Open mike 09/07/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Big Push Reminder
Tomorrow, Rain or Shine (indoor alternate venue ready for rain…), Queen St, Auckland: 10.30am Gather, 11am March, 11.30 sausage sizzle and kids entertainment…
Friday lolz
Even Bill’s readers like the CGT…
Cleaning up Kiwiblog
It’s a tough job, but somebody has got to do it…
Weekend social 08/07/2011
Weekend social is for non political chat. What’s on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever. No politics, no […]
Current events
Key walks into Labour’s CGT trap
It has been a rare and sincere pleasure to see National walk straight into a trap carefully laid by Labour. Goff and his team haven’t even publicly confirmed their capital gains tax policy but proponents to the Left and Right are winning the pre-launch media framing for them, while Key’s contradictory ranting is undermining his credibility.
Vote for change ad competition
Vote for Change, Peter Shirtcliffe’s anti-MMP vehicle a grassroots movement discussing the need for change in the electoral system, has launched an ad competition for their movement. There’s $10,000 in prizes. I guess they raised the money from cake stalls. We encourage to submit your entries to VfC, and send them to us too!
An outside view on CGT
Yesterday’s Morning Report interview with Sydney Morning Herald economics correspondent Peter Martin was a real gem. The picture of capital gains tax that emerges is one of simplicity, fairness, and closing loopholes. No wonder the Nats hate it.
Open mike 08/07/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Murdoch could lose big
The phone-hacking story in England is not only out from under the carpet – it has gone ballistic. Now there are allegations the phones of families of slain soldiers were hacked. The fallout from the scandal is now hitting Murdoch’s pocket. Major advertisers are deserting his papers, his share price is dropping, and his takeover of BSkyB, the big prize, may be under threat. Comeuppance at long last, and where it hurts. Cameron won’t escape either.
Tai Poutini finds new funding stream
Te Tai Poutini Polytechnic is receiving an additional $750 million funding from Minister Steven Joyce after changing its name to the South Western Motorway.
The housing market implications of capital gains tax
The landlords’ lobby group is making a lot of noise over Labour’s, still unannounced, capital gains policy. They say rents will go up, the supply of housing will fall, and it won’t stop house prices bubbles. Examining those claims shows that there would be little impact on rents while housing bubbles would be reduced and home ownership would be more affordable.
Drunk in charge of the country?
An alert reader sent us this video of Wayne Mapp swaying, slurring and rambling his way through Question Time.
No Right Turn now has a post with some information saying that Mapp is not in the state what he appears to be in. Instead he is just being inept. We don’t know. Check it out yourself and make up your own mind.
Thompson gone, Garrett back?
The right’s leadership resembles a merry go round of disgraced old white failures. Brash, English, Shirtcliffe, Douglas had their time at the front, were disgraced. Now they’re back. Thompson was fired for his appalling behaviour but got a payout. He’ll be back in due course. While Brash says he’d welcome baby ID stealer Garrett back to Parliament.
Owning the agenda
Labour have started setting out a bold, fair and plausible policy framework for the election. Rumours of their tax policy have generated more interest and excitement than anything the National government has done in the last three wasted years.
Open mike 07/07/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
$22 Billion minutiae
There can’t be many Kiwis who don’t know about the severity of the leaky homes crisis. Or can there? Oh don’t worry, he’s only the PM after all…
lprent: pushed this up the page again now that the program has aired.
Old editors don’t fade away – it’s a pity
Karl du Fresne attacked the general reaction to Alasdair Thompson’s views on women in the workforce in Tuesday’s DomPost. Those outraged were compared to Hitler, female journalists got a spray, as did the”spineless” EMA Board of Directors and “a former Prime Minister who apparently suffers from the delusion that she’s still the Queen Bee”. I don’t know why the DomPost keep him on. I think it’s time whoever’s in charge also got some spine.
