Written By: - Date published: 2:13 pm, June 24th, 2011 - 5 comments
No Right Turn on John Key’s confusion over Pike River. The flip flopping PM at his finest.
Written By: - Date published: 2:19 pm, March 15th, 2011 - 7 comments
No Right Turn says all that is required on another of Nationals aspirational failures.
For the past year, the government has been talking a lot about ”boosting science and innovation” as the ”keys to economic growth”. Today, we saw the reality behind that talk, with news that NIWA is planning to sack 5% of its total workforce:
Written By: - Date published: 11:02 am, December 10th, 2010 - 35 comments
The usual suspects are accusing Labour of “flip flopping” on its position on the foreshore and seabed. You have to admire their bare-faced gall eh?
Written By: - Date published: 1:23 pm, October 1st, 2010 - 61 comments
Remember how John Key used to talk about GST? Here is a video reminding everyone of the past before he did his usual flip-flop to favour the rich while increasing costs on most people. The GST increase and the consequent inflation will make almost everyone worse off unless they are wealthy enough to bribe the NACT’s.
Written By: - Date published: 7:32 pm, May 15th, 2010 - 31 comments
David Farrar has finally made a comment on my “Hey Chubby…” post. It raises more questions than it answers. So I ask some of the obvious questions, and conclude that he has forsaken the principles of “free speech” that he so enthusiastically espoused only a few years ago.
Written By: - Date published: 9:02 am, May 13th, 2010 - 15 comments
Phil Goff has put some good solid (if rather moderate) left-wing substance on the table in his pre-budget speech yesterday. Duncan Garner says that was the right move, but wonders if Labour now needs to focus on the questions surrounding John Key. Garner says in the wake of several questionable moves Key’s integrity is now on the line and Labour should exploit it.
Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, April 29th, 2010 - 19 comments
National is predictably planning to put the cost of polluters’ actions on to the rest of us by canning the major parts of the ETS. This stupid game of pass the buck is played out all over the world – polluters refuse to accept their responsibilities, governments refuse to act – as more greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere, locking us in to economic and ecological devastation.
Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, April 26th, 2010 - 21 comments
The other day, Chris Finlayson described himself as a Pollyanna – it’s an American term (of derision) for someone who sees everything as positive, ignoring unhappy realities. Finlayson is all bouncy and optimistic, selling his ‘no-one owns it’ ‘solution’ to the F&S issue. But I have not heard a single Maori leader who agrees with his offer or anything like it.
Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, February 11th, 2010 - 3 comments
“An unscientific poll yesterday of 846 readers asking whether they would be happy to pay more GST if it meant they paid less income tax found 46.9 per cent in favour, 43.9 per cent opposed and about 8 per cent undecided.” – Stuff “Unscientific poll” I take to mean one of their online polls, and …
Written By: - Date published: 8:51 am, October 6th, 2009 - 46 comments
Poor DPF must feel like he’s through the looking glass these days. He’s got to defend a government that flip flopped on tax cut promises. He’s got to defend a leader that refuses to be open with the public (on why a Minister was sacked). He’s got to defend the blatant greed and hypocrisy of …
Written By: - Date published: 9:01 am, September 29th, 2009 - 28 comments
If DPF doesn’t practice Yoga already I think he should take it up. He’d be a natural. He’s so damn flexible! I’ve had occasion to comment on this once before. But for the EFA we see DPF lowering the bar of consistency to unbelievable depths, and limboing right on down. The Electoral Finance Act (EFA). …
Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, July 12th, 2009 - 32 comments
What a horrifying sight today’s Q+A interview with Minister of Food Safety Kate Wilkinson made. It was a shameful performance from a media point of view, with Wilkinson looking ineffectual, implausible and well out of her depth. But from a political point of view it was gobsmacking. Wilkinson enthusiastically admitted that she didn’t agree with new …
Written By: - Date published: 1:29 pm, June 4th, 2009 - 6 comments
Before the election National’s “Employment & Workplace Relations” policy set out the principle of “building opportunity for all”, and the need to “Expand job opportunities for those having difficulty getting work -like young, inexperienced people or new immigrants.” The Job Summit talk-fest paid plenty of lip service to the importance of jobs: Key: [Jobs] count …
Written By: - Date published: 5:17 pm, May 8th, 2009 - 17 comments
Jeanette Fitzsimmons has written a very good post from the Emissions Trading Scheme special select committee* about her views on the impact of farming on our Kyoto obligations. She commented on the Federated Farmers submission which essentially said that they thought farming should be excluded from paying anything. That really isn’t feasible in NZ because… …
Written By: - Date published: 6:55 pm, April 11th, 2009 - 3 comments
It wasn’t so long ago that National’s covert attack organ, the Free Speech Coalition, were squealing about how anti-democratic the last Labour government was, with plenty of snappy billboards like this one. Well now that the tragedy of Fiji’s dictatorship is going from bad to worse, don’t expect to hear any more concern from the …
Written By: - Date published: 9:55 am, March 22nd, 2009 - 19 comments
John Armstrong March 21 2009 – “So the National Government is variously inching, shifting, drifting, veering or lurching to the right, depending on where you stand on the political spectrum. Surprise, surprise… John Key may have portrayed himself as a moderate pragmatist in Opposition – indeed he is still doing exactly that as Prime Minister …
