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Legitimate calls for inquiries
Key has dismissed calls for an inquiry into the Police’s actions in the Dotcom affair. He says that the Greens call for inquiries every week. In fact, they’ve called for 19 in the past year and a half. Is that too many? Well, the Auditor-General didn’t think so: she responded positively to the Greens’ call for a investigation into Key’s dodgy SkyCity deal.
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What’s Bill smoking?
We’re getting used to the Nats running bash the beneficiary /poor /Maori /unemployed /criminal /etc distractions but it’s getting pretty bad when Bill English gets in on the act. Weirdly his idea of drug-testing beneficiaries seems to have been picked up from a Daily Show piece on how it failed in Florida – costing money, not saving it, and proving beneficiaries use drugs less than the rest of the population.
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When spin backfires
John Key has this weird defence when challenged over the number of Kiwis who will buy and retain shares in his asset sales, given that shareholders in Contact have plummeted from 225,000 at point of listing to 78,000 now. He cites a single article by a single journalist that says Contact is widely-held. Yesterday, Key quoted at length from the year-old article. And walked straight into David Shearer’s trap.
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What’s in the TPPA?
While we the public distract ourselves with trivia like car crushing, and focus on other important matters like asset sales, the TPPA which is quietly unfolding in the background is actually the most important ongoing political issue. It has potentially disastrous implications for our sovereignty and our future.
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Pike Road?
A strong safety warning today about sheeptruck disaster met Ministerial indifference from Associate Transport Minister Simon Bridges. He said Australian legislation to promote safety and fairness in the road transport industry was not needed here because “New Zealand already has a system of work time requirements to help manage the risk of fatigue”. More infamous last words from a National politician – but the police are really worried.
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How the Greek Right screwed the scrum
You know how the Greek’s have this weird ‘winner’s bonus’ – 250 seats are proportionally allocated but the largest, and even by one vote gets another 50 seats. The rightwing got the bonus by a couple of percent over SYRIZA by screwing the scrum. How? By merging New Democracy and a small rightwing party – the Democratic Alliance. Only this allowed ND/DISY to beat SYRIZA. That trick, and PASOK going over to the right will allow a 40% coalition to govern with a majority.
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Admitting that austerity has failed
Austerity has failed in both the UK and NZ. But at least Cameron’s Conservatives have the wit to realise it, and the courage to act.
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Fail Budget
Budget reaction here. Seems the Nats’ preferred budget tag line is ‘Investing in the future’. Should have called it ‘Waiting for Godot’. Here’s a quick summary: Zero = Fail.
Update: Nats planning to tax kids’ after school jobs. No, not joking.
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The zero growth agenda
I chuckled to read Fran O’Shillivan on Sunday: “John Key has made a strategic decision to burn some political capital and front-foot major Government decisions” – yeah, all those major decisions: $1m for contraception, ‘tackling cyber-bullying’, a petty pokies for convention centre deal, even their centrepiece policy – asset sales – won’t benefit the economy a jot.
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The real reason for the secret ballot law
The tories are all puffed up about finally getting their secret ballot law passed. It’s about freedom they say, they’re on the side of the working man.
Thing is it’s not. And they most certainly aren’t.
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Nats eye up Chch assets for sale
Remember when John Key said that rebuilding Christchurch wasn’t just that city’s challenge, it was New Zealand’s challenge? Yeah, well, now Gerry Brownlee and Bill English are pressuring the council to sell off its assets to pay for the rebuild. Green figures show the madness of that. This is a 20-year rebuild. The dividends over that period are more valuable than one-off sale revenue.
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10,000+ at Auckland anti-MOM protest
Lots of people… get down to Britomart.. Mind you Britomart is filling up rapidly. They need a few more megaphones by the look […]
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Govt case for Crafar sale seriously flawed
Fran ‘sell it all’ O’Sullivan says the government’s case for selling Crafar farms “appears robust”. Well, she would say that. But, if you read it, you’ll see they’ve just done a half-arsed, perfunctory attempt to appear to abide by the law as defined by the Court while coming to the same decision on the same offer. It’ll be shot to pieces in Court.
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Europe to reject ACTA?
Despite 22 member states signing the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement, the EU’s parliament is looking like it might reject the treaty on the grounds of it curtailing civil liberties. The EU’s first rapporteur MP on the treaty resigned in protest at the plans. The second has now reported back: “The intended benefits of this international agreement are far outweighed by the potential threats to civil liberties.”
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Advice on pokies
“Prime Minister John Key says hundreds of extra pokies at Sky City Casino will not increase gambling addiction”. Key is lying and he knows it. That’s why the Nats won’t release the official advice they have received on this topic…
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Joyce for National leader?
Ipredict reckons there’s 60% odds Key won’t be National leader in 3 years. Whether you think that’s too low or high, it brings an important fact into resolution – the next National leader is in Parliament, probably a minister right now. People talk about Parata but she’s a lightweight. Collins and Joyce are the options. Mike’s just had a look at Collins’ style, let’s examine Joyce’s.
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Who’s building our broadband network?
