Reminder: Roger Award tomorrow
The first Drinking Liberally – Wellington of the year is being held in conjunction with the annual Roger Award. The Roger Award is […]
But how much did the bus cost?
“Tolley finds ally in school mum” screams the headline of Audrey Young’s piece today.
When National runs a bus tour the Herald is desperate in its attempts to drum up support, when it’s Labour all they want to talk about is how much the bus is costing the taxpayer.
Sovereign debt
The world’s economy has not truly recovered from the recession, it has just been artificially reanimated by vast injections of Government bailout money.
What happens when taxpayers get the bill? The people of Iceland just voted not to pay. This may be the first in a cascading series of failures of “sovereign debt”. If so, the next crash will make the recent recession look like child’s play.
Whaling proposal not realism, it’s a sell-out
John Armstrong has chucked John Key’s promise to end whaling down the memory hole and, instead, comes out swinging against those who don’t […]
Open mike 10/03/2010
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes […]
Joyce dumbing down education
So Steven Joyce’s big bright idea for tertiary education (which he recently inherited from the hopeless Anne Tolley) is to punish institutions with low pass rates by cutting their funding. It’s basically the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.It reflects the typical short-term thinking of the capitalist class and its political party.
Who were the Nat leakers?
Michael is dead right. The most important thing about the Hollow Men is not how Nicky Hager got the information but what the information is. It reveals National’s modern politics in all its unprincipled ugliness. Nonetheless, which Nats gave Hager the information is a subject of legitimate interest. I have some theories.
Who needs evidence?
John Key doesn’t need evidence. He just knows stuff. John Key just knows that Don Brash’s emails were stolen by a mysterious hacker, despite having no evidence at all. The same “reasoning” underpins most of National’s flagship policies. Key just knows they’ll work, even when the evidence says otherwise…
Meanwhile, at nationalmps.co.nz…
Remember how a couple of months back National set up NationalMPs? It was meant to be their answer to Red Alert, Labour’s frequently raucous, unstagemanaged blog where Labour’s MPs write what they want. But the Nats’ attempt is deadly dull. Either the leadership is gagging them or the Nat MPs are dreadful bores.
Wellywood? Welly-hick, more like
Wellingtonians like to think of themselves as more sophisticated than their rural brethren.
But sometimes they come out with something that shows just what a bunch of hicks they are.
Glorified holiday for Bennett
There are 276,000 jobless Kiwis. The seasonally-adjusted trend on dole numbers is still on the rise. Many other people fall through the gaps and are unable to get public assistance in their time of need.
What better time for the Minister for Social Development to bugger off for five weeks?
Daddy to the rescue for Slater
When things got too hot Cameron Slater called on Daddy to save him. John Slater rushes in to say to cops shouldn’t be charging his son who has been getting his 15 minutes of fame exploiting sex abuse victims. The Nats think the rules don’t apply to them (cf. Heatley, English, Bennett, Jim McClay…). The law’s for keeping the poor in line, not the rich, they reckon.
Aussie wages outstripping NZ
In NZ, the average FTE wage rose 2.86% after inflation – $891 to $934 – over the past year. In Aussie, it was 3.6% above inflation – $1159 to $1226. When will John Key admit that he sold us a lie? When will the media call on him to resign if no progress is made on the one substantial promise of a ‘brighter future’ at he made?
Open mike 09/03/2010
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes […]
Brash emails hit headlines again…for the wrong reason
The leaked emails which helped bring about the downfall of former Nat leader Don Brash hit the headlines again today, for all the wrong reasons. The story of who “stole” the emails was nothing more than a successful Tory decoy. Journalists have already forgotten the insidious tricks used by the top echelons of the National Party.
International Women’s Day
Happy International Women’s Day. If only there was something to celebrate.
“We are deeply concerned about the current attacks on workers’ rights that will badly impact on women,†said CTU President Helen Kelly…
Labour and Greens “stealthy” on whaling
You’ve really got to hand it to the Greens and Labour. They have completely defied expectations on the whaling issue. See the simple option that most political parties would go for would be to be seen to stand by their principles – loud and proud. But the Greens and Labour are too clever for that. Instead, they’ve cunningly said next to nothing!