Written By: - Date published: 5:59 pm, March 4th, 2009 - 53 comments
Reply is a feature that accidentally got turned on last week when I had a adware/malware outbreak through a security hole (those buggers are smart and fast). I did complete reinstall with updated software. Somewhere during the upgrade, the reply feature was turned on. Now I’ve been occupied by moving house for the first time …
Written By: - Date published: 7:43 am, January 15th, 2009 - 13 comments
My favourite indicator for a deep recession is showing up. The applications and enrollments for colleges and graduate programs appears to be significantly up in the east, west, and south of the US and Canada. Probably something similar is happening here but we are unlikely to know until later this month. The reason that this …
Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, December 17th, 2008 - 29 comments
After initially saying they would cap the number of state houses, National/ACT’s Housing Minister Phil Heatley actually got informed. Despite the good work that Labour did increasing the number of state houses and their quality, the problem has not been completely solved – there are thousands of families still in need of affordable housing. Now, Heatley says, there …
Written By: - Date published: 11:33 pm, November 27th, 2008 - 45 comments
National/ACT has only been in power a week, but the flip-flops keep coming. Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee will not confirm that that National/ACT will reversing the new light-bulb standards. This after they campaigned hard against these standards and Key repeatedly promised that under a National government people would not be told which type of light-bulbs they can use. Brownlee …
Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, October 29th, 2008 - 21 comments
Slippery John’s flip-flops keep on coming. Here he is just three weeks ago in the Listener: “you either have a conflict of interest or you don’t; it doesn’t matter whether you hold one share or a million” and, today, on Breakfast: ‘it’s a very small number, no-one thinks a Member of Parliament with 500 Contact …
Written By: - Date published: 2:35 pm, October 9th, 2008 - 24 comments
No, I’m not talking about National’s tax cuts, which would hit the poorest Kiwis in the pocket – John Key doesn’t seem to be content at just that. We have received an exclusive audio recording of Mr Key’s performance at the Helensville debate on Monday. When housing was an all-important issue earlier this year Mr …
Written By: - Date published: 2:55 pm, October 7th, 2008 - 30 comments
If he stands true to his principles, National justice spokesman Simon Power will soon be criticising the cost of their proposed new prison. You’ll note in this story that National proposes to build a prison (for their new reactionary justice policy) at a cost of $314 million. That is $548,951 per bed. Or not far …
Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, October 7th, 2008 - 22 comments
At the first Helensville candidates’ debate last night, John Key reversed his position on state housing once again. Despite using the years he lived in a state house as “a great marketing ploy”, Key called the plan to build state houses along with more up-market homes on the site of Hobsonville airbase “economic vandalism”. Then he …
Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, September 12th, 2008 - 14 comments
On Sunday, John Key, apparently off-the-cuff, announced he would dismantle the Families Commission and give the money to church groups, who just happened to be the people he was speaking to at the time. Then, he had to speak to UnitedFuture Leader Peter Dunne. The Families Commission is his baby and Key will probably need …
Written By: - Date published: 2:29 pm, September 9th, 2008 - 67 comments
Can’t put it any better than Jafapete has: Seems that John Key has done it again. Announced policy off-the-cuff and back tracked later. TV3 reports that, speaking to an Auckland families forum yesterday, Key ‘veered away from a written speech appearing to announce in off the cuff remarks that National would axe the commission.’ ‘He …
Written By: - Date published: 5:59 pm, August 25th, 2008 - 15 comments
From RNZ’s Checkpoint I hear they’ve been after Maurice Williamson all day to clarify what he said on Agenda yesterday (as discussed below). But he’s gone to ground and is not returning calls. Williamson may admire what they are doing in Australia but Gordon Campbell sounds a note of warning: Interesting that the National Party …
Written By: - Date published: 11:43 am, August 20th, 2008 - 50 comments
John Key called us to task in his interview with Wammo today: “every leftwing blogger out there has a field-day going on and on about the fact that Labour say I said climate change is a hoax…they should just get their facts right down at The Standard because the facts are I said ‘Kyoto is …
Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, August 6th, 2008 - Comments Off
08wire.org, your videos make me smile.
Written By: - Date published: 6:12 am, July 31st, 2008 - 56 comments
I believe there are three core criteria on which a politician or party needs to be judged: (in no particular order) – policy, competency, trustworthiness – Do they have a good plan, are they capable of implementing such a plan, can we trust them to carry out the plan if we vote for them. National’s …
Written By: - Date published: 11:05 am, July 30th, 2008 - 6 comments
This straight from Public Address – Guest writer Simon Pound: John Key has announced the adoption of yet another flagship Labour policy having a female leader. In a one-page policy briefing released today he stated that under a National government he would undergo gender realignment to have what it takes to lead the Country. “I’ve …
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