Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, May 25th, 2012 - 22 comments
With enough conditioning, our psyches will adapt to believe almost anything. Like that pain is good.
Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, May 23rd, 2012 - 22 comments
It’s great that foreign fishing vessels in New Zealand waters will now be required to be flagged here and, in theory, will be subject to New Zealand law. But I reckon that abuses of those crews is only half the problem. The other problem is that we have Kiwi quota owners, in particular iwi, employing foreign fishers while quarter of a million of our people are jobless.
Written By: - Date published: 8:01 am, May 22nd, 2012 - 26 comments
Parata on The Nation: “what we’ve had is a five-fold increase in the number of teachers while we’ve only had a 2% increase in students”. There are 52,500 teachers. Is Parata really saying there were only 10,500 a decade ago? The minister needs remedial maths, methinks. This is the tragedy: our kids’ education being toyed with by nincompoops and dullards with a dumbarse ideological agenda.
Written By: - Date published: 11:16 am, May 21st, 2012 - 18 comments
National is going to cut 125 police staff. They’re not sworn officers but who’s going to pick up the work they were doing? Sworn cops, of course. Course, tying up cops with paperwork will help the crime stats drop. And with the navy so underfunded half its inshore patrol vessels are being mothballed I bet illegal fishing instances drop too. Funny that.
Written By: - Date published: 1:39 pm, May 18th, 2012 - 105 comments
Underneath the ‘common-sense’ exterior, and all that hair, Peter Dunne is an angry man. He lashed out that those who pointed out he’s voting for asset sales he never told his electorate he would support. He screamed at losing TVNZ7 – Backbenches is his one chance to get on the telly. And he’s going feral on the Conservatives because they could usurp him.
Written By: - Date published: 11:46 am, May 17th, 2012 - 10 comments
In a surprising pre-Budget u-turn, Prime Minister John Key has announced the Government will drop its policy of incrementally introducing performance pay for teachers and, instead, introduce it for ministers. “Listening to Hekia Parata fluff her way through her spin lines on the teacher cuts, I had a kind of epiphany” said Key. “Any fool …
Written By: - Date published: 12:23 pm, May 15th, 2012 - 39 comments
So, Cunliffe was invited on The Nation. He said, yup but not if leadership nonsense is raised. Garner agreed. Then the leader office said it should be Parker as Finance spokesperson this close to the Budget. Cunliffe agreed. And this is meant to be some huge ado? Get real.
Written By: - Date published: 11:43 am, May 14th, 2012 - 75 comments
1 in 80 New Zealanders left for Australia last 12 months. Emigration so far this year is 15% higher than the same months in 2011. 6,000 people attended the 3rd Aussie jobs expo in Auckland in 18 months this weekend. The question is becoming not ‘would you go to Aussie’ but ‘what was the final straw for you to decide to leave Aussie’. Here’s a few reasons.
Written By: - Date published: 9:04 pm, May 11th, 2012 - 67 comments
Key looked the Pike River families in the eye and promised to get their mens bodies out. It was a promise he never should have made. But he did to make people like him. He wouldn’t even talk about it today. Coward. And what of his promise to make things right for Christchurch? Or his promise of an aggressive recovery? Or his promise to help the underclass? Or that brighter future?
Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, May 11th, 2012 - 3 comments
Bet there’s some last minute changes to the Budget happening. A few mil to reverse the bio-security cuts now the fruit fly’s in. A few mil for monitoring MSD contracts – Bennett’s ‘high trust’ (ie too lazy/cheap) model clearly isn’t working. They could find savings by not giving money to fronts for gangs and other corrupt groups, predictably, sucking on the Whanau Ora teat.
Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, May 9th, 2012 - 15 comments
The Government’s ‘sinking lid’ on homicides means that John Key can personally garotte 3-5 enemies and the overall number of killings will still decrease, a smiling Prime Minister told journalists today. “On current trends, the number of murders is dropping by half a dozen a year. Which means no-one should mind if I bump off a few annoying arseholes” said Mr Key
Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, May 9th, 2012 - 77 comments
Everyone’s leaped on the Nats’ contraceptives for benies bid to distract from banks.com. Guess I’ll jump in too. Capitalist morality goes: the world/God rewards the good, which is why capitalists are rich – so, the poor, like beneficiaries, must be morally bad – the world would be better without bad people. Eugenics has been and remains a logical endpoint of capitalist morality.
Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, May 8th, 2012 - 11 comments
The Nats’ welfare cuts will cost $500m over 4 years. Supposedly save a billion. Net saving: $125m a year. 1% of benefit costs. 1/8th of the cost of extra beneficiaries under National. Won’t really save even that little. No jobs. Unemployment rising. National’s problem is it tries to save costs of the welfare safety net by cutting holes in the net. The real solution is to stop people falling in. Best welfare policy is a jobs policy.
Written By: - Date published: 6:21 am, May 8th, 2012 - 136 comments
Don’t get me wrong. Apart from a couple of policies (asset sales, overseas investment, no borrowing for tax cuts), Colin Craig’s politics are bad. But I like his Boscawen-like mad honesty. It’s fun. Mainly because it makes him so uncomfortable for his new National suitors. But his up-frontness ends when asked about his compulsory Christianity employment contracts.
Written By: - Date published: 2:06 pm, May 7th, 2012 - 16 comments
For all her bluster, Judith Collins still hasn’t sued Trevor Mallard and Andrew Little for supposedly defaming her by saying she was behind the leak of the Boag email identifying Bronwyn Pullar as the leaker of 6,500 ACC clients’ details. I’m not sure how you can argue its defamatory for a minister to be accused of leaking private information when Paula Bennett did it.
Written By: - Date published: 6:51 am, May 4th, 2012 - 36 comments
It is a fundamental injustice of our society that one family, which already has more than it can ever need, can hold 1,300 families, who have very little, to ransom just to make a little more cash. But the union makes us working people strong. By standing together, the workers are beating Talley’s in the AFFCO lockout. Talley’s cracked. Wants half them back. The workers have said ‘all of us or none of us’.
Written By: - Date published: 11:46 am, May 2nd, 2012 - 49 comments
National’s going to cut access to the student allowance and up the repayment rate on student loans. Basically a hike on your graduate tax. These measures won’t save much themselves. But they’ll make higher education unaffordable for many. Fewer people will get qualifications. That’s how they’ll save costs: by blocking higher education for the poor, leading to a less skilled population. Loving this brighter future.
Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, May 1st, 2012 - 69 comments
A by-election in Epsom. If ACT or National win, the Right retains 61 votes. But, between resignation and swearing in typically takes 3 months during which the Right would have 60 v 60. Legislation fails on draws. Asset sales, SkyCity, welfare cuts, even the Budget could all fail if the Maori Party wants. And what if the Conservatives win? They’re anti-asset sales and crony capitalism. You can see why Key is turning a blind eye.
Written By: - Date published: 6:52 am, April 29th, 2012 - 182 comments
Key should go because of his dirty deal with SkyCity. Joyce too. Collins should go over the ACC leaks. Brownlee for sheer incompetence. English for shit-eating grin every time he fails to meet his own growth forecasts and announces more cuts. Add Banks to the list. His position in now untenable. The accusations are serious and credible. His excuses and memory lapses implausible. He must at least be stood down.
Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, April 27th, 2012 - 16 comments
Didn’t take much clairvoyance to see that National would fail to meet its promise of a Budget surplus by 2014/15. You’ve never seen a Finance Minister have his forecasts cut so often and look so happy about it. His failure against his own artificial target gives him an excuse to cut. His party’s ineptness to blame but we pay. Students look to be his target this round.
Written By: - Date published: 6:33 am, April 26th, 2012 - 17 comments
Tax increases on working people: GST hike, replaced Labour’s cuts with cuts for the rich, put tax on your employer Kiwisaver contributions, cut WfF tax credits. Record emigration to Australia: 53,237 last year, 1000+ per week.