The end of the line
This month there are a series of showings of The End of the Line around New Zealand. This acclaimed documentary looks at how overfishing is destroying fish populations and ultimately endangering the industries and cultures that depend on them. This is a problem we can solve relatively simply.
Outrage at Key’s pro-whaling plan
The Key Government has, without public consultation or mandate, thrown decades of political consensus in the trash. They are proposing the reintroduction commercial whaling. The Nats say this will reduce the number of whales killed but no-one is buying that. When did the commercialisation of a resource ever lead to a reduction in its use?
Open mike 08/03/2010
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes […]
The minister who cried ‘recovery’
Can someone at MSD please explain to Paula Bennett a season is? Our lazy minister is once again claiming victory over rising unemployment because of the seasonal drop in unemployment numbers. Worryingly, the decline between January and February was less than the average in recent years.
National Standards Mk 2?
Michael Gove, Britain’s Conservative shadow Children’s Minister, has unveiled their version of National standards. Like Anne Tolley, he is sure he knows what […]
The climate change industry
It turns out that there is a climate change industry after all.
It is the denier industry, bought and paid for by ExxonMobil…
Recentralisation? A whole lotta nothing
During the neoliberal revolution, the 4th Labour Government and the Nats decided to break up the big ministries into lots of little ministries […]
Hartevelt on bashing the yoof
A contact at the Ministry of Transport tells me that 15 year old drivers have been involved in only a handful of fatal crashes, 1 to 1.5% of the total, in recent years and they’re not all the 15 year old’s fault. But no, National’s solution is to prevent all 15 year olds from driving. Dumb. It’s a carpet-bombing approach to policy
Open mike 07/03/2010
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes […]
NZ Fabian Society lectures
This looks to be a fascinating set of lectures. I’ll be going – will you?
Economic orthodoxy continues to fail New Zealand. This failure is systemic, not cyclical. Despite this, prevailing political and economic orthodoxy has become almost immune from scrutiny. It seems that policymakers have yet to comprehend that the status quo will inevitably lead to economic collapse.
Come on Granny
Come on Granny Herald. You’re almost there…
Key supports return to commercial whaling
In January, we were told that John Key had some secret plan to end whaling. Now, we learn that Key wants to let […]
Armstrong and class interest
The poor don’t need tax cuts for the top 12% to to inspire them to want to get out of poverty. Poverty is inspiration enough. But thepoor cannot all become rich. To function capitalism needs poverty. There’s got to be lots of people doing the shitty, dangerous, hard jobs for cheap. And the wealth will always flow to the elite few who own capital or defend their interests.
O’Sullivan and Garrett, strange bedfellows?
Fran O’Sullivan is a pro-business liberal or libertarian, David Garrett is a knuckle brain conservative. But actually, they’re not so far apart. It seems both believe in freedom for the rich and control over the poor. Incredibly O’Sullivan goes into bat for Garrett over his sterilisation comments.
John Key lies about “surgical” mining
Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee is refusing to rule out landscape-scarring mining on our most precious conservation land. This makes a liar of John Key who promised the government was considering “surgical mining”.
Open mike 06/03/2010
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes […]
Ashcroft – “dead horse pong gets worse”
Only days ago, British Conservative leader David Cameron told journalists they were “flogging a dead horse” when asking about Tory deputy chair Lord Ashcroft’s donations and tax status. Now new information has come to light about destruction of documents, tax avoidance, and offshore funding of the Conservative party.
Labour says ‘hands off Radio NZ’
The campaign to save Radio New Zealand from funding cuts and commercialisation is going well. Well attended rallies have been held in Wellington, […]
On Gattung’s revisionist history of Telecom
Over at Scoop, Gordon Campbell takes Theresa Gattung to task for her revisionist history of Telecom in the Dominion Post this morning.
More than anything, her latest outburst reveals her clanging naivety and complete inability to take personal responsibility for her failures.