Archive for July, 2009

Says it all really

Written By: - Date published: 3:21 pm, July 22nd, 2009 - 37 comments

You pricks decided what you were going to do and you’re not listening to me or anybody else. . . You people are not even interested in the people who are going to be living within the environment of a privatised prison. I actually hold you in f. . .king contempt From the select committee […]

Same old failed ideas

Written By: - Date published: 2:50 pm, July 22nd, 2009 - 27 comments

The Government’s 2025 ‘productivity’ taskforce led by Don Brash will almost certainly come up with all the same old failed ideas that got us here in the first place. Expect a variation on the following themes: Scrap the minimum wage Privatise public assets Cut taxes for the rich Slash the public sector Deregulate, deregulate, deregulate […]

Matariki Public Holiday?

Written By: - Date published: 2:20 pm, July 22nd, 2009 - 17 comments

The Maori Party’s Matariki Day Bill was pulled in the ballot. Man, a public holiday in the middle of winter. Currently it’s one long drag from Queens Birthday to Labour Weekend. Will the Tories vote against a public holiday in the middle of winter and, once again, oppose the goals of the Maori Party? We’ll […]

Gordon Campbell on Treasury and the resurrection of Brash

Written By: - Date published: 1:33 pm, July 22nd, 2009 - 12 comments

Gordon Campbell has a great piece over at Scoop about Treasury’s latest ideological outburst and the resurrection of Don Brash. He points out the futility of choosing a man who played a large role in creating our wage gap with Australia in the first place to head a commission designed to close it: Brash wants […]

It’s not fair, get over it, get it right

Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, July 22nd, 2009 - 83 comments

The ludicrous attacks by the media on Goff over the dole scheme show that this is not an even playing field. Key is allowed to lie again and again. Ministers are allowed to shirk their responsibilities. The fact that 1300 more people on the dole each week barely gets a look in. The journos are […]

Talking shite

Written By: - Date published: 9:10 am, July 22nd, 2009 - 28 comments

Right wing rhetoric can be absurdly stupid at times. IrishBill recently reminded us how crazy things were getting near the last election: One of my favourites was Hooton arguing that a fourth term Labour government would abolish the free press! Then there’s the pet attack bloggers, “dragging the discourse to new lows, with vicious, juvenile, […]

No more excuses, time to act

Written By: - Date published: 5:39 am, July 22nd, 2009 - 48 comments

Greenpeace and others are campaigning for the Government to agree to a target of 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. Where did they get that number from? From the science. The scientific consensus is that if we let carbon dioxide rise stay above 350 parts per million in the atmosphere we will […]

DL Wgtn this Thursday

Written By: - Date published: 3:58 pm, July 21st, 2009 - 2 comments

Short notice, but just got this in from the Drinking Liberally Wellington crew: This week Drinking Liberally is hosting Geoff Keey from Greenpeace. Geoff has been attending the recent climate change negotiations in Bonn and will reflect upon them, and Greenpeace’s “Sign On” campaign. The Sign On campaign is to advocate for for a commitment […]

OpenLeft

Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, July 21st, 2009 - 18 comments

Launched last weekend in the UK: OpenLeft. Open Left is about rediscovering the Left’s idealism, pluralism and appetite for radical ideas. It starts from a belief that the future of the Left requires a new openness for a new era of open politics: Idealism: open about its political values and goals. Pluralism: open about disagreement […]

Flag it, more important things to do

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, July 21st, 2009 - 15 comments

I’m just trying to understand this Maori flag thing. The Crown (in the guise of Minister Pita Sharples) has decided that Maori will only get to choose from four designs – the United Tribes (or Busby) flag, the Tino Ringatiratanga flag, the New Zealand Ensign, and the New Zealand flag. The last two are just […]

It’s Brash

Written By: - Date published: 1:44 pm, July 21st, 2009 - 38 comments

The government has just confirmed Don Brash will head the “productivity” group. Expect a lot of talk about “labour market flexibility” and the like. We’ve been here once and it was shit. Now we’re going back for more.

Plenty of pixie dust for the cycleway

Written By: - Date published: 12:11 pm, July 21st, 2009 - 39 comments

John Key says there are “no pixies printing cash” to help Kiwis who’ve lost their jobs under his government’s watch. Funny, because there’s plenty of pixie dust for Key’s cycleway. Pixie dust is in no short supply to subsidise Key’s rich mates who want to send their kids to elitist private schools. And there’s buckets […]

Wee gripes: private=efficient

Written By: - Date published: 10:01 am, July 21st, 2009 - 54 comments

Can Treasury Secretary John Whitehead explain how paying profit-making companies to do what is already being done by non-profit-making departments will save money? Of course not. If there are efficiencies to be made by all means make them. Doesn’t need some company sucking off profit to do that. We know what happens when you get […]

Good jab, now land some punches

Written By: - Date published: 5:04 am, July 21st, 2009 - 88 comments

It was excellent to see Phil Goff laying down the gauntlet to Key yesterday. He announced Labour’s policy to temporarily relax partner means testing for the dole and promised a recession response package. On the same day, Key’s big achievement was noting the Hillary family had settled their dispute with Auckland museum. Goff is saying […]

Fighting the dittoheads

Written By: - Date published: 9:03 pm, July 20th, 2009 - 44 comments

One of the great strengths of the Right is that the rank and file supporters are such slavish followers of their leaders. It comes from the whole ‘triumph of the will’ mentality – ‘that dude’s rich and powerful, ipso facto, I must respect him and if I’m gonna get rich and powerful I’ll have to copy him’. It […]

