Author Archive

Journalistic independence, or why Radio NZ matters

Written By: - Date published: 12:11 pm, February 19th, 2010 - 34 comments

There’s no better illustration of why we need a properly funded Radio NZ than the way the debate over National’s funding cuts have played out on Radio NZ compared to its commercial counterparts.

Key too busy doing nothing

Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, February 17th, 2010 - 5 comments

Tongue in cheek, George notes: When asked in Parliament why he hadn’t paid closer attention to his share portfolio, Key replied: “small technical issue, I’ve been busy running the country”. That statement must come close to misleading Parliament.

A principal writes

Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, February 6th, 2010 - 86 comments

School principal Pat Newman posted the following as a comment on Red Alert. It’s not a polished piece written with distribution in mind, but it’s from the heart, and well worth reproducing here (minor typos corrected). Pat added several further excellent comments, follow the link above. I speak as a principal of a Decile 2 […]

The Government is to blame for record unemployment numbers

Written By: - Date published: 2:54 pm, February 4th, 2010 - 59 comments

Andrew Campbell It should come as no surprise that unemployment hit 7.3% today. That’s what happens when a government does virtually nothing to support job creation when there is a recession. But instead of announcing a plan to address this massive economic and social issue the Minister for Unemployment, Paula Bennett, is blaming a growth […]

Don’t go, oh mighty Atlas. We’ll give you tax cuts

Written By: - Date published: 1:17 pm, February 2nd, 2010 - 87 comments

So, I’m at a cafe having lunch and there’s some fat middle-aged businessmen having lunch at the table beside me. One of them is talking about Blair’s appearance at the inquiry on the invasion of Iraq and says “all these namby-pambies say ‘oh we shouldn’t have invaded’ but they would have shut up if Saddam […]

Keys ‘Master Brand’ marketing.

Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, January 28th, 2010 - 38 comments

The John Key led National Ltd® government lands yet another axe blow on our 100% Pure brand by cancelling a scheme recognised internationally as a best practice model. This latest announcement caps off a busy year for National Ltd® on the environmental front. Its list of actions include spending millions on establishing the 100% Pure Brand as the “Master Brand” of Aotearoa while simultaneously it has:

Is Club Physical promoting homophobia?

Written By: - Date published: 1:16 pm, January 24th, 2010 - 115 comments

A reader, John, writes: “I’m a member of Club Physical and I was disgusted to see that in their latest E-newsletter (below) sent out to all their members via email address, they are promoting an article from a fringe website that claims eating soy “makes kids gay”. The mere idea that eating something “makes you gay” […]

Time for a Just Transition?

Written By: - Date published: 4:28 pm, December 30th, 2009 - 15 comments

With so much attention on climate change, and such a lack of concern, urgency and commitment to action from the current Tory government you would think it would be something labour would be working hard on, and be busy drafting detailed policy and vocally demanding action be taken. The Copenhagen climate summit was a cop […]

Re-run: Where’s my pony?

Written By: - Date published: 12:11 pm, December 28th, 2009 - 10 comments

Umm, some posts we get sent are a bit quirky. Enjoy. _____________________________ OK. I’ll confess. I’m one of the ones who fell for Key. I switched my vote to National. Why not? A brighter future, tax cuts, rainbows, nice smiles, ponys for all, being a loud [sic] to smack my lightbulb to my heart’s content. […]

Re-run: Worth fails to cock-up for a week – apologises to PM

Written By: - Date published: 10:01 am, December 26th, 2009 - 2 comments

Actually, this guest post never got published because, before we could publish it, Richard Worth would be involved in some new scandal and then he was sacked, which adds a layer of irony to the post: In a shocking week for the National government, Internal Affairs minister, Richard Worth, failed to cock anything up. He failed […]

Memo from a muppet

Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, December 24th, 2009 - 43 comments

So John Key thinks I’m a Muppet. “[when I’m in Hawaii on holiday] they’ll send me stuff … those Muppets in the background who send it all to me”* Well f#ck you, John. While you’re off in Hawaii with your DPS pouring you drinks, I’ll be working. The days I do get on ‘holiday’ I […]

Back the Redundancy Protection Bill

Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, December 23rd, 2009 - 26 comments

While most Kiwis are getting ready for Christmas there are tens of thousands who will be having a hard time this holiday season because they were made unemployed this year. And most of these workers will have had no redundancy protection to tide them over. That’s not good enough. It leaves workers and their families […]

Right’s privatisation arguments rubbish

Written By: - Date published: 3:05 pm, December 20th, 2009 - 152 comments

As a senior economist at a respected company, John Carran wrote some apallingly simplistic tripe in his article, “Exorcising the asset sale bogey“, Dominion Post, 19 Dec. It is as if the programme of privatisation in the late 1980s and 1990s never happened, and we have learnt nothing from those experiences and subsequent socio-economic consequences. […]

Shame on Labour for backing Goff

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, December 9th, 2009 - 42 comments

By Andrew Campbell Shame on the Labour caucus. If it’s true that they back Phil Goff’s Nationhood speech without reservations and therefore his strategy to use dog whistling racist tactics to win back the white male vote then they deserve the long period in opposition such an approach will bring. The closing of the ranks […]

Greens’ 10 year anniversary

Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, December 8th, 2009 - 12 comments

The Green Party celebrated 10 years in the New Zealand Parliament yesterday. Happy birthday! It was especially fitting that the anniversary coincided with the beginning of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. In the past ten years climate change has evolved from a fringe topic into the most pressing issue of the global […]

