Well, I’m pleasantly surprised. For once, Paula Bennett has played it straight on the benefit numbers. She hasn’t slapped herself on the back, even though last month’s benefit numbers are the best we’ve seen on her watch (in line with normal seasonal variation). If only Bill English could follow suit, rather than claiming credit for illusionary movements in the government’s books.
Labour governments are good at planning for the future. Something National has never managed. Taking Aussie to the WTO over the fireblight ban is an example of Labour’s forethought. They knew the results were years away. Had the guts to stand up against our best mates when they had it wrong. Looks like we won the case. Aussie’s going to have to let our apples in.
Who suggested that the mining industry in New Zealand needed to be reinvigorated and should put more emphasis on marketing its fundamentally strong geological resource, telling the NZ Herald that gold mining prospects in New Zealand were at least as good as anywhere in the world, a fact that needed to be exploited?
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How dumb was John Carter to use his speech at the Grey Power National Conference to have a cry because Grey Power’s participating in an inquiry into aged care by Labour, the Greens, and the Progressives? You don’t try to bully Grey Power with its 100,000 members. The grey voters will be leaving National in droves.
Sensible Sentencing Trust’s Garth McVicar made a rare appearance on Russell Brown’s Media 7 the other night, demonstrating yet again what a charlatan he is. Brown had a chance to ask some good questions but let the opportunity slip away.
Before the election National promised that they would “Ensure that institutions have greater autonomy”. What does greater autonomy look like, National style? It looks like yet another National attack on democratic governance.
National’s proposed reform of the foreshore and seabed legislation is no ‘elegant solution’. Instead, it is being criticised in the business press as an undemocratic favouring of Maori business interests over Pakeha ones, while iwi are saying that it doesn’t give them what they want.
A senior judge is under investigation for sitting on a case in which his business partner, whom he owed $240,000, was a lawyer. The investigation could result in a recommendation to the Attorney-General that the judge be sacked. But Attorney-General Chris Finlayson has trampled over the process and has said he will not act against Justice Wilson, who is a mate of his from their days at Bell Gully.
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Smile and wave is easy enough in the first year, people are willing to give you a chance. But at some point, the public expects a government to get to work tackling the big problems. National displays no will or ability to do so. In just two months, 1 in 8 Kiwis has switched from thinking the country is heading in the right direction under Key to thinking things are getting worse.
Rachel Maddow has a look at exactly how much Fox News just makes stuff up and calls it news. It uses selectively edited stories like the ACORN ‘pimp’ story, the ‘climategate’ e-mails, and many other highly inaccurate ‘stories’, and promotes them for ratings.
In effect Fox News is the (un)official spin channel for conservative activists to peddle garbage entertainment on. Have a watch of Rachael as she tears the facade of conservative story telling apart.
We were off-air last weekend, so this story got missed.
The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report into the disclosure of climate data by the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia has just been released.
Turns out that ‘climategate’ was just a pile of hot air and selective story telling by the denialist industry. Wasn’t that unexpected? Yeah right.
The day after Zet’s post here on homophobic, imbalanced reporting by TV3’s Duncan Garner, Brian Edward’s wrote a scathing detailed deconstruction of Garner‘s […]
National is offering significant new concessions on the foreshore and seabed. It’s a whole new ball game. Coming on top of Whanau Ora its second big win in a row for the Maori Party. Is this it? Will there be an agreed solution? Can the country put this issue behind it?
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Geoffrey Palmer needs a holiday. It’s bad enough that he’s acting as the mouthpiece for John Key’s pro-whaling policy that has the Japanese applauding and our allies shaking their heads in dismay. Now, he’s saying we should allow visits by US naval vessels. If the US wants to send navy ships for a visit then all it has to do is what other nuclear powers like the UK do: confirm that the vessels it sends don’t breach our country’s laws. Is that too much to ask?
In politics nothing lasts forever. That is it seems, except the Rt Hon Winston Peters. The latest Roy Morgan poll has NZ First at 3%, just below the 5% threshold (Nats 49%, Lab 33%). With Peters once again creeping back into the media spotlight, you’ve got to wonder: Will Rodney Hide’s nightmare come true with the return of Winston Peters to Parliament in 2011?
