Written By: - Date published: 10:26 pm, May 21st, 2012 - 4 comments
Wellington’s electricity network was privatised 20 years ago. The water network wasn’t. Tomorrow evening (Tuesday) researchers Peter Harris, Dick Werry and Jim Turner will present their outcome comparison to a Fabian seminar at St John’s Church Hall in Wellington at 5:30pm. Water network costs rose by 17% over the period, electricity network costs by four times that amount. The reach of both networks is similar – the lesson is that the required return on appreciating assets from privatisation drives up the costs. All welcome to come and discuss. You can register here.
Written By: - Date published: 5:13 pm, May 21st, 2012 - 2 comments
Tomorrow night in Auckland four University teams from Auckland, Victoria and Otago will present their visions and prescriptions for New Zealand’s economic future in an event which is
open to the public, and will be held from 5.30pm at the University of Auckland Business School. All are welcome to attend – it should be interesting.
Written By: - Date published: 2:18 pm, May 17th, 2012 - 22 comments
No Right Turn on the latest case of Banks failing to declare donations. Banks has broken the rules. The credibility of Parliament is at stake.
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 17th, 2012 - 101 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Written By: - Date published: 7:12 am, May 16th, 2012 - 27 comments
His policies (such that they are) aren’t working, his government is now being questioned, his economy is stuck in the doldrums, so naturally Key is looking for someone to blame. The media!
Written By: - Date published: 8:22 am, May 15th, 2012 - 12 comments
Unemployment’s up, wages are flat, retail and export prices in freefall. Last budget National promised 4% this year – it’s 1%. But never fear, the brighter future is just around the corner – again. Key says growth will be strong in 2013/14 -2 years from now. Does anyone still believe him?
Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, May 8th, 2012 - 21 comments
Dr Sandra Grey from the Tertiary Education Union has a look at Stephen Joyce’s proposals to changing the governance of tertiary education institutions. She suggests that he has a look at what happened in the changes to the polytechs in 2009. And also points out that his proposals don’t follow what is known about good governance for universities.
But it has been apparent to readers here that Joyce prefers to be a fiddler rather than being effective..
Written By: - Date published: 1:40 pm, May 1st, 2012 - 7 comments
David Cameron was summoned to Parliament to explain why he has not called an enquiry into Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt’s backdoor contacts with the Murdochs. Cameron accepted verbal assurances from Hunt but did not ask for evidence, and Hunt was “not aware” of what his now-sacked confidential adviser was doing. Sounds very familiar here; both Ministers are on the slippery slope and both PM’s evasiveness is costing them at the polls. Question Time should be interesting today.
Written By: - Date published: 10:35 am, April 29th, 2012 - 27 comments
Armstrong tries to downplay the risks of charter schools. To do so of course he has to (as the PM so often does) denigrate the science that he wants to ignore.
Written By: - Date published: 3:14 pm, April 28th, 2012 - 87 comments
Lots of people… get down to Britomart.. Mind you Britomart is filling up rapidly. They need a few more megaphones by the look of the crowd. Penny Bright sucks at chants. Slowly moving off. This is mining protest levels… A lot of people… Seriously slow. Walked 50 metres. Really good humoured and highly social. Lots …
Written By: - Date published: 12:08 pm, April 26th, 2012 - 21 comments
Gareth Morgan and Peter Harris will speak at a Community Forum on the sale of State-owned assets on Sunday 29th at 3:30pm at the Island Bay Bowling Club, 260 The Parade, Island Bay, Wellington. The forum is being organised by the Wellington South Branch of the Labour Party. All welcome.
Written By: - Date published: 9:53 pm, April 24th, 2012 - 25 comments
Alastair Cameron has been appointed Chief of Staff in David Shearer’s Parliamentary office. I’m delighted to hear it; we were on the New Zealand Council together when Alastair was a law student. Since then he’s started Labour’s successful Summer School, been a Fulbright scholar, practised law, and worked in Marian Hobbs’ office. He’s a very good choice.
Written By: - Date published: 5:59 pm, April 24th, 2012 - 44 comments
At the Finance Select Committee today, Maggie Barry told a submitter “You are not here to ask us questions, you are here to answer our questions.” The submitter’s question was reasonable; but it was addressed to closed minds. Todd McLay who chairs the committee on state asset sales referred to a number of the submissions as “emotional”. He was right. It was anger, and it won’t go away.
