The Auditor-General seems certain to launch an investigation into the Wongs’ taxpayer-funded travel as even more evidence shows the Parliamentary report isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. A majority of Kiwis want her to resign. Why John Key hasn’t already called on the A-G to investigate, as he did with Phil Heatley, is beyond me.
The sum Phil Heatley has so far spent trying to get three women and their families evicted from their state houses, an effort to look tough, is the equivalent to the cost of building two new state houses. Over half a million spent on an ultimately pointless exercise – one that’s far from finished.
John Armstrong pulls no punches on the constitutional review, the second time in recent history that he has called the government a disgrace. Add it to the ever growing list of outrageous behaviour from the Nats. Is this the worst government for democracy in the history of NZ?
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For a while it looked like the Nats’ Marine and Coastal Areas Bill was going to represent a successful and enduring solution to the foreshore debate in NZ. But Maori support evaporated. Now the new Bill has suffered a further massive blow to its credibility. Labour is pulling its support…
Yesterday, the OECD released its annual comparison of educational achievement in different countries. This study compares half a million kids’ aptitude in reading, maths, and science. Kiwi kids come out pretty damn well: 7th in reading, 13th in maths, 8th in science. And, guess what, we beat countries with National Standards hands down.
Paul Quinn’s appalling Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act passed last night with the support of just two parties – ACT and National. We’ve talked about why this law is so bad in the past. The Attorney-General agreed it is an unjustified breach of our human rights. Why did ACT, the supposed ‘Liberal Party’ vote for it?
The Commissioner for the Environment’s “Lignite and Climate Change: The High Cost of Low Grade Coal” has been released today. Its release had been postponed because of concerns that it would become entangled with reports concerning the Pike River Mine disaster.
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Fresh evidence was presented in the House yesterday by rortbuster Pete Hodgson that makes a lie of testimony Sammy Wong gave to the investigation into his and his wife’s travel on taxpayer money. A proper inquiry by the Auditor-General must now be undertaken. There are also questions over John Key’s involvement.
A fascinating side-effect of the attacks at various levels on Wikileaks in the last week has been a demonstration of exactly how tough it is to take out a site without widespread support from people on the net.
renesys.blog has a excellent post looking at what has been happening to keep Wikileaks alive on the net.
I saw this old American comic and the coincidence was just too bizarre. I had to share.
In the Herald yesterday, there was a half-page ad thanking Pansy Wong for her “significant contribution” to National’s coffers the country. John Campbell went in hunt of that contribution. Worth watching all the way through for Duncan Garner’s assessment. As a bonus, Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi gets his first media mention that isn’t about corruption.
ISOC – the internet society that is probably the closest thing that the internet has as a governing body said “Unless and until appropriate laws are brought to bear to take the wikileaks.org domain down legally, technical solutions should be sought to reestablish its proper presence, and appropriate actions taken to pursue and prosecute entities (if any) that acted maliciously to take it off the air.”
We can probably expect that domain to be back on the air shortly.
I’m in favour of lifting the retirement age. Life expectancy continues to rise and is now 80.4 years. A man aged 65 can expect to live on average another 18 years, a woman 20. That’s a hell of a long time to be getting the pension and an enormous cost. Rising the age to 67 would free up $1.5 billion a year to go into education and preventative health.
You not only can expect to be spied on more after an overhaul of the SIS, but you sure as hell shouldn’t be […]
Now that the Swedish prosecutors have finally given the British police a document that they can work with, Assange turned himself in, and […]
One of the features of the neoliberal revolution has been the outsourcing of public service delivery, usually to not-for-profits, sometimes to profit-making entities like private hospitals. Whanau Ora is an extension of this. Two recent stories have exemplified the risks of this model – corruption and cuts by stealth.
Democracy can be very bad at dealing with hard problems. Case in point, the Nats’ appalling handling of the issue of our ageing population. The Nats are stuck, so the country is stuck, rabbit in the headlights, while the size of the problem continues to grow…
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The Nats like to talk tough about “benefit fraud”. But ONE News reports that simple incompetence in the Ministry of Social Development costs three times as much. Perhaps cutting more public sector jobs, and putting the remaining workers under even more stress, will help fix the problem, do you think?
A reader responds, pretty curtly, to John Key’s wholly inadequate explanation for why the select committee hearings on extending the SIS’s already broad powers will be secret. “It won’t be in the public interest to have it open, for a whole bunch of reasons I don’t want to go into,” Just doesn’t cut it.
19 dead in Police chases in 12 months. You’re more likely to be killed in a police chase than by being shot. Most of the dead were being chased for minor traffic offences. What a waste of life. Collins’ response: harsher sentences. Cause tougher sentences has brought down crime so far, eh? Nats have no ideas. The death toll mounts.
The other week we talked about what a new economic order should look like, following the neoliberal experiment’s resoundingly failure. Sustainability and fairness need to be at the heart of the system. Government acts on the economy through law, taxation and income redistribution, and as market player. Let’s start with tax and redistribution.
In a surprise to no-one, John Key has appointed 3 time election loser Hekia Parata to replace the latest of his corrupt ministers to walk the plank – Pansy Wong. I’m hoping Parata will be less of a disgrace than Wong. It wouldn’t be hard, she would just have to actually try to answer questions in the House and actually do something about the wage gaps.
Goff has given several excellent policy speeches this year, and the last one was no exception. Squarely targeted at a middle New Zealand that saw little of National’s tax cuts and far more of their job losses and rising prices. Pointing out the obvious, that National has failed to deliver on the economy, and has no viable plan to do so. In short, a great platform for election year.
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In my final post I look at the possible influence coalition partners could have on a future National government. Even if Labour loses in 2011, an outright win for right-wing economic doctrine is not necessarily on the cards.
Much to the delight of the right wing chattering class, the Te Atatu electorate has written a letter attacking Labour leadership. Storm in a teacup. I don’t think there is any shock value to the public in further revelations about Chris Carter, just a bit of titillation for the blog fodder.
The modern urge to label leaders who perform adequately during an emergency as ‘heroes’ astounds me. Particularly in the case of Pike River. Peter Whitall is a boss who just had 29 workers die on his work-site. While reserving judgment on his blame for that, I’m not going to call him a hero for doing a decent job for the cameras.
This collection of articles from recent days illustrate the class war going on within this country. In a time of economic, environmental, and social crisis, either the established elite can be reined in or it will use its power to cement its position and take a greater share of the wealth. Because we’re letting them, the elite are winning the class war.
Great excitement in the Sunday papers over Winston Peters / NZF. “Poll puts NZ First back in contention”! “Peters the kingmaker again”! Don’t believe a word of it.
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Warners bludge $30 mil out of us. Kiwifruit growers get a blank cheque while other firms go under. Farmers have their hands out cause it hasn’t rained. Rich finance investors get us to cover their losses. Now, a $10K a night resort wants us to pay for some royals to stay there. Apparently, it’ll be great value for money – that’s what corporate bludgers always say.
There seems to have been a reasonable breakthrough in research to reverse ageing. Is it a good thing? If you think the world has resource and environmental problems now, you ain’t seen nothing yet. If you think we have social injustice and insane inequities in wealth now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
