The UK entered the financial crisis over-committed and under-prepared. They spent billions of taxpayers’ money bailing out the bankers. Now the bills need to be paid, and the new government is embarking on a vicious austerity regime. As usual, the burden falls on the poor…
I don’t know about you, but I have certainly been confused about ACT’s move to insert a last-minute clause into the new Marine and Coastal Areas (Takutai Moana) Bill (proposed replacement for the Foreshore and Seabed Act). Canterbury legal academic David Round sets out some of the issues involved. With deep divisions within Maoridom, and a growing conservative backlash, this mess isn’t going away any time soon…
We know that poverty is the root of a good deal of society’s problems from crime, to poor educational outcomes, to poor health. Just the direct economic costs of these problems are in the billions per year, and we can’t forget the loss of human potential and happiness. The good news: we can easily afford to eliminate poverty.
Anne Tolley’s Education Amendment Bill 2, due out of Select Committee next week, ignores the Law Commission’s call for “light-handed” legislation to deal with 100 year old gaps that leave children at private schools in a legal vacuum regarding their welfare. Instead the Nats will hand unspecified sums of public money to private schools.
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I saw Labour’s press release yesterday about the latest Treasury monthly statements. Basically, Treasury says ‘the economy’s a whole lot worse than we expected but we stand by our growth forecasts in the Budget’. Odd, because the Budget forecast 1.6% growth so far this year and it has actually been 0.7%. How good is Treasury at forecasting?
Are Joyce’s plans for a regulatory holiday on the proposed ultra-fast fibre broadband network a violation of international legal commitments? InternetNZ says yes. Joyce says no. Labour’s Clare Curren accuses the Nats of “disregard for NZ law, legal trade obligations and public scrutiny”.
Q+A held a debate between the Mana by-election candidates yesterday. Felix has done a very nice summary of how the candidates came across. Fa’afoi is a good guy but we aren’t seeing his values coming through very strongly. Parata is a nasty piece of work. She continually interrupts others when they speak then gets angry at the slightest questioning.
The problem with any identity-based political movement is it pre-supposes that the common identity of its members surpasses their conflicting class interests. This has been brought to the head at the Maori Party national conference as Tariana Turia angrily denounced criticism of the Maori elite from the Left faction.
The latest drink-drive crash has reignited the debate over the legal blood/alcohol level. It’s clear from John Key’s excuse-making on Breakfast this morning that the Nats have no intention of reducing the limit from 0.8 to 0.5. The argument that most drink-drivers have accidents when they are well over 0.8 misses the point.
National are a land of broken promises – from GST rises and tax cuts to falling wages and attacks on education. Here’s my list – help me with any I’ve forgotten.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on her way to New Zealand this week, bringing the customary promises of good will and better relations between our two countries.
The big question is however: Will Clinton be bringing the overdue White House invite for our Prime Minister? John Key has claimed after all he and Obama are best pals… and he can pick up the phone anytime. Now’s the test.
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Happy Birthday Auckland! The new Supercity is now in effect, with Mayor Len Brown at the helm. How is the tension between a left wing mayor representing a third of the country, and a right wing central government, going to play out? The Nats can’t afford to let Auckland fail…
Liberals too cool to be caught standing for anything sit on the fence and make clever whithering comment while oligarchs who realise just how serious it really is wage war on the poor and the middle class.
No, it’s not the Hobbit fiasco, it’s Mark Ames’ take on the rally for vanity and what it really means for the US.
There was in interesting snippet in The Herald on Thursday: “NZ scores fifth place in world prosperity stakes”. Not much detail, so it was good to see a follow up on Saturday with a lot more detail. Take home message – we don’t know how lucky we are!
Eventually the dust was going to settle on the Hobbit fiasco and the truth was going to come out.
Fortunately the media has done a bloody good job of making sure that happened.
So what have they been saying?
