Matt McCarten and his team took over a vacant state house in Mana to install a young couple who were previously living in a garage. Four supporters were soon arrested. The media are calling this action a “stunt”. To do so is to diminish the significance of the issue to which it was drawing attention. Call it a protest. People are living in squalor while state houses sit empty. Why?
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It’s diplomacy time in the Asia-Pacific region. While Secretary Clinton came to New Zealand and Australia and President Obama to India and Indonesia, […]
Yesterday, Jonathan Coleman was handed the job of doing the introductory speech on the Taxation (International Investment and Remedial Matters) Bill 2010. Coleman was reading from a prepared speech that someone had handed him, and it was the wrong speech for the wrong Bill. Coleman, without seeming to realise anything was amiss, proceeded to repeat verbatim a speech Peter Dunne gave a year ago for the Taxation (International Taxation, Life Insurance, and Remedial Matters) Bill.
Incredibly efficient cars can be manufactured now… but they aren’t being made.
What would it take to kick-start what would be a major part of making our future sustainable?
The latest Roy Morgan poll shows confidence in government plummeted during the Hobbit debacle. It shows confidence in government falling to a new low for Key’s administration. At the beginning of the year, nearly three-quarters of the population agreed the country was heading in the right direction. Barely 50% do now.
While the unemployment rate continues to jump around like mad, the dole numbers are telling a consistent story. And it’s not a good one. Every month this year has been worse than normal. In October, the number of Kiwis on the dole fell by 0.1%, that’s compared to a 1.1% fall last October and an average 3.1% drop each October under Labour. This October there were 4,800 more people on the dole than last October. Didn’t you say we were coming out of the recession strongly, Mr Key?
The Budget 2010 tax cuts for the rich were supposed to be paid for by magical extra growth. But the growth isn’t happening and the government now has a $2.2 billion shortfall in income. So the tax cuts aren’t “broadly neutral” at all. We’re paying for them with borrowing. Is that “Ambitious for New Zealand”?
Wages rose for the rich and fell for the poor this year, according to a Employers and Manufacturer’s Association survey. Managing Directors got a 3.7% rise from $190k to $197k, whilst the unskilled production workers beneath them saw their wages drop 6.5% or $2000 to $29.5k.
The recession, combined with this government, hurts the poor the hardest.
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The gender pay gap is increasing by about 1 percentage point each year under Pansy Wong’s watch – it’s now 13%. And a new report out shows women’s level of participation in key leadership areas is static or falling. Female unemployment had passed 7 percent for the first time in 12 years. National’s policies equate to an attack on women.
An education blog reports a revolt in the Ministry of Education, with a senior official in the Auckland region refusing to bully schools over national standards. That is well and bravely done. So much easier to keep your head down and “just follow orders”. But these orders are very very wrong.
I’ve never really understood the logic of paying CEOs multi-million dollar salaries. Can Telecom’s $7m man, Paul Reynolds, for example, really be worth 100 skilled technicians? Is there no-one who is basically as good who would work for a million or two less? Now, research shows high pay gaps for CEOs actually makes them worse bosses.
Do you remember when John Key declared War on P a year ago? The action has been… underwhelming. The Police have been getting on with quietly doing a good job, to be sure, but when you grandiosely declare “War” on something, you expect a bit more attention to have been paid to it.
It’s interesting to see the amount of anti-teacher information National is sending to Farrar and Slater. The depth of research involved in uncovering this stuff means it’s clearly research unit work. The latest tidbit Farrar and Slater have their knickers in a twist about is a principal referring to Anne Tolley as ‘Minister Hitler’ on her Facebook wall.
I’m a nurse at a public hospital. Our social fund is looking a bit thin this year so we thought would invite school groups to come along to the hospital, charge $25 a head, and let them play around with the equipment like X-ray machines and bandages to get a sense of how we work as a team. I’m sure Mr Key will say it’s a “good idea“.
Tax take is down due to reduced spending and the government’s response is to urge “restraint” and keep cutting. These cuts will, of […]
The Herald just accused Key of “blood on his hands” for failing to act on alcohol abuse. That’s an extraordinary rebuke. It far exceeds anything I can call from that pulpit directed at Helen Clark. John Key just lost another big chunk off his Teflon coating.
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We’ve been critical of this do nothing government’s economic record, but now I/S at No Right Turn has received documents that lay out the Nats’ economic plan. They rejected the notion of government, business, and workers pulling together to create a better economy and went with: 1) find lots of oil 2) lots of GM cows.
The Government is planning to reduce ACC cover and portray it as a cost saving for levy-payers. You would get less income coverage when injured and have to endure a longer wait time of three weeks until your coverage would begin. Levies would be personalised on the private model. This is privatising ACC on bite at a time with no actual cost savings.
I’m gobsmacked that John Key thinks it is a “good idea” for the SAS to whore itself and Crown property out so that fat businessmen can play soldier. What is our elite force doing pandering to the delusions of middle-aged dickheads to make money for a private fund? And what has happened to the SAS’s secrecy?
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“Man for all Seasons” is the title of David Grant’s authorised biography of Ken Douglas ONZ. The choice of title puzzled me – […]
This NAct government is so anti-worker that they have managed to re-arrange the calendar so that we get 5 fewer holidays in this government’s term than the last Labour one. And that’s before they sell off our 4th week.
The rumour mill has been buzzing since a couple of commenters here let slip about Matt McCarten’s run in the Mana by-election. Word around the traps is the campaign will be used to launch a new Left Party with McCarten, Hone Harawira, Sue Bradford and others. It’s an exciting possibility.
With all the crap this government’s spewing out at the moment, sometimes it pays to take a breath and look at something a […]
It seems that in American elections there is an almost perfect correspondence between some candidates’ opinion polling and their current search volume on Google. Can we do away with political opinion polls? Sounds interesting doesn’t it. A quick check shows that the relative frequency of searches for “National party” and “Labour party” predicted the result of the 2008 election. What other tricks can we try?
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We’ve had numerous prescriptions claiming to tackle ever growing numbers of social ills, but the elephant in the room; the underlying cause for our problems as a society is always, assiduously ignored. And that means that many of our resources are being wasted (perhaps deliberately) on illusory problems.
The title of Don Brash’s latest exercise in making John Key appear moderate second 2025 Taskforce report is “Focusing on Growth”. Why should we be myopically focused on growth? Neoliberalism treats growth as an end in itself. That reduces us to mere cogs in the machine of ‘New Zealand Inc’. A healthy society is more than its GDP growth rate.
Over at Dimpost, Danyl makes a pertinent observation: “Reiteration that we are ‘very good friends’. Zero development on trade or defense issues. I’m not even sure why she’s here.” There was nothing solid. The ‘Wellington Declaration is, in John Armstrong’s words, featherlight – a big name for less substance than a normal visit. More style over substance.
According to some, the very definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. In economic terms the world, and NZ, have been doing the same neoliberal economic agenda over and over for the last 30 years. It hasn’t worked. It’s time for a change…
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Labour Party leader and PM of Japan John Key talks to visiting US President Hillary Clinton.
