Is Heather Roy to depart the ACT caucus? According to TVNZ, Act Party leader Rodney Hide is signalling his dumped deputy Heather Roy will find it extremely difficult to stay on as an MP, despite saying last week that she would be welcomed back into the caucus.
Contrary to the sunny prognostications of Nice Mr Key, job queues are getting longer. How much more great economic management from John and Bill can the country stand?
Average number of people on the dole in the 21 months before Paula Bennett came to office – 22600
Average number of people on the dole in the 21 months since Paula Bennett came to office – 52200
Fiscal cost of extra people on the dole (welfare payments and lost tax) – approximately $1 billion
Money in this year’s budget for jobs initiatives – $31 million
The government’s alcohol reforms are so typical of this government: criminalise someone to be seen to be doing something, while ignoring the root causes of the problem. This is a government that would rather make a criminal of a good parent who lets their son’s mate have a beer at a BBQ than make it harder for booze barons to hook kids into drinking.
It was only at the protest on the weekend that I learned about the Nats’ plan to make us get sick notes if we take a day off work for ourselves or to look after a sick family member. This would be an insult to workers and a huge waste of medical resources from a government that has no understanding of efficient use of scarce resources and thinks that workers are all scumbags who need a good kicking.
There have been a lot of complaints that Murray McCully is useless as our offshore representative and shows a complete lack of vision. Stop complaining.
John Black shows you what the alternatives could be…
John Key and Bill English said they have neither requested nor seen official advice on privatisation. That is a lie. Even just the papers we’ve seen, let alone the eight Treasury says are still under consideration, show that privatisation is very much on the government’s agenda. They’re just trying to work out how to sneak it past us without a public backlash.
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National Standards have been slated by all of the education and assessment experts in New Zealand as being fundamentally flawed. Anne Tolley’s recent admission that she has failed to find a way to ensure that League Tables (the most educationally damaging aspect of the National Standards policy) will be avoided is the final straw for principals around the country.
White collar crime is on the increase in NZ. The government talks tough and postures about crime in its other forms, how will it respond to white collar crime?
For the last few months, the Standard has been politely asking Treasury for their papers on the sale of Crown assets. To say they weren’t keen to share would be an understatement. We’ve managed to get a few papers of the papers, more are being withheld. These papers show what we’ve long suspected: the Government plans to force SOEs to issue bonds as a method of privatisation by stealth.
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The other day, National Party pollster David Farrar had a rant against alcohol experts that boiled down to ‘who cares what the science says! We’re in charge now and booze barons are on our side. Go back to your books, dorks!’.
Big Dog responds:
John Black cartoons John Keys success from childhood to Prime Minister. It has been good for him. It is not so good for anyone else.
Australia is about to enter a new era in politics. They appear to have a hung parliament this morning according to the Sydney Morning Herald. There are a number of marginal seats in the balance. The single Green MP in the lower house and a number of independents will determine which major party forms a government.
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Thousands of Kiwis turned out to protest National’s new labour legislation, a unjustified, spiteful attack on our work rights, which is simply designed to lower labour costs. The CTU has announced a campaign leading to national day of action on Oct 20th. Kiwi workers won’t take this lying down. We are fighting back.
Our cousins on the West Island are winding up their election day soon, culminating a dramatic couple of months for Australian politics. It may be that Kevin Rudd gets the last laugh…
Quite suddenly, the government has pulled the plug on the contraversial $4.8 million in uncontested funding it awarded to the previously unknown Pacific Economic Development Agency in this year’s Budget.
It all stinks to high heaven.
There are a bunch of interesting little stories floating around this week that we didn’t get round to writing full posts on or that we wrote drafts for but never finished. So here’s a new, possibly weekly feature – Quick Bites:
NZ Institute: ‘Nats have no plan’
Suicide funding cut
Nats’ interesting donors
Workers’ rights under attack
One foot out of Iraq
Vultures
Party on Garth
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Workers are getting together to oppose the government’s changes to employment law with rallies in the four main centres this weekend. Join your rally.
The Saturday rallies against National’s anti-work rights bill assemble at:
Auckland, QE2 Square, bottom of Queen St – 1pm
Wellington, Civic Square – 1pm
Christchurch, Catherdal Square – 1pm
and on Sunday:
Dunedin, Dental School, Great King St – 11am
Registrar of Pecuniary Interests Margaret Bazley, the country’s busiest pensioner, has presented recommendations for improving the transparency of MPs’ financial interests. It seems like good stuff, but it ignores the elephant in the room – the ability of MPs to use trusts to hide their shareholdings, and their conflicts of interest, from the public.
Bill English thinks he has proven that wages grew just 3% under Labour and grew 15.5% under National in the 1990s. How’s he done it? By taking a ridiculous definition of wages and a very convenient timeframe. Bill, this is getting old. Your distortions are transparent and exposing you is too easy. How about, rather than fudging historic numbers, you get on with your job of building a better future?
This government is attacking education at every level. In particular it is attacking teachers over national standards. National blogger DPF’s post yesterday was a particularly disgraceful example. Arrogant, ignorant, and full of lies.
Sir Peter Gluckman wants more investment in early childhood. $1 invested in young children now gives $13 in adulthood, but his day-trader DonKey’s short-termism sees only cuts and short-change for our greatest resource.
No wonder Winston Peters is smiling. His personal vendetta with Hide must be at on the forefront of his mind as he watches his nemesis sink.
But what does ACT’s impending demise actually mean for other parties? It’s not good news for National.
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ACT’s meltdown continues, with comments from ACT founder and current MP Sir Roger Douglas illustrating that all is not well in the caucus. […]
Kingmaker Winston Peters today dashed the second term chances of the troubled National-ACT coalition government. Political commentator Q Werty describes this as a risky but gutsy move by the principled Peters.
Prime Minister John Key today outlined a plan to close the gap with Australia using his skills as a money trader and a stockpile of ex-Soviet nukes.
John Key said yesterday: “the gap with Australia is definitely closing … If [Phil Goff] wants to pop up for a coffee I will take him through the numbers, and I can take him through a few others.” I say go for it, Phil. I’m dying to see what numbers Key is talking about. Because the reality is that we are falling behind Australia on every measure, while Key just smiles and waves.
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