From 1999 t0 2009, the economy grew by $8 billion a year. It’s so bad now the Prime Minister hands over $33 million and our sovereignty as soon as foreign capital says ‘boo’. Which international corporate will shake us down next? Maybe if the Nats had a plan for the economy. Then we could stand on our own feet. But they’re asleep at the wheel.
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It’s a strange world we live in when comedians step out of the box and become the best political interviewers that America has to offer. But so it goes! Here is Jon Stewart interviewing President Obama. It will be interesting to see how the Stewart / Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity goes this weekend.
Seems like the Maori Party conference is off to a rocky start. Likely to get even rockier as they move on to the main event today, the vexed issue of the foreshore and seabed. The differences between the existing Act and the proposed replacement Bill are mostly symbolic. Is a symbolic change enough for the Maori Party?
After the Hobbit debacle, no-one can fail to understand the power that those who control capital exercise in a capitalist economy. The system is set up for them, hence the name, and their power is never stronger than during recessions. While capital is unaccountable, we cannot have true democracy and freedom. How can we democratise capital?
Last year MPs’ spending was opened up to public scrutiny, and many hailed a “new era” of openness. Well it didn’t last long. Now MPs’ travel costs are to become secret again. We won’t get to know about cases like Rodney Hide and Chris Carter. This will prevent incidents like the Carter witch-hunt. But on balance I have to come down on the side of transparency. This move to start rolling it back is a mistake.
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The Hobbit Enabling Act is meant to do is say ‘you’re an employee if you are called an employee in your contract, if not, you’re a contractor’. But it doesn’t say that and it doesn’t override the Bryson case that caused the ‘uncertainty’ Warners supposedly feared. Now, nobody knows what the law actually is. Well-founded disagreements will mean court cases.
Another 5-second film. Joyce might want his holiday highway Road of Personal Significance but has he considered the benefits of buses for crime fighting?
And Glenn Beck loses it after some web comic guys launch their self-published book on Amazon and beat him out of first place.
28% of the population raised out of poverty.
50% growth over a five and a half year period
8.2% growth per annum
Unemployment down from 21.5% to 8.5%
Inflation adjusted wages up by more than 40%
It takes a lot to screw up a great country like New Zealand. It can’t be done overnight. But if you’re really negligent, anti-worker, and focused on hand outs to the rich, you can start to make things worse pretty quickly. Let’s look at the key measures of National’s performance, according to their own criteria:
I’m confused by the up beat coverage of the tourism figures released on Wednesday. Have people actually read the numbers? Tourism is in decline. Employment and revenue are still going down, and the next time oil prices go through the roof, the situation will get worse. No cycleway will change that.
Today we learn just how extreme some of the anti-union nutters in our country are, with news of death threats to unionists and actors involved in The Hobbit fiasco. I hope we hear soon of a sustained police effort to track down the perpetrators. Or are we as a country going to effectively condone these actions by ignoring them?
According to a recent piece in The Herald: “Education Minister Anne Tolley said a recognition that New Zealand’s education was the best in the world did not rule out reform.” Reform may not be ruled out. But charging ahead with untested, unwanted, and probably damaging national standards certainly is. Where is the case for them, if our education system is so good?
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Wellington’s Embassy theatre hosted the New Zealand premiere of the Ring movies a few years ago. There’s another good movie showing there now. […]
The government is currently rushing through changes to employment law.
But the change won’t make any difference to the kind of action Actors Equity took.
So what’s the point?
Scoop’s Gordon Campbell has written a long piece on the Hobbit settlement and its implications. Key said that we couldn’t match the tax deals offered by other countries, but according to Campbell’s calculations that’s exactly what we have done. Campbell also has harsh words to say about Key’s “skill” as a negotiator, and advice about strengthening the film industry in NZ.
The last Labour government introduced 20 hours free early childhood education. It’s a resource that many parents have since come to rely on, taking some pressure off household budgets as every other cost seems to keep on going up and up. But now we have the latest in a series of indications that the Nats are going to cut the programme…
