Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, May 18th, 2009 - 12 comments
Spotted on Labour’s “Grassroots” supporters’ site.
Written By: - Date published: 11:15 am, May 18th, 2009 - 32 comments
This morning Radio NZ ran a report on the increasing grassroots opposition to the Government’s supercity plans. In the interview that followed it Rodney Hide was asked why the Government won’t let Aucklanders have the final say on the proposal through a referendum. His answer? The tired, discredited old line that it’s “not just a […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:04 pm, May 17th, 2009 - 32 comments
Protesters calling for the Government to abandon its plans to drive an above-ground motorway through the middle of Mt Albert disrupted the opening of an adjacent stretch of motorway by Transport Minister Steven Joyce on Friday. Socialist Aotearoa has the footage:
Written By: - Date published: 1:52 pm, May 17th, 2009 - 34 comments
Each year and every year, around 1600 New Zealanders die prematurely because we live in cold damp houses. This “excess winter death rate” is four times higher than the road toll. They die, most especially the young, unwell, disabled and elderly, of respiratory illnesses, strokes and heart attacks because far too much of our housing […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:51 pm, May 17th, 2009 - 11 comments
A great initiative from the National Distribution Union: With the bank (Westpac) leaving Lane Walker Rudkin workers out in the cold without their redundancy pay and the Government failing to respond to calls for funds to establish a worker-led support centre we are running cake stalls to help the workers help each other. The first […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:04 pm, May 17th, 2009 - 23 comments
Matt McCarten makes some very valid points about the lack of democracy within political parties in his Herald column today. Using the Lee fiasco as a stepping off point he talks about the dangers of candidate selection, and indeed all major party decisions, being made by a small group of party faithful. Lee’s meltdown shows […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:51 am, May 17th, 2009 - 9 comments
On Q+A this morning, Justice Minister Simon Power flew a kite on some possible changes to the justice system. The first was raising the severity threshold at which defendants can elect trial by jury. Currently, if you are tried for a crime with a maximum sentence in excess of 3 months on prison you can […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:23 pm, May 16th, 2009 - 26 comments
Whenever I spot one of the dual electric/petrol cars I always find myself a little fascinated and a little envious. But I have to admit the likelihood of my actually owning one seems remote. Maybe I need to be pushed along, as this article from the Herald Sun suggests: A proposal to ban sales of […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:11 pm, May 16th, 2009 - 39 comments
The ongoing filibuster is highlighting the intransigent nature of the NACT government. NACT ministers are getting annoyed by having to remain at the house to push through their legislation. However there is a perfectly reasonable offer on the table – but they’d prefer to have the filibuster maintained rather than get the holes fixed in […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:09 pm, May 16th, 2009 - 2 comments
There was an annoying outage in the site earlier for a few hours. The hosting site was investigating a performance issue on the server unrelated to The Standard, and took the Apache server offline for script generated HTML. Thanks to all those who txt’ed, e-mailed, and skype’d to let me know of the problem. I […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:46 pm, May 16th, 2009 - 60 comments
In an epic last-ditch defence of Aucklanders’ right to be consulted on the removal of their democracy, Labour and the Greens are currently filibustering the government’s enabling legislation in Parliament by forcing a vote on thousands of new amendments. Their objective is simple, they want to get the bill off to a select committee and […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:44 pm, May 15th, 2009 - 14 comments
One of these things is not like the other One of these things is not quite the same. Can you guess which one is not like the other Can you tell me before I finish the game?
