Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, February 9th, 2012 - 9 comments
Steven Joyce’s piece on Tuesday was a transparent and hypocritical attempt to frame political opponents negatively, and soften us up for more asset sales, mining, deep sea drilling and the like. Thing is, it’s the Nats with their misguided austerity cuts who are the real nay-sayers holding the country back.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 pm, September 7th, 2011 - 50 comments
Sometimes the similarities between life and art are uncanny.
A reader sent us in a Steven Joyce lookalike pic (over the jump).
Written By: - Date published: 6:39 pm, September 4th, 2011 - 36 comments
The right sure won’t be able to criticise Labour about a lack of renewal in their list after National’s release of their party list. If you want an actual example of what a non-renewing list really looks like, I think we now have the definitive one. It looks a lot like their energy policy this week – lots of pious talk about renewables but really just mining the same old things that have been doing for generations.
Written By: - Date published: 12:17 pm, June 10th, 2011 - 36 comments
Joyce was told that building the new train cars at the Kiwirail workshop in Dunedin would bring half a billion into the economy. Joyce insisted Kiwirail go with the ‘cheapest’ option. China. Now, another 40 jobs have been axed. Not to mention other economic losses. Joyce is unrepentant. Blind to the cost of ‘cheap’. Aussie’s do it smarter than Joyce.
Written By: - Date published: 6:17 am, June 2nd, 2011 - 54 comments
John Key prefers his gut to real evidence, and it means that the policies he is implementing aren’t the ones that are best for our country.
Also: Steven Joyce & the Rail Loop.
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, April 11th, 2011 - 18 comments
In 2009, Bill ‘Double Dipton’ English survived a corruption scandal that would have sunk a less important minister. Key couldn’t afford to lose him. Now, evidence continues to emerge of how Steven Joyce gave his old company a sweetheart loan against the official advise. Do you think John Key will act or is Joyce too big to fail?
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, April 5th, 2011 - 27 comments
Even considering putting in a new harbor crossing without heavy rail that hooks into our existing public transport rail system is simply ideological stupidity by National. Well it is good to see that Aucklanders recognize the critical requirement for a new harbor crossing – “Rail crossing wins big backing in poll”. The sample is small but quite clear…
Written By: - Date published: 12:32 pm, March 27th, 2011 - 45 comments
Steven Joyce and the NZ Transport Authority seem to be living in the 20th century. You know the time, when there was a strong causation and correlation between rising numbers of people and increased use of roads. But neither appear to have caught up with the 21st century where that isn’t happening. Yearning for the 1960′s in planning transport infrastructure doesn’t help Auckland or the rest of NZ
Written By: - Date published: 5:47 pm, January 2nd, 2011 - 29 comments
OIA papers show Key blocked lowering the drink-drive level fearing an anti-’PC’ backlash. Officials warned “Drivers with a blood-alcohol content of [80mg], who are legally entitled to drive, are significantly impaired”. But Key’s office was worried about votes. So Joyce kicked for touch – commissioned 2 years of research. While we wait, more lives are lost.
Written By: - Date published: 2:59 pm, December 23rd, 2010 - 1 comment
The government’s hoping-to-be-ignored Christmas announcements continue. They’re shockingly cancelling payouts to care-giving relatives of disabled adults, diverting the dodgy PEDA funding and investigating the Auckland central rail tunnel. Look over there – there’s Santa!
Written By: - Date published: 7:08 pm, November 1st, 2010 - 8 comments
Are Joyce’s plans for a regulatory holiday on the proposed ultra-fast fibre broadband network a violation of international legal commitments? InternetNZ says yes. Joyce says no. Labour’s Clare Curren accuses the Nats of “disregard for NZ law, legal trade obligations and public scrutiny”.
Written By: - Date published: 7:58 am, August 7th, 2010 - 40 comments
Herald political editor John Armstrong has slammed National’s “arrogant” behaviour in Parliament saying it verges on “being a disgrace to itself and the institution”. This is incredibly strong language from a senior journalist. It is the result of a government which is undermining democratic accountability in Parliament by lying and obfuscating in answer to opposition questions.
Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, July 27th, 2010 - 62 comments
So, National has failed to act on drink driving. The Director of the National Addiction Centre calls it “scandalous”. While recidivist and youth drink drivers will, from early next year, be permitted to drive only if they have consumed no alcohol, the rest of the population will be able to continue to drive as intoxicated, …
Written By: - Date published: 11:11 am, July 16th, 2010 - 37 comments
Some people still think of universities as fusty old ivory towers disconnected from the real world. That hasn’t been true for decades. Our current universities and tertiary institutions are business, they are structured and run to maximise their income in whatever funding framing the government of the day has in place. Predictably, the Nats latest proposed sausage machine funding model is a disaster.
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, July 8th, 2010 - 3 comments
Auckland Transport Blog saying the bleeding obvious about the aggrandizement project that appears to be Steven Joyce’s grand vision for the future of transport in Auckland. If he was concentrating on reducing the road toll on this stretch of road, there are simpler and cheaper ways than wasting taxpayers money.
