Written By: - Date published: 12:55 pm, March 14th, 2009 - 39 comments
Newstalk ZB reports: The Prime Minister is keen to open the door to foreign investors. In a speech to the Act Party conference today, John Key said a review of the Overseas Investment Act will be announced by Finance Minister Bill English next week. The review aims to create an overseas investment screening regime that […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:33 pm, March 14th, 2009 - 2 comments
I’ve been meaning to write something about the private prisons bill for a couple of days as it’s a recipe for barbarity. But I’ve decided there’s no way I could do a better job of it than I/S has at No Right Turn, so I’m just going to repeat his whole post here. (hopefully he […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:48 pm, March 13th, 2009 - 33 comments
Gordon Campbell’s pretty scathing of Key’s nine day fortnight scheme in his latest article at Scoop, describing the announcement as a sign workers will have to bear the brunt of the recession. Plainly, workers are going to be the first people over the side of the lifeboat during this recession. The main policy idea to […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:59 pm, March 13th, 2009 - 8 comments
A leak reveals more words banned by National/ACT : strategy blueprint engagement socialisation collaboration co-ordination We’re destroying words – scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone.
Written By: - Date published: 2:25 pm, March 13th, 2009 - 7 comments
Over the last week or so the Government, and Nick Smith in particular, have run a dishonest PR campaign to undermine ACC and soften up the public for cuts and eventual privatisation. In response, the Council of Trade Unions has put together a helpful fact sheet to set the record straight and bust some of […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:55 pm, March 13th, 2009 - 65 comments
If there’s one thing that strikes you about John Key’s post-cabinet press conference this week, it isn’t the scintillating prose or erudite diction. It isn’t even the brilliant plans brimming with enthusiasm, intelligence and vision. What’s remarkable is that the guy looks exhausted. He’s been in the job all of 3 months, extended holidays in Hawaii not withstanding, […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:25 pm, March 13th, 2009 - 31 comments
The Dominion Post has this column on Fridays called the Diary [offline*]. It’s written by some anonymous staffer and is supposed to be a witty and irreverent take on minor happenings over the last week. We’re clearly getting under someone’s skin there, because this week they’ve taken a potshot at us over Trevor Mallard commenting […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, March 13th, 2009 - 8 comments
A link in the comments led me to ballon juice You Have To Be Shitting Me. It refers to a article at boston.com Now-needy FDIC collected little in premiums WASHINGTON – The federal agency that insures bank deposits, which is asking for emergency powers to borrow up to $500 billion to take over failed banks, […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, March 13th, 2009 - 5 comments
Question 1. Which of these are ‘front-line’ staff and which are ‘back office’? a) the extra staff members for National and Maori Party MPs that the government has just found money for? b) the fines collections officers the Ministry of Justice is firing because the government can’t find the money to keep them? c) the […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:30 am, March 13th, 2009 - 37 comments
We’ve heard a lot of panicky comments in the last few weeks about a ‘cost blowout’ at ACC. We’re told there is $22 billion in liabilities with $12 billion unfunded. That sounds bad, but what does it actually mean and what’s really happened? ACC used to be a ‘pay-as-you-go’ scheme. No money was put aside […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:54 pm, March 12th, 2009 - 3 comments
Good to see Emerson’s back in form.
Written By: - Date published: 3:34 pm, March 12th, 2009 - 10 comments
The Service and Food Workers Union has launched an online email campaign to urge Sealord Chairman Robin Hapi to reconsider axing 180 workers in Nelson. The other 400 have have been threatened with pay cuts or else they’ll face the sack as well. And this is after Sealord had the gall to attend the Prime […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:32 pm, March 12th, 2009 - 17 comments
Last week, Jon Stewart poked fun at the media who cheer-led the housing and stockmarket bubbles and are now blaming the people who took on subprime mortgages for the financial crisis. They bit back with hilarious results. Jon is interviewing Cramer today, it will screen Friday night here on C4.
