McCarten on Pike River
This piece by Matt McCarten has already generated some discussion on Open Mike. Here are extracts, or click through for the full article. Matt pulls no punches…
The spirit of Peterloo
David Cameron made the commendable decision to create a national happiness index to compliment GDP but there’s a lot of unhappiness in Merry Old England under his rule. To avert fiscal disaster, while allowing bankers and the elite to keep their wealth, Cameron is making savage cuts to public services. And the Police are going old school on the resulting protests.
Open mike 05/12/2010
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Marianne Ny: Making an arse of Swedish law.
The Wikileaks release of US government diplomatic wires is less interesting to me than the behavior of the Sweden’s director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny. Her charges and actions against Julian Assange indicate that she is driven more by the politics than respect for the law. I fail to see why Interpol is involved for such a minor charge. Apparently the charge is question is something pretty weird called “sex by surprise”
Green China
I confess that I am used to thinking of China as a polluter, not much concerned with environmental standards or green technology. I am very pleased indeed to find that I am wrong. Green technology is yet another area where China is drawing ahead of America and much of the West.
Garagin Way tickets
We have four pairs of tickets to give away for the Garagin Way play in Auckland at 181 Hobson St on the nights of Sunday the 5th or Monday the 6th. As the competition we ran was a bit of a fizzer, we’ll just give them to the first four emails we get at thestandardnz (at) gmail dot com – give us your name to pick up the tickets at the door.
Pike’s interference could compromise investigation
Pike River Coal has been pushing for access to investigation interviews.
This kind of interference needs to be stopped before the investigation is compromised.
Open mike 04/12/2010
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Another whitewash
Once again the play is performed. A minister is caught rorting, admits wrong-doing, an investigation is launched, the investigation doesn’t ask crucial questions, it finds no fault just confusion on the part of the poor old minister, the rules are changed. English, Worth, Heatley, Wong… all the same. These farces need a new script.
I/S on Wong
Steal $1,500 as a public servant, and you should never work again. Steal $500 by the same method as an MP, and you simply have to repay the money and expect to be back in Cabinet. The message is clear: its one rule for politicians, and one for everyone else.
Finlayson takes (another) ride in the whambulance
When Chris Finlayson’s on the backfoot he starts to sound bitchy. Out comes the name-calling and the put-downs – as if his opponents are going to be scared off. If Finlayson is going to throw a tizzy at anyone it should be National for first whipping up the rednecks over the ‘beaches’ and then raising Maori expectations.
Useless laws won’t solve drug problem
Lawmaking is serious business. It is how we as a community, through our elected representatives, set the bounds and frameworks for our behaviour, allowing our community to function. Laws shouldn’t be made, things shouldn’t be banned, for the hell of it. So why is Parliament passing a law that everyone, including the PM, thinks is pointless?
Re:Cunliffe re:me re:his speech
It was pretty cool that the next Finance Minister wrote a post about my post yesterday. Even if was to say I was dickishly misinterpreting him 😀 I’ve got a couple of points in reply but the biggest is why is Labour talking about (restrictive) privatisation and PPPs policies when there are much more important economic issues at hand?
Welcome to the 21st Century!
Sometimes I find it hard to believe how the leaders of this world fail to comprehend what appears so obvious to me. In the Information Age, how do they think secrecy is viable? What is happening with Wikileaks, or more appropriately, what is about to happen, appears to be playing out along the same lines as the rise and fall of Napster.
Only greed can save us
As a society we can’t seem to bring ourselves to take action on climate change. We haven’t got the will to save ourselves.
The failure at Copenhagen, and the non event that is Cancun, are in the process of proving that.
It looks like only greed can save us.
Open mike 03/12/2010
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Cunliffe responds to Marty G
Given the importance of this debate, I thought I’d just lift this straight from David Cunliffe’s post on Red Alert:
“I guess it’s all in a day’s work, but MartyG on The Standard misintrepeted my position on PPPs in this recent post.”
Treasury warned on risk of Hobbit hustle
Remember how Peter Jackson and Warner Bros pulled the old Hollywood shakedown on us? By making a hollow threat to film elsewhere they got an extra $30 million and a law passed just for them. This was supposedly necessary to save a vital economy gain for the country but the Government knew that was bollocks all along.
