Archive for July, 2009

Lost in translation

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, July 2nd, 2009 - 8 comments

Dear Labour I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes my attention span isn’t the greatest. Between Twitter and Facebook and texting it’s frankly a wonder I have time for much of anything else. I’m mostly in a hurry and I think that’s probably part of the reason I often don’t know what you’re trying […]

Cowardice, bigotry and saying whatever it takes

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, July 2nd, 2009 - 77 comments

I’ll be glad to see the back of the Foreshore & Seabed Act. For many on the Left, including myself, its been a monument to Labour’s failure of nerve in the face of a campaign by National to exploit the underlying racism of Pakeha New Zealand for electoral gain. Yes, there was a certain electoral […]

Excuses excuses

Written By: - Date published: 9:20 am, July 2nd, 2009 - 15 comments

First, it was ‘we’re going to do everything we can to keep Kiwis in jobs’ Next, it was ‘yeah, OK, we haven’t done anything significant to keep people in jobs (we borrowed a couple of small programmes from the Greens and the unions, though) but who cares? Look, other countries have more unemployed, so, um, […]

Lovin’ it?

Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, July 2nd, 2009 - 39 comments

Stuff reports that McDonald’s is getting up to $16,000 of taxpayer money per person it recruits from the benefit. I doubt this per-person maximum is reached that often but it does seem that a lot of public money is going to the extremely profitable fast-food giant (and, presumably, its franchisees) every year. I’m all for […]

Just laugh in their faces

Written By: - Date published: 5:39 am, July 2nd, 2009 - 26 comments

National is overseeing the most dramatic rise in unemployment on record (yep, 2000 a week is more than the 1980s, more than the 1990s). They’ve got no answers, no ideas. All they can talk about is what Goff said 20 years ago and laugh. Like 2000 people a week losing their livelihoods is some kind […]

Before there was spin…

Written By: - Date published: 9:42 pm, July 1st, 2009 - 11 comments

When we talk politics we often use words like positioning, frame, context – words are a vital part of the programme of political communication. Here’s a really interesting thought from US academic Lera Boroditsky, who asks  How does our language shape the way we think? …patterns in a language can indeed play a causal role […]

Definitely not the sewer

Written By: - Date published: 5:16 pm, July 1st, 2009 - 54 comments

This post by Scott Yorke over at Imperator Fish amused me. It is such an apt description of the differences between the two major political partisan blogs in New Zealand. I like to visit The Standard now and then. There’s an occasional gem to be found there, although an angry hectoring tone largely dominates. The main […]

When spin goes wrong

Written By: - Date published: 3:57 pm, July 1st, 2009 - 20 comments

Richard Long, the main man behind Don Brash’s racist Owera speech is just about the poorest propagandist you get: “Why only two to a cell? When that suggestion replaced the blackboard menu outside a cafe in Ngaio, Wellington, a few months ago, it was clear the Government had won the “lock them up and throw […]

Foreshore review dead-on

Written By: - Date published: 3:16 pm, July 1st, 2009 - 106 comments

The Foreshore and Seabed review panel have reported back with the recommendation that the law be scrapped and people be allowed to attempt to prove ownership rights over the foreshore and seabed in court as they can with any other land. Good. Ever since the Government issued a proclamation in 1872 to stop the Native […]

They put a bus lane through my heart

Written By: - Date published: 1:57 pm, July 1st, 2009 - 8 comments

This goes out to all the dispossessed emos of Manners Mall, the forgotten victims of Wellington City Council’s new bus lane: [Hat tip: the wellingtonista.]

Out of her depth

Written By: - Date published: 1:20 pm, July 1st, 2009 - 13 comments

I wonder if Patrick Gower could keep a straight face while writing this: Social Development Minister Paula Bennett has dropped her additional Disability Issues portfolio because Prime Minister John Key wants her to concentrate on the growing numbers of people losing their jobs. Note his phrasing. Not ‘concentrate on reducing the growing number of people […]

Nats attack workers’ right to protest

Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, July 1st, 2009 - 55 comments

I am outraged to learn that the Department of Labour told its employees they were not allowed attend the pay equity rally at Parliament yesterday. A leaked email from the department to its staff said: “Attendance at such a demonstration may well be perceived as crossing the line by criticising a decision of the Government. […]

National Government’s “drum roll” for privatisation

Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, July 1st, 2009 - Comments Off on National Government’s “drum roll” for privatisation

Fran O’Sullivan had some interesting things to say in today’s Herald on Mark Weldon’s recent address to SOE board members, telling them to develop strategic plans for part-privatisation, first mentioned by Trevor Mallard on Red Alert. This was the most revealing comment: Of course, Weldon’s thesis fits exactly with the drum roll the Government is […]

Jam tomorrow

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, July 1st, 2009 - 24 comments

I see John Key is promising new ideas to stop job-losses: We’ve got an economic strategy … and I intend over the next few weeks to spell out my thinking in that area It strikes me as another one of his vague PR-driven promises. Like the promise he made in March about the initiatives that […]

Atlas drops the ball again

Written By: - Date published: 5:48 am, July 1st, 2009 - 104 comments

Why does this myth that the private sector is better persist in this country? At every turn, the bosses show themselves to be a bunch of greedy, short-sighted half-wits. Take Line 7. Outsourced their production to China. Built their business model on the assumption that the NZD would stay high. Didn’t hedge. NZD, predictably, falls.  Business model stuffed. […]