Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, September 8th, 2010 - 8 comments
As our msm persist with their increasingly banal fixation on Christchurch’s troubles, I’m reminded of a story that appeared in 2001 not long after the horror of 9/11. It was about a political advisor in the Blair administration who was caught-out doing her job. On the day of the attacks Jo Moore sent an email …
Written By: - Date published: 11:16 pm, September 6th, 2010 - 13 comments
It’s been nearly two years now of Paula Bennett declaring that the unemployment crisis is over. Yesterday, she put out a press release titled ‘More than 6,000 beneficiaries find jobs in August‘. Wow, 6,000 in a month, pretty good. But Bennett must have been hoping we wouldn’t read beyond the title. The fact is that 900 more people went on the dole than came off it. The total number of beneficiaries just keeps climbing.
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, September 6th, 2010 - 12 comments
Unnoticed amongst all the earthquake coverage was a small article in the Weekend Dompost on the foreshore and seabed deal. Apparently, ‘public domain’ will no longer appear in the new legislation. Instead, we’ll have a new name, possibly ‘takutaimoana’, Te Reo for ‘seabed’. That sound you can hear Winston Peters is rubbing his hands with glee.
Written By: - Date published: 11:12 pm, September 2nd, 2010 - 23 comments
Over the next few weeks the nats and other vested interests will try to muddy the waters over the SCF bailout.
This sophistry is designed to distract from the massive transfer of wealth from the many to the few.
And why shouldn’t they try this tactic? It worked for asset sales two and a half decades ago.
Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, August 20th, 2010 - 24 comments
Bill English thinks he has proven that wages grew just 3% under Labour and grew 15.5% under National in the 1990s. How’s he done it? By taking a ridiculous definition of wages and a very convenient timeframe. Bill, this is getting old. Your distortions are transparent and exposing you is too easy. How about, rather than fudging historic numbers, you get on with your job of building a better future?
Written By: - Date published: 1:50 pm, August 16th, 2010 - 22 comments
Brian Edwards and Bill Ralston give contrasting accounts of Michael Laws’ PR handling of his latest relationship issues. Edwards thinks Laws dealt with it well (and reduced the ‘story’ to a molehill), Ralston thinks Laws cocked-up by preempting any other media coverage and giving more away than necessary. On Ralston’s blog there’s a nicely caustic exchange …
Written By: - Date published: 10:22 pm, August 12th, 2010 - 24 comments
Tony Ryall’s been running significant health-cuts under the radar for a while now.
But with the heat going on down south he’s breaking out the “spot check” story to show he’s in touch.
He’s a slippery old bugger…
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, August 9th, 2010 - 43 comments
The rate at which National have been spinning of late is giving me nausea. It can’t be long until they get to the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide scenario of declaring black to be white and getting run over on the nearest zebra crossing.
Written By: - Date published: 8:50 am, July 19th, 2010 - 64 comments
Does John Key have any evidence or official advice to back up his claim that taking away workers’ rights to basic fairness and natural justice promotes growth? Will Kiwi workers be as a result of taking away our job security and bargaining power?
Written By: - Date published: 3:10 pm, July 18th, 2010 - 67 comments
Key’s trying to spin his way out of taking responsibility for his attack on workers.
And he thinks union-bashing is the way to do it.
Perhaps he needs reminding that unions are just groups of workers who’re working together for a fair deal?
Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, July 13th, 2010 - 122 comments
New Zealand hero Pete Bethune isn’t one for mincing his words – now that he’s free to speak them. He’s described the New Zealand Government as a “fat little lapdog” to Japan, eager to roll over and submit to the bullying of any power, no matter how unprincipled its actions, just as long as there’s a promise …
Written By: - Date published: 6:55 am, July 13th, 2010 - 7 comments
Judith Collins is lauding the $1.2 billion of economic activity that will suppoedly result from the private prison at Wiri. But wait, the government is planning to spend $101 million on construction and $40m per year for 30 years on wages. That’s $1.3b spent for only in $1.2b of economic activity. How’s that? Oh, yeah, the private foreign owner who will be taking hundreds of millions offshore.
Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, July 12th, 2010 - 14 comments
Something that really boiled my blood a few weeks back, but which I haven’t had a chance to write about yet was this post by National Party pollster David Farrar on the topic of a recent lull in homicides in a single police district. It was the worst kind of politics – a person who knows his argument is false taking advantage of the suffering of people and the ignorance of his audience for petty party political points scoring.
Written By: - Date published: 7:51 am, June 24th, 2010 - 125 comments
A government whose raison d’etre is furthering corporate interests can be pretty damned incompetent and still do okay, because corporate msm do the PR for them. And in return for this government favouring corporate interests over all else we’ve seen countless examples of NACT committing howling errors of judgement, if not outright illegalities, only to …
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, June 13th, 2010 - 56 comments
In a short statement outside the Beehive today Labour leader Phil Goff conceded the 2011 election to National.
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, June 2nd, 2010 - 18 comments
The Budget is turning into something of an embarrassment for the media. Even before it had been released, the journos in their lock-up had written pieces proclaiming it a hugely popular success. The evidence says they got it wrong. The people think they’ll be worse off. Journos need to stop deciding public opinion before it has had a chance to form, let alone be sampled.
