I’d vote Brown for Mayor of the Supercity. He got me with his first big policy announcement, to strengthen the role of local boards in Auckland.
That puts the ball in John Banks’ court. Will there a bidding war to restore local democracy?
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It sounds like Chris Carter has shot himself in the foot, or rather in the handwriting.
Phil Goff and the caucus look like they have taken the required quick and decisive action.
It’s taken me a few days to post on this opinon piece from Pattrick Smellie but it’s still worth reading! There are signs that Nick Smith is trying hard to improve the Nats environmental credentials, Gerry Brownlee notwithstanding. But Pattrick Smellie suggests it is not that simple:
The Nats lied and promised their way in to an election win in 2008. That was always going to make it difficult for them as the honeymoon glow wore off. Now Key is lying about the failure on one of their biggest empty promises of all.
John Key’s description of student debt as ‘dangerous’ is just the latest broadside from National against interest-free student loans.
But the real problem here isn’t who pays off the interest on student debt, it’s that we have a system that causes such debt to be created in the first place.
Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard has lifted the official cash rate from 2.75 to 3 per cent, while expressing concerns about the weakness of New Zealand’s economic recovery.
Final of a series by Guest poster Blue.
The boy who wanted to make a million dollars and be Prime Minister has got his wish. The livelihoods of 4.3 million New Zealanders are on the line for his big gamble on New Zealand’s future.
The warning indicators of an impending ecological collapse keep piling up. Forests get most of the headlines, but in many ways the oceans are the lungs of the planet. And they’ve been smoking 30 a day for too long.
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Must admit my heart sank this morning when I read that “Winston Peters and his former adviser Michael Laws are to team up again as part of a “relaunch†of the party this year”…
Closing the wage gap with Australia was one of National’s key promises in the leadup to the 2008 election, but the Dom Post reports today that the wage gap has grown by another $40 a week under National’s watch.
Can we stop pretending now that National ever really had a plan to close the wage gap?
Sixth of a series by Guest poster Blue.
John Key is not always the affable everyman he appears to be. There’s a solid streak of bully in him not uncommon in people who crave power.
During the election the National Party packaged up its policies so as not to scare voters. The 90 day probationary period was for two specific reasons. It was targeted toward people on the margins of the employment market and only applicable to small businesses. Either the original justifications still hold true, hence undermining any argument to extend the scheme, or the original justifications were rubbish from the very start.
National is making a total mess of industrial relations. Two different news items yesterday tell the same story: the unions are angry, and the PPTA teachers are angry. Nats beware. Nice Mr Key could so quickly become Dear John…
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John Key glibly admitted yesterday that the Supercity is “risky”. We’ve been saying it all along and the evidence is all that the Supercity will be expensive, unrepresentative, and unresponsive to local needs.
So, if it’s so risky, why the hell is Key doing it?
The Yes Men have become famous for impersonating people and organisations in an effort to make political points. They’re now being sued by […]
So, National has failed to act on drink driving. The Director of the National Addiction Centre calls it “scandalous”. While recidivist and youth […]
Deputy PM and leader of the Lib Dems, Nick Clegg, caused a bit of a sensation last week when he pronounced Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war illegal. And yesterday Wikileaks published a massive cache of American military files exposing the truth about the war in Afghanistan. Not a good week for warmongers.
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Fifth of a series by Guest poster Blue.
A Prime Minister refusing to front their government’s Budget is practically unheard of. But John Key avoids being asked any hard questions, possibly because he doesn’t know how to handle them?
National wants to make a change, they’ve got to make a powerful case that the change will have the results they claim. So where’s their evidence? Where are the models, the studies, the scenarios? They haven’t got any. This is faith-based government. Based on faith in the neo-liberal god. This is guess based government. The guess being that we’ll keep voting for that Nice Man Mr Key.
For the business pages, it’s Reserve Bank week and once again the banks want the Governor to push up the price of money, […]
Remember when John Key used to talk about the “underclass”. Much recently of course John Key’s policy direction has been more about pandering to the wealthy elite, so you don’t hear so much from John Key about his concerns for the underclass anymore. But worries about the underclass still concern some people.
When is a promise not a promise? Clearly John Key has promises that he is afraid to break, promises that he tries to break (and backs down when caught), and promises that he feels he can break with impunity.
The Herald reports that Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union members have won the right to a substitute holiday to make up for the fact that Anzac Day and Easter Monday fall on the same day this year as well as a three percent pay rise for this year and another next year.
You read that right, at a time when the government is attacking workers rights two thousand EPMU members are increasing their holidays and getting a pay rise.
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Fourth of a series by Guest poster Blue.
Honesty, transparency and trust were central planks of Key’s 2008 election bid. However the ‘Key wriggle’ was well on the way to becoming a signature dance move
National have been undemocratically shutting down the avenues to amend their ideologically stupid legislation. They ignore submissions to select committees and abuse the parliamentary process of urgency. The only effective means of diverting them from pushing through unworkable legislation is proving to be protests and direct action. Consequently you can expect to see a lot more of it.
Having just watched the q + a interview with Council of Trade Unions President Helen Kelly and Alasdair Thompson from the EPMA (a must-watch, Kelly did a great job) I think there are a few things that need to be said:
We have it all wrong. What Brownlee was really trying to say. From William Joyce
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The NZSTA is supposed to represent its members – School Boards of Trustees. Instead they have become little more than a conduit of Minister Tolley’s National Standards propaganda.
No Right Turn had an interesting post on National’s Energy Strategy or more correctly a general lack of it yesterday.
Yesterday the government released its Draft New Zealand Energy Strategy [PDF] for consultation. So, how does it compare with Labour’s 2007 version? The difference is easy to spot. Labour’s energy strategy was about shifting to a sustainable, low-emissions energy infrastructure. National’s is about finding oil.
Third of a series by Guest poster Blue. Now looking at John Key – The Salesman.
An old post of Marty G’s on the Standard says “One of the stories from John Key’s days as a currency trader is that he was always more of a salesman than an analyst.
