Labour reduces the number of cats getting stuck in trees every month
Meanwhile, National signalled they need a hand with statistics, and the public gladly stepped up.
dodgy statistics
The truth behind job numbers
Bruce Munro’s excellent piece in the ODT, looks in to the truth behind the Nats’ job numbers: “It does not take much digging in Statistics New Zealand’s latest Household Labour Force Survey to uncover a growing world of low-paid work, insufficient working hours, financial struggles and unfulfilled lives”.
NRT: National’s failure on rheumatic fever
I/S at No Right Turn writes: “Five years ago, National set itself a target as part of its “Better Public Services” targets to reduce the incidence of rheumatic fever by two-thirds. They failed.”
Lies, damn lies, and National’s housing affordability statistics
RNZ: The Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment ignored advice from the Reserve Bank over its new housing affordability measure, and made houses appear to be more affordable than they actually were.
Keith Ng’s four tax myths
A useful piece from Keith Ng on myths about tax. It’s an extract from The PSA’s “Progressive Thinking: Ten Perspectives on Tax” booklet.
Billions of lies
The Nats are settling in to election mode – smoke and mirrors. Steven Joyce feeds us billions of dollars worth of lies.
The Nats’ new ‘swimmable’ rivers aren’t
Under the new standards we have up to a 1 in 6 risk of serious infection at the times that we actually swim in rivers, and Smith is trying to hide this fact by fudging around with year-long averages. David Parker’s analysis yesterday was bang on.
Support party exposes National’s lie – government in disarray!
With this vicious infighting exposed the government is clearly in total disarray.
Unemployment rate up
Despite National’s fiddling the figures on the way unemployment is counted, the unemployment rate is on the rise again.
Unemployment apples and oranges
A fall in the jobless rate is superficially good news, but most of the “fall” since May is due to changes in the way the measure is calculated. Wages remain flat, though less so for union members.
Chart of the day: The “building boom”
Foreign buyers estimated at 29%
Most of the media has reported the Government’s “3%” spin on the extent of residential property purchases in NZ going to foreign buyers pretty uncritically. There have been honourable exceptions, and yesterday property editor Anne Gibson in The Herald joined them.
Grant Robertson on the adjusted unemployment figure
“The sad reality is that while the change in measurement might elicit a lower number or percentage it will not mean one fewer person is unemployed.”
Listen to Nick Smith trying to defend fudged foreign ownership data
Anyone who believes the Nats’ figures needs to listen to yesterday’s interview – Why won’t Nick Smith answer this one simple question? Excellent work from Garner.
Bill English unaware that GST is a tax shock!
Is it true that 40 percent of us pay no tax? Why, no, no it isn’t.
The real reason that politicians will take no action on tax haven corruption
NRT: A waiting list by another name
I/S at No Right Turn on hospital waiting lists – and those that don’t even make it on them.
Kiwiblip!
Either Kiwiblog had a very large social media blip (one million page views in a day is pretty high), or something is really wrong with Sitemeter, or there is a irritating bug somewhere bloating the numbers. I’d like to know one way or another, as I’ve had to deal with some strange spikes like this in the past and they are tricky to track down.
Rod Oram on the RMA and spin
An excellent piece by Rod Oram on the RMA and the government’s attempts at spin.
Polity: Key deluded on housing progress
Rob Salmond at Polity on Key – “Is he deluded, or is he being deliberately misleading?”…
They’re lying to you
Lies, damn lies, and statistics
Elective surgery waiting lists
The Nats have been manufacturing “good news” stories in health by creating a system that turns away one third of the patients in need.
More Nat lies
National’s been lying about increased teacher numbers, and the state of the economy – and now they’re promising unaffordable tax cuts.
Polity: Regional income stats
The Herald says the regions have rising incomes, but caution against reading anything into it. DPF reads everything into it anyway. But when people with jobs stay in the regions and those without jobs go to where some jobs are – average incomes rise in the provinces. It is what you expect to see when there is a jobless ‘recovery’ like National is paying for with debt.
Spin v reality
National have become a very adept PR machine. While not adept at running the country, they’ve become great at running statistics. John Key […]
Bill’s Magic Numbers
Bill (and John and the entire National caucus) have been telling us that we are required to borrow $380 million each and every week. Apparently we aren’t.
National fiddles as NZ burns
8,000 more unemployed in Q4 2010, and 1,000 more on the dole in January; New Zealand headed to a douple-dip recession after a year of anaemic growth; an average wage rise in 2010 of 1.9% with inflation of 4%. And a government focussed on manipulating statistics instead of coming up with an economic plan.
Key tries bad stats to mask pathetic record
In his speech yesterday, John Key made the extraordinary claim that the real average wage has risen 10% under his rule. That figure is wrong and the measure is the wrong one to use. But there’s a more fundamental check: look around you, is the average family 10% better off than 2 years ago? Who are you going to believe? Key or your own eyes?
Key – War on P?
Do you remember when John Key declared War on P a year ago? The action has been… underwhelming. The Police have been getting on with quietly doing a good job, to be sure, but when you grandiosely declare “War” on something, you expect a bit more attention to have been paid to it.