Key’s selling our gambling law to SkyCity in return for a convention centre with no government capital contribution. But, MED says, we would be subsidising that convention centre with $10m for starters. Plus marketing costs. And, then, ongoing subsidies both if convention numbers fall short and as a kickback when it does host conventions.
If anything has marked John Key’s tenure as PM it’s his use of his personal brand to run his cabinet.
But what happens to his control as that brand runs out of steam?
A sad story in the Herald today of a man who got hooked on pokies. It has destroyed his family and relationships. He’s started ripping off clients at work. All to put money in the machines that SkyCity profits from. SkyCity has so many addicts customers it says it needs more machines. SkyCity is a cancer. We shouldn’t just stop its expansion. We should excise it.
There was a time when you expected higher standards from the senior ranks of the public service. Now, more and more, they are just like private sector CEOs. Elitists. The standards are slipping. This slap on the wrist for the Building and Housing CEO who manhandled a staffer just shows how pervasive the elitist private sector ‘one law for us, another for them’ mentality has become.
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Weekend social is for non political chat. What’s on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever. No politics, no […]
Will our children think of the welfare state, the tiger and the rhino as part of a mythologised Arcadia?
In his speech yesterday, David Shearer talked about how wages have lagged productivity gains since the neoliberal revolution. Here’s what he was talking about:
As expected, the Nats kept on pushing until they got the answer that they wanted on the Crafar farms. A bit more of NZ has been sold out…
Welcome to the twistedhive. A new political blog in the NZ ‘sphere.
Some interesting posts including some insightful commentary on the choices for Labour’s chief of staff and one about getting around the government’s plan to veto paid parental leave.
Key’s reasoning for not calling a halt to the business case study for an international convention centre was that he had already decided it was a good idea. Therefore, there was no need for a business case to determine whether it was a good idea. What is this? Faith-based government? The truth is Key’ intervention was all about doing favours for mates.
It’s a bit rich for Key to claim that there were no credible alternatives to the back-room deal with SkyCity when he shut down one alternative proposal and ignored four others. But now the facts are coming out. Key has “advised himself” into his worst public relations fiasco yet.
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Alistair Cameron is heavily tipped to become Labour’s Chief of Staff. That’s a change that would signal even bigger change to come.
Let’s hope that bigger change is done openly and with party members’ input.
David Shearer’s delivered his second “Vision” speech. It’s good to hear he wants to lead a government that tackles inequality, wants proper jobs rather than casualised ones and our kids earning or learning.
When it comes to doing dirty deals with a casino, selling our law so that it gets a convention centre and more profits from gambling addicts, National’s willing to die in a ditch. But when there was an opportunity to save and expand our high-tech, high-skill manufacturing at Hillside simply by requiring government bodies to consider the costs and benefits of their actions on the whole country, not their narrow corporate interests, National did nothing.
Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here.
National leads the way when it comes to generating ideas that will grow corporate profits at the expense of the community and, ultimately, the taxpayer. So here’s some more ideas…
Join the Hikoi against Asset Sales, 24 April – 4 May. If you’re anywhere near Auckland on Saturday 28 April, be at Britomart 3pm to send a message against this Government’s Asset Sales.
By one standard we have now passed 400 thousand comments. But I’m not a bullshitter with numbers like Bill English or Whaleoil. By my standards, we haven’t quite hit it yet. We will in a couple of weeks. I’m starting to get a bit worried about how we’re going to handle the rapidly increasing rate that people are arguing with each other here…
You don’t get fat off the crumbs from someone else’s table and you don’t get rich by being someone else’s butler. So, why the Nats are so happy that Australia is sending a few call centre and cigarette jobs here, where wages are lower, I don’t know. We’ll be wealthier if we produce more wealth, more stuff of real value. Not if our competitive advantage is low wages and insecure jobs.
As part of the Nats’ pre-Budget framing, English’s mate Farrar is running graphs meant to show a blow-out in spending under Labour. Problem is, he hasn’t adjusted for GDP growth, or even inflation. How dumb does he think we are?
Long time Labour Party stalwart Murdo MacMillan’s funeral will be at St Peter’s Church on Friday 20th at 10am. Son of a seaman and ex-wharfie, rock-solid in his values, Murdo made a huge contribution behind the scenes to Labour’s successes over the best part of forty years.
Back before John Key’s political nous deserted him (circa mid-November 2011), he would have run a mile from the dirty pokies deal with SkyCity. Instead, he’s claiming the dirty deal as his own and SkyCity’s chairman bragging about his access to Nat ministers. All to build a useless convention centre that will demand ongoing subsidies. Not worth the political capital.
Anyone else see the irony in the ‘bureaucracy-slashing National Government‘TM reacting to delays in the Christchurch rebuilding – partly caused by lack of coordination between the local bureaucracy, the existing central government bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy National created especially to deal with the rebuild – by adding another layer of back-room bureaucracy?
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According to Gerry Brownlee it isn’t happening.
David Shearer’s created an easy way to send John Key a message about selling the law to SkyCity. Here’s your chance to tell John his plan to inflict harm on the community to increase the profit of SkyCity is stupid.
Don’t know if you saw Ruth Richardson’s wee rant in the Herald yesterday. Never realised she was such a bad writer. That was awful. Just a bunch of catchphrases and insensitive mention of Christchurch so she could use earthquake metaphors. Her thrust seems to be that the social media age will make us all free-market libertarians. Couldn’t be more wrong.
Despite 22 member states signing the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement, the EU’s parliament is looking like it might reject the treaty on the grounds of it curtailing civil liberties. The EU’s first rapporteur MP on the treaty resigned in protest at the plans. The second has now reported back: “The intended benefits of this international agreement are far outweighed by the potential threats to civil liberties.”
The Nats are determined to ignore the evidence on the harm caused by charter schools, just as they are ignoring evidence on the damage done by national standards. This willingness to harm kids, as incidental pawns in their ideological games, really pisses me off.
Yesterday we were treated to a bizarrely incoherent media blurt from SkyCity. I guess trying to defend the indefensible is taking its toll.
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The Greens have revealed that criminals are laundering millions of dollars through SkyCity, taking their gambling losses as the price of coming out with clean, untraceable money. The Government’s sleazy ‘law for sale’ deal with SkyCity would only make it worse by allowing more anonymous, higher stake gambling on the pokies. Instead, we should be clamping down.
A Green Party bill proposes bringing some transparency to political lobbying. National is expressing support to the select committee stage – will they support it all the way?
