Mana by-election results
Final update: With all booths counted. Fa’afoi-10397, Parata-9317. Majority 1080.
McCarten hardly featured on 816.
Pike River fears grow
The news coming out from the Pike River mine disaster is not sounding good. Spare a thought tonight for the miners and their families.
Armstrong on Do Nothing Key’s big adventure
John Armstrong’s straight-faced piss-take of John Key’s holiday very important diplomatic mission to Japan last week is very very funny. Without a hint of irony, Armstrong reveals how Key achieved nothing, talked big only to be put in his place by the big boys, and filled in his diary that was devoid of important meetings with pissant PR.
Rod Donald memorial lecture
Rod Donald died, so very young, five years ago this month. Tomorrow there is a memorial lecture in Christchurch. Jeanette Fitzsimons will speak on the topic “Democracy is New Zealand: Lost, Stolen or Just Misplaced?”. A timely topic indeed.
Climategate anniversary
It has been a year since the CRU emails were stolen and the “climategate” “scandal” broke. There’s an interesting summary at the ClimateSight blog. Meanwhile the record temperatures keep rolling in, the ice keeps melting all over the world, and The Guardian asks “Is climate science disinformation a crime against humanity?”.
Open mike 20/11/2010
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes […]
Fears for miners after explosion
I’ve just heard about the disaster at Pike River coal mine on the West Coast. [Updated] 29 miners are trapped 1500m below ground by a massive explosion. Five have made it out with moderate injuries. Obviously, there’s big concern for the lives of the missing workers. More details as they come – our thoughts are with their families.
Another reason why National should not be permitted a 2nd term
CERRA, Ecan Abolition, the Supercity Acts, the Hobbit Enabling Act, Water Privatisation, Fire at Will, the Murray McCully Empowering Act… the list of laws, all passed under Urgency, that take rights off New Zealanders and give more powers to the government is endless. Now, the Police are being empowered to take DNA from anyone they arrest.
The day that never comes
National Bank has joined NZIER in estimating the economy shrank 0.2% in the September Quarter and all the projections say it’ll go backwards this quarter too. Bill English now admits John Key’s ‘rapid recovery’ isn’t happening. But he insists it’s coming – tomorrow, no, the day after for sure. We’ve just got to keep waiting…
Women’s Affair Scrap
Minister for Minorities (Womens, Pacific, Ethnic and Assoc Maori Affairs – when she’s not busy with Courts or Disarmament) Georgina te Heuheu was […]
English: excuses but no solutions on plummeting incomes
Labour picked up on the statistics I revealed yesterday that show the median income of Maori has fallen 11.5% under National and the Pacific Island median income is down an astounding 19%. Kris Fa’afoi and Annette King put out press releases. Then King took the battle to Bill English in the House, who it seems is also a reader.
Rent a crowd
John Key tried to dismiss the activists who confronted him in Mana yesterday as “rent a crowd”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Left wing political protests are grass roots movements. It is the right wing of politics that needs to pay to get its “crowds”…
Open mike 19/11/2010
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Who’s disrespecting whom?
Mana locals rallied loudly against Key and Parata today. Key says “we treat them with respect even if they don’t treat us with respect”. Nah. McCarten talking to a guy who opposes him was respectful. Key could’ve shown respect by taking time to defend his record: wages down, no jobs, rising crime, service cuts. He didn’t. No respect.
Electoral finance reform in NSW Parliament
The NSW Parliament has just passed passed the Election Funding and Disclosures Amendment Bill 2010. It includes donations capped at $5,000 for parties and $2,000 for candidates and third parties, all donations over $1,000 declared, caps on expenditure for parties, candidates and third parties, reimbursement of election spending up to a reasonable limit, and provision of funding for policy development.
Savings based recovery nonsense
Bill English is always busy trying to put lipstick on the pig of our moribund economy. His latest attempt is to argue that we are experiencing a “savings based recovery”. There’s no such thing. He’s just making excuses for the fact that people have no money to spend, or are desperately trying to pay down debt in these uncertain times. Enough with the lipstick. Enough with the empty promises of jam tomorrow — National are never going to deliver.
NZ media asleep at the wheel
Democracy is quietly dying in NZ but you’d never know it by the media’s response. The government is rushing through a slew* of […]
OMG! ING! WTF?
