealand, it’s both.
Will the Greens lead the next government?
Two recent pieces in The Herald draw opposite conclusions from recent polls (one of them, alas, is drivel). Matt McCarten asks if National’s free fall, and the rise of the Greens, foreshadows a Green led government in 2014…
Open mike 08/04/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Nat Civil War: Collins faction turns on Key
There’s series of posts from Simon Lusk on Whaleoil showing the Collins faction taking a distinctly anti-Key line for the first time. Key’s signaled he won’t go easily and he screwed Collins on the defamation suits.. And the polls show he won’t win a third term.
NRT: Voting against democracy
No Right Turn on another sad chapter for democracy in NZ.
Easter trading
It’s the annual Easter ritual – a slap on the wrist for the many shops caught flouting the trading law.
Open mike 07/04/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Crushed Collins, the most over-rated minister of all?
3 years on and Crusher Collins has yet to crush a single car. But she has crushed the career of a fellow Cabinet Minister and, as a result, crushed her own plans to be National leader within 3 years and put the squeeze on her own credibility so hard it is difficult to see how she can hold out as minister. Collins is proof that an enormous ego and a disturbing, Joker-like, fixed smile will get you far in politics, but only so far.
Friday Puzzle
Here’s a puzzle for Friday…
Another “Zero budget”
Another “Zero budget” has been signaled. Some commentators think it’s a bold move. I beg to differ.
Weekend social 06/04/2012
Weekend social is for non political chat. What’s on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever. No politics, no […]
Open mike 06/04/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Updates, upgrades, and polls
A bit of maintenance work coming up over Easter, and a Morgan poll that covered last week. National show the effects of their mutual collective suicide attempts, and the Greens pick up the benefits. Labour are doing sweet bugger all. Starting to wonder if Labour MP’s are catching the dogpack socializing disease from National. I have an impress ion of mutual arse sniffing and bugger all work. I’m unimpressed with the dog imitations from either party.
The Green Party mining our future community tour
Green Party MPs Catherine Delahunty and Gareth Hughes invite you to a series of hui to discuss the Government’s broad “drill it, mine it” agenda for Aotearoa – what’s happening, what does it mean to our environment and communities and how do we stop it.
King Salmon hand out
MrSmith looks at the massive expansion of aquaculture in the Marlborough Sounds that King Salmon is planning, aided and abetted by National’s ‘Environmental Protection’ Agency. King Salmon got a public hand-out when it was having trouble selling its product but now it wants more public property to make more salmon, the public gets no voice.
When ‘fiscally neutral’ costs a billion+ a year
On Monday, Key said his tax cuts have been “literally fiscally neutral”. In Parliament yesterday, Russel Norman showed Treasury documents showing the 2010 tax changes were to forecast to cost $1.1b in 4 years, actually cost $1.1b in 9 months, and the cost has grown since. Key didn’t want to hear the Treasury numbers, instead waving some ‘billshit’ put together by the Finance Minister.
Advice on pokies
“Prime Minister John Key says hundreds of extra pokies at Sky City Casino will not increase gambling addiction”. Key is lying and he knows it. That’s why the Nats won’t release the official advice they have received on this topic…
Getting some accountability at PoAL
Darien Fenton has a bill in the ballot designed to put public ports back on the OIA.
It’s about time – there’s been no accountability or transparency at our ports for too long.
It will be interesting to see the government’s response.
Better write those cheques, Len & John
Update: Labour had accused Banks of not declaring the $15,000 donation from SkyCity as required under local government electoral law. The law is strict. If he is charged and convicted he’ll be kicked out of Parliament. Key will have to take his portfolios if Banks didn’t declare the money.
Open mike 05/04/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
The lie of the “fiscally neutral” tax cuts
The “fiscally neutral” tax cuts never were neutral at all, and a lower than expected tax take is hitting the government’s books. But Key is still out there repeating the lie.
Cunliffe on DIRA
Against the will of the Fonterra farmer Shareholder’s Association, National is trying to destroy Fonterra’s cooperative model on vague grounds about access to capital. The end result will be the one world-leading, world-scale company we have, which brings in 20% of our export earnings, will start sending it profits offshore. David Cunliffe makes the case passionately and eloquently.
Milking a Land of Plenty?
NZ milk production has apparently risen by 30% since 2005. And, according to sources used by frenz.co.nz, back in 2006 over 14 billion […]
Nat Civil War: Crushed’s last day
Key says Defamation Act requires a plaintiff to sue within five working days. That makes today Crushed Collins’ last day to sue. What will she do? Drop it and look like a blustering fool unfit to be Justice Minister let alone PM or pursue it, open up all her secrets during discovery, lose, and pay costs? Oh yes, Key suckerpunched her good.
Brownlee’s head in the sand, looking for cheap oil
Rookie Green MP Julie Anne Genter, a transport planning expert before entering Parliament, gave Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee, whose qualification for the job is that he used to teach kids to make wooden toy cars, a sharp lesson in transport policy in the House yesterday. It’s rare for a newbie to show up an old tusker like that. With petrol prices at record levels, I hope someone in the government’s listening.
AFFCO to extend lockout to avoid holiday pay
Talley’s has sunk to a new low in the AFFCO lockout. Not content with trying to starve out 1,000 workers and force them to accept 20% pay cuts, Talley’s-owned AFFCO meatworks are planning to lockout hundreds more workers on the Easter statutory holidays – just to save on paying its workers holiday leave. It’s a despicable, and hopefully illegal, move.
Open mike 04/04/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]