The UN called for an investigation into Operation Burnham. Very inconvenient for the Nats who would rather sweep any dead civilians under the carpet and forget them. So naturally Gerry Brownlee responds with a lie.
Once upon a time this country stood up to American and said no to nuclear weapons. Now we dare not say yes to saving the planet.
Brownlee’s run as Foreign Minister is already a mess. Such is the depth of National’s talent pool.
Christchurch rebuilt must suffer the same central traffic madness as Auckland. Thus decrees Gerry Brownlee, as short-sighted, bullying, and ignorant as ever.
Gerry Brownlee is a walking disaster. Such is the depth of National’s talent pool that he is ranked number 4 in their lineup.
Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee says our training mission to Iraq is undergoing a transformation. We were warned when the troops first went that the mission was always intended to be looser than Brownlee publicly claimed at the time. And so it has turned out to be.
The Christchurch rebuild gets its second fail grade from Treasury. And what of the rebuild work that has been done with failed reinforcing steel?
There was a gathering in Cathedral Square in Christchurch on Sunday the 21st of February.
A one and a half hour recording of the event was put on youtube. Speaking begins at around 13min.
Physical attacks on politicians is going too far. So too is faking a hate-speech outbreak.
Christchurch has already lost so much. Now its “notable trees” are threatened. A small group is fighting to save them. Please help spread the word, or make a donation.
A Treasury report calls the Christchurch rebuild plan “unachievable”. Gerry Brownlee immediately springs in to action – attacking Treasury. Christchurch deserves better than this…
The Nats changing lines on the Taji report look like just another routine coverup of just another routine lie. At least, I hope so, because not knowing / caring about the report would be worse.
NZ is again being asked to go to war in Iraq. The Clark Labour Government said no a decade ago, but in 2015 there may be a compelling reason to join the fight; this time it’s the right thing to do. New Standard author te reo putake puts the case for NZ entering the battle against ISIS.
What could possibly have Gerry behaving so erratically?
Power has been concentrated into the figure of one man – a man who has in recent weeks shown that he thinks he is above the rule of law. You might think your one vote doesn’t make much of a difference – but it is everything to us here. Another three years of National and Brownlee, and we might not have a vote at a local level at all.
For so many of the people in this still-broken city, they feel that this is a journey which they have been left to walk alone. Too often they find themselves fighting against the state, rather than working with them. One gets the impression that for all the visits and photo ops, Key just doesn’t get the situation down here.
Brownlee’s press release on urgency is pure smarm. The Nats have always abused urgency, and this current session is no exception.
Emails released on the Standard today show that, during the Hobbit “dispute” the Government and others lied to the people of New Zealand to maintain a perception of a crisis.
It was a shameful moment in New Zealand’s political history.
The Pike report is welcome good sense.
But why has it taken the deaths of 29 men to get attention to health and safety regulations in mining?
NRT with yet another example of the Nats’ intimidation tactics.
People are waking up to National’s plan to remove the democratically-elected Christchurch City Council and replace it with its own hand-picked commissioners, who will then give a green light to Brownlee’s developer mates and the sale of council assets. You can already see the vultures circling – waiting for the chance to seize more public wealth for themselves.
Key is avoiding the hard questions, but his photo-op face is everywhere. The rest of the Nats are working hard at being invisible. Let’s bring a little sunlight into that darkness!
Today’s InvisiNat is Gerry Brownlee.
Lianne Dalziel has left her political future to the people of Christchurch that she represents.
If it’s good enough for her to seek such a mandate, then why shouldn’t King Gerry do the same?
There’s a large number of reports coming out of Christchurch of businesses that have been demolished without Civil Defence consulting with the owners, as is procedure, and giving them a chance to recover vital equipment and records first. Disturbingly, some of these demolitions seem to have been carried out by ‘cowboys’ without CD approval.
When a millionaire director and a foreign corporate wanted millions in tax breaks, Key jumped to it. When SCF collapsed the investors got an average of $60K, no questions asked. But when it comes to helping the ordinary families of Christchurch and the West Coast, the Nats are nowhere to be seen once the cameras are gone.
Mallard has laid a Privileges complaint over Brownlee’s Hobbit lies. Good. Brownlee and Key deserved to be hammered for their part in the Warners/Jackson shake-down that cost just $34m and work rights. Lockwood won’t uphold the complaint though. He hates Brownlee. Not enough to severely embarrass his party in election year though.
The idea of this little group-effort series of posts is to look at the major areas of government activity and have an objective look at how National is doing – both against their own promises and things that we hold important. Let’s start with the economy, the direct responsibility of Finance Minister Bill English and Economic Development Minister Gerry Brownlee.
The Herald has used the OIA to get hold of emails Peter Jackson sent Gerry Brownlee during the Hobbit shakedown. They show that the Actors’ Equity blacklisting was not a threat to the film staying here – yet Jackson and Brownlee told us it was to justify handing Warners $34 million and rushing through an anti-worker law.
What to do if you’re a government with an ideological fixation on selling assets, which is hugely unpopular? The public will catch on if you put SOEs as full entities up for auction. So, you don’t sell off the companies. Instead, you sell off the things they own or, through bond issues, their profit streams. We’ve been warning this would happen. Now, it is.
Brownlee ignored warnings that his reforms would increase power prices, not lower them as intended. Wholesale power prices have spiked from $50 to $300 per MWH. Exporters have cut production. Residential users are next. With power up and petrol breaking $2 a litre, energy is a handbrake on this supposed economic recovery.
National, under the direction of Gerry Brownlee, continue to abuse parliamentary procedure and make bad law. They tried to ram 12 bills through on Thursday, resulting in them sitting under urgency until Saturday night. There is no proper oversight, no thinking through the possible problems with bills, and far too little chance for the public to have their say. We have procedure for a reason…
It seems I’m not alone in feeling outrage at attempts to bury any sensible debate on the shape and extent of New Zealand’s coal operations
After days of trying to read the media and rumour mill tea-leaves on the Hobbit it was time to do some fact checking.
It turns out this has been a hard lesson in how the international film industry works.
The Christchurch earthquake required the suspension of democracy nationwide for 18 months. But Key had time to take a week in Hawaii. And the Social Development Minister is able to go off on a ‘study’ holiday in the US. And Gerry Brownlee, who needed all those powers to rush through laws, has spare time to intervene in The Hobbit dispute.
A tailings dam in Hungary has burst. Toxic sludge over 16 square miles has killed four. If the sludge, laden with heavy metals and radioactive elements, makes it into waterways including the Danube the disaster will magnify. If Brownlee had his way, our countryside would be covered in tailings dams as miners plunder our national parks.