Written By: - Date published: 5:17 pm, May 15th, 2009 - 2 comments
In the absence of any numbers about transition costs from Rodney or NACT on the super-city, Phil Twyford over at Red Alert has gotten Dr Rhema Vaithianathan to crunch the available numbers. Ratepayers are going to get whacked with a bill for up to $750 just for the transition costs, and that’s 30% higher than […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:25 pm, May 15th, 2009 - 17 comments
No Right Turn wrote a post on an important point of governance that needs more discussion. Reproduced with Idiot/Savant’s permission. Last week, we saw unprecedented scenes in Napier, as NZDF LAVs were deployed to assist police in dealing with an armed gunman. At the time, I was rather curious – the Defence Act includes strict […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:58 pm, May 15th, 2009 - 12 comments
The Greens have released their Green New Deal (PDF), which they hope the Government will pick up in part or in whole. It looks like a comprehensive plan to boost employment and the economy in the short-term and, just as importantly, build a green economy for the future. It leaves everything we’ve seen from this lazy do-nothing […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:46 pm, May 15th, 2009 - 7 comments
Moana Mackey has been looking at old Hansards in a post on Red Alert. The topic was the Local Government Act changes in 2002. It is a revealing look at the change of attitude by National MP’s on the process of consultation for local government changes. A couple of examples: Phil Heatley: I was disturbed […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, May 15th, 2009 - 34 comments
The PM’s office Melissa Lee has released an apology for her ‘crims on the motorway’ comments. Well, not a genuine apology – ‘it was a heated debate’ is the line, which TUMEKE! exposes as a lie and not an excuse anyway. On Red Alert, Trevor Mallard (who is taking to blogging like, um, a duck to […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, May 15th, 2009 - 52 comments
Labour is filibustering in the house on the Auckland super-city enabling legislation. The would-be dictator of Auckland’s future for the next year and a half, says Mr Hide says the amendments are a waste of time, as the Government has the numbers to defeat them. Correct for this particular battle. However it is the war […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, May 15th, 2009 - 30 comments
Using Labour’s Google Map of National’s Waterview route and Google Street View, I had a look at the type of houses that National wants to bulldoze and the ones it has decided to save by having a tunnel under them. State houses and lower-income houses to be knocked down. Upper income houses, to be saved […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:42 pm, May 14th, 2009 - 13 comments
I’m a little re-created – some mysteriousness with my profile means I am re-defined “similar but different” for the time being. But I haven’t stopped reading and I thought these were an interesting series of observations on the current state of play: Colin Espiner: This is, without a doubt, National’s worst week in government. And […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:40 pm, May 14th, 2009 - 91 comments
In his blog, Colin Espiner asked: “But my question is this: National has known for months it was going to torpedo the tunnels. It knew this decision would kill its chances of winning Mt Albert. So why did no one tell Lee? And why did Key allow one of his new stars to stand in […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:42 pm, May 14th, 2009 - 20 comments
This, I swear, is a complete and unedited press release from Roger Douglas. A Recipe To Grow The Economic Cake -Hon Sir Roger Douglas Thursday, May 14 2009 Yield: An equitable serving for all Ingredients 2½ cup Productivity 1½ cup Fiscal Responsibility 1 cup Sound Infrastructure Investment 6 eggs Full of Savings 3/4 cup Free […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:33 pm, May 14th, 2009 - 13 comments
Interesting comment on Melissa from Kiwiblog’s Farrar: There is also the issue of the video produced by her before the election, placed on You Tube. I haven’t covered that in detail yet because so far I can’t see anywhere what Melissa has done wrong – my stance will change if such details emerge. Not exactly […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:44 pm, May 14th, 2009 - 16 comments
Did your company use NZ On Air money to produce a National Party promotional video? Look, I didn’t keep records of who was working on what when and it doesn’t work like that the only people who have a problem are disgruntled employees but they were volunteers and we were having fun so it doesn’t […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:31 pm, May 14th, 2009 - 23 comments
John Key has overruled Bill English and got the money for his beloved cycleway (now a group of “Great Rides”), $50 million spread over three years. I won’t waste too much time on the substance.The argument’s the same as it always was. Cycle tracks are neat but spending $50 million on them over three years […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, May 14th, 2009 - 2 comments
A reader writes: This cracked me up. When I went to look at the press release about John Key’s cycleway, this is what I got. Must be a not so subtle sign from Bill!
Written By: - Date published: 3:05 pm, May 14th, 2009 - Comments Off on “An indecent assault on numeracy”
Over at Public Address Keith Ng has a great post up on Labour and National’s tax regimes. Pretty graphs, accessible analysis and a DPF slap-down – what more could you ask for?
Written By: - Date published: 2:21 pm, May 14th, 2009 - 2 comments
From the Herald’s Your Views on Waterview: HammerHead (Wellington City): No they should replace it with a cycleway. This would prevent criminals coming from South Auckland, as most don’t have bikes. This would also reduce the crime rate in the area. Have you ever tried to carry a 50″ plasma on a bike?
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, May 14th, 2009 - 68 comments
Over at Red Alert, the Labour MPs’ blog, Trevor Mallard points out that nominations for the Mt Albert by-election don’t close until next week. If John Key, as Mallard puts it, “has the balls” he can tell Melissa Lee to stand down and the National selection can be held again. Poor old Ravi Musuku might […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:57 am, May 14th, 2009 - 1 comment
Just in from the Wellington DL crew: For our next Drinking Liberally we are honoured to have Prof. Philippa Howden-Chapman speaking on “Healthy homes for a sustainable society”. Philippa is a member of the NZ Heart Foundation Scientific and Population Health Committee and on the board of the International Society of Equity in Health. Philippa […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:21 am, May 14th, 2009 - 2 comments
Green MP Catherine Delahunty is running an e-card campaign to support public sector pay equity after National announced it would be cancelling pay equity reviews and sacking the team responsible for them. It’s a stark reminder that nothing has really changed since National dumped pay equity legislation immediately after taking office in 1990. You can […]
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