Armstrong and Small on Nick Smith’s RMA reforms
Written By:
Date published: 9:05 am, January 24th, 2015 - 26 comments
Senior political reporters Vern Small and John Armstrong have both chosen to pan Nick Smith’s proposed RMA changes using remarkably similar logic. Update: and Fran O’Sullivan has a go too.
Metiria Turei’s speech prepared for Ratana
Written By:
Date published: 8:00 am, January 24th, 2015 - 88 comments
Metiria Turei’s speech prepared for delivery at Ratana has attracted some attention for her strong criticism of John Key’s revisionism of Aotearoa’s history in suggesting that Aotearoa was settled peaceably.
Open mike 24/01/2015
Written By:
Date published: 7:08 am, January 24th, 2015 - 199 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Weekend social 23/01/2015
Written By:
Date published: 1:01 pm, January 23rd, 2015 - 39 comments
Weekend social is for non political chat. What’s on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever. No politics, no aggro, why can’t we all just get along?
Number of Reported Child Abuse cases have dropped
Written By:
Date published: 12:27 pm, January 23rd, 2015 - 27 comments
For the first time in ten years, reported cases of child abuse have declined. Minister Tolley and I are in agreement, that the number is still appallingly high. I sincerely hope that the reduction over the last year is due to government policies because then we can expect the downward trend to continue over the […]
The last gasp of oil
Written By:
Date published: 8:23 am, January 23rd, 2015 - 109 comments
Fracking has created a short term oil glut. That’s bad news for climate change. Could we at least find a silver lining in this carbon cloud, or will it be business as usual?
Open mike 23/01/2015
Written By:
Date published: 6:30 am, January 23rd, 2015 - 213 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Odgers in s**t
Written By:
Date published: 3:45 pm, January 22nd, 2015 - 30 comments
That’s as in spat. Characteristic. Richard Smith of Naked Capitalism questioned her Samoan fiduciary company fronting for a company delisted from GXG Markets, a small European exchange. It’s an interesting story, and Smith promises more to come from GXG about New Zealand if not Odgers.
The mathematics of surveillance
Written By:
Date published: 10:30 am, January 22nd, 2015 - 30 comments
Mass surveillance cannot accomplish its stated goals, and it’s likely that many within the security / government system understand this full well.
Nick Smith’s RMA reforms – low cost housing in Epsom?
Written By:
Date published: 8:32 am, January 22nd, 2015 - 84 comments
Nick Smith has given his housing speech and blamed Auckland’s housing crisis on the RMA. A Treasury commissioned report, based on discussions with developers, has put dollar figures on what the RMA is allegedly costing. The logic of the analysis is that by reducing urban design standards we will make housing more affordable. Updated with link to Rob Salmond Polity post.
Open mike 22/01/2015
Written By:
Date published: 6:56 am, January 22nd, 2015 - 266 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
Guantanamo Diary
Written By:
Date published: 11:10 pm, January 21st, 2015 - 4 comments
The Guardian has some amazing extracts from a diary that Guantánamo detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi kept and gave to his lawyers. It’s the first book by a serving Guantanamo inmate.
The prince and the pea
Written By:
Date published: 8:45 pm, January 21st, 2015 - 80 comments
I have pointed out before that Bomber Bradbury is wee bit unsuited to the two way dialogue of the blogs. A fragile prima donna who doesn’t like to be contradicted by the people he gallantly slags off in his routine piques of bitchy ranting. Updated with Bomber proving the point as his manufactured myths fall apart.
But which club?
Written By:
Date published: 3:41 pm, January 21st, 2015 - 7 comments
I think when justifying sending troops to Iraq the club John Key is really talking about is the group of right-wing political parties known as the International Democratic Union. Today Key chairs its Executive in Sarajevo, his first meeting as President. This move by Key to the IDU is calculated; he sees himself as leader of the world right-wing club and this is the first step to his international political career post New Zealand politics.
