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Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 10:20 am, September 7th, 2010 - 33 comments
The next Fabian seminar will be held in Wellington on Monday 13th September at Connolly Hall in Guildford Street at 5:30pm. Titled “Why not fix child poverty” – Speakers are Sue Bradford from the Alternative Welfare Working Group, and David Choat from PolicyProgress. This follows the successful Fabian seminar held in Auckland two weeks ago …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 7:52 am, August 27th, 2010 - 12 comments
There have been 6000 published* posts, 192 thousand comments, and many millions of page views. I’d guess that this multiple-author blog has a wee bit of an audience.
And the server has been stable….
Written By: Strelnikov - Date published: 10:29 pm, August 25th, 2010 - 65 comments
The recent death in Afghanistan of Lieutenant Timothy O’Donnell was a tragedy for his family and a blow to his army colleagues. It was also a missed opportunity, a chance to debate why our Government continues to send troops to a violent and intractable war, and what national strategic interests this deployment serves. In On …
Written By: The Standard - Date published: 6:00 am, August 18th, 2010 - 26 comments
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Written By: The Standard - Date published: 9:23 am, August 10th, 2010 - 4 comments
What Will Fix New Zealand’s Economy?
In Auckland: Room 260-206, Owen G Glenn Building, University of Auckland Business School, 12 Grafton Rd
Time: 5.30-7.30pm
Written By: Dancr - Date published: 3:02 pm, August 3rd, 2010 - 72 comments
From Gordon Campbell, who offers useful some thoughtful observations on the challenges ahead for Labour when figuring out what lies ahead with Chris Carter: “It is now up to Andrew Little to find a way through this morass in a way that will not do further damage to his party and his parliamentary leader. That path now looks a lot less clear that it seemed last Friday”
Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 10:57 am, July 26th, 2010 - 13 comments
For the business pages, it’s Reserve Bank week and once again the banks want the Governor to push up the price of money, while those in the real economy where the jobs are want interest rates kept steady. As they say, there are no signs of rampant inflation and growth forecasts are uncertain. But the …
Written By: RedLogix - Date published: 7:35 am, July 23rd, 2010 - 65 comments
The words of this old song date back to the 1800′s when dominant and rapacious employers in small company towns would require their employees to purchase essentials from a ‘company store’. And because the employee was so badly paid, inevitably they would run up steep tab simply to keep their family fed and clothed. In …
Written By: John A - Date published: 5:54 pm, July 20th, 2010 - 12 comments
Beware of a Finance Minister who is selective in the use of statistics. This was Bill English’s answer to a patsy question in Parliament about National and the economy…
Written By: lprent - Date published: 1:03 pm, July 20th, 2010 - 6 comments
There is a great review of “There Once Was An Island: Te Henua E Noho†at Reading the Maps. It is well worth reading and so are the comments. However ‘maps’ also opined on the weekend about where the film was shown. It expressed my feeling of being caught in some dreary surreal cyberpunk novel with the protests, police, fat cat capitalists, the desperate on their slot machines, and a documentary about losing your culture to the climate and change.
Written By: lprent - Date published: 1:30 pm, July 18th, 2010 - 9 comments
Today has been a busy day. Lyn and Briar have the NZ premiere of their documentary shortly, which limited what I could do today. But I stopped off at the protest outside of the National party conference and met The Rat. The speakers were right – it does have a strong visual resemblance to John …
Written By: The Standard - Date published: 6:00 am, July 17th, 2010 - 9 comments
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Written By: John A - Date published: 5:31 pm, June 10th, 2010 - 17 comments
For me the main scandal about taxpayer funding this week is the fact that we have all contributed $209,000 towards helping Nick Smith get out of a $15 million lawsuit. For saying something for which he has given an apology in court and paid up more than that out of his own pocket. None of …
Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 12:27 pm, June 3rd, 2010 - Comments Off
The next Fabian seminar on the Resilient Economy will be held in Christchurch on next Tuesday, 8th June. Speakers are Rick Boven from the New Zealand Insitutue and John Walley from the Manufacturers and Exporters Association. The title for the seminar is “Reshaping the New Zealand economy.” The New Zealand Institute has a project on …
Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 2:30 pm, June 2nd, 2010 - 19 comments
Recent posts and comments on the Standard have suggested that National may call an early election in 2011 because the Rugby World Cup’s halo effect will be more valuable to them before the tournament than after it’s over. David Farrar on Kiwiblog has downplayed the idea, and suggested November 26 as the likely date, but …
Written By: Dancr - Date published: 10:00 am, June 1st, 2010 - 35 comments
John Armstrong in today’s NZHerald asks whether the love affair with Key is over: After an 18-month dream run during which National had polled consistently above 50 per cent – and as high as 57 per cent – Sunday’s poll may be viewed as a watershed and the end (finally) of the honeymoon with voters. But that may be too simplistic.
Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 7:02 am, June 1st, 2010 - 27 comments
Just had a look at David Cunliffe on the Nation and was quite impressed.
Worth a look to see someone running a left economic argument well.
Written By: John A - Date published: 7:51 pm, May 31st, 2010 - 11 comments
This from McCully – It is not up to the Minister of Sport to investigate allegations of racial team selection, Murray McCully says. He said if that was the case then he would have his staff monitoring talkback radio. McCully’s trying to tell us his staff aren’t monitoring talkback radio? The great strategist and spin-meister …
Written By: John A - Date published: 6:56 pm, May 29th, 2010 - 12 comments
When floating the idea of Kiwibank’s possible sale to a post-budget audience last week, Bill English said that the government did not want to put more capital in because it was risky. Mr English, fresh from delivering the 2010 Budget, told a gathering of South Island business people yesterday that the Government might consider a …
Written By: Tammy Gordon - Date published: 6:47 pm, May 27th, 2010 - 6 comments
Seems that negotiations are underway to allow Wellington Airport stay open all night (last flights now are about 9pm) during the World Cup so that fans can travel direct to the next game thus avoiding the need for an overnight in Welly.
Written By: The Standard - Date published: 6:30 pm, May 24th, 2010 - Comments Off
The Campaign for MMP has been established to mobilise public support for the MMP electoral system leading up to the government’s planned 2011 referendum. If you’d like to be part of a Wellington organising group, then join us this Wednesday. The meeting will be also useful in helping you to write a submission on the …
Written By: John A - Date published: 12:20 pm, May 19th, 2010 - 4 comments
Brian Gaynor in Saturday’s Herald argues that investment industry organisations and their advisors owe a duty of care to investors. He calls it an “ethical overlay”, and says Unfortunately a number of developments indicate that we seem to be a million miles away from having this ethical overlay. There is little incentive for New Zealand …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 9:48 am, May 17th, 2010 - 20 comments
Nope, it isn’t the budget. It appears that there is a bomb scare. At the beehive there is an evacuation. It appears that people in the rest of the parliamentary complex are not allowed to leave, and no-one is allowed to enter. Pretty freaky how easy it is to shut down the a core of …
Written By: The Standard - Date published: 6:00 am, April 27th, 2010 - 16 comments
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Written By: Demeter - Date published: 11:22 am, April 26th, 2010 - 22 comments
Remember back in 2007 when Gerry Brownlee took some really bad PR advice and unfathomably released a video entitled “Sexy Coal”? It was bound to come back and bite him; it’s the 21st century after all. What’s particularly salacious is that Lucy Lawless is doing the biting….
Written By: lprent - Date published: 4:00 pm, April 11th, 2010 - 21 comments
Rachel Maddow has a look at exactly how much Fox News just makes stuff up and calls it news. It uses selectively edited stories like the ACORN ‘pimp’ story, the ‘climategate’ e-mails, and many other highly inaccurate ‘stories’, and promotes them for ratings.
In effect Fox News is the (un)official spin channel for conservative activists to peddle garbage entertainment on. Have a watch of Rachael as she tears the facade of conservative story telling apart.
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 1:43 pm, March 24th, 2010 - 66 comments
Andrew Campbell reports that Roger Douglas and the ACT party want to change the law so that student associations will be unable to provide the important services and representation that they currently offer by making their membership voluntary. This will put the clubs and services that many universities offer at risk.
Written By: John A - Date published: 2:10 pm, March 23rd, 2010 - 12 comments
Remember John Key’s talk about “surgical mining?” It’s like “surgical bombing” – there is a lot of collateral damage. A lot of people get hurt. It’s no good saying afterwards that he didn’t mean for that to happen.
Written By: Tammy Gordon - Date published: 6:51 pm, March 20th, 2010 - 24 comments
Two list MPs and a popular local favourit son. It was always going to be a hard one to pick and it took the selection panel most of the afternoon to decide who would go head to head with Paula Bennet next year. Phil Twyford, Carmel, Hamish McCracken and Ann Pala were all up for …
Written By: John A - Date published: 5:44 pm, March 13th, 2010 - 5 comments
On Monday this week the front page of the Auckland Herald’s print edition announced that the paper was going to run a campaign to fight what it called “the lockout of democracy” in the Super City. There was nothing on the Herald website all week, which seems odd if it was a real campaign. On …
Written By: John A - Date published: 2:15 pm, March 7th, 2010 - 14 comments
Michael Gove, Britain’s Conservative shadow Children’s Minister, has unveiled their version of National standards. Like Anne Tolley, he is sure he knows what parents want. The Times reports: ‘I’m an unashamed traditionalist when it comes to the curriculum,’ Mr Gove said. ‘Most parents would rather their children had a traditional education, with children sitting in …
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