Written By: - Date published: 7:38 am, April 20th, 2011 - 105 comments
Fancy suits for John.
User pays family court for us.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 14th, 2011 - 77 comments
Update: bollocks. Clayton Cosgrove has announced Labour will vote for CERA “even though we have grave concerns”. He then spent 10 minutes whining how Brownlee had lied to Labour repeatedly during this process and wasn’t to be trusted. He warned Brownlee he would be accountable if CERA stuffs up. Brownlee responded “so will you”. Labour wonders why it is stuck in National’s shadow unable to get traction – It’s decisions like this one.
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, April 11th, 2011 - 19 comments
The Crown BMWs are back in the news. One will have a $1000 underseat heater to keep a worthy’s arse toasty. Based in Dunedin. For “long-distance and long-duration movements”. Hmm. Who flies to Dunedin for a 3 hour drive to Dipton occasionally? Guess you need that heater against the Southern cold when you’re used to balmy Karori.
Written By: - Date published: 8:25 am, April 3rd, 2011 - 80 comments
The economy, shall we say politely, is facing some difficulties. With a National government there was no plan as to how to weather the economic storm, we just got tax cuts for the rich and an economy that just can’t get growing.
Written By: - Date published: 12:42 pm, March 21st, 2011 - 41 comments
There was already going to be too little money in Budget 2011 for maintenance of public services. Now what little there was is being further slashed in the name of Christchurch. An Earthquake Levy is not an option, rather we’ll all pay through increased borrowing and 25% cuts in services like police, transport, justice and social services.
Written By: - Date published: 8:04 am, March 13th, 2011 - 37 comments
Gerry Brownlee promised the West Coast a stimulus package. The government has now ruled that out. Those with whom John Key so public sympathised will not get what they were promised; they’ll be left to pick up the tab, whilst he works on his next PR opportunity.
Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, March 12th, 2011 - 72 comments
National will reject Auckland Council and Aucklanders’ view on what their future city should look like. Instead they propose One ever more sprawling city, with ever more sprawling motorways, ever more cars clogging its veins, ever less community, and ever less government money.
Written By: - Date published: 6:15 am, March 8th, 2011 - 40 comments
TVNZ7, and New Zealand public service television as a whole, looks to be coming to an end in June next year. TVNZ has been told their only responsibility is to return to the government a 9% return on investment per annum; their response is that they see pay-TV as their future. Sky is now “a frenemy”.
Written By: - Date published: 9:02 am, March 4th, 2011 - 44 comments
John Key has tidied up the confusion he caused yesterday and says that the quakes will cost the government $5 billion in rebuilding and $5 billion in lost revenue over the next 4 years. Big bikkies but easily covered by an emergency levy and canning the white elephant motorways. So, why are the Nats obsessed with tinkering with Working for Families?
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, February 22nd, 2011 - 24 comments
National’s grand plan for the economy in the age of peak, peak food, and climate change: give tax cuts to the rich and take from the poor. It’s classic Nat class war. They want to force 100,000 people off the benefit in the ludicrously long time-frame of 10 years. But they won’t be creating any jobs so other workers will be displaced and wages will be forced down.
Written By: - Date published: 6:01 am, January 29th, 2011 - 65 comments
We could look at bailed-out TranzRail and Air NZ, with privatisation leading to risk-free pay-outs for the temporary owners of infrastructure that couldn’t be allowed to fail. Or Telecom that doesn’t look out for NZers interests, and needs us to pay for it to build us a fibre network. But let’s look at the “success” story of Contact, the closest privatisation to National’s new plans.
Written By: - Date published: 1:14 pm, January 2nd, 2011 - 23 comments
Why in the hell should I carry a passport or a birth certificate for the benefit of the state? There is no reason that I can see, but at least one DHB thinks that I should because it makes their life easier. If they want proof of citizenship or resident status then they should be prepared to pay for it themselves rather than throwing the onus to prove status onto us. If the government wants to introduce a requirement to carry identity papers then they should debate this in the political arena rather than trying to sneak it in through the back door.
Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, November 4th, 2010 - 24 comments
National are continuing their privatisation by stealth. Hospitals services and a new prison are the current targets. Tony Ryall, Judith Collins and Bill English are the ministers currently pushing their ideology in their respective areas.
Written By: - Date published: 8:34 am, November 1st, 2010 - 15 comments
National are a land of broken promises – from GST rises and tax cuts to falling wages and attacks on education. Here’s my list – help me with any I’ve forgotten.
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, October 8th, 2010 - 4 comments
This government doesn’t seem to have the human touch. It fails to see the personal, just the numbers. So it’s sending 3 New Zealand children to live as ‘untouchables’ in an Indian slum, without the limited access to schools or hospitals that even the locals have – as they won’t (and can’t) be Indian citizens.