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, May 14th, 2010 - 43 comments
Shame on National and Kiwirail CEO Jim Quinn for not letting the Kiwirail workers even bid to build the new Auckland railcars. This isn’t just about national spirit and a belief in New Zealand. It’s about acting smarter and making the right choices for the economy. Steven Joyce and National have proven that they neither believe in New Zealand nor have the brains to recognise the smart moves for the country.
Written By: - Date published: 12:35 pm, May 3rd, 2010 - 153 comments
A new report says that building the half a billion worth of new rail rolling stock for Auckland in New Zealand would boost GDP by $250 million, improve our current account deficit by over $100 million, add $70 million to government revenue, and create 1200 skilled jobs. But the Government just want the cheapest price for the rail cars, and that means going overseas.
Written By: - Date published: 11:31 am, April 19th, 2010 - 22 comments
The most over-rated man in politics, Steven Joyce, has come up with a bright idea: let’s increase the fees for getting high skill degrees in areas where there are big skill shortages. This is typical short-term National thinking: save pennies now, and pay the big bucks later when heavily indebted and highly skilled graduates are forced to go overseas to pay off their debt in a reasonable time frame.
Written By: - Date published: 3:29 pm, March 23rd, 2010 - 50 comments
At the end of question time today, Trevor Mallard asked for leave to have a debate without notice congratulating Joyce on getting his degree conferred 21 years after leaving uni. To everyone’s surprise, Gerry Brownlee failed to object. Brownlee is so mad [Update: video added].
Written By: - Date published: 3:23 pm, March 17th, 2010 - 9 comments
In a letter to the Herald today, responding to Mike Lee’s op-ed of yesterday, Steven Joyce says:
“Contrary to what Mike Lee says, the Auckland Council will be able to appoint or dismiss any member of the Auckland Transport Board at any time.”
Problem is, Mike Lee didn’t actually say what Joyce says he did.
Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, March 17th, 2010 - 32 comments
People like to talk about how great Steven Joyce is. But he’s not got a single run on the board.
Am I missing something or is just talking about how good you are all that’s needed nowadays?
Written By: - Date published: 8:29 am, March 12th, 2010 - 8 comments
Cuts to prisoner rehabilitation, night classes, and the Super Gold Card aren’t about saving money. The government is only too happy to sign blank cheques for stupid projects like Transmission Gully and the Holiday Highway on the vaguest cost estimates. No, these successful policies are having the financial life bled out of them because they contradict National’s ideology.
Written By: - Date published: 11:10 pm, March 9th, 2010 - 28 comments
So Steven Joyce’s big bright idea for tertiary education (which he recently inherited from the hopeless Anne Tolley) is to punish institutions with low pass rates by cutting their funding. It’s basically the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.It reflects the typical short-term thinking of the capitalist class and its political party.
Written By: - Date published: 7:41 pm, March 8th, 2010 - 61 comments
The leaked emails which helped bring about the downfall of former Nat leader Don Brash hit the headlines again today, for all the wrong reasons. The story of who “stole” the emails was nothing more than a successful Tory decoy. Journalists have already forgotten the insidious tricks used by the top echelons of the National Party.
Written By: - Date published: 1:08 pm, February 28th, 2010 - 23 comments
One of the best pieces I’ve seen about the idiotic minister of broadcasting Jonathon Coleman wanting to starve or bend National Radio into the level of stupidity that the NACT’s prefer. Rosemary McLeod writing “Quality radio easy target for the barbarians” in the Sunday Star Times this morning.
Written By: - Date published: 9:47 am, February 24th, 2010 - 60 comments
This man is Paul Reynolds, CEO of Telecom. He has overseen the largest corporate disaster in recent New Zealand history. The Nats are planning to give him over $6,600 a week in tax cuts. Apparently this screw up on a $7 million salary is the kind of guy New Zealand needs.
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, February 23rd, 2010 - 2 comments
The Post Primary Teachers’ Association have just launched a YouTube video protesting National’s hugely unpopular cuts to night classes.
Click through to check it out.
Written By: - Date published: 12:59 pm, January 29th, 2010 - 18 comments
The first half of an excellent piece by Kent Dunston of Save the Basin (which is opposing the construction of flyovers around the Basin Reserve by National): Back in the halcyon days of the Muldoon administration circa 1979 the then-National government embarked on a series of large-scale interventionist construction schemes called ‘Think Big’ that were …
Written By: - Date published: 11:24 am, January 7th, 2010 - 130 comments
Steven Joyce has finally revealed the benefit/cost ratio for the billion dollar Transmission Gully project. A few weeks ago he was mocking Sue Kedgley for saying that the costs would outweigh the benefits and claiming that the BCR would be about 1.5 ($1.50 benefit for each $1 spent). It turns out Joyce was lying. There is just …
Written By: - Date published: 8:46 am, March 26th, 2009 - 39 comments
Stephen Joyce keeps saying the reason he has slashed investment in public transport to build more roads is that he is giving the people what they want. He says most people get to work in a car, so people must want cars. What wonderful logic. Imagine if we hadn’t introduced public health-care or public education because, …
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