A 8.9 Richter-scale earthquake has struck just off the coast of northeastern Japan. At a depth of just 24km and only 60km offshore, it released 8,000 times more energy than the second Christchurch earthquake. The Kurihara seismic station recorded a 7 on the destructiveness scale, the maximum reading. Swathes of 70K city of Kesennuma ablaze. Death toll unknown. $100 billion to $1 trillion damage. 20+ aftershocks over 5.5 are reported so far. Tsunami warnings across the Pacific.
In the UK they have a referendum in May as to whether to keep First Past the Post, or move to Australian-style Preferential Voting (or as they call it “Alternative Vote”). Here’s a quirky explanation of the problems with FPP using members of the animal kingdom.
As we wait to see what Saudi Arabia’s ‘Day of Rage’ will bring and if it will send oil prices into the stratosphere, some economists, including our Reserve Bank Governor, are trying to pretend we’re not in the midst of an oil shock and there is no threat to the economy. They’re dead wrong.
Apparently Christchurch Labour MPs will be putting out their bulletin daily. Here’s the second update from Clayton Cosgrove (Waimakariri), Ruth Dyson (Port Hills), Lianne Dalziel (Christchurch East) and Brendon Burns (Christchurch Central). In future you can get to them here.
Last National government: split Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. This National government: merge Agriculture and Fisheries. In times of economic recession and disaster National know the really important things to focus on. Just as long as they keep those civil servants busy and away from helping the public we’ll all be fine.
With the Government’s most useless Minister, Pansy Wong, gone under a cloud of corruption and replaced by a new MP who has been labeled by some as a future Nat leader, we might have hoped that the Women’s Affairs portfolio would get some decent treatment and we would see a real commitment to closing the pay gap. Well, we can stop hoping.
Mayor Bob Parker has described landlords hiking rents in Christchurch as “looting by another name”. I think the majority of us would feel as Parker does — it seems simply wrong to exploit people for profit in a time of tragedy. But look around. It’s just unregulated capitalism in action. There’s an awful lot of it about.
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Hone Hariwira’s speech on the second reading of the Marine and Coastal Area Bill. Agree with him or not, there is no denying the passion. The Maori Party may have made a huge mistake in pushing him out, thus leaving him free to speak his mind…
The Labour Party’s Christchurch electorate MPs are today starting a regular bulletin designed to keep people in their electorates and media informed about what is happening at grass roots level in their electorates.
Facing a housing shortage in Auckland now and a massive rebuilding programme in Christchurch to come, the Government has announced the biggest public building initiative since World War 2. Thousands of unemployed young people will be paid to train as apprentices in building trades and contribute to their country’s future.
Digested: the Reserve Bank cuts rates, the dollar weakens, oil prices rise and Sovereign Homes goes out of business.
I’ve nothing against members of the Royal Family personally, but what possible good is a visit from Prince William? We already have a popular but useless celebrity “leader” swanning about the country to make people feel good and hog the cameras. Do we really need a second one?
National are to allow battery farming style early childhood education. From July the government will allow 75 stressed under-2 year-olds in one room, unable to form a relationship with any one teacher.
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John Key and Gerry Brownlee are the two most powerful men in the country right now. In their actions and in their words they hold the hopes of tens of thousands of people whose lives have been turned upside down and the future of a major city. We really need these men to do a good job. So, this Laurel and Hardy impersonation has to stop.
Hey National – stop lying and inventing dodgy stats to try and prove that we’re all better off. The tax cut received by most people was derisory, and the cost of living is shooting up fast. Even the Kiwiblog heartland isn’t buying the lies. If you can’t convince them, you can’t convince anyone…
Last week, John Key said that, due to the earthquakes, “from June to June, my guess is that we’ve lost $12 billion in GDP”. Later, he said it was $15b over 4 years due to the quakes. Now, Treasury says most of that $15b is from the recession Key and English had led us into before the quakes. The Nats are trying to use the quakes to hide their failings.