Written By: - Date published: 1:01 pm, October 7th, 2010 - 35 comments
The just released Income Survey is more evidence of the Key Government’s failure to deliver for working Kiwis. After inflation, this is the third successive year in which the median income of New Zealanders has fallen. It’s now nearly 5% lower than when National came to power. This year alone, the median income fell 3.5%.
Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, October 2nd, 2010 - 10 comments
Treasury in their first year under National tripled their expenditure on contractors whilst forcing all other departments into cuts. Bill English decided against having any public accountability, and left Tony Ryall talking rubbish trying to explain it.
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: 8:34 am, September 30th, 2010 - 29 comments
Danyl over at DimPost has produced an excellent graph of the gains from National’s Tax Swindle. It uses the Government’s figures, it is generous in showing average rather than median incomes…
And it doesn’t look good for average kiwis.
Written By: - Date published: 12:28 pm, September 28th, 2010 - 51 comments
While the cat’s away the mice will play. And while the clown’s sunning himself in Hawaii the ideologues in his Cabinet will launch vitriolic attacks on public service workers. As teachers are forced to endure another day of the country’s most powerful figures attack them, lets consider the consequences of undermining vital public services.
Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, September 21st, 2010 - 28 comments
The government was told that lowering the drink-drive limit would save 33 lives and $238 million a year. They ignored it. Why? I reckon the only money they were worried about was donations from the booze barons. These idiots don’t bother with basic cost vs benefit analyses. It’s all about pay-offs for their mates. And donation kickbacks.
Written By: - Date published: 6:55 am, September 15th, 2010 - 10 comments
The state sector is in turmoil. Secondary teachers and medical technicians are striking for fair pay and against claw-backs in their work conditions. Junior doctors look set to join them. What’s the Nats’ reaction? They’ve appointed the Scottish ‘smiling assassin’, Dr Kevin Woods, who fired 1,500 nurses from the Scottish NHS and will apply the same formula here.
Written By: - Date published: 8:11 am, September 2nd, 2010 - 48 comments
National don’t understand macroeconomics. As such they are inflicting massive and unnecessary harm, with high unemployment and a long time until recovery.
Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, August 18th, 2010 - 79 comments
National is governing like National governs. Anyone could have foreseen this, there were plenty of clues, but its only now are people who switched to Key waking up to the fact that he’s just the grinning face on the same old beast. I wonder: if someone is smart enough to see that Key’s government is a failure now, how were they dumb enough to ever believe things would be different?
Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, August 17th, 2010 - 6 comments
When John Steinbeck said “No one wants advice – only corroboration†he could well have been describing the numerous working groups the Government has established in many areas of significant economic and social policy. Too lazy to spend its nine years in opposition developing a detailed policy prescription, National now picks groups to tell it what it wants to hear.
Written By: - Date published: 2:38 pm, August 7th, 2010 - 9 comments
After half a government term of insisting that NACT had an economic plan, it has been ‘misplaced’. The full plan, said by informed sources to have been found in a brief case (along with a pie and a men’s magazine) and written on the back of an old rental expenses claim form, reveals that the government expects significant economic development will be lead by the construction of a single national transport infrastructure, namely a National Cycleway.
Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, August 6th, 2010 - 77 comments
This guest post quotes the statement attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller in Germany after World War II about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power. The comparison to NACT policies towards the education sector is striking.
Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, July 28th, 2010 - 2 comments
During the election the National Party packaged up its policies so as not to scare voters. The 90 day probationary period was for two specific reasons. It was targeted toward people on the margins of the employment market and only applicable to small businesses. Either the original justifications still hold true, hence undermining any argument to extend the scheme, or the original justifications were rubbish from the very start.
Written By: - Date published: 1:40 pm, July 25th, 2010 - 7 comments
National have been undemocratically shutting down the avenues to amend their ideologically stupid legislation. They ignore submissions to select committees and abuse the parliamentary process of urgency. The only effective means of diverting them from pushing through unworkable legislation is proving to be protests and direct action. Consequently you can expect to see a lot more of it.
Written By: - Date published: 8:34 am, July 5th, 2010 - 55 comments
Roger Douglas has a private members bill to introduce bulk funding. It (hopefully) shouldn’t get through – National are unlikely to support it as they’ve already introduced by the back door.
Written By: - Date published: 7:35 pm, June 26th, 2010 - 29 comments
Before the last election John Key promised the public service would be capped, because that’s what Kiwis wanted. That promise is now lying in tatters as jobs in education and health are to be slashed. With mining, privatisation, and now this, Mr Key shouldn’t act surprised if he suffers from the Rudd effect. This government is getting more and more out of touch.
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