Face facts, Nats
Bring back check inspectors
Nats have announced 6 more DoL safety inspectors for mines and oil drilling. Up from 2 now (only one position filled). Sounds good but DoL’s failure at Pike River was systematic, not just about numbers. Where’s the stronger safety standards? Why aren’t they bringing back worker-elected check inspectors? The miners want them. Why don’t the Nats listen?
Inciting a riot
Cases being tried in England raise the question – what is an appropriate punishment for inciting a riot on Facebook?
Nats: you didn’t have a job, you’re not really unemployed
In a desperate and heartless attempt to spin their way out of their awful record on jobs, National is getting surreal. First, there’s Bill English claiming that the job you used to have under Labour wasn’t a real job. Then, you’ve got John Key saying that you’re not really unemployed now. I guess it’s all in you imagination. Don’t look to National for help.
Boscawen’s brilliant own goal
John Boscawen thought he was on to a winner yesterday. In an unprecedented move, he asked Parliament’s permission to ask a question of Phil Goff on the youth minimum wage. He got it, and the result was Goff at his very finest. He looked and sounded like a Prime Minister – like a real one, that is, not like Key. Let’s have more questions, Boscawen!
Surprising opposition to food stamps
Who said: a payment card for people on a benefit that forbade alcohol and tobacco purchases would require moral judgments by the Crown, would be highly intrusive, would rob individuals of freedom of choice, and would impose an enormous administrative burden on Work and Income, and there was no need to change the way in which welfare is paid or assessed?
Open mike 18/08/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Tolley’s delusions of relevance
More and more schools are standing up and saying No to national standards. Naturally, Tolley thinks it’s all about her.
Celebrating Youth Unemployment
The tidal wave of unemployment is all the more heartbreaking because we have been here before, last time we had a 1st term National government. But have the Tories learned the lessons of the past? Not a bit of it. Paula Bennett, who had her hand up from the government when she needed it, says there’s “a lot to celebrate” about 58,000 disconnected youths.
NRT: More secret government laws
I/S at No Right Turn writes about the government’s continued abuse of Urgency. This week, they’re going to slam 11 laws through the House, ignoring basic democratic steps like the select committee stage that let the public have a say. The worst part though, is a Bill that they are refusing to name and plan to rush through all stages in a couple of days.
For the Children
Our children’s life outcomes are amongst the worst in the OECD according to a new report. Our under-6s desperately need care and investment. Labour (and the Greens) are focussing on the kids this election. But why are National so anti?
Nats refuse to face their record on youth
Having decided to beat up on a few thousand of the most hard done by young people in the country, National is now refusing to acknowledge the problem of disconnected youth that has ballooned under their watch. There are enough young people who aren’t in education, training, or work to fill Eden Park, and Key is literally running from the issue.
Open mike 17/08/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
The Pernicious Food Card
Or how the food card will inevitably push beneficiaries into all types of deeper strife.
The cartoon (since it doesn’t show up clearly and you might be wondering) is a lifebelt being thrown in the “Welfare” cell and a book titled “Learn to swim” being thrown in the second “Welfare Reform” cell.
Buffett calls for rich to stop class war
Today Warren Buffett, the third wealthiest man in the world, has come out demanding his mega-rich friends play a part in the American economic recovery. He is recognised as one of the smartest and most successful investors alive, his words should not be dismissed lightly, especially as we approach our own election and grapple with the issue of tax reform.
Chart o’ the day: when doing something is doing nothing
Just desserts
The private operators of the new Mt Eden remand prison are using desserts as a reward for good behaviour. It seems to work. But the Right doesn’t know quite how to react: on one hand, it’s mollycoddling prisoners, on the other hand it’s a private operator being innovative. Imagine how they would have reacted if the public prisons started doing this.
Epic fail
Like most of us, Fran O’Sullivan was expecting so much more from the Nats at their conference…
Open mike 16/08/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Envy or greed? – follow the money.
At National’s conference John Key accused Labour of the “politics of envy”. Peter Goodfellow told delegates they had more money for this campaign than ever before. National’s coffers will be bulging because of their assets sales policy. Labour wanting to keep assets publicly owned for everyone’s benefit is not at all about envy.
Daddy State vs Youth
National aim to score political points by attacking a small number of 16 and 17 year-olds, and taking away their autonomy. But they’re missing the real-world point – of the tens of thousands of young unemployed who need the jobs that National aren’t providing. That’s the real crisis.
Blood money
The kids aren’t alright
What are the baby-boomer elite doing to our kids? Our rulers, drawn from the selfish generation, have taken more and more of the world’s wealth for themselves, wrecked its environment, and failed to invest. Now, with National in power, they’re asking the young to pay off their debt. And when the kids get pissed, the elite doles out repression.
Q+A interview – Key still lying
A better than usual interview of John Key by Guyon Espiner on Sundays Q+A. On the plus side Espiner was raising some serious issues. On the minus he let Key get away with his usual lies and evasions.
Open mike 15/08/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Key fiddles while our youth burns
Like the UK, we have a crisis in youth poverty. We don’t have riots, yet, because we lack the population density. There’s no jobs. Increasingly, no hope. Key’s solution? Tinkering. A bureaucratic, easily beatable system where young people on benefits get food stamps and basic costs paid directly. Where are the jobs, Key? Or have you given up?
Hickey on the fall of capitalism
Bernard Hickey writes compellingly on the coming fall of capitalism.
Open mike 14/08/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Nats rebel on privatisation
English is under attack at the Nat conference over asset sales. The neolibs vultures treat the state as a carcass to pick clean. But old school conservatives believe in investing the nation. And business types know you don’t get rich by selling profitable assets. English has no good excuses. All he can offer is expensive measures that make selling even more unprofitable.
Getting to know Goff
A few weeks back, I wrote that Labour’s policies are popular but it hasn’t secured the trust it needs to sway swing voters, partly people don’t feel they really know Phil Goff. Today’s Herald piece, reminiscent of one on Key in 2008 (except we get a lot more of the substance of Goff, not just carefully targeted anecdotes), should go a long way to fixing that.
Compassionate conservatism
Fran O’Sullivan reveals her softer side today. No, she’s not against National’s benefit cuts for the unemployed, the sick, and invalids. Nor against cutting the wages of the 103,000 working 15-19 year olds on the half-baked premise that will create more jobs. But leave single mums alone, she says, because she had one. It reminds me of something I saw on the Daily Show.
3370 comments
This editorial by Peter Oborne in the Telegraph on the riots and moral decay in Britain is up to 3370 comments. It’s worth a read.
No news is no news
Very little change over the last three Roy Morgan polls. Which suggests to me that voters still aren’t really paying attention.
Open mike 13/08/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Is anyone else thinking…
It seems that the US has lost an experimental hypersonic space plane. Is anyone else thinking what I’m thinking?
Sky buy coming up?
42% Murdoch-owned Sky could be in the market to buy debt-laden TV3 according to John Drinnan in today’s Business Herald. Drinnan says that “Sky owning Mediaworks opens up a myriad of issues, not least the degree that the Government would continue to back the growth of Sky TV’s monopoly and its extension into radio.” Amen to that. SkyTV’s chief John Fellett says he has no interest in another television channel. That may not be Rupert’s view. Monopoly TV revenue streams are his bread and butter. News for him is “entertainment”.