I/S at No Right Turn has done more excellent work. He’s revealed the official advice Kate Wilkinson was given on the minimum wage. The advice says there is a trade-off between jobs and the minimum wage, but even a rise to $15 an hour would cause an increase wages for low-income earners well above the cost in jobs.
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Key has been caught out bullshitting about the earthquake again.
This time about how many houses will have to be destroyed.
With so much uncertainty surrounding the quake and its aftermath already that’s not good enough.
Key needs to show some leadership.
John Key has appointed Jerry Mataparae as the next Governor-General. That’s all well and good. I’m sure he’ll do a fine job. But Key says he can also stay on as head of the Government Communications Security Bureau. That’s not on.
Update: the Stuff article failed to mention the vital fact that Mateparae is stepping down from the GCSB before becoming G-G. Sorry. Fucken Stuff.
There isn’t just one hard truth to NZ politics at the moment. The second is equally unpopular with people, but if it doesn’t offer a clear way forward it at least suggests a fixable problem. At the same time, it’s not the kind of thing Labour/the Left want to have bandied about too publicly in an election year.
Worth: gone. Wong: gone. Mapp: going. John Carter: going. Te Heuheu: probably going. Sharples, Hide, Dunne: facing de-election. Lockwood Smith: going mid-next term. Key: gone in three years, tops. More with limited lives due to corruption/abuses/incompetence (Heatley, English, Bennett). Why did Power really leave a party and government that was his to shape?
The United Chinese Press newspaper is potentially facing prosecution under the Electoral Act after it ran adverts on the day of the Botany by-election supporting New Citizens’ Party candidate Paul Young. The paper, the party, and the bidders for the Crafar Farms all appear to have strong links each other and the Chinese government.
Today Parliament sits in full for the first time since the second earthquake. There’s lots to attend to: the government is required to explain the state of national emergency, change the census law, create a one-off provincial holiday, and alter the law on school zoning. But it looks like the Nats are more concerned with slipping through their foreshore and seabed bill.
TVNZ7, and New Zealand public service television as a whole, looks to be coming to an end in June next year. TVNZ has been told their only responsibility is to return to the government a 9% return on investment per annum; their response is that they see pay-TV as their future. Sky is now “a frenemy”.
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ChrisH submitted this incredibly knowledgeable and well-researched post on the rebuilding of Christchurch a few days ago. The announcement that large parts now lower-lying eastern suburbs will be abandoned lends more strength to his call for a visionary urban plan for the new, more resilient Christchurch. And Phil Goff has the history to present it.
More bad news for Gerry Brownlee today. No Right Turn has had confirmation that Gerry Brownlee makes his ‘policy’ up as he goes without seeking competent advice. This must be more than slightly terrifying to the people of Christchurch because Brownlee is currently their dictator by legislation in the rebuilding effort. His bulldozing ineptness is not just confined to buildings but is endemic to everything he does.
John Key and Gerry Brownlee made extremely foolish comments attacking the coronal staff trying to identify the dead and about knocking down all the historic buildings. Now, they’re lying about those statements. This crisis is too big for this childish bullshit. John, you need to be a real leader, not a naughty schoolboy lying to cover your mistakes.
I thought that with a devastating earthquake, a record oil/food price spike, an unemployment tsunami, and a double-dip recession that the Nats’ apologists might have realised it was time for honest discussion of the issues and solutions. Instead, they’re still trying to bury our heads in the sand.
You know things are bad when the AA is saying that high petrol prices are here to stay and there needs to be more investment in public transport. Global supply and demand is so tight that tiny disruptions are causing massive spikes. What if Saudi Arabia erupts?
The government has a fair bit on its plate right now, like the Christchurch quake, and the hammering that ordinary folk are getting from the cost of living. So its reassuring to know that the PM’s office has its eye on the ball. It’s all over the “important issues”…
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Peak oil, peak food, peak metals, climate change. By over-exploiting the world, we have enjoyed tremendous improvements in the standard of living. And now the payback is coming. We’re clearly on a downward economic slope. Things have been going backwards for 3 years and the outlook is worse, not better. But it’s not the end of the world.
