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.
Remember “the underclass”? They were briefly fashionable in National circles in 2007. Now that they are the government National’s policies for the underclass seem to involve a good deal of beneficiary bashing. Invalids are being thrown off their benefit before the new legislation is even in effect. Election promises are being broken to remove the carrot and wield the stick. How will this help the underclass?
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That Nice Mr Key promised that, through the power of tax cuts, he would stop so many Kiwi emigrating to Australia. Well, we had tax cuts so what happened to the number of Kiwis heading over the ditch? Must have dried up, right? Sorry kids, after a recession-induced lull, emigration is climbing as Kiwis seek greener pastures in the red country. Just one more promise Key couldn’t keep.
3News viewers were left wondering if Duncan Garner is still pissed after the long weekend tonight. Using material that has clearly come from Jason Ede in Key’s office Murray McCully, Garner played the message-bearer for National’s continuing attacks on Labour’s gay MPs. It makes me heave that Garner, one of the best journos in the country, should lower himself to become part of this dirty, homophobic campaign.
I think they know full well what causes violent crime.
They just don’t care.
In 2008, John Key was promising us a brighter future. 18 months on, we’re in that future he was talking about and Kiwis are reporting their lives are worse than they were before he came to power. 83% of Kiwis surveyed by ShapeNZ rated their quality of life as ‘good’ or better, down from 89% in 2008 and 92% in 2007. Key has a responsibility to live up to his promises
The Government is trying to frame the mining issue as a debate between ’emotional’ environmentalists and ‘sensible’ people who want to build the economy. The reality, however, is that the Government has no clue what benefits mining on protected land could bring or the costs. How are we meant to rationally weigh the pros and cons when the Government doesn’t know what they are and has made no effort to find out? The Government just wants to dig and pray.
John Key’s National government has, in its infinite wisdom, decided to subsume Archives New Zealand and the National Library within the Department of […]
The Maori Party was established to win the right for iwi to have what they believe are their rights to use the economic potential of the foreshore and seabed. National’s offer does not deliver on that. Will the Maori Party fold? Early indications are mixed. Hone Harawira will stand strong but a patsy question from rahui Katene last Thursday suggests the leadership might be willing to roll over.
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This is eleven minutes of pure Patti Smith singing about Vietnam in her usual ambiguous poetical style. Came up on the playlist while coding, and I had to stop to listen to the sheer menace in her voice. I had a look for a video. A powerful song, and a powerful rendition by its creator.
John Key makes big promises and he doesn’t deliver. Tax cuts North of $50? Jobs summit? Close the gap with Australia? His rhetoric on crime is another example. Key promised to tackle violent crime. Key promised a war on P. Well, the first report card is in, and it isn’t good.
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