President Obama has just come out and said the US and the world needs to get off its oil addiction. But, just as we’ve been talking about climate change for nearly two centuries, before it was even a problem, and done nothing about it, Presidents have been declaring its time to end the oil age for 40 years and nothing has changed. Why can’t we get serious about saving ourselves?
Speaker Lockwood Smith has removed 22 free carparks at Parliament from TV One and TV3 as punishment for their disgraceful behaviour in chasing Chris Carter around the House the other day. Good. There are a few, non-onerous, rules about where and when the media can go and take its cameras. They completely ignored those rules for the sake of tabloid journalism.
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Solid Energy chairman John Palmer has suggested that a partial sale of the SOE could be on the cards. John Key has backed down on every time when he has been challenged on whether he would ever sell a specific asset. We now have permanent promises that Kiwibank and NZPost will never be sold, in full or in part. Someone should ask him if he’s ever going to sell Solid Energy.
Currently the “hunt” is on for whistleblowers in cases both within NZ, and internationally. When a whistleblower takes on a big organisation over a matter of genuine public significance they are taking a risk, in some cases a huge risk. Let’s hope that there will always be people who are brave enough to make sure that we the people know the truth.
So, you’re the mayor of a council with nearly a billion dollars of debt. Your council is about to be abolished and you’re running to be the mayor of the new supercity. Your attack dogs are fixed on your opponent, who has been beating you hands-down in the race. Now what? How about getting your soon-to-be former council pay $120,000 for a book saying how great you are?
More information is emerging about PEDA director Anthony Joseph Pereira (aka. JR Pereira). His connections with National, especially English, are deep and go back to before the last election. The Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs warned of “risks for ministers” in dealing with PEDA. The government’s refusal to give straight answers is just making the situation worse.
You know, if we don’t give those mining companies some more free seismic data, rent-free access to our most precious natural environments, and only demand low royalties when they dig up our minerals, we’ll lose them to the lucky country. That’s right, Afghanistan. It’s sitting, quite literally, on a gold mine and it makes ours look like small change.
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The media has concluded that John Key’s trust isn’t blind. It owns an investment company that is in business with Wyatt Creech in dairying. Creech was getting briefings from National on its water policy long before it appointed him to conduct an ‘independent’ review of Ecan, which resulted in the abolition of the democratically-elected council to advance the interests of dairy.
Since the fall of Canterbury to the newly installed dictatorial regime, a few of the deposed representatives have escaped the closing net and set up a local government in exile. Vowing to “continue to serve you in your region”, this ragged band will fight to keep the flame of democracy alive.
Of the political parties in Parliament, only the Greens are likely to oppose the ‘new’ foreshore and seabed law. So, the Greens will be the only place for disaffected Maori Party voters to turn to. And why not? Their values are very similar. I expect that the Greens will make a strong play for the party votes in the Maori seats, winning over a lot of people who feel betrayed by the Maori Party.
Alvin Greene is an unemployed military veteran who received an involuntary discharge and is currently on felony pornography charges. He has a degree but seems a bit, um, challenged. He received 60% of the vote in the Democratic Primary for South Carolina senator, despite having no experience, no backing, and no campaign. No-one can explain it. See the Daily Show’s take:
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Details on PEDA are still very thin but it is increasingly looking like public money has been hijacked to help the political prospects of National’s Pacific Islanders. The service delivery aspect of the Pacific Island Affairs Ministry seems set to be turned over to this private organisation. The lack of honest answers from the minister only deepens the suspicion that something very dodgy is afoot.
So – anyone else sitting up watching the game? (This thread a politics free zone!)
The media had a field day with Chris Carter today. Journalists stalked Carter throughout the Parliamentary complex, ambushed him with questions on the fly, and used the footage to make ‘good’ news. I want to know why that behaviour is good enough for Carter to receive when he’s demoted, but not good enough for John Key or Richard Worth
I really like my children’s school – I think they work hard to keep those young minds engaged and bodies active. I know it’s a job that is pretty demanding, and hugely important. So when I hear that three-quarters of teachers are feeling unprepared and rushed as they work to implement National’s new national standards (according to a NZEI survey) I start to feel apprehensive.
