Open mike 14/02/2010

Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes […]

Columnists slam Key’s lack of plan

Tracy Watkins awards the first week of Parliamentary politics this year to Phil Goff, and points out that it’s as much due to his and Labour’s much improved performance as it is to Key and National’s shambolic, over-promise, under-deliver governance.

Maintenance

There will be up to 15 minutes of maintenance around 5pm. I have to shove some directories around to better structure the server […]

Economically incompetent ACE cuts

National love to tell us what we want to hear. Among their many pre-election policy lies they waxed lyrical about the value of education, before effectively cutting funding in the budget. On Adult and Community Education (ACE), Bill English was particularly supportive…

A fair tax

Click through for today’s Tom Scott cartoon.
He hits the nail on the head.
Putting up GST hits the poor the hardest.
For Kiwis who are barely scrapping by every cent counts.

I won’t raise GST

This is pretty classic. Found it on one of The Standard’s old posts. I think we’ll be seeing a bit more of this […]

No help for the invisible

Relating to what I wrote yesterday about the Right and much of the media being largely blind to the existence of those of […]

Evidence on drugs ignored

Minister of Justice Simon Power has unfortunately decided to completely ignore recommendations made by the Law Commission on drug reform. This is an […]

GST is not a tax – suck it up

The best political commentary these days doesn’t come from the political journalists. As Zetetic shows, they have turned themselves into government minders. But […]

Learning from example

In chronological order: John Key: “[I never promised I wouldn’t raise GST]. I said I would not raise GST to cover deficits, and […]

Open mike 12/02/2010

Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your […]

Campaign for a living wage

Campaign for a living wage is protesting the offices of National MPs this Saturday to protest increases in GST and the miserly increase […]

The beleaguered PM

My my, things are turning quickly for John Key. We now have the first sighting of the red flag term “the beleaguered PM” […]

Quick comments

The Government and the secretive Iwi Leadership Group are looking at an option where no-one owns the foreshore and seabed. It’s often forgotten […]

Jeanette Fitzsimons’ valedictory

As I have mentioned before, Jeanette Fitzsimons is one of the very few members of parliament for whom I have the utmost respect. […]

Maori Party/Nat breakup over GST?

Yesterday, Rahui Katene said the Maori Party could walk away from National if they didn’t adequately compensate low and middle income people for increasing […]

Trouble brewing for govt on GST

“An unscientific poll yesterday of 846 readers asking whether they would be happy to pay more GST if it meant they paid less […]

No plan to get Kiwis into work

Number of jobless Kiwis = 276,000 Number of jobs plans from Key Government = 0 Key can make all the vague references to […]

Key’s magic money-pot

John Key has indicated that the Government will lift the GST rate to 15% and remove depreciation from investment houses. According to the […]