Open mike 31/01/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Open mike 30/01/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
You’ve got to be kidding me
Pike River boss Peter Whittall, the guy facing charges after 29 of his employees died working in his unsafe, ‘profit-over-people’ mine, has set up a mining safety consulting company. What’s next? A Minister of Tourism who always holidays overseas? A Finance Minister who wants to sell highly profitable assets in a down market? … oh … This country is nuts.
Open mike 29/01/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
It’s not racist to want self-determination
Danyl at Dimpost says it all succinctly on Crafar Farms: while China is a rising economic super-power and a close trade partner of New Zealand, it’s also a totalitarian military dictatorship. People are allowed to feel apprehensive about such a state building its own vertical supply chains within the New Zealand economy without being labeled xenophobic and racist.
Treachery
Fran O’Sullivan is an enemy of the people. Her article in this morning’s Herald will forever brand her as a traitor to this […]
Open mike 28/01/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Weekend social 27/01/2012
Weekend social is for non political chat. What’s on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever. No politics, no […]
Ports of Auckland and casualisation
CTU President Helen Kelly talks about the Ports of Auckland and the effects of casualisation on workers and workplace health and safety.
Closing the Gap: who’s listening?
Income inequality is one of the major issues of our time, and is being discussed globally. But our government doesn’t appear to be listening. Now a new organisation is aiming to raise awareness of the issue, and pressure our politicians to do something about it.
Key and Banks on ACT: snap elections, coups & Isaac
The tea tapes contain a pivotal exchange where John Banks and John Key talk about “restructuring” ACT – including Banks confirming his orders from Key to make Catherine Isaac the new leader. We also learn that National advisors called Key in a panic during the Brash coup calling on him to stage a snap election. It’s an insight into the cynicism of National and Key, and also Key’s poor political judgement.
The numbers man
Key didn’t exactly live up to his brand as the master politician and numbers man yesterday:
Key in the tea tapes: “we will get to 50. 49-50, anything around there will be good enough. When you are where we are the risk is a landslide” – Oops. 47.3%, one seat majority for rightwing policies
On Winston: “That’s a shut door. He’s currently at 2.5-3. He’ll poll 3 this time. A lot of his constituents have died.” – Oops. 6.6% and back.
“We are still on track to post a surplus in 2014/15 … in the range of $300 to $500 million”. – Oops. That’s down three-quarters from his Budget promise.
Open mike 27/01/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Teapot tattle
The Teapot Tapes have leaked on to the internet.
You can torrent it and listen past all of the noise.
Oz & NZ govts suppress official peak oil warnings
Dennis Tegg has a good piece on the release of a secret Australian government report that warns peak oil is upon us: The Daily Telegraph has revealed how the Australian government has attempted to suppress its own report on peak oil. The response from the New Zealand government had been equally secretive and obfuscating.
Nats preparing to impose Chch dictatorship
David Farrar is calling for the Christchurch City Council to be sacked on the bizarre pretext that some of them have objected to the council CEO’s obscene pay rise. Apparently it’s a crime not to express confidence in your CEO if you’re an elected representative (Farrar seems to have missed the Collins-Matthews affair). But this is all a softening up exercise.
Being tenants in our own land now OK by Key
When he was running for re-election, John Key said he opposed selling the Crafar farms offshore: “I am concerned about the risk that New Zealanders become tenants in their own land”. Now he has won what is very likely his last term, he doesn’t give a damn about the farms going into foreign ownership and our publicly-owned farming company literally becoming the tenant of the land.
WTF is a “primary” anyway?
Even we political junkies have a hard time figuring out what the heck’s going on in American politics sometimes.
And it’s not like our media are any help.
Queen of Thorns takes a look…
The limits of resilience
Christchurch has been back in the news recently for all the wrong reasons. What’s going on behind the public narrative of a tough and resilient populace soldiering on in the face of all these obstacles?
Open mike 26/01/2012
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
ImperatorFish: Nats Must Act Urgently To Save Us From The Sun
Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here
The biggest solar storm for six years is headed our way. What is John Key going to do about it?
Funding the puppets of denial
There have been some interesting investigations going on into the funding of denier lobby groups. The reluctance of them to disclose their sources of income is becoming an issue. What can be seen is that they have very publicity shy funding sources. Most likely it is those who stand to lose money if effective measures are taken to reduce the impact of climate changes. So they want transparency in science and hypocrisy on their own funding of their own ‘independent’ mouthpieces.
A brighter future for Maori?
Headline – PM to Ratana: National has made a difference
- Maori unemployment under National: +15,300
- Median Maori income under National: -$78 per week
Are Maori looking forward to another three years of Key’s ‘difference’?
In the frame
Labour’s contrition is starting to look like weakness.
Rather than reinforcing their opponents’ framing of issues they need to articulate their own progressive values with authority.
If they fail to do this the momentum gained by their new leader will be lost.
National values
National is letting children go to school hungry to try to teach their parents a lesson. Every fool knows the basic requirement for learning is food in the tummy. No decent person would turn their back on a hungry child. But Mike Sabin wants 20 children in his electorate to starve pour encourager les autres. And Paula Bennett has just cut the money that was feeding them.
Open mike 25/01/2012
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Show me the money!
Farrar, Slater and their POAL masters are getting all antsy about how much port workers get paid.
Maybe it’s time they came clean about their own rorting, eh?
ImperatorFish: Police Defend Bloody Kindergarten Raid
Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here
Police and Armed Offender units raided the Meriwether Community Kindergarten just after morning tea, but the raid turned violent when some of the children put up a fight.
Banks a fine ACT MP…
There are a couple of nice pieces in the Herald today on upstanding ACT MP John Banks – on his advising arrested Kim Dotcom on residency and the Overseas Investment Commission, and on his “National” billboards…
Gould on protecting freedom of the press
The high point of John Key’s popularity came about 3 weeks before the election. Then the tea tapes meant a spectacle that was meant to be a show of his power became a media storm with him at the centre. National lost 5% in those last few weeks of the campaign. Key blamed the media. Bryan Gould looks at the war he has been waging against the press ever since.
Open mike 24/01/2012
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John Key and POAL
With the house due to sit in a couple of weeks John Key’s people will be weighing up their response to the POAL dispute.
My guess is they’ll base their decision on what they can get away with politically.
Whatever they do it’ll be no good for the port workers and certainly no good for Key’s goal of closing the wage gap with Australia.
Open mike 23/01/2012
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So what’s going on in the National party?
Labour’s internal politics is public property while National get a free pass on theirs.
This imbalance of transparency and accountability seems weird given National are the ones wielding the real power.
More to the point, what does it mean for our democracy?
Open mike 22/01/2012
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Ports of Auckland vs 400,000 wharfies
Tony Gibson with his $750,000 salary and his senior managers on half a million each may have thought they had it easy beating up on some $27 an hour workers so that they could increase profits by cutting wages but they failed to calculate that those 330 workers are backed by 400,000 brothers and sisters around the world.