Written By: - Date published: 9:42 am, April 19th, 2012 - 8 comments
Long time Labour Party stalwart Murdo MacMillan’s funeral will be at St Peter’s Church on Friday 20th at 10am. Son of a seaman and ex-wharfie, rock-solid in his values, Murdo made a huge contribution behind the scenes to Labour’s successes over the best part of forty years.
Written By: - Date published: 4:50 pm, April 8th, 2012 - 89 comments
We know that giving SkyCity more pokie machines will mean more problem gamblers, more crime. The Right says it’s worth it for the convention centre. But the official numbers show that’s a dog and we would pay for it in the long-run. It’s not one side of this equation that is bad for New Zealand, it’s both.
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 2nd, 2012 - 99 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 28th, 2012 - 91 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Written By: - Date published: 7:10 pm, March 27th, 2012 - 194 comments
What a surprise.
Cameron Slater’s been caught lying again.
Written By: - Date published: 2:25 pm, March 27th, 2012 - 14 comments
“Ms Collins strenuously denies hints by opposition parties that her office was involved in leaking Bronwyn Pullar’s information to the media. She says only herself, one staff member, chairman John Judge and ACC’s chief executive had the information”. Hmm. 4 people, at least 1 head to roll. Not hard to see where this going. Playing Russian roulette with Collins is where she pulls the trigger but aims the gun at you.
Written By: - Date published: 3:37 pm, March 26th, 2012 - 42 comments
Throughout the teatapes affair Key has received special treatment. Huge police resources have been wasted. Today’s announcement of no charges is even timed for when Key is overseas. Key claims to be vindicated but no court has ruled Ambrose broke the law. The ruse of the warning and the letter of regret is clearly intended to allow Key to save face. Key literally asks us to “move on” but he must answer for the resources he had wasted and the chilling effect on the media of his strong arm tactics.
Written By: - Date published: 2:27 pm, March 25th, 2012 - 15 comments
Keeping PoAL workers out makes no sense industrially.
It means the port’s taking a political and PR hit without even gaining some cleared containers.
But perhaps getting the port making money isn’t the endgame for this dispute…
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 25th, 2012 - 76 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 24th, 2012 - 49 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 23rd, 2012 - 107 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Written By: - Date published: 7:01 pm, March 22nd, 2012 - 13 comments
I wish to tender my resignation as Chair of the Ports of Auckland Board. I took a profitable and efficient Port and lost it millions of dollars in contracts. I spent, inappropriately, substantial amounts of money on a public relations campaign against our staff that could have been spent reinvesting in the port or returning to Auckland Council. The financial position of the Port is in a dire decline. We wish
Written By: - Date published: 10:37 pm, March 20th, 2012 - 11 comments
When Treasurer Wayne Swan recently took on wealthy vested interests in defence of democracy and the Aussie fair go, he was attacked as an old-fashioned class warrior. Australian researchers found 86% of Australians think that class exists, and they support Swan by 58% to 26%. Their conclusion – opening up the debate about inequality is a sure-fire winner for Labor.
Written By: - Date published: 2:26 pm, March 15th, 2012 - 46 comments
The judge is just dismissing the jury for the day – they will resume deliberations tomorrow morning.
Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, March 15th, 2012 - 14 comments
Recently, an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal describing how CEOs around the world spend their time. The article drew on data from a larger study, the Executive Time Use Project . This project relied on reports of time use by CEO’s personal assistants; making it more accurate. It came across my usual reading and I thought I might share some of the findings with you.
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, March 10th, 2012 - 136 comments
Josie Pagani has this to say about casualisation and the POAL dispute: On Sean Plunket’s ZB show today. Talking about the ports. ‘Casualisation’ scares us because it sounds like short hand for bad hours, low pay and no annual leave. It sounds like life in the early industrial revolution pre-unions. In some jobs it is. The …
Written By: - Date published: 4:33 pm, March 6th, 2012 - 4 comments
Union’s have gone global in response to global financial capital’s push to drive wage costs to the bottom. Canadian United Steel Workers (USW) will meet local workers in Invercargill on Thursday at the Working Men’s Club at 8pm and picket outside Rio Tinto office in Wellington on Friday at 12:30pm. All welcome.
Written By: - Date published: 3:19 pm, March 3rd, 2012 - 19 comments
Vodafone appears to be billing for at least two text scams run by the same Greek, Photis Photou who runs a Cyprus law firm specialising in shelf companies and tax business. I haven’t asked for the texts, and wonder why Vodafone is clipping the ticket for Photis and presumably themselves as well.
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