The Nats selected Chinese company Huawei to build theparts of the UFB network after Joyce and English visited them in China. Now, the company’s been banned from Australia’s UFB project because of links to Chinese espionage. Key’s shrugged it off. Maybe there’s a risk, maybe not. But our government should give a damn and investigate. Its indifference makes it look compromised.
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Will Brownlee apologise to Finland or resign?
The lead story on Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s largest newspaper is about the “violent comments” of Gerry Brownlee. How would we react if a foreign politician told those kind of lies about NZ? We’d go off our self-righteous rockers. In some countries, like Finland, a minister would resign without hesitation if they brought their country into disrepute.
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What a jerk
After months of attacking the media and bringing the weight of the state against a freelance cameraman, John Key is “turning the other cheek”.
What a jerk
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Rortwatch: closing prisons to justify Wiri
1,200 prison beds, 1 in 8, are empty plus the 1,300 bed reserve. Prisoner numbers are projected to keep falling. So, why are the Nats spending a billion dollars on the Wiri private prison? And where will they get the prisoners? By closing existing public prisons. Rather than upgrading what we have more cheaply they’ll let a foreign company make a profit off locking people up.
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Next to go – Joyce or McCully?
Nick Smith is gone but you might have missed 2 other senior ministers on the ropes yesterday. Steven Joyce hasn’t bothered to do his homework, doesn’t know if his ‘mega-ministry’ will save money or cost more. Meanwhile, McCully’s shifting blame to the CEO he appointed for the Mfat mess while blowing $200K to give the ambassadors an earful in person over all the leaks.
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Smith to go
Even 1 year ago, there would be no doubt what would happen next. He would have sacked Smith without hesitation. Has Key lost those instincts already?
Updates: won’t comment now but will this afternoon. Needs time to make some backroom deals so that skeletons stay in closets? Smith was been summoned to Wellington. Press conference at 1.45. And He’s gone. They’re trying to downplay the reasons. What a disgrace. Full video of Key offloading Nick Smith -
Class war Oz style
When Treasurer Wayne Swan recently took on wealthy vested interests in defence of democracy and the Aussie fair go, he was attacked as an old-fashioned class warrior. Australian researchers found 86% of Australians think that class exists, and they support Swan by 58% to 26%. Their conclusion – opening up the debate about inequality is a sure-fire winner for Labor.
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King salmon, stealing our future
Imagine taking your children down to the park to find an overseas had set up a dairy farm in one corner. The shit builds up and flows onto the playground. You complain, but are told the farm is under no obligation to treat or retain their waste and the council has no powers to do anything about it. That’s what’s happening with aquaculture thanks to the EPA.
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False economy
Nationals bungling on the economy continues to damage NZ. Even their misguided state sector job cuts have failed to make significant savings…
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We don’t know how lucky we are
Wikileaks have given us another glimpse at the reality behind the curtain of international diplomacy, and a “full and frank” assessment of New Zealand’s geopolitical insignificance…
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Nat revolt over Crafars sale
Remember the hagiographies after the first hundred days of National’s first term? In the second term, things couldn’t be more different. The Sunday-Star Times has printed dozens of emails it obtained (a leak?) that were sent to Key opposing the sale of Crafar farms. Many of them are brutal comments from former National supporters. Key didn’t even provide comment for the article.
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Behind the hockey stick
There have been several interesting pieces on the politics of climate change recently, including some reflections (and a new book) from Michael Mann (the scientist behind the “hockey stick”), and leaked documents from the denier industry.
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Holmes and other toxic commentators
Why do we tolerate, indeed sometimes glorify, thoroughly toxic commentators and “media figures” in NZ? It’s a rhetorical question. The answer is, of course, that it’s all about the money…
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John Key and POAL
With the house due to sit in a couple of weeks John Key’s people will be weighing up their response to the POAL dispute.
My guess is they’ll base their decision on what they can get away with politically.
Whatever they do it’ll be no good for the port workers and certainly no good for Key’s goal of closing the wage gap with Australia.
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So what’s going on in the National party?
Labour’s internal politics is public property while National get a free pass on theirs.
This imbalance of transparency and accountability seems weird given National are the ones wielding the real power.
More to the point, what does it mean for our democracy?
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Post-xmas blues
My blobbed out and weight gaining holiday in sunny Southland is over. I’m back at work and feeling like an early day. Generally I have the post-Xmas blues and a couple of kilos that I need to wear off. But this came up on my playlist at work…. Yeah right
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Self inflicted injury
FFS: If you are going to confess your foibles to Facebook, then don’t let a low-grade sociopath have access to your dribblings. Not only is it going to be embarrassing to you after you sober up. But you are going to find that every other border line nutter has liked it all over the net. A few simple rules when you are sober will prevent the problem.
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O Canada!
Canada is to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, making it one of 2 nations in the world to be formally outside it. What will National do when the inevitably large fines roll in for us under their eviscerated ETS?
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Disgraced again on climate change
To add insult to the injury of another wasted year on climate change, the government has taken the opportunity of the Durban conference not to make progress, but to disgrace us yet again.
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Defending Nanaia Mahuta?
I’m afraid that I don’t know much about Nanaia Mahuta. In fact probably way less than I should have, bearing in mind that […]