Written By: - Date published: 10:09 am, April 21st, 2012 - 111 comments
A sad story in the Herald today of a man who got hooked on pokies. It has destroyed his family and relationships. He’s started ripping off clients at work. All to put money in the machines that SkyCity profits from. SkyCity has so many addicts customers it says it needs more machines. SkyCity is a cancer. We shouldn’t just stop its expansion. We should excise it.
Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, April 21st, 2012 - 19 comments
There was a time when you expected higher standards from the senior ranks of the public service. Now, more and more, they are just like private sector CEOs. Elitists. The standards are slipping. This slap on the wrist for the Building and Housing CEO who manhandled a staffer just shows how pervasive the elitist private sector ‘one law for us, another for them’ mentality has become.
Written By: - Date published: 8:25 am, April 19th, 2012 - 77 comments
Back before John Key’s political nous deserted him (circa mid-November 2011), he would have run a mile from the dirty pokies deal with SkyCity. Instead, he’s claiming the dirty deal as his own and SkyCity’s chairman bragging about his access to Nat ministers. All to build a useless convention centre that will demand ongoing subsidies. Not worth the political capital.
Written By: - Date published: 6:14 am, April 19th, 2012 - 8 comments
Anyone else see the irony in the ‘bureaucracy-slashing National Government‘TM reacting to delays in the Christchurch rebuilding – partly caused by lack of coordination between the local bureaucracy, the existing central government bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy National created especially to deal with the rebuild – by adding another layer of back-room bureaucracy?
Written By: - Date published: 12:51 pm, April 18th, 2012 - 38 comments
Don’t know if you saw Ruth Richardson’s wee rant in the Herald yesterday. Never realised she was such a bad writer. That was awful. Just a bunch of catchphrases and insensitive mention of Christchurch so she could use earthquake metaphors. Her thrust seems to be that the social media age will make us all free-market libertarians. Couldn’t be more wrong.
Written By: - Date published: 7:25 am, April 17th, 2012 - 65 comments
The government has splurged $20m putting 3,300 unemployed people through 6 week-long military ‘boot camps’ ($6K each). Result: up to 3 years later, only 19% have jobs. Compares to the typical stint of unemployment of 12 weeks. Looks a lot like the Nats are pouring money into a programme that makes unemployment worse. out of sheer ideological idiocy.
Written By: - Date published: 9:53 am, April 16th, 2012 - 121 comments
Looks like the Nats are going to use the bridge washout on the Gisborne-Napier rail line as an excuse to close it. Despite wagon volumes growing 12-fold this year. A massive piece of capital, mothballed for want of $4.3m. More has been spent so far clearing a slip from the nearby Waioeka Gorge road, no questions asked. The Nats’ anti-rail agenda = more trucks tearing up our roads and more oil imports.
Written By: - Date published: 6:40 am, April 16th, 2012 - 40 comments
Key is on another holiday trade mission to Indonesia, starting with a round of golf followed by a BBQ. While researching this, I learned something: You know how Key and Boag were both at the same golf tournament when the Nat Civil War blew open? Turns out you and I paid the $500K prize for that tournament. On an unrelated note, we definitely can’t afford to extend paid parental leave.
Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, April 13th, 2012 - 115 comments
Looks like Stuart Nash is going to quit as Shearer’s chief of staff and return to Napier. He has 2 solid reasons to do so: his 3 month old and beating Tremain in 2014. What worries me is the machinations behind this show some in Labour are more focused on internal politics than improving Labour’s performance against National. Put it another way, I think the odds of our first gay PM just grew.
Written By: - Date published: 7:27 am, April 13th, 2012 - 42 comments
Last week, David Farrar demanded to know where the government is getting $62m for youth mental health services… Actually he didn’t (they’re stealing it from other health funding) but he is demanding Labour explains where it would get $125m a year for extending paid parental leave. I guess he just really wants to make sure it’s feasible. Lets help him out with some options
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