It was a year ago that Paula Bennett first declared victory over rising unemployment. Since then, John Key has been working his economic strategy hard: high-fiving every schoolgirl he can find, playing with spiders, announcing and re-annoucing literally tens of kilometres of cycleway, smiling and waving till it hurts. But dole numbers are rising.
So after all that hoo-ha I did have to think for a while what it means to look and sound like a New […]
New Zealand is small country, far from anywhere, always on the edge of irrelevance. To continue our proud heritage of principled and effective international contributions, to hold our heads up high on the world stage, New Zealand needs a leader. But all we have is a PM.
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RNZ’s Kathryn Ryan talks to Mike Williams and Chris Trotter about Chris Carter’s expulsion.
When one of the first truly social democratic governments was elected in North America it was attacked viciously from all sides. Read further if you want to know the lengths business, private media, the police, landlords, and lobbyists went to undermine the Rae Government in Ontario, Canada. There are lessons for New Zealand.
When the 2009 ‘streamlining and simplifying’ amendment to the RMA was rushed through parliament last year, many concerns were raised about new abilities for the Minister for the Environment to use National Environmental Standards (NES) to override local government regulations. Now an NES on forestry is being pushed through. It’s scary stuff.
The CTU has just released its Alternative Economic Strategy. Well, they call it ‘alternative’ but it’s not like the Nats have one beyond Key smiling and waving. Anyway, the CTU’s Economic Strategy is an extremely impressive document. It goes through the current problems and suggests 100 reforms for a more successful, fair economy and country.
Don’t need to add much to these Herald headlines:
‘Tight-fisted Key deals blow to Brown’s rail plan‘. Do Nothing strikes again.
‘30 homes on offer in flagship Govt scheme‘. Thinking big. Genuine commitment.
‘CV error made by ‘somebody else’‘. For Nats, it’s always someone else’s fault.
The Labour Party council has decided to expel Chris Carter from the party. While party members should be free to criticise the leadership, Carter went too far. He has repeatedly embarrassed and damaged the party. In doing so, he disrespected every member of the Labour Party – that’s the real crime.
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Chris Carter faces a disciplinary hearing at labour HQ this evening. Already evicted from caucus, this meeting could result in sanctions from the Party including revoking his membership. But I don’t think it will come to that, and I don’t think it should for both principled and political reasons.
Be captivating…
John Key has claimed that he doesn’t turn down many interview requests – but he turned down another one from Morning Report this morning. In fact you can count on one hand the number of times he has appeared on Morning Report in each of the last 2 years.
Last time I saw Breakfast I saw it was overwhelmingly pakeha, middle-class, and blonde.
Just wondering, now that Henry’s gone, if we’re going to get a Breakfast that looks like real New Zealand.
David Clark is the Labour Party’s new candidate for Dunedin North. He’s been talking to innovative local technology start-ups, and hearing about some of the barriers to success.
Here’s John Key this morning on Breakfast, talking about Paul Henry’s resignation. Naturally he’s eager to downplay the influence of Kiwi-Indian business and […]
Despite a slew of scandals, Key has not enforced any ethical or professional standards on his ministers (apart from Worth, for whatever he did). Ministers know that Key will keep his personal brand clean but won’t do anything to pull them into line. This has created a culture of impunity in the government, which has started to spread wider.
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TVNZ have announced the resignation of Paul Henry. John Key’s going to have a LOT of angry rednecks on his case over this […]
Today is 10 October 2010, a significant date for two serious reasons. And one silly one!
Paul ‘dickshit’ Henry, Maurice ‘no shi’ite’ Williamson, John ‘I wish South Aucklanders hadn’t voted’ Banks, Melissa ‘South Aucklanders are all crims’ Lee, Paul ‘cheekie darkie’ Holmes, and Michael ‘brown slug’ Laws have joined forces to create a new political party for ‘real New Zealanders’ standing up to ‘the Brown-skinned elite’.
Michael Lhaws has been a insecure little attention-seeker his whole life and, a lot like Paul Henry, he gets the attention he craves by voicing his prejudices. So, the revelation of his insults against the Governor-General are hardly surprising. They’re more of the brand of gratuitous racism we’ve come to expect from the pathetic little creep.
The last in a series of 6 summarising the argument of The Spirit Level. This post looks at how we might achieve a more equitable future.
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Len’s in in Auckland, but it’s not just the man at the top the left can be happy with. Auckland may have provided a few new seats to National at the last general election, and Hide may have done his best to set up the SuperCity for his mates to win – but the Council doesn’t look so bad either. Add in the Local Boards, and it wasn’t a big day of celebration for the right.
It’s official, Len Brown is the first ever super city mayor. My congratulations to him and to his team who have worked so […]
There are various good online sources for following the local body election results. Here’s a quick roundup.
National Party pollster David Farrar must have seen bad numbers on the Mana by-election, he’s already making excuses. Apparently, Hekia Parata is a top candidate but it’s the voters’ fault – they’ll be confused by having two elections close together. It’s Farrar’s comment about Key, though, that is most revealing.
Is Phil Goff an Evil SuperGenius? Is Labour still secretly running the country, controlling MPs, cabinet ministers and government departments? Political sleuth David P Farrar makes a pretty strong case! Or does he…
Here’s a compilation from TV7’s Russell Brown from April this year, highlighting the value for money taxpayers get from paying Breakfast Bigot Paul […]
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This government seems to have confused the means and the ends. Growth and money have become the ends, when they only ever should have been the means. Surely what should matter now is that we have a happy, fulfilled society, where people have the opportunity to do what they want.
Labour candidate for the Otara-Papatoetoe Local Board Daljit Singh has been named as one of two people charged over false voter registrations. This seems a pretty crude attempt at perverting an election and a stupid one that no sophisticated political player would ever think they could get away with.