Recession’s ‘rough edges’ hit families – no help from govt

Written By: - Date published: 4:20 pm, July 20th, 2009 - 48 comments

Labour leader Phil Goff has called for a temporary relaxation of the rules for getting the dole. Too many Kiwis on low and middle incomes are losing their jobs but are not able to get any assistance from the Government (despite having paid taxes for years) because their partner has a modest income. John Key […]

“Creeping communism” a success

Written By: - Date published: 3:07 pm, July 20th, 2009 - 6 comments

Missed this from a couple of days ago: For the first time in 25 years, the incomes of those in lower brackets grew more quickly than those on higher incomes, the Household Income Survey by the Social Development Ministry found. It credits Working for Families with the turnaround and says it also helped avert a […]

The Salesman

Written By: - Date published: 2:20 pm, July 20th, 2009 - 12 comments

One of the stories from John Key’s days as a currency trader is that he was always more of a salesman than an analyst. He wasn’t good at picking markets and investments; he was good at getting people to trust him with their money. He got New Zealanders to put their trust in him too […]

Roundtable dog-waggers come back!

Written By: - Date published: 1:04 pm, July 20th, 2009 - 20 comments

Roger Kerr, official spokesman for the ACT-National-Roundtable government, today announced the formation of a Productivity Commission to be headed by Don Brash, a close associate and admirer of former National Finance Minister Ruth Richardson. The announcement was made in an article supplied to the DomPost (not on website) which also ran it as news. The […]

Keith Locke on tasers

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, July 20th, 2009 - 11 comments

Green MP Keith Locke investigates the claims of safety for tasers, and finds that other countries are concerned that the devices are not as safe as we have been told.

Time for a real debate on the economy

Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, July 20th, 2009 - 62 comments

I wish Finlay MacDonald wrote more about politics and less about cats and kids and stuff because he’s well worth reading when he’s on a serious topic.. and a weekly column in the Sunday Star-Times is a hell of a thing to waste. His piece yesterday eviscerates Key’s vacuous economic speech from last week. He […]

Mike Smith steps down

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, July 20th, 2009 - 16 comments

Labour General Secretary Mike Smith has announced he will retire at the party’s national conference in September. He’s the last of the four – Helen and the three Mikes – who led the parliamentary and party wings during the fifth Labour Government to step down. While Mike Williams ran fundraising, Smith concentrated more on organisation […]

Farewell, Walter

Written By: - Date published: 11:48 pm, July 19th, 2009 - 6 comments

Friday saw the death of Walter Cronkite, greatest of the great generation of TV news-people. He is perhaps remembered most for the broadcast in which he condemned continued US involvement in the Vietnam War (can’t embed that vid but here’s his report on the assassination of JFK). Cronkite and contemporaries like Dan Rather set the standard. They […]

Edwards and Latta

Written By: - Date published: 2:18 pm, July 19th, 2009 - 14 comments

There’s an interesting discussion that’s broken out on brianedwardsmedia between Brian Edwards, who writes a fairly excoriating piece on Nigel Latta’s Politically Incorrect Parenting Show), and Latta who responds at length in the comments. The show’s title, which frames a recurrent theme, always did strike me as shameless populist exploitation that’s more about vacuous, dog-whistle marketing […]

Meme to Labour: Enough of the Should be, more of the Would be.

Written By: - Date published: 11:17 am, July 19th, 2009 - 87 comments

After 9 months of watching the rich get richer, with their triple dip cuts, first in taxes, then in private school fees, and now in getting subsidies to upgrade insulation in rental homes, and the poor getting poorer with no wage rises and tax cuts cancelled for the next two years, where are Labour? Phil’s […]

Wee gripe: “lagging indicator”

Written By: - Date published: 1:48 pm, July 18th, 2009 - 51 comments

John Key, sunny grin in place, says the recession’s all but over. Admits that unemployment will continue to climb (barring a miricle like, say, his government getting off its arse) until mid-2010. But he’s ‘relaxed’ about that. Says unemployment is just a “lagging indicator”. Easy to say when you’re on $393,000 a year and have […]

Elias is right, will we listen?

Written By: - Date published: 10:32 am, July 18th, 2009 - 44 comments

The rednecks have predictably got themselves into a tizzy over Chief Justice Sian Elias’s comments on the need for judicial reform. I think you should read the speech for yourselves. It is an expert in the field discussing how the justice system is failing. Failing both victims and offenders, and the taxpayer. I’ll put in […]

Wee gripe: crime-porn

Written By: - Date published: 9:59 am, July 18th, 2009 - 27 comments

This endless crime-porn. Night after night of fetishistic coverage of the latest unusual crime or trial. Call yourselves journalists? Bollocks. You run this because it’s titallating and it’s cheap. There’s no news value. And there’s certainly no respect for the people whose lives are at the centre. You don’t get these are real human beings. […]

Wee gripes: 3 of 3

Written By: - Date published: 2:57 pm, July 17th, 2009 - 41 comments

Business New Zealand and other assorted tossers. Stop calling our country ‘New Zealand Inc’. This is our home. This is where we live our lives and raise our families. It’s not some profit-maximising engine for your shareholders.

None so blind

Written By: - Date published: 12:01 pm, July 17th, 2009 - 19 comments

I read Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard’s speech on Tuesday with great interest. It’s an informative, if very mainstream review of the recession thus far and the outlook. He points out “The international financial crisis actually played little role in the early part of New Zealand’s economic recession. Rather, it was drought, falling house prices […]

Simon says

Written By: - Date published: 10:28 am, July 17th, 2009 - 61 comments

Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias has kicked off a debate on whether our justice policy is working [PDF  link]. Her view is that the frequent failure of punitive sanctions demands a rethink. Her analysis is supported by over 40 years experience in the criminal justice system and in the TV3 clip (below), her views seem […]