Recreating the reserve army of labour
Unemployment has shot up to 133,500, nearly doubling in 18 months. But that’s not the whole story. The official ‘unemployed’ are only the […]
New union blog
Service & Food Workers Union national secretary John Ryall has a new blog. His first post takes aim at the claim by Ngai […]
Kate’s CEO talkfest
The Minister of Labour, Kate Wilkinson, is holding a meeting today with 25 top CEOs on the number of New Zealanders who are […]
Still too far
Farrar has come back with a defence of his icky and outragous ‘satire’ post that proports to be a Green press statement announcing […]
Wellington fundraisers
Two cool fundraisers coming up for the Greens and Labour. The Greens are holding a screening of Kiwi ‘s The Age of Stupid, […]
Afghanistan for the Afghanistanians
It was a bit strange listening to Key’s interview on RNZ yesterday morning about deploying the SAS to Afghanistan. He kept on awkwardly […]
Big issues in Telecom lines strike
It’s great to see all the lines engineers standing up to Telecom’s attempt to strip away their employment rights and turn them into […]
Those who do not learn
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. National has learned nothing from the failure of the neoliberal policies […]
Holding Bennett to account
NZPA reports: Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff has confirmed she will investigate Social Development Minister Paula Bennett after the release of details of two […]
Padding pockets, not houses
Just a month into the Government’s housing insulation programme and John Key has had to launch an inquiry into rorting by contractors who […]
NZ’s credibility melts away
As a recent article in the Guardian newspaper asked: “Can art succeed where science is proving insufficient to generate the will to act […]
Double dipping
No, not another post about Bludger Bill, this one’s about that thing that he and Key are meant to be taking care of. […]
Now for the spin
It’s interesting to see how National’s spin doctors are trying to frame the Government’s pathetic and shameful emissions reduction target of 10-20% by […]
Unambitious for New Zealand
If ever there were a sentence that summed up our collective folly it’s “Scientific opinion is that a reduction of 40 per cent […]
Too far
Farrar’s attacks on climate change campaigners and the Greens recently have been pretty hysterical (‘they’re going to shoot the cows!’) but now he’s […]
Save the climate, raise our albedo
Dark material gets warmer in sunlight than light-coloured or white material. Heat energy enters our atmosphere after light strikes the surface of the […]
Someone give Rodney a Smack
Rodney Hide is increasingly becoming an embarrassment to the government. The perception that he has created is that he will back to the […]
Time for tory charity?
Following the success of TV3’s ‘Big Night In’ Telethon which raised over $2 million for KidsCan, I was thinking there are others that […]
More questions for English
Yesterday, John Armstrong talked about the Auditor-General’s 2001 report into eligibility for a Wellington accommodation allowance: the then Auditor-General David MacDonald scrutinised allowances […]
Of witch hunts and solo mums
Frank Macskasy The recent witch-hunt against solo-mums would have done the old Salem village-elders proud. The fires, though, could have been stoked just […]
Wordcamp
If you’re interested in the software that runs this site and many others, there is a wordcamp in Wellington this weekend about the […]
Stick to Acting
John explains how what he said was taken out of context, and he outlines his views on climate change.
Caption Competition
Taxing times
In my opinion Pundit is one of the treasures of the NZ news/blog space. The posts are frequently excellent, in a world where […]
Govt backs tax cheats
There is $4 billion in overdue tax owing. Every dollar of that means someone is pocketing cash that should be paying for schools, […]
Stand up for free speech, stand against Bully State
As you know, when Natasha Fuller and Jennifer Johnston spoke up against the Key government’s cancelling of the Training Incentive Allowance, Paula Bennett […]
Electoral finance – summary of submissions
The Ministry of Justice has released a summary of the submissions it got on its Electoral Finance Issues Document. They got 79. The […]
Unemployment back to English’s ‘realistic’ level
Who said this? “if we continue with National’s policies over the next three years we will be able to create another 115,000 jobs […]
What a coincidence
So there I was, just a walking down the street, and $47,000 just fell out of the sky in tax free readies, bam, […]
Which one’s true, Bill?
According to the Speaker, Bill English MP’s “primary place of residence” is in Dipton because Bill has told him it is. But according […]
English lives where Lockwood says
Allowances for MPs accommodation are made according to the Speaker’s determinations. An MP’s “primary place of residence” is where the Speaker says it […]
A real recession policy
Darien Fenton’s minimum redundancy bill has been drawn from the ballot and is likely to go before the house in the next two […]
Uncowed
Shh. Hear that sound? It’s National’s mud throwing machine gearing up again. Inevitably, they’ve released Labour’s ministers’ spending. No evidence of any rort but […]
English in serious trouble
Over at Red Alert, Trevor Mallard has posted a form that all MPs wanting an out-of-town allowance must fill out. It asks MPs […]
Unemployment hits 6%
Stats NZ has just released the unemployment figures for the June Quarter. Unemployment has hit 6%. That’s 138,000 people out of work. We’re […]
John Key ‘may’ be able to understand it?
John Key has recently acted like a jerk to a young mother worried about what climate change is going to mean for her […]