Author Archive

Narratives out of noise

Written By: - Date published: 7:13 am, July 11th, 2017 - 189 comments

Another poll, another round of narratives out of noise.

Peters posturing

Written By: - Date published: 8:54 am, July 10th, 2017 - 95 comments

As usual in election year, Peters is posturing left and right.

Skepticism cynicism lies and hypocrisy

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, July 8th, 2017 - 17 comments

There’s a very good / depressing long read in The Guardian on the dangerous “weaponising” of cynicism by climate change deniers. One of the most interesting sections was a discussion of the way that voters are more forgiving of lies than hypocrisy.

Why no inquiry into abuse in state care?

Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, July 7th, 2017 - 14 comments

As we celebrate Parliament’s apology for historical convictions for homosexuality, it surely raises the question of why the government is so hardheartedly against an inquiry into historical abuse.

The great Auckland housing crash of 2017

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, July 6th, 2017 - 79 comments

Two indicators both agree that the Auckland property market has started trending downwards. Over leveraged buyers are going to get burned, and first time buyers are still shut out. Perfect.

Bill English reckons that landlords can’t raise rents

Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, July 5th, 2017 - 51 comments

The last budget raised accommodation supplement – against the advice of Treasury who said that landlords would capture the cash. Not to fear though, because Bill English reckons that landlords can’t raise rents…

Government’s cruelty on Christchurch’s mental health

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, July 5th, 2017 - 16 comments

Christchurch’s mental health services are overwhelmed and verging on collapse. Canterbury has the most suicides in NZ. And yet the government has just declined a request for further funding. National – delivering misery for Canterbury.

Citizenship – one law for the rich

Written By: - Date published: 9:01 am, July 3rd, 2017 - 185 comments

As other citizenship cases are compared to Peter Thiel, it starkly highlights our “one law for the rich” approach.

About that pay equity deal

Written By: - Date published: 10:26 am, July 1st, 2017 - 15 comments

More excellent reporting from Newsroom: “Long overdue pay rate increases affecting 55,000 New Zealand care and support workers kick in on July 1. But the Government’s failure to fully fund the changes is threatening to derail service providers”

Spare a thought for the homeless tonight

Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, July 1st, 2017 - 20 comments

Not just because it’s winter, and the weather is lousy, but also because of this…

Employers don’t like Labour’s new employment relations package

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, June 30th, 2017 - 43 comments

In shocking news, it turns out that employers don’t like Labour’s new employment relations package. They (and the usual suspects) are running lines about a return to the 1970s. A time when workers’ share of the wealth was higher, poverty was lower, inequality was lower, and workers had more rights. Sounds awful.

The MP that Clutha-Southland could have had

Written By: - Date published: 7:04 am, June 30th, 2017 - 33 comments

The debarclay rumbles on. The Nat’s deploy the Game of Hats gambit. The vultures circle over the remains of Todd B in Clutha-Southland while his zombie vote is exploited to squeak through legislation. It could all have been so very different if the electorate had chosen the best candidate in 2014. Their loss is Invercargill’s gain – Liz Craig in 2017!

Brighter Future Delivering the Cusp of Something Special for New Zealanders

Written By: - Date published: 11:41 am, June 28th, 2017 - 8 comments

That’s a mish-mash of Nat soundbites past and present. For the reality underlying it all, check out the excellent RNZ series “Is this the Brighter Future?”

Gower is correct – police must reopen Barclay case

Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, June 27th, 2017 - 32 comments

English is trying, many days too late, to shut up about the scandal in his old electorate and hope that it will blow over. It won’t – too many loose ends. In particular, Patrick Gower is right, the police must now re-open the Barclay investigation.

America’s Cup win

Written By: - Date published: 6:46 am, June 27th, 2017 - 24 comments

Congratulations to Team NZ and supporters. That was a very convincing win, and a testimony to Kiwi design skills, sailing skills and tenacity. Everyone involved has a right to enjoy the victory! But…

National’s conference – no policy – drowns in Billshit

Written By: - Date published: 12:47 am, June 26th, 2017 - 21 comments

National’s conference was supposed to be a tour de force, setting them up for the home stretch to the election. Instead it was empty of policy or vision, and coverage was drowned in a rising tide of Billshit.

Over egging the scandal soufflee

Written By: - Date published: 9:09 am, June 24th, 2017 - 97 comments

Team Nat were desperate to try and divert some attention from their floundering leader, and to a certain extent they succeeded. But compare and contrast Labour and National’s handling of the issues, front up and fix vs lie harder.

English still digging

Written By: - Date published: 8:03 am, June 24th, 2017 - 44 comments

Burying the last shred of his credibility in a deep hole forever, Bill claims that nobody realised Todd Barclay recording of secretary might be a crime. It’s like the events of 2008 and 2011 never happened.

Creative uses for Brash’s “Hobson’s pledge” pamphlets

Written By: - Date published: 12:20 pm, June 23rd, 2017 - 48 comments

Ex Nat leader Don Brash, of racist Orewa speech and Iwi/Kiwi fame, is still out there fanning the flames of division in NZ.

Meanwhile – Winston waits…

Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, June 21st, 2017 - 31 comments

‘Tis the time in the electoral cycle when Winston Peters bestirs himself to life. And tweets thus…

Party donations analysis

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, June 20th, 2017 - 101 comments

Max Rasbrooke has done an analysis of donations to political parties, and raises the concern that donations buy influence. There is a solution to this problem.

Lies, damn lies, and National’s housing affordability statistics

Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, June 19th, 2017 - 39 comments

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.

The Nation on housing

Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, June 18th, 2017 - 57 comments

The Nation did good work on the housing crisis yesterday. This is the Brighter Future that Bill English warned of in 2010.

Bridges and flouting the OIA

Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, June 17th, 2017 - 18 comments

Simon Bridges tried to block the release of a report on a Kiwirail proposal. The Ombudsman warns against flouting the Official Information Act. But it’s a well established pattern of behaviour with this government.

Our brilliant economy

Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, June 16th, 2017 - 51 comments

We need new thinking on the economy – zero emissions, sustainable, a big redistribution from rich to poor. But the list of current economic woe shows that even on their own old conventional terms the Nats are useless economic managers.

UNICEF on our appalling child welfare record – but apparently we don’t care

Written By: - Date published: 8:22 am, June 16th, 2017 - 199 comments

UNICEF has another major report ranking the wellbeing of NZ kids 34th out of 41 developed countries. This is not new news, and apparently a lot of voters just don’t give a damn.

100 Days

Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, June 15th, 2017 - 36 comments

It’s 100 days to the election!

Young voters have the power…

When immigration means exploitation

Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, June 15th, 2017 - 37 comments

Those arguing for unrestricted immigration are – wittingly or unwittingly – fueling higher levels of exploitation in NZ.

Immigration and economic growth

Written By: - Date published: 8:16 am, June 14th, 2017 - 54 comments

English’s scaremongering about Labour’s immigration policy does nothing but highlight the fundamental weakness of our economy. Just how anemic are we after 9 long years?

Sun and Breitbart falling

Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, June 14th, 2017 - 20 comments

The numbers aren’t looking good for The Sun or Breitbart. It would be great to see these hate mongers slip further into irrelevance.

Labour oppose visa scams – Nats would rather have the quick bucks

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, June 13th, 2017 - 35 comments

Labour is right to stress the many advantages that immigration brings to NZ, and right to address the major way in which it is being abused – student visa scams. Bill English has made National’s position clear, they would rather have the quick bucks.

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

No feed items found.
No feed items found.
No feed items found.

Page generated in The Standard by Wordpress at 2024-04-20T06:20:06+00:00