Last year, over 13,000 New Zealanders got some measure of satisfaction from ANZ’s part-owned ING in New Zealand. For over a year, half a billion dollars in investors’ funds had been locked up, during a nasty dispute between ING/ANZ and their investors. How has ANZ made things right for everyone who was hurt? They’ve renamed ING as ‘One Path’
Framing the argument
Bill English and brother Conner, CEO of Federated Farmers, share a vision for the world. It’s one where the environment and workers are exploited to the hilt in the name of ‘growth’ and the fruits of that ‘growth’ flow to a privileged elite (like the Englishes). Yesterday rich-boy Conner chided the rest of us with a speech titled “There is no free lunch”
Tolley ignores mistreatment of kids at private schools
Anne Tolley has ignored the advice of the Law Commission and the desire of parents that private schools be required to provide a “safe and supportive” environment for children. She says there’s no problem to fix. Unfortunately that’s not true. Rather than make them accountable, Tolley is opening the public purse strings for private schools.
Due diligence on Whanau Ora?
Back in April Marty G raised questions about the accountability of Whanau Ora providers. The fiasco of the Taeaomanino Trust shows that those concerns were well founded. Why has $1 million in funding been awarded to a Trust with an extremely chequered history, and that is the subject of an open Police investigation? Is this an example of the kind of accountability that the government promised for Whanau Ora?
Maori & Pacific Island incomes plummet
Here’s a little something that Kris Fa’afoi and his team might like to being to the attention of Mana voters as they prepare to go to the polls. On National’s watch, the median Maori income has fallen 11.5%. For Pacific Islanders the fall’s 19%. Pakeha are down 2.6%. No tax cut for the rich can cover the gaping holes in those family budgets.
Open mike 18/11/2010
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Hone and the holidays act
Who would have thought that while Hone was talking up Matt McCarten in Mana the other day he was getting ready to vote […]
US says no to fox guarding NZ meat
I know it’s in National’s DNA to fight regulation where ever they find it but it looks like the meat industry and government ‘watch dog’ MAF’s […]
National standard in pronunciation
Plumedekiwi has revived his disturbingly good John Key impression in a new vid.
This time, John is explaining the importance of national standards.
Key: up to Labour to stop us rorting
With Pansy Wong in hiding on John Key’s orders, rort-buster Pete Hodgson laid the blame her corruption and all the other rorts squarely on Key yesterday. In question after question, Key couldn’t make a serious defence of his record. Then, he made an extraordinary admission: his ministers will keep on rorting – it’s up to Labour to catch them.
$1mil Whanau Ora funding for Parata supporters
What little we know of Whanau Ora is that it is essentially the privatisation of government delivery of social services to private groups. Rather than deliver services themselves, government departments entrust taxpayer funds to small groups that often have little or no track record to do the job instead. It’s an invitation for corruption.
If Wong stays an MP will she be welcome in National?
The latest revelation in the Pansy Wong saga is a Chinese newspaper article where she, as Minister, endorses her husband’s company’s product. John Key says that it would be a sacking offence were she a minister but its up to her if she resigns from Parliament. Here’s a question then: is he going to let this corrupt MP remain in his party’s caucus?
Finlayson losing it
Is the interminable tangled mess of the foreshore and seabed issue getting to Chris Finlayson? Something certainly is, because he’s clearly losing it. For the Treaty Negotiations Minister to tell a group of Maori protesters to “go to hell” is about as idiotic as it gets.
Open mike 17/11/2010
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes […]
Hollow man on the world stage
Judged by his own terms, what has John Key actually achieved on trade? He talked big about Japan’s trade barriers – no-one paid him any attention. Russian FTA talks were announced – it’ll be worth just $27 million. Key’s meeting with ‘good mate’ Obama – actually sitting “pretty much next to” him during a play. And still no White House invite.
Neo-liberalism at work
So people get sick and become less productive. I would have thought that that was pretty much stating the obvious.
Spending tax payers money trying to quantify how much imaginary wealth these sick people could have created for their employers if they had been perfectly well, seems to me to be bordering on lunacy.
Maori seats for Auckland?
National’s handling of the Auckland SuperCity process was profoundly undemocratic in a multitude of ways. Thank goodness, and the common sense of Aucklanders, that a “Labour Mayor from South Auckland” was elected to sort out at least some of the resulting mess. Len Brown has pledged to hold talks on dedicated Maori seats on the Council. It’s great to see that Brown is open to correcting National’s injustice on this matter.
17 dead in police chases
In the last year, 17 people have been killed in police chases. Many more injured. They might be criminals but they don’t deserve to die. Yet the Police policy – chase anything that flees – is killing them. The carnage needs to end. The human and financial cost is unbearable. But the Police are determined to continue. The government needs to step in.
Too expensive to pump
The International Energy Agency’s annual World Energy Outlook forecasts that by 2035 oil will cost $200 a barrel in today’s dollars. That’s not $200 during a price spike, that’s $200 as the new normal. The world entered recession when the price went over $100 in a spike during 2008. A permanent price of $200 a barrel is simply unaffordable.