Key still wants to be Ireland
The other week, Lynn and I made fun of John Key’s dream that New Zealand would become the Ireland of the South Seas. Does he still believe we should emulate the Irish? The answer is yes. Key wants to abandon proper process and speed up work on an international financial centre for New Zealand, just like the one that helped get Ireland where it is today.
The other welfare report
The recommendations of the Nats’ welfare working group are, predictably, good old fashioned Tory welfare bashing. In contrast a report released last week by the Anglican Social Justice Commission shows just how misguided the ideology underlying this attack on welfare is.
2 minutes silence at 2pm
PM John Key has called for two minutes of national silence today at 2pm, to remember the 29 miners who lost their lives at Pike River.
Open mike 02/12/2010
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Climate change irony for farmers
When they’re not polluting our rivers or fighting animal welfare laws, our farmers, the ‘guardians of the land’, are opposing having to pay for their greenhouse emissions. Now, with the Earth having just clocked up its warmest 12 months since records began, farmers are scratching their heads at the early start to the summer drought.
ECE costs to skyrocket
The Nats’ stupid slash and burn approach to early childhood education (ECE) is about to hammer families. And once again Anne Tolley is in complete denial about it.
PPPs suck, toll roads do too
By backing a (soft) privatisation policy, David Cunliffe is throwing away a vital point of difference with National and allowing National to move rightwards. Worse, Labour appears to be determined to give up political advantage for dumb policy: public-private partnerships and tolling have a terrible track record.
What is all of the fuss about?
There has always been an inherent design conflict in giving widespread access to information. On one hand it allows better service for people and organisations. On the other hand it means that less material can be kept secret because giving more people access to information and more opportunity to whistleblow when people see a problem or an ethical conflict. That has always been the inherent conflict.
Who has “blood on their hands”?
Amongst other angry and aggressive rhetoric, American politicians have accused the leakers of the diplomatic cables of having “blood on their hands”. Will the leaked cables put lives at risk? Perhaps, but I believe that many more lives would be made safe if the actions and attitudes of our governments, and the “intelligence” that they work with, were more open to the people.
Open mike 01/12/2010
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Your chance to ask the PM some real questions
To say that Key’s digital smile and wave was disappointing would be an under-statement. Key spent just 45 minutes (not the promised 2 hours) answering questions and most of them were moronic – “ford or holden”, “favourite colour” – honestly. We’re getting emails from people pissed off their serious questions weren’t sent through. I have a solution.
Open democracy?
There used to be a webcam in the Beehive Theatrette run by R2 that broadcast the PM’s Post-Cabinet press conference. Anyone who could go to the site and watch – live and uncut. The very model of digital democracy. Now, that service is gone. R2 was being asked to pay too much and Parliament blocked maintenance. So much for transparency.
Labour’s Brotherly Dynamic Duo
They’ve already been dubbed NZ’s David and Ed Milliband.
Brothers David and Ben Clark will both be standing for Labour in the 2011 general election. David is standing for the safe Dunedin North seat, while Ben will be taking on Wayne Mapp on the North Shore.
Both would do well as MPs.
Prizes! Tickets to Gagarin Way
You may have seen ads on the site recently for a comedy play called Gagarin Way, which opens in Auckland this Wednesday. As part of the Scoop ad cartel, we have four pairs of tickets to give away. Here’s the game: best – ie most funny/apt – 2011 campaign slogan for each of the Nats, Labour, the Greens, and ACT wins a pair of tickets.
Leaked cables window into Superpower
Wikileaks latest coup is the release of a database of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables between American embassies, up to and including the highest security level “Top Secret”. The cables provide a full, detailed and explicit account of many of America’s diplomatic secrets and the attitudes behind them. It is a good long look through a window in to the mind of a Superpower.
Trans-Tasman: Key the smile & wave PM
The annual roll-call’ from the extremely pro-Nat Trans-Tasman says: “Key needs an agenda, not just the consensus he is building around personal trust.” In other words: ‘smile and wave is all very nice and good, John, but don’t you think you should do some actual work? Meanwhile, Key is spending two hours today digitally smiling and waving on Stuff.
Open mike 30/11/2010
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Unconscionable
It seems I’m not alone in feeling outrage at attempts to bury any sensible debate on the shape and extent of New Zealand’s coal operations