Goff at DL – a socialist review

Written By: - Date published: 1:58 pm, November 28th, 2009 - 39 comments

Below Omar of Socialist Aotearoa gives his impressions of Phil Goff at Drinking Liberally in Auckland earlier this week. On an unrelated note, isn’t it funny (in a non-‘ha, ha’ way) how 4,000 pro-smackers gets lots of coverage but a blind eye is turned when the Left is out in bigger numbers? The protests yesterday by low-paid public servants […]

Shame on you

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, November 26th, 2009 - 77 comments

Never in the history of New Zealand politics has so much taxpayers’ money been hurled into the chasm with such contempt for the poor citizens who will pay billions out of their own dwindling pockets forever while rich polluters wreck the earth with impunity and bask in the profits. Never in the history of NZ […]

Softly, softly treatment for militant employers

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, November 17th, 2009 - 9 comments

The continuing wave of lockouts continues to go unremarked by the government, the opposition and the media. Over the past few months there has hardly been a week, when one, or even two, and sometimes even three lockouts have been going on around the country. This week has been no different; The continuing lockout of […]

Vote red, get fed

Written By: - Date published: 12:26 pm, November 14th, 2009 - 27 comments

Labour needs to stand up for its electorate, the worker. While National is gutting the infrastructure Labour set up in the last nine years it had in power, like KiwiSaver and the Cullen fund, Labour’s protests are little more than the weak cries of a lamb as it goes to slaughter. Labour needs vision, a way […]

Climate Change: The Looney Lord Responds

Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, November 10th, 2009 - 37 comments

Rob Salmond The other day I posted a critique of Lord Monckton’s recent presentation, which purports to show that global warming is not real and not a problem. Imagine my astonishment to see that Lord Monckton himself took 2,700 words to respond to me in the comments! I am very surprised see that a new […]

Unbridled power

Written By: - Date published: 8:38 am, November 7th, 2009 - 11 comments

The government and the Police are spinning all the new security measures as a national security matter and a crack-down ONLY on the leaders of organised crime, watching how the worst villains spend their ill-gotten gains and preventing them from corrupting police and politicians (snort) etc. Police minister Judith Crusher Collins: “Gang bosses have grown […]

Climate Change: Looney Tunes from Lord Monckton

Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, November 6th, 2009 - 121 comments

Rob Salmond In attempting to cover for DPF’s embarrassing disaster of a post on climate change, in his comments section some prominent right wingers (most notably John Ansell) pointed to a recent presentation by Lord Monckton. The presentation got a lot of publicity this month, including thinly veiled advertising from Fox News’ Glenn Beck, for arguing […]

NZ’s capitalists dream of absolute power

Written By: - Date published: 6:49 am, November 5th, 2009 - 20 comments

From Stuff: “Richlister Alan Gibbs will host former National Party leader Don Brash and ACT founder Sir Roger Douglas to discuss what they would do as “New Zealand’s dictator for a year” That New Zealand’s rich and powerful have invited their political hirelings from ACT and National to fantasise about eliminating any last shreds of democracy that […]

Get back to work!

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, October 28th, 2009 - 3 comments

The reprieve from the rain may have been the only thing worth celebrating this Labour Day. Probably pissed that there isn’t a holiday celebrating big business, Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson chose to shift the focus away from celebrating workers’ rights to removing them. While previously signalled,yesterday’s introduction of legislation striping workers of minimum entitlements to […]

Guest post: polling hypocrisy

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, October 26th, 2009 - 43 comments

I read John Key’s criticism of Labour’s polling methods with a smiling interest. It’s not a good look is it, for a political party to phone up our good citizens of the blue and ask them a series of personal questions; especially when they maintain the guise of boni fide research company. Rewind to 2002. […]

Reflections on the ERA

Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, October 22nd, 2009 - 4 comments

There’s been a fair bit of coverage of John Key’s use of the CTU conference to divide and rule over wages and announce he’ll be making it even easier for employers to sack people without going through the proper process, but it was this statement that really caught my attention: … the National Party’s election […]

The moral centre

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, October 22nd, 2009 - 14 comments

I thought I would take the time to point out this excellent article by Tapu Misa. It has gone with out saying that the emotional and intellectual centre of the Labour movement in New Zealand, from Wally Nash, the welfare state and the first Labour government, has often been from the Bible. It doesn’t hurt […]

Reflections on Aisling

Written By: - Date published: 3:34 pm, October 18th, 2009 - 13 comments

Two readers offer their reflections on our collective reaction to the Aisling Symes tragedy: The Best of Us, The Worst of Us, revealed in Aisling Symes Tragedy Sadly the body of Aisling Symes has been discovered and the means of her tragic death are understood. During this time of grief and outpouring of public support […]

Yeah, but who are the criminals?

Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, October 18th, 2009 - 13 comments

I think I might have joined the dots in what it is that is causing me such unease about the arrival of Crime Stoppers. Sure, there’s the whole ‘Big Brother’ thing as citizens are rewarded for anonymously spying on their neighbours, colleagues and team mates, that whole Stasi dimension it brings to our communities, but […]

The Bridgeman Concrete lockout ends successfully

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 pm, October 8th, 2009 - 14 comments

The Bridgeman Concrete workers locked out for nine days hardened their picket last week. Two concrete trucks couldn’t leave the depo, costing the company $3,000 in ruined concrete. The company responded by caving in, and lifted the lock out. As well as lifting their lockout Bridgeman also conceded to workers’ demands for a fairer redundancy agreement that […]

Twyford and the idiocy of pacifism

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, October 5th, 2009 - 17 comments

I have to agree with Tim Selwyn in his criticism of Phil Twyford’s peace about Moriori pacifism. Twyford writes on Red Alert: Moriori elders told us the story of chief Nunuku who made the covenant of peace, renouncing warfare and cannibalism. Hand to hand fighting with a wooden staff was allowed but only until first […]

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