National continues ECE assault
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.
Open mike 10/03/2011
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Beyond a joke
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.
Some free advice for National
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…
Blame it on the quake
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.
How to put half a billion into working families’ pockets
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.
Open mike 09/03/2011
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Show some leadership, please
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.
One job only for Jerry
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.
Everything is waffle
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.
Dropping like flies
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?
New Citizens’ Party paper flouts electoral law
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.
Quake used as foreshore cover
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.
National hates Public Broadcasting
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”.
Open mike 08/03/2011
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Cometh the Hour
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.
Confirmed: Brownlee made it up
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.
For God’s sake, be straight with us
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.
Farrar fluffs food figures
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.
Day of rage
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?
I See Red
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”…
Open mike 07/03/2011
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Why I’m not a millennialist
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.
Bulldozer Brownlee
Gerry Brownlee thinks that most of Christchurch’s heritage buildings should be bowled tomorrow. I wonder what Christchurch thinks of Gerry Brownlee.
Open mike 06/03/2011
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Embarrassing result for Nats in Botany
So another corrupt Nat minister has gone and Jami-Lee Ross has taken her seat in Botany. What an embarrassing resulting. The majority reduced […]
Bexley, eventually
Resources for the poor, eastern Christchurch suburbs have been lacking but everyone accepts things are stretched. Key did himself no favours trying to […]
Unemployment tsunami hits Chch
3065 people have already claimed the special benefit for people left unemployed due to the Christchurch earthquake. Once that payment expires in a […]
Another poll
Another Roy Morgan poll is out, and the results make for interesting reading.
Botany by-election
For obvious reasons the Botany by-election has received very little attention on this blog, or anywhere else in the media. Some are calling it “the byelection everyone forgot”.
Open mike 05/03/2011
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You know you’re from Christchurch when…
Sometimes black humour is the only way to cope. These are doing the rounds…
Truly Stranded
One of the names that the self-inflated blogs who consider themselves to be the “taste police” give us is the unimaginative juvenile name of The Stranded. Typically this is when they are writing a silly post trying to tell us why we should think like them (I guess everyone is entitled to a unrealistic dream). Anyway I thought I’d give them some real bad taste to moan about in a Friday Fun post (warning – written in the Cactus Kate style).
Recovery phase
I know that the thoughts of the whole country are with those in Christchurch, especially the family and friends of the dead and missing. And the thanks of the whole country are with the rescue teams and other workers, who have done everything humanly possible in very dangerous circumstances. Thank you all.
Football news
New Zealand has won the rights to host the U20 Football World Cup in 2015.
Farrar illustrates WfF folly
John Key has tidied up the confusion he caused yesterday and says that the quakes will cost the government $5 billion in rebuilding and $5 billion in lost revenue over the next 4 years. Big bikkies but easily covered by an emergency levy and canning the white elephant motorways. So, why are the Nats obsessed with tinkering with Working for Families?