Blame Goff?
There are far more similarities than differences in the Hughes / Goff and Worth / Key affairs, but that doesn’t stop the Right trying to rewrite history and blame Goff!
Weekend social 10/06/2011
Weekend social is for non political chat. What’s on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever.
No politics, no aggro, why can’t we all just get along?
Jobs destroyed by indifferent Nats
Joyce was told that building the new train cars at the Kiwirail workshop in Dunedin would bring half a billion into the economy. Joyce insisted Kiwirail go with the ‘cheapest’ option. China. Now, another 40 jobs have been axed. Not to mention other economic losses. Joyce is unrepentant. Blind to the cost of ‘cheap’. Aussie’s do it smarter than Joyce.
NZ deserves better than budget lies
The Budget is unravelling at a startling rate of knots. Bill English is floundering to explain his dodgy asset sales numbers that count the benefits but not the costs. Now, a senior minister has admitted that John Key’s claim that “there are 170,000 new jobs being created as a result of this Budget” is a lie. We actually really do deserve better than this.
Drifting
The Nats haven’t got a clue how to run a successful country, and most of the things they do try just make matters worse. We’re drifting…
Open mike 10/06/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Nats plummet, Lab soars post-budget
The latest Roy Morgan is the first poll taken after the Budget has had time to sink in. Nat+ACT+UF fell from 55.5% to 51% while Lab+Green went from 38% to 42.5%. Labour rose a massive 8%. New Zealanders do not want asset sales, fewer work rights, and National’s nasty agenda and are realising they have to vote against that ‘Nice Man Mr Key’.
English: dodgy asset sales figures
Question Time: David Cunliffe wipes the floor with Bill English in the House today, as he shows up his missing costs of asset sales.
Chart o’ the day: fire at will
Fire at will was meant to help young people into work, wasn’t it?
Nats planning to drive down our wages further
National’s election plan is becoming clear. They are going to put a lot of nasty stuff on the table and trust that people love Key’s smiling face so much they will still vote National. If they win, they will take it as a mandate to do everything they’ve said, and more. The latest election policy is more attacks on our work rights.
English – sell dams to buy prisons
So, that’s National’s great big plan: get rid of our electricity assets and use the cash to build more prisons. Not much of a brighter future there. National still hasn’t come up with a convincing reason why we would sell highly profitable monopolistic companies. Instead, we’ve seen a series of weak excuses. Now, English has revealed the truth.
Open mike 09/06/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
No charge
Darren Hughes will not be charged. “After this careful consideration, the allegations do not reach the evidential threshold required to bring charges. As […]
Chart o’ the day: maybe we should buy back our shit
So, borrowing to save makes sense afterall…
Do you remember back in the day when Bill English didn’t want to put any money into the Cullen Fund? Remember how we were smugly told that borrowing to save was foolish? Well, since then the Cullen Fund has made a fortune and, we know learn, the government has been borrowing to build up savings for the Christchurch rebuild.
Key’s destiny
I don’t have a problem with MPs going to a Destiny Church conference to chase some votes. Attending a group’s function isn’t an endorsement of its views, although there’s obviously a line (eg. neo-Nazi groups). John Key, however, is endorsing of Destiny’s politics saying: “National’s policies align much more closely with their beliefs than Labour.”
Bradford and the Greens
Is it just me, or is Sue Bradford working harder, and getting more media coverage than all of the Greens put together? She’s not just campaigning for beneficiaries. Yesterday Bradford came out with a strongly worded attack on the Greens’ positioning for the November election.
Open mike 08/06/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Fabian seminar
Another Fabian seminar in Auckland: Ian Pool & Natalie Jackson – Our Demographic Dividend Wasted. Thursday 9th June, 7.00pm, in the Ellen Melville Hall, Freyberg Place.
Saleh gone?
The Arab Spring has become an increasingly bloody Arab Summer as dictators unleash their security forces to try to stop the wave of protests and revolutions sweeping the Arab world. Yemen’s dictator, wounded in the fighting, left for treatment in Saudi Arabia and seems unlikely to return.
No future in English & Brash’s neoliberal plans
Don Brash has attacked Bill English’s budget which he says fails to lay out a plan for New Zealand. The reality, I think, is that both have plan however there is little or no future in either plan. Neither Brash nor English have laid out a plan which deals with the present and quite near problems we will face.
Nats testing the waters on eugenics
John Key “thinks” that parents on the DPB are “breeding for a business”. Now his government is testing the waters for a eugenics program, to single out these undesirables and forcibly control their fertility.
Drug reform: makes a hell of a lot of cents
I’ve been thinking about the budget. Its economic vacuousness: borrowing and crossing fingers for strong growth, while keeping tax cuts for the rich. The bare-faced cheek of counting the asset sales in its projections and passing Kiwisaver cuts without getting a mandate. But also, the cuts to vital public services without a more imaginative and sensible solution: drug reform.
Open mike 07/06/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Chart o’ the day: the Savings Budget
Net International Investment Position is how much New Zealand owes foreigners and foreigners own of New Zealand assets minus the reverse.
Time for a cross party consensus on crime
All of a sudden National and ACT are sounding vaguely sensible on crime and prisons. There seems to be a golden opportunity to reach a cross party consensus, and get some evidence driven policy and practice in this area. Who is going to make the first move?
Open mike 06/06/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Welcome molesworthst
A warm welcome to molesworthst – a new political blog recommended by Morgan over at his own must read blog, Maui Street.
Chart of the day: peak oil squeeze
Celebrity PM withdraws endorsement
Following the news that “Celebrities who make false statements while endorsing finance companies could now face jail or fines up to $1 million”, we at The Standard have received the following important document, leaked by an internal National Party source…
Open mike 05/06/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Two great columns
John Armstrong says NZers are like frogs in ever hotter water, not realising the incrementally more radical agenda of National.
Tracy Watkins looks at the rise of lobbyists and their lack of accountability.
Brownlee’s savage attack on Chch business owners
Christchurch business owners, unable to even get to their premises in the red-zone, have asked for some help to stop going under. Gerry Brownlee’s arrogant response: “If they are such clever, gifted, and forward-looking entrepreneurs it’s pretty sad that their first port of call has to be to Government looking for a bailout”. What an arsehole.
Hansen on climate change
Visionary climate change scientist James Hansen recently toured New Zealand, giving several public lectures. Here’s a quick summary, and a link to the podcast of the talk he gave at the University of Otago. As expected, it’s an excellent talk, with some fascinating suggestions about what we the people need to do. Interesting also to get Hansen’s take on Nick Smith…
Open mike 04/06/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Better economic info
The CTU’s Economic Bulletin: The 2011 Budget was a victory of story-line over needs… The Budget has no plan to put right New Zealand’s social and economic imbalances, and does little to start cutting back the overseas private debt… The Budget of a thousand cuts put debt and deficits ahead of people’s needs and a plan for the future.