Written By: - Date published: 11:27 am, March 12th, 2009 - 46 comments
The wheels are starting to come off National’s PR campaign to undermine ACC as more and more people notice the gap between their spin and the reality. This morning’s Dom Post has an interesting article [offline*] where the managing director of actuaries Eriksen & Associates refutes Nick Smith’s lies about the “cost blowout” and the […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, March 12th, 2009 - 15 comments
Morning Report asked Paula Bennett why the public sector had been cut out of the 9 day fortnight scheme this morning and her answer was that it was for businesses that have been hit by the effects of the recession and the public service doesn’t fall into that category. That’s not true. Crown owned company […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:04 pm, March 11th, 2009 - 53 comments
The 9 day fortnight scheme has finally been announced but I’ve got a few questions: Why do the taxpayer and the worker have to pay but the employer not? What about free training? Surely that would fit with the productivity argument National’s been making? Does anyone realise that those on the average wage would take […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:38 pm, March 11th, 2009 - 56 comments
I’m always amazed at the intellectual hoops the neoliberal right will jump through to try and deny low income workers minimum wage increases. David Farrar has a piece up today highlighting the case of Honduras, where they’ve apparently raised the minimum wage by 60% in one go, causing higher unemployment. This, he says, highlights the […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:10 pm, March 11th, 2009 - 32 comments
The sensationalist tone of media releases regarding the financial situation at ACC has ignored the causes behind this so called ‘blow out’. The investment losses have been a big part of it but there is also a rising accident rate stemming from our ageing population and climbing obesity rates, which has been foreseen by medical experts for some time. We […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, March 11th, 2009 - 33 comments
Yesterday Tane did an excellent post speculating on links between the Sensible Sentencing Trust and GEO Group. GEO Group derived from the notorious Wackenhut Corrections and it now wants to run privately run and publically funded prisons in NZ. In the US, the GEO Group supports organizations preaching almost exactly the messages as the SST […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, March 11th, 2009 - 15 comments
In his blog today Colin Espiner points out how National has quickly moved a lot further to the right than they portrayed themselves as pre-election: After following the script for the First 100 Days to the letter, National is now branching out into things that, um, weren’t in the script. Labour Lite? Not any more. […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, March 11th, 2009 - 5 comments
The opening night of the Pasifika festival at Western Springs in Auckland will be proceeding. After a funding shortfall the Auckland City Council cancelled the traditional Pasifika opening night. But the Pacific Islands Board Auckland City (PIBAC) and the Pacific community rallied together and last week announced that they would be funding the opening night […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:24 am, March 11th, 2009 - 8 comments
There is one job area where it’s no expense spared for the taxpayer – public relations in the Beehive. Michelle Boag tells the story here. Michelle has now joined the PR firm Momentum, where Jenny Shipley is a director. There’ll be enough moolah in that rolling maul to take the sharp edges off the recession. […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:12 am, March 11th, 2009 - 1 comment
Just received this from the Wellington Drinking Liberalites: Just a last minute reminder, tomorrow is the third Drinking Liberally of 2009, featuring the new Green MP, Kevin Hague. Kevin was formerly the Chief Executive of the West Coast District Health Board and has served as the Executive Director of the NZ AIDS Foundation. He’ll be […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:57 am, March 11th, 2009 - 28 comments
Brian Rudman has a good piece this morning on the Earl of Auckland’s backwards-looking decision to reinstate a “ridiculous regime of titles dating back to feudal times”. The best quote’s from Sister Pauline (herself a Distinguished Companion of the NZ Order of Merit): I can’t believe the Government is tinkering around with this kind of thing […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, March 11th, 2009 - 17 comments
This is good. Here’s what ACC’s ads might look like once National’s had its way with it: [Hat tip: Clarke in the comments]
Written By: - Date published: 6:24 am, March 11th, 2009 - 41 comments
Interesting to see that the new ACC board chairman, John Judge, is an alumnus/affiliate member of the Business Roundtable. That’s the same Business Roundtable that has consistently said that: “the introduction of a state monopoly, no-fault accident compensation scheme in New Zealand had been a huge mistake” and argued “for the introduction of choice and […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:54 pm, March 10th, 2009 - 48 comments
ACT MP David Garrett is quickly becoming a sick joke. Asked today about the fact more prisoners will be assaulted or raped by their cellmates if the Government brings in double-bunking, he replied: “The fact is if you don’t want to be assaulted – or worse – by a cellmate, avoid prison by not committing […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:50 pm, March 10th, 2009 - 3 comments
Just a reminder that Drinking Liberally is on in Auckland again after a hiatus of 5 months. It is just the thing to warm you up now that the Fiji weather has departed. REMINDER: Drinking Liberally is on 7pm tomorrow (Wednesday) night. Speaker is Rod Oram on global economic crisis. London Bar, corner Queen & […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:14 pm, March 10th, 2009 - 56 comments
Protecting workers’ rights, protecting ACC, safeguarding jobs, public services, and SOEs, opposing privatisation. These are all important fights. But it’s a crime we’re having to fight them at all. While we are concerned with such things, the enviro/economic challenges to the sustainability of our society barely get a look in. Peak oil, climate change, depletion […]
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