You can say this much for the Key Government – they’re idiots but half the time they’re also cowards. If an issue generates too much public disquiet they’ll flip-flop. It’s easy when they don’t have a real plan or real principles.
Norightturn writes DPF went apeshit about the then-Labour government’s Electoral Finance Act. He vented online, raised funds, even launched billboards. You’d think that with plans to sack an elected council and strip 560,000 people of their vote in regional council elections for four years, as a “defender of democracy”, he’d be similarly outraged.
The Key Government is constantly promising us great results and actually do nothing that improves things for New Zealanders. English, Bennett, Brownlee, and Tolley are prime examples of this MO. While they promise great things and fail to deliver unemployment is rising, wages are falling, crime is up, and the government has no plan to move us forward.
The Auditor-General has found that Phil Heatley wrongly bought $1,402 worth of private goods and services on his ministerial and MP tabs. That’s OK according to the PM because Heatley didn’t intend to break the rules. Well, I guess that’s OK then. Of course, you have to assume that Heatley is a total idiot in that case.
Managed 11/10 in this week’s stuff politics quiz.
Just under 0 seconds.
No guesses.
Try your luck, if you think you can do better!
The Nats run orchestrated smear campaigns coordinated with ministers’ offices, bloggers, and tame journos. National doesn’t want to and can’t engage in real political debate on the issues. So it is reduced to mud throwing. Some brave journo needs to shine a light on what is going on here. It is not good enough for the government to get away with using its proxies to wage secret smear campaigns.
National’s mates in the dairy industry were annoyed that the elected councillors in Enviornment Canterbury wouldn’t let them have all the water they want. So National has sacked the councillors and suspended local democracy for four years. The diary farmers will pay along with everyone else for their short-termist ‘science be damned’ attitude. But not before they’ve caused long-term damage.
There are significant risks associated with the Review Group’s recommendation to temporarily suspend planned triennial elections for regional councillors (scheduled for October 2010) and to transfer the functions and responsibilities of Environment Canterbury’s (ECan) elected councillors to government-appointed commissioners until elections in 2013 at the latest. Elections are a right and privilege of any citizen in New Zealand. The suspension of such a right should only be considered in exceptional circumstances.
NatRad’s Insight has the best overview of the Brownlees mining proposal that I’ve seen (or rather heard) from the media to date.
Environmental issues reporter, Ian Telfer investigates the Government’s proposal in “Mining in National Parksâ€.
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According to a West Coast Times article sourced by norightturn, John Key received a $1000 donation in the form of a gold nugget from a mining company. It’s becoming very clear just how close the connections are between the mining industry and John Key’s National Party are.
The Maori Party says it was ambushed on National’s welfare reform policy, which Tariana Turia opposes. The Minister and the Associate Minister are at odds on the issue. Does this mean that the Maori Party will be making a stand? Don’t hold your breath…
The latest piece from the ever excellent Gordon Campbell has a go at the beat up of North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams. Towards the end he raises some interesting points about Auckland’s new boss.
Lifted from comments for wider reading by commentator acclaim.. Beneficiary bashing in this country is definitely becoming uglier by the day. It seems […]
John Key have given three tests that mining on protected land would have to meet to satisfy him that it ought to be permitted- creates jobs and benefits the local economy, economically viable, and environmentally sensitive. Mining on Schedule 4 land fails to meet Key’s own tests but that’s not going to be enough to stop National. Only determined pubic opposition will stop them.
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes […]
It’s becoming clear that National had their policy to mine on protected land all planned before the election and hid the truth from the public because they feared it would make them unelectable. National needs to front up with the records of their pre-election discussions with the mining industry. Labour should challenge them to come clean in the House today.
The eXileD has a piece on Ireland’s woes and how they got there. The 1980s neoliberal revolution and dodgy deals for the Right’s mates are familiar. Ireland became a tax haven for bludging international financiers. It’s all come crashing down but John Key wants to copy their mistake by creating an offshore financial centre here.
The economy finally managed to grow faster than the population in the December quarter but it was still slower than Australia. With weak growth, wages falling in inflation-adjusted terms, and unemployment now 2% higher than in Australia and rising the question has to be asked: when is John Key going to keep his promise to close the gap with Australia?
Leaky homes are a slowly unfolding disaster for the country. Someone is going to have to come up with $11bn (at least) in costs for repairs, and the government hasn’t a clue as to how to handle it. Still, every cloud has a silver lining they say, and for the government it is $2bn extra in taxes…
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What a complete failure Paula Bennett is. If you could bear to sit through her interview on Q+A yesterday, you would have heard nothing but vacuous crap completely divorced from reality and her actual policies, which are opposed by Treasury, Health, and the Attorney-General. There are 67,000 more working age people on benefits than when Bennett became minister and she has no plan to reverse that.
As always Rod Oram offers a considered approach to issues of the day. In today’s Sunday Star Times he offers his analytical skills to mining.
Anyone who has been involved in debating issues has probably come to suspect that facts don’t matter. Facts don’t change people’s minds, there are other, stronger influences that shape opinions.
A recent article by George Monbiot in The Guardian reviews some of the psychological evidence for this fact blindness in the context of the climate change debate.
According to a poll in the the Sunday Star Times, John Key’s mining plan has turned off one in six National voters. The government claims not to be worried by the negative public relation. John Key is starting to sound very out of touch on the mining issue, and that could be his biggest mistake yet.
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Fran O’Sullivan’s write: “Till now, Key has operated a rather laissez-faire approach to Cabinet management.” I think she meant “fairly lazy”. She points out that Gerry Brownlee and Paula Bennett have been allowed to go out and essentially lie to the public about their policies only to be embarrassingly exposed by an increasingly awake media (helped by the blogosphere) because Key isn’t paying attention.
Can’t argue with Tom Scott on a good day….
Tonight, 8:30 – 9:30pm is Earth Hour 2010. New Zealand is among the first in the world, kicking off the event. Turn off, tune out, drop in.
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Beyond this opening gambit on mining, National clearly has a larger plan. It is going to back down over Great Barrier, whether or not that was never part of the plan all along. But it is lining up more areas for later on. Areas like Dun Mountain near Nelson. Supposedly there’s gold in that there hill. But it also happens to be the site of one section of the John Key Memorial Cycleway…
The smile is wearing off. John Key visited Levin today to open a new district court. The visit didn’t go to plan as he was heckled by 150 locals over health cuts – which will see the region lose 24 beds.
Wait till the mining issue heats up.
Paula Bennett is saying that her benefit bashing policies are about “supporting people into work”
What is that support?
I see punishment. I see threats. Where’s the support?
Where, for instance, is the kind of support that Bennett got as a beneficiary? Training assistance that helped her get into work.
