Dutch disease

Written By: Mike Smith
Date published: - 69 comments

No it’s not a virus. It’s our dollar surfing on a dumper. Gareth Morgan and Neville Bennett have both written about it recently. Bennett says “There is increasing evidence that New Zealand is ailing. The symptoms are a high exchange rate, excessive foreign debt and a decline of the manufacturing sector.” The resulting damage if nothing is done, says Morgan, is  “a hollowing out of our non-commodity producing businesses, no correction in our household savings rate and in time, a balance of payments/external debt crisis as those factors conspire.” Bennett is not in the camp of those who say nothing can be done and offers some ideas backed up by the IMF. We need more thinking like that.

“There Once was an Island” in theatres this week

Written By: lprent
Date published: - 14 comments

My producer partner Lyn is back from Eire and has a theatrical release of their documentary underway in NZ. Director Briar March and producer Lyn Collie, along with two Australasian earth scientists specializing in oceanography and geomorphology looked at the effects of a rising sea levels and changing climate patterns are having on the people of the small Polynesian atoll Takuu in Papua New Guinea. Well worth watching on the big screen while you can.

The buck stops with Gerry

Written By: Guest post
Date published: - 9 comments

Every day more stories of the poor management of the Christchurch recovery are coming out. Delays in physical rebuilding are understandable. Delays in EQC payouts are another. They undermine the city’s economy and stop rebuilding. A reader has sent in their story. It’s one of many. Brownlee should have sorted this months ago.

Dunedin public meeting tomorrow

Written By: Anthony R0bins
Date published: - 63 comments

Up to forty jobs are at risk at Dunedin’s Hillside Railway Workshops, because the government would rather send money to China than invest in Kiwi jobs and industry.  It’s crazy.  Come along to the public meeting tomorrow Wednesday at 7pm.

Polls and people

Written By: Anthony R0bins
Date published: - 27 comments

The Roy Morgan Polls are all over the place, at the moment, and the latest one has the Left at the bottom of the roller coaster.  In other news, the Readers Digest survey of most trusted individuals, which this year is dominated by scientists!

Whenever you’re ready, John

Written By: Eddie
Date published: - 53 comments

Gerry Brownlee says an announcement on Christchurch’s land will be made “very, very soon” but testily refuses to give a date, or even a real timeframe. I have a sinking feeling this is all a PR exercise. Just as Brownlee has got everyone really agitated, that Nice Man Mr Key will unveil the information. When it fits into his diary, of course.

Gamechanger?

Written By: Mike Smith
Date published: - 50 comments

The Te Tai Tokerau by-election has the potential to be a game-changer. If it comes off for Kelvin on Saturday the result may shake up a few other predictions for the general election – another example of the wisdom of Harold Wilson’s famous remark that a week is a long time in politics. Now it’s down to who goes out on the day. After the battle of the hustings will come the battle of the explanations – they will be fascinating.

Privatisation, if only

Written By: Guest post
Date published: - 19 comments

NZX Chairman Andrew Harmos laments opposition to asset sales saying “if only opponents of this could have the intellectual honesty to recognise that it is a policy that has no losers”. Rijab respectfully disagrees and wonders if it isn’t the Chairman of the organisation with the most to gain from privatisation that is being intellectually dishonest.

Labour to entrench SOEs

Written By: Eddie
Date published: - 92 comments

Phil Goff has just announced that Labour is putting up a private members’ bill to entrench SOEs. This would mean they could only be sold either with 75% support of Parliament, or with majority support in a referendum. Great Stuff. These are our assets. They should not be sold without our permission.

The Magic Market

Written By: Guest post
Date published: - 64 comments

Low-paid, crappy job? It’s obviously your fault, according to the Right. You mustn’t have enough qualifications, or the correct ones. The good jobs are out there, they’re just hiding. Or, if they’re not, you can weave one from thin air. But, even if this free market magic were real, what’s the end point? The crap jobs still need to be filled.

The end of Kiwishare

Written By: Ben Clark
Date published: - 18 comments

The autocratic National government is changing the Kiwishare obligation of Telecom without consultation or notice. They say obligations will be the same, but they will no longer be legal restrictions, but changeable company “deeds”.

The wrong man for the job

Written By: Zetetic
Date published: - 46 comments

I haven’t seen the full interview of Brownlee on the Nation. If the clips on the news were anything to go by, it was more of the same. No info for Christchurch residents. No empathy for them either. More haughty bullshit. More vague excuses for delays. More focused on himself than the people who need help. He needs to go.

It’s begun

Written By: Anthony R0bins
Date published: - 141 comments

Argue with the science if you must, but it’s pretty hard to argue with the world.  The effects of climate change are upon us..

Why blog?

Written By: Anthony R0bins
Date published: - 59 comments

In which r0b ponders why he blogs, and decides to come out.  Very boring and predictable, I promise.

Drip, drip, drip of job losses

Written By: Ben Clark
Date published: - 239 comments

We are hearing no end of job loss stories in the news and the government has no plan for New Zealand jobs. Their best idea is to cut the wages of the young, rather than to create jobs of real value. We need workers paid a Living Wage so all Kiwis can have fulfilling lives.

Plain news from Canterbury TV

Written By: lprent
Date published: - 7 comments

From Canterbury TV (good to see they are still serving Canterbury) the first news report is better than most of the other stuff […]

When I fall

Written By: lprent
Date published: - 4 comments

One of my favorite bands and one of my favourite of their tracks. Barenaked Ladies playing “When I fall”. Great lyrics for the […]

The war on drugs is lost

Written By: Guest post
Date published: - 28 comments

The Global Commission on Drug Policy have just released their latest report on the global war on drugs. Its message is quite simple; the war has failed, and it is time to begin new dialogue on what has become the greatest social failure of the last fifty years.

NRT: Nats killing the Kiwishare

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 27 comments

Out of the blue, National has decided to scrap the Telecom ‘Kiwishare’. This is the provision that ensures all Kiwis have free local calling and that Telecom can’t be majority owned by a foreign company. National has refused to supply any justification for opening Telecom to foreign control.

Lifting productivity

Written By: Guest post
Date published: - 14 comments

So, the statement of intent from the Ministry of Health  has just been released. This document outlines how our health service will operate during the next three years; so what does it actually say? Is health truly safe under National?

Blindingly obvious – but secret

Written By: r0b
Date published: - 119 comments

In the damaged suburbs of Christchurch, people’s lives, their emotions, in many cases their finances, are all stuck in limbo.  Residents need to know which areas are going to be written off.  What they don’t need is Gerry Brownlee telling them they are “simplistic”…

Nats to slash wages

Written By: Zetetic
Date published: - 155 comments

Patrick Gower has revealed the Nats are poised to announce a policy to reintroduce the youth minimum wage at a rate of about $10 an hour, and potentially make it apply to people in their 20s. Outrageous and a breach of human rights. You should get paid for the work you do. Not your gender. Not your ethnicity. Not your sexuality. Not your age.

Nats’ election strategy – all about Key

Written By: Eddie
Date published: - 28 comments

National’s election platform is pretty much out. It shows that National is very much dependent on Brand Key. They released the Budget and then the rest of their major policies in rapid-fire succession. This shows National doesn’t believe its policies are vote-winners. They want policy to take a backseat and all the focus on Key’s smile.