Beneficiaries falling
Written By:
Date published: 1:59 pm, January 21st, 2015 - 12 comments
Falling numbers yes, but falling through the cracks.
The price of the club
Written By:
Date published: 8:17 am, January 21st, 2015 - 179 comments
Yesterday Key justified our likely military intervention in Iraq as “the price” of being in “the club” with other Five Eyes countries.
Where is Cameron Slater?
Written By:
Date published: 7:55 am, January 21st, 2015 - 142 comments
Yesterday I got contacted about Cameron Slater’s current address. Apparently the arsehole of the kiwi blogosphere hasn’t been paying his court ordered judgements against him that have been incurred in recent years. The person who contacted me wanted to serve a notice to bankrupt him.
Open mike 21/01/2015
Written By:
Date published: 6:50 am, January 21st, 2015 - 268 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Who was the better economic manager – Helen Clark or John Key?
Written By:
Date published: 6:59 pm, January 20th, 2015 - 150 comments
Sometimes a simple graph is much more eloquent and powerful than a whole lot of words …
NRT: GCHQ spies on journalists
Written By:
Date published: 4:30 pm, January 20th, 2015 - 7 comments
I/S – “GCHQ considers investigative journalists a “security threat” alongside hackers and terrorists”…
NRT: Our financial laws mean nothing
Written By:
Date published: 4:25 pm, January 20th, 2015 - 20 comments
I/S – “the Financial Markets Authority knew about almost 4,000 crimes and never bothered to prosecute any of them”…
Espiner profile on Andrew Little
Written By:
Date published: 12:30 pm, January 20th, 2015 - 17 comments
Guyon Espiner has a paywalled profile of Andrew Little up at The Listener.
RMA reforms … be very afraid
Written By:
Date published: 9:00 am, January 20th, 2015 - 97 comments
Nick Smith today announced proposed changes to the Resource Management Act. It is likely he will resuscitate the reforms that were stalled after Peter Dunne refused to support them last year. ACT’s David Seymour has said he will support the changes even though he did not know what they are. Treasury are to release a paper with proposals for change. Updated lprent – yep National stupidity reprised.
Where have all the houses gone?
Written By:
Date published: 7:10 am, January 20th, 2015 - 131 comments
Yesterday it was announced that Auckland is the ninth least affordable city in the world requiring 8.3 times their average wage to buy a home. Reducing regulation hasn’t worked, otherwise more than 20 homes would have been built under the 2013 fast track accord. The problem is a shortage of affordable housing.
Open mike 20/01/2015
Written By:
Date published: 6:45 am, January 20th, 2015 - 139 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Top 1% own 50% of world wealth: Oxfam
Written By:
Date published: 10:44 pm, January 19th, 2015 - 241 comments
Winnie Biyanyima of Oxfam is one of six co-chairs at the Davos World Economic Forum. She says her role is to challenge the powerful elites, and she goes armed with a new report that shows that on current trends by next year the world’s richest !% will hold more wealth than the other 99%. She’s got some good ideas on what to do about it too.
An interesting milestone
Written By:
Date published: 4:22 pm, January 19th, 2015 - 37 comments
An interesting milestone in inequality is about to be passed.
Protecting our Freedom
Written By:
Date published: 1:27 pm, January 19th, 2015 - 7 comments
UK PM David Cameron thinks freedom will be enhanced by monitoring everything – something we used to call totalitarianism. We need more encryption and to make sure the internet is built for the people, not the data-miners – be they our security agencies, criminal gangs, or facebook.
War Begets War
Written By:
Date published: 9:49 am, January 19th, 2015 - 75 comments
We’re not good at learning from history.
Andrea Vance on Andrew Little’s game plan
Written By:
Date published: 8:30 am, January 19th, 2015 - 94 comments
Andrew Little will give his state of the nation speech on 28 January. What can we expect to see in it?
Open mike 19/01/2015
Written By:
Date published: 6:23 am, January 19th, 2015 - 193 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Recent Comments