I was quite surprised by Jim Anderton’s decision to stand for mayor of Christchurch. And I had thought that his decision not to step down from Parliament until the next election was a mistake that would haunt him in the mayoral campaign. But it looks like I got it wrong. A UMR poll shows that Anderton is preferred over Tory incumbent Bob Parker by a two to one margin.
News just in that Sean Plunket has resigned from Morning Report. It’s well known that he has had conflicts with his bosses over […]
If that is the foreshore and seabed debate effectively resolved we should all take a moment to celebrate. It will be good to have the issue behind us as a country and move on. Given the agreement between National and the Maori Party it looks like the whole debate was mostly about semantics. Meanwhile in practical terms iwi say they want the kind of rights that Ngati Porou secured – under the current Act.
Fabians Lecture tonight: Economics for Everyone in Auckland Trades Hall, 147 Great North Rd, Grey Lynn 5:30-7:30 Jim Stanford on why the Economy […]
At the moment the UK is debating a rise in Capital Gains Tax, from 18% to 40 or 50%. The debate is largely going on within the ruling Tory party, as their coalition partners the Liberal Democrats won several tax concessions so that they could create a GBP10,000 income tax free band. The proposed tax rise is to treat earned and unearned income the same.
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A foreshore and seabed DEAL that amounts to little more than a symbolic rearranging of the deck chairs is not what the Maori Party was elected to achieve. The deal the Maori Party makes now is the one Maori are stuck with. That’s why the Iwi Leadership Forum is so unexcited about it. The winner here is Key, he played the Maori Party into a corner. The hagiographies will be going to print as I write.
The signals are that the Maori Party is going to cave on the foreshore and seabed. National has offered a symbolic repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act while leaving the actual law essentially unchanged. If they cave in, they will have abandoned their primary policy for the sake of power. Let’s hope they don’t. [Updated – it seems an agreement of some kind has been reached]
Labour holds it’s MPs to higher standards than National. This post from the archives looks at some examples. If Key doesn’t act on his profligate MPs it will be time to add another chapter.
The Deep Horizon oil spill drags on and on and the estimates of the daily leak keep growing. The oil industry has proven itself incapable of plugging an oil well leak in deep water. Yet the government is pushing ahead with deep sea drilling a disturbingly dismissive attitude towards what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico and could happen here.
National is trying again to pass a law specifically to allow Opua businessman Doug Schmuck to annex public land. Thousands protest the Supercity, ACC cuts, ACE cuts, the abolition of Ecan, the gutting of the ETS, water privatisation, and wage freezes – the Nats just ignore them. Then one businessman can get two ministers to try to pass a law just for him. What is going on here?
Sunday saw another big protest against the government. An estimated 3000 people turned out in Christchurch for the “Our Water Our Vote” rally to protest National’s attacks on Canterbury’s democracy and environment.
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Phil Goff is back in the country and, as predicted, his first move is going to be to take their portfolios off Shane Jones, Chris Carter, and, probably, Mita Ririnui for their misuse of their credit cards. The attention will now turn to the abuses of those who haven’t been punished for their wasteful and greedy use of public money – Tim Groser, Murray McCully, Nathan Guy, Nick Smith, and Bill English. Updated
Greenpeace are running a competition to rebrand BPs logo – have a look at the latest ideas…
The National Party smear machine is stepping up its attack on soon-to-be Auckland mayor Len Brown. Worried that Key’s handpicked candidate John Banks is falling behind, the right is resorting to smearing his left-wing rival. The National Party’s David Farrar is even suggesting a “cover-up” and “fraud” at the Manukau Council. Is panic setting in at the thought of losing Auckland?
In a short statement outside the Beehive today Labour leader Phil Goff conceded the 2011 election to National.
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