Written By: - Date published: 10:57 am, May 26th, 2010 - 64 comments
So Blinglish’s new and improved less-bitter poison is part-privatisation. In much the same way as marketing a filling as more fun than a full root-canal, he thinks that if he sells each of his mates one piece of the family silver (and keeps the spoons) instead of flogging off the whole set to one of his mates, we’ll be much happier.
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, May 24th, 2010 - 40 comments
I love that John Key is so desperate to show some progress on his memorial cycleway that he’s even going along to the opening of cycleways that aren’t funded with its money. On Sunday he showed up at the opening of a cycleway in Oamaru. The cycleway was funded by the council and NZTA. The recession has been over for a year – not a single job has been created, no cycleway built.
Written By: - Date published: 11:56 am, May 22nd, 2010 - 41 comments
It’s interesting to see how Irish’s ‘rabbit from a hat’ metaphor has taken off for describing this Budget. Some, like Tracey Watkins, are even using it positively. She needs to have a bit more of a think about what the rabbit from a hat is. The rabbit itself is nothing special. In fact, in this case it’s a borrowed bunny, despite the media’s tendency to portray tax cut as costless.
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, May 21st, 2010 - 20 comments
There’s some useful scenarios to look at on the beehive’s tax site. They show how we all pay less tax, even after GST, and somehow the government also gets more tax. I love maths like that. But some of them seem to have something missing, so I thought I’d correct a couple of them…
Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, May 20th, 2010 - 21 comments
Giving the rich a bucket of your money, is about keeping valuable people (who must be rich, by definition) in this country, or closing loopholes (by make the cheat automatic), or was it about boosting growth through trickle down (which is like helping a dehydrated man by giving water to someone with an already full bladder and hoping they piss on him)? Whatever, just don’t be jealous, OK?
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, May 19th, 2010 - 12 comments
Tomorrow, National will give huge tax cuts to the wealthiest New Zealanders. $12,000 a year for a typical CEO or a Prime Minister on $350,000 a year. $290,000 a year for Paul Reynolds, the CEO of Telecom. The Right are trying a bunch of excuses for this unneeded gift to the richest people in the country, paid for by working Kiwis. Let’s debunk ‘em.
Written By: - Date published: 11:35 am, May 17th, 2010 - 32 comments
There are several myths about the coming tax swap that have a surprising amount of currency. The biggest is that this tax swap will boost growth. It won’t and the Tax Working Group never said it would. What it will do is increase inequality with massive tax cuts for the elite funded by higher GST and rents for working Kiwis. That’s not by accident or inevitable – it’s by design.
Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, May 4th, 2010 - 52 comments
Tracey Watkins is less than chuffed over the way the media were used on John Key’s ‘secret’ Afghanistan trip:…Equally troubling was the control exerted by the Prime Minister’s Office over access – Key refused to make room for journalists from the country’s two biggest media companies, Fairfax and APN. Even state broadcaster Radio New Zealand was left in the cold.
Written By: - Date published: 10:25 pm, May 2nd, 2010 - 47 comments
50,000 New Zealanders march against the mining plans of this government. For many, the mining agenda is yet another black mark against this government that has done nothing positive about the issues that matter – jobs, wages, health, education, the environment. But the capitalist elite who so desperately wanted their party in power are getting pretty pissed off too.
Written By: - Date published: 11:26 pm, April 21st, 2010 - 27 comments
TVNZ: “Labour has been rumbled secretly polling its own members”. Jesus, can’t Labour can’t even poll its own members without the media playing silly buggers? They’re asking their members about the party’s branding (not its values, its branding). That’s a good thing. It’s the members’ party after all. Good stuff, Labour. You don’t see National asking for its members’ opinions.
Written By: - Date published: 12:20 pm, April 18th, 2010 - 7 comments
Journos. Obama didn’t meet Key before dinner on a big stage in front of the media because it was just practical. The leaders didn’t stand with awkward grins for the group photo because it was a crucial step in the diplomatic process. This is being done for you. Only you. It is meaningless apart from the fact they know the media will lap it up. They think you’re saps. And you keep proving them right.
Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, April 17th, 2010 - 10 comments
Vernon Small calculates that if the Cullen Fund had continued getting its monthly contributions, rather than just the one-off $250 million the government gave in July, we would be $30 million better off by now. Predictably, the financially illiterate Key apologists are having a cry about being shown to have stuffed this one up so badly.
Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, April 16th, 2010 - 23 comments
It’s time for the Nats to reverse what Vernon Small (with 20/20 hindsight) has labeled the “dumb, short-sighted decision” to can contributions to the Cullen Fund. We’ve already lost $25 million and Treasury says we’ll lose billions more. If we don’t make this investment now, superannuation will become unsustainable sometime after 2030. Perhaps that’s the Nats’ aim.
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, March 31st, 2010 - 16 comments
The Nats run orchestrated smear campaigns coordinated with ministers’ offices, bloggers, and tame journos. National doesn’t want to and can’t engage in real political debate on the issues. So it is reduced to mud throwing. Some brave journo needs to shine a light on what is going on here. It is not good enough for the government to get away with using its proxies to wage secret smear campaigns.
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, March 25th, 2010 - 43 comments
National’s mining policy is ‘dig and hope’. That’s the only conclusion one can draw after Gerry Brownlee and Nick Smith admitted National has no idea of the value of the minerals supposedly under the protected lands they want to dig up. Remember, this is National’s lynch-pin economic policy. They are we have dig up these protected lands for the sake of the economy but have no idea of what’s there.
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