I couldn’t let the last of the year slip away without a fond farewell to the good old Electoral Finance Act. Last week the government passed its replacement legislation. It tweaks some thresholds, but retains the principles and much of the substance of Labour’s EFA. But this time there is no “Democracy Under Attack” campaign. I wonder why…
Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee has waited, until after the year-end press gallery drinks, to announce that the state owned Whirinaki power plant will be sold by tender process. The Government talks about having our interests at heart, but the truth is that it is selling off the family silver again. And slippery John Key is doing it while we’re focussed on Christmas.
The Herald has used the OIA to get hold of emails Peter Jackson sent Gerry Brownlee during the Hobbit shakedown. They show that the Actors’ Equity blacklisting was not a threat to the film staying here – yet Jackson and Brownlee told us it was to justify handing Warners $34 million and rushing through an anti-worker law.
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It’s surreal to see people who cried that not going into Iraq has cost us a trade deal with the US, now saying that the Reconstruction Team Labour sent was to get access for our milk exports. The claim’s based on a US Embassy cable but that doesn’t make it gospel. In reality, the Right wanted us to fight in Iraq to get an FTA with the US.
There’s an ad campaign at the moment about how DB Export was supposedly created in reaction to the Black Budget. It’s full of lies and a lot of people see it as a slur on Arnold Nordmeyer and Labour in general. In fact, this odd campaign under the slogan ‘how to lose an election’ isn’t about Labour. It’s a warning to National.
Liam Dann had a very good piece in the Herald the other day about rising commodity prices. Despite insipid growth, prices of food and oil, the fuels of our civilisation are through the roof. The underlying meaning of those high prices is we’re having to devote more of our resources to feeding and fueling ourselves, leaving less for anything else.
“PM plays power games with President Obama” reads the headline! Sounds exciting doesn’t it? Alas. The actual events described are somewhat pathetic. Key went personally begging for a photo op but the President of the US was too busy doing stuff that mattered. I think I could have written a much more accurate headline. I’m sure you can too…
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What to do if you’re a government with an ideological fixation on selling assets, which is hugely unpopular? The public will catch on if you put SOEs as full entities up for auction. So, you don’t sell off the companies. Instead, you sell off the things they own or, through bond issues, their profit streams. We’ve been warning this would happen. Now, it is.
Odd timing as everyone powers down for Christmas, but The Herald has published the NZ Wikileaks cables. A rather far fetched attack on Clark (covered by Eddie yesterday), the Nats breaking promises and misleading Parliament. But if that’s the worst in the cables then I’m guessing that politicians on both sides, past and present, will be vastly relieved.
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It must be coming up to election year, because whenever I load Granny Herald there’s some ludicrous attack on Labour or love-piece on Key. The Herald on Sunday has some Wikileaks cables and the ones they’ve chosen to pre-release supposedly shows Labour was willing to give up the anti-nuke law but didn’t to win votes. They show no such thing. [Updated]
Phil Twyford is selected as the new Labour candidate for Te Atatu from a strong field.
Phil Twyford is a formidable campaigner, as I know from past experience. I almost pity whatever sacrificial lamb that National put up in that electorate.
Perhaps, like me, you have left your Christmas shopping to the last minute. Fear not – help is at hand! Here’s a roundup of some real gifts that you might give this Christmas.
Over at No Right Turn, I/S has picked up on some Aussie research that shows Free Trade Agreements aren’t the huge money spinners they’re sold as. Because FTAs create different rules for different trading partners, exporters have to meet complicated ‘rules of origin’ to prove they quality for the lower tariffs. The cost can eat up the supposed benefits.
Ok this is seriously weird, too cool, and as bad as the elevator music is. But at least it is not John Key mangling songs with syncophantic radio announcers declaring it to be music.
The band running on iPad’s and iPhone – North Point’s iBand
Armstrong makes a powerful attack on the media’s “increasing appetite for personality-based politics at the expense of more serious discussion about policy”. If only Armstrong were one of half a dozen political editors who shape the media discourse. To be fair, Armstrong hardly writes about soap opera stuff. Some of his junior colleagues should follow suit.
Brownlee ignored warnings that his reforms would increase power prices, not lower them as intended. Wholesale power prices have spiked from $50 to $300 per MWH. Exporters have cut production. Residential users are next. With power up and petrol breaking $2 a litre, energy is a handbrake on this supposed economic recovery.
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Several studies have now shown that those who watch Fox News are significantly more misinformed than those who don’t. Well there’s a surprise! Not. Serious question though, can we have both a free media and a requirement for minimum levels of accuracy and balance, or are those options mutually exclusive?
We don’t have to care so much about beneficiaries any more. Or those single parents. Or the trials and tribulations of anyone else at all really. We have to be grown up. And we are more mean and lean than we used to be. Hell, even those pesky parliamentary lefties have abandoned the beneficiaries and the single parents. Yup. Nothing to see there. Life is good. We’re getting ahead. And we sure know what’s what. Don’t we?
Three government investment decisions in the last couple of weeks have shown the deficiencies in the neoliberal way of doing things. SOE Solid Energy’s lignite-to-liquids obsession, Kiwirail buying trains in China rather than making them itself and Steven Joyce decision to re-create Telecom’s monopoly by giving it 70-84% of the broadband contracts.
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It’s a tough Christmas for far too many Kiwis. Poverty is up, wages are down. 350,000 Kiwis are jobless or underemployed. The job losses are still coming. The rich got tax cuts, 70% got nothing. Drought is spreading. Thousands of Cantabrians face an uncertain future. Meanwhile, the Nats cynically exploit disaster to advance their agenda.
Jason Ede, Whaleoil’s main source for smut in the National Research Unit, has done a clever little play on Phil Goff. Like 40-odd other MPs, Goff owns an investment property. That it’s in Wellington doesn’t matter. This isn’t a Double Dipton rort. But Goff pledged to sell it and he hasn’t. No rort but sloppy. A fair cop.
Isn’t it great we’ve got that nice man John Key running the country?
He can’t sing, but he does entertain his fans so. Last year he sang Snoopy’s Christmas for his fans, this year Santa Claus is Coming to Town. He sure does know what it takes to be popular. And he always does his best.
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The Right often espouses the mantra of “choice”. How we do better if we leave things up to the private sector, so we can all get what we want, instead of forcing us into the same solution.
Choice is great for ice-cream, but I don’t think it’s great for government services.
A very good close of year speech from Phil Goff in the House yesterday. I think this is the kind of thing we want to see more of next year. Phil’s job is to crystalise the vague sense of dissatisfaction that most people feel with the Key Government with himself as the spokesperson for those Key has betrayed and let down.
Pansy Wong’s resignation in disgrace makes four ministers and three MPs lost by John Key’s government in two years (and more who have escaped scot-free). Now, we face another by-election – on March 5th, Botany will choose Wong’s successor. Here’s my take on the probable candidates and the party positioning.
The Right always advocates for less government spending as a percentage of GDP. Those with ideological blinkers cannot see the high correlation between being a free and stable country and paying for it. The most successful nations are willing to invest in quality public services. Government spending is low in poor, unequal, and unstable countries.
Tax cuts don’t cause growth, and even some of the right wing commentators are starting to admit it. The Nats’ tax cuts aren’t “broadly neutral” either, and that is why the deficit is blowing out. National’s one and only economic policy is busted. Now what?
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