The British Tories wax on about a rise in income inequality under New Labour, but their line is a deliberate ploy that needs countering.
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Even Guyon Espiner is concerned about the lack of quality analysis and policy design. If the government were serious about helping families in need it’s priority would be getting people back into work and better pay and conditions for low income workers. The fact that is has gone with this Whanau Ora nonsense shows it has no real intention of tackling the causes of this country’s social ills.
Maori activists who want a better deal on the foreshore and seabed can rest assured that the Maori Party is about to sell them out. Tariana Turia just got herself a shiny new portfolio as Minister for Whanau Ora, whatever it is. Do you really think she’s going to give up a control over a policy that National has agreed to just for her? Do you really think she’ll stand strong on her principles over the foreshore and seabed if it means losing the Crown limo?
So the govt wants to sue the Waihopai 3 for $1.1 mil. No pesky jury this time. The dudes only have a grand between them. Spending a couple of hundred thousand on lawyers’ fees to bankrupt some hippies. Doesn’t seem like the best use of taxpayer cash. Tell you what. If the govt really wants its $1.1 million they can take it out of our tax ‘cuts’. 25 cents each. That’ll be my tax cut pretty much gone.
The Waihopai spy base is very much in the news. Last month the Waihopai Three were acquitted of charges, provoking a storm of controversy (and congratulations). Yesterday came the news that the Government is considering further action against the three. There was also a “very unusual” statement about the role of Waihopai from the GCSB. Who to believe?
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The Whanau Ora Taskforce report is out and it fails to even attempt to answer simple questions like ‘why is Whanau Ora the best way to help families’. It provides no evidence it will work. Check out the graphic to the right – what does it even mean? All we do know is Whanau Ora will put public money in unaccountable private hands and be privatisation by stealth.
According to Roy Morgan, the Herald lost 50,000 readers last year, an achievement only surpassed by the Sunday Star-Times, which shed 107,000 (17%!). After reading a piece that mickysavage alerted me to. I’m left wondering if there’s a link with the quality of journalism in the Herald and those 50,000 lost readers.
Recently, and for good reason, New Zealanders and the media have objected to companies using palm oil due the deforestation caused by the palm oil industry. For New Zealand to take such a stance, when our diary industry has a similarly devastating impact on the environment, is hypocritical. We need to clean up our own act if we’re going to criticise others.
George Monbiot writes: It’s a bitter blow. When the government proposed a windfall tax on bonuses and a 50p top rate of income tax, thousands of bankers and corporate executives promised to leave the country and move to Switzerland(1,2). Now we discover that the policy has failed: the number of financiers applying for a Swiss work permit fell by 7% last year.
A while ago at a barbeque a couple of friends were discussing the “Seven Good Pairs of Hands Theory”, namely, that a good […]
It’s the lies that get you. That’s what Agriculture Minister David Carter and John Key are learning as more details of Carter’s conflict of interest over the legislation that removed the Environment Canterbury councilare emerging. Carter and Key now have to explain why they have lied and misled, which will be tricky to explain if they continue to insist there’s no ministerial misbehaviour to cover up.
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Whanau Ora is, apparently, about giving a big pile of money to private groups under so-called ‘high trust’ contracts and expecting them to get on and deliver a whole range of public services that have previously been the responsibility of accountable government departments. What could go wrong? Quite a bit suggests this story
As we hit mid-term in our election cycle, political addicts are casting their eyes over to the UK. Now the latest Guardian poll shows that the gap between the two main parties is now at four points – the closest in an ICM poll for almost two years…
I don’t have a problem with MPs being able to get public funding for court cases arising from their professional activities. You wouldn’t expect private sector employees who are taken to court over their actions in their job to be forced to pay their own way. But what a sense of entitlement Gerry Brownlee has.
Wikileaks has revealed footage shot from a US Apache helicopter in Iraq in 2007 as they callously murder a dozen Iraqi civilians. Every time you read of some wedding convey being shot up or a houseful of ‘insurgents’ being bombed remember this video and remember that our soldiers are now part of the combat force that is committing these same barbaric acts in Afghanistan.
