The Nats put the SAS in Afghanistan out of a Boy’s Own worldview that glamorises war and violence by authority. But war isn’t a game and we shouldn’t be fighting unless it’s for a good cause. Our solders shouldn’t die or kill to prop up Hamid Karzai’s corrupt regime.
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Some contractors and small business owners record private costs as business expenses and claim back the GST. The cheats who claim enough GST back get payments from IRD. Hiking GST puts more of our money in the pockets of these tax cheats.
Kate Wilkinson (Minister of Labour) has opened public submissions on a review on personal grievances, with the release of a discussion paper today. Details are here on the Dept of Labour website and submissions close on 31 March.
A guest contributor reports that if you want your chance to quiz Anne Tolley and you live in West Auckland your chance is on Thursday but it sounds like the Nats would rather you didn’t come. Another guest contributor pans Tolley’s meeting last night.
The select committee considering the 3rd super-shitty bill is sitting in Parnell now. There is a protest against the sham ‘consultation’ that National and Act have used to lock Aucklanders out of having any significant say in their city before, during and after this change.
Goto Quality Hotel Barrycourt, 20 Gladstone Road Parnell Auckland. The protest finishes at 2pm
Labour’s ‘Axe the Tax’ campaign has hit the road. Phil Goff is travelling around New Zealand explaining why Labour opposes National’s plan to hike GST on everyone to pay for tax cuts that will primarily go to the well-off. National are worried. They’re not promoting their package anymore, they’re lashing out at Goff.
Lord Ashcroft, the British Conservative party’s major donor, has admitted that while he is “permanently resident” in Britain he is not domiciled there for tax status.
As a result the Conservative party may have to repay donations totalling several million pounds.
276,000 jobless, of which 168,000 officially unemployed. 115,000 more underemployed.
Big numbers, but remember that the unemployed aren’t a static group being added to every day as the Key Government sits on its hands. In fact there’s a continual churn of people into unemployment and into work much larger than the net increase.
Over at Pundit Claire Browning points out that the National government is trying to get away with a huge con. They promised not to privatise state assets (in their first term), but now they are effectively privatising the biggest asset of them all…
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The total pay packet fell for Kiwi workers last year and it will get worse in coming years. Aussie wages continue to rise, their unemployment is falling. If Key is serious about catching Australia he needs a full employment policy. Instead, he will keep doing nothing.
You know, I struggle to see how the government can justify cuts to Radio New Zealand’s funding after its outstanding coverage of the tsunami yesterday. While the other radio broadcasters were jammed up with bee pollen adverts and deer horn aphrodisiac jingles, RNZ had informative, up to the minute information from all over the country.
John Key has promised to make tax changes that are revenue neutral, give huge payouts to the wealthy elite, and somehow mean the “vast bulk of taxpayers will be substantially better off”. But it’s a money-go-round. How you can make everyone better off with the same amount of money you’ve taken off them?
When it comes to listening to the public, National promise “jam tomorrow”. Wait for the select committee. Wait for the third reading. But the record shows that these are empty promises. The Human Rights Commission has criticised National over their latest mockery of a consultation process on Auckland…
With true tory arrogance at the ACT conference this weekend, Don Brash has described New Zealand voters as venal and stupid.
Apparently New Zealand’s reluctance to destroy what is left of their society by implementing Brash’s discredited crazy old man economic voodoo is a sign of their stupidity.
Apparently nobody in ACT disagreed with him. Go figure.
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One of the best pieces I’ve seen about the idiotic minister of broadcasting Jonathon Coleman wanting to starve or bend National Radio into the level of stupidity that the NACT’s prefer. Rosemary McLeod writing “Quality radio easy target for the barbarians” in the Sunday Star Times this morning.
You have to double-check every ‘fact’ the Nats tell you. Bill English, for example, has been caught out lying on Labour’s growth record.
For the last couple of weeks, John Key has been claiming that when Labour increased GST from 10% to 12.5% in 1989 there was no compensation for taxpayers. That too is a lie.
The alert has now been downgraded to an advisory (4:30pm), though surges and rapid changes in sea level could still occur for the next 24 hours.
According to Newsroom “A series of ongoing large offshore earthquakes continue to rock South America with widespread destruction in Chile…
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No, it’s not one of the Nats or their hangers-on. It’s Shane Jones. Following revelations that National ministers have been essentially stealing taxpayer […]
Fran O’Sullivan agrees with my theory on the real reason for Phil Heatley’s resignation and the reason why an excuse was invented. The real reason was what amounts to Heatley’s theft of taxpayer money by using his ministerial credit card, and the receipt excuse was invented to protect Gerry Brownlee who had also misused his credit card
It’s time for the National Party to issue an abject apology to the nation… for the 1992 Building Regulations that directly led to […]
We received this guest post about half an hour after John Key announced his cycleway. At the time, the very sensible criticisms it raises were ignored by an enamoured media.
How prescient it looks now, on the anniversary of the Prime Minister’s Jobs Summit.
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A burst of ‘popular’ culture to mull over the weekend, with the Guardian providing comment on the upcoming Alice in Wonderland. According to […]
The Human Rights Commission has come out swinging at the anti-democratic nature of the Super City consultation.
Will the Free Speech Coalition leap into action as it did last time? Probably not.
The Government’s Auckland Transition Agency today released a discussion paper on the powers of the boards and briefed a public hearing of the select committee considering the third super city bill.
The heart of the telecom XT network?
Seriously though, when the 111 call system fails, lives are at risk…
If National is going to legislate democratic procedures for unions taking industrial action, aren’t they bound by consistency to do the same for employers?
Requiring a secret ballot of shareholders before lockouts are allowed would be a good start.
Nothing like a good IT stoush, particularly of the David and Goliath variety. Greenpeace has blown the whistle on Facebook’s use of coal […]
Russel Norman has an ironic adjunct to the ‘storm in a wine glass’ (as one wit on RNZ called Phil Heatley’s resignation)…
Ministers don’t resign for describing a trivial expense in a perfectly legitimate way. I’m thinking Phil Heatley really had a crisis of conscience over the credit card ‘misuse’ and wanted to resign but that would have put Gerry Brownlee in the gun too. So they invented the receipt excuse. What’s your theory?