More with less – or else (UK style)
A conservative council in the UK sacked it’s entire workforce and offered them their jobs again the next day if they accepted a […]
Nats block pay equity bill
The Nats are all in favour of pay equity for women. Or so they say. But their actions speak louder than their words.
Te Tai Tokerau final results good for Labour
The 1,916 special votes got pared to 769. Of which Hone Harawira got 454 and Kelvin Davis got 204. There really isn’t anything in it with a by-election majority of 1117. It will make this a tight contest at election time because Labour will now view this electorate as being quite winnable. IMHO as an long time electorate campaigner, some of the Mana supporters have been over-blowing their result.
Ever wondered..?
What keeps John Key & Bill English too busy to comment on their own government’s dismal performance, but not so busy that they can’t comment on absolutely anything to do with Labour?
Another right whinger
There’s an odd contradiction in right-wing ‘thought’. On the one hand, they’re Randian heroes, the wealth creators, modern day Atlases who support the world while ‘parasites’ try to take their wealth and bring them down. On the other hand, they’re victims who need subsidies and special treatment. Fed Farmers CEO Conor English embodies the contradiction.
The National Party attitude
Retiring National MP John Carter has revealed that he has consumed $77K of public assets for no reason. But it’s all such a funny lark! Carter permanently housed two cars at Parliament for 16 years. Hardly drove them. When he got in trouble for using parking spaces at the expense of others, he just switched them into colleagues’ names.
Labour capital gains tax rumours
The buzz around the traps is that Labour will be announcing a capital gains tax next week. The journos are already calling it a bold move and John Key is ranting hysterically. That Labour’s winning the media battle is great but, more importantly, this is a much needed policy: it is fair, it is good for the economy, and it will pay for good policies.
Open mike 06/07/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
It gets much much worse
New revelations out today that hacker Glenn Mulcaire who bugged celebrity phones for Murdoch’s News of the World also hacked into the phone of murdered teenager Milly Dowler after she went missing. NoW journalists deleted messages which gave Milly’s parents false hope that Milly might be alive. This happened when Rebekah Brooks, friend of David Cameron was the paper’s editor, and Andy Coulson, later Cameron’s communications director was deputy editor. This won’t stay under the carpet.
Caption Contest
Bring the SAS home
First, Key denies the SAS were in the Kabul hotel gunfight. Then, media reveals they were there and were injured. Key admits that but denies it was friendly fire. Now, media says SAS got an apology. Key ‘can’t rule out’ friendly fire and is launching an investigation. Goff says its time for the SAS to leave Afghanistan. He’s right.
The Big Push
There’s a march in Auckland on Saturday, to protest the government’s massive cuts to the Early Childhood Education sector, and proposal to end 20 hours free for 3-4 year-olds.
Vote for Change stumbles at the startline
Peter Shirtcliffe’s Vote for Change is reeling. On Sunday, they had to boot out Alex Fogerty after the Young Nat’s neo-Nazi affiliations were made public. Yesterday, they lost their token Leftie, Bob Harvey, when he realised that being used by a collection of capitalist elitists and white supremacists wasn’t the legacy he wanted.
Open mike 05/07/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Past 8000 posts
Well, our hard working authors have pumped more than 8000 posts into The Standard since August 2007. A thousand of those have been […]
Vote for Change’s heart of darkness
Peter Shirtcliffe’s Anti-MMP Vote For Change group has just 16 members and one of them has turned out to be a neo-Nazi. Is it a case of being so short of mates they’ll accept anyone who turns up, or does this give us a truer picture of who really wants to get rid of MMP? The latter, I think.
Privatisation a dirty word?
Lockwood Smith has ruled the word ‘privatisation’ is “political” and not “objective”. National doesn’t want to engage in an honest debate on asset sales because it can’t win on the facts. But trying to stop the Opposition using the word privatisation and insisting they use the govt’s spin term ‘Mixed Ownership Model’ is a step too far.