Archive for August, 2009

Phil Goff speaking on the SAS deployment

Written By: - Date published: 8:02 pm, August 19th, 2009 - 9 comments

Stupi-duty and Wisharts works of political fiction

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, August 19th, 2009 - 34 comments

Open Parachute has a post Evidence, not lawyers about that well-known writer of political fiction, Ian Wishart, issuing a press release saying that he is preparing to sue the Chris Barton at the NZ Herald and Gareth Renowden at Hot-Topic. As Open Parachute says The offensive sentence? ‘Only this week breakfast TV host Paul Henry flirted […]

Brian Edwards on Key

Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, August 19th, 2009 - 36 comments

Brian Edwards gives his take on our “Photo-op PM”. Demonising Key hasn’t and isn’t likely to work for Labour. It doesn’t accord at all with the public perception of him (as evidenced by the polls) and it positions Labour as negative and nitpicking right at the time the country is looking for positivity and vision. […]

The science: too amibitous for New Zealand

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, August 19th, 2009 - 32 comments

Key, Mr Ambitous when it comes to cycleways and Job Summits, says that reducing carbon emissions from developed countries like ours by 2020 to 40% below 1990 levels, which the scientists say is mandatory if we want to avoid run-away climate change, is “too ambitious“. Fair enough, I suppose. I’m sure the laws of nature will understand. Maybe they’ll […]

Goff’s speech on deploying the SAS

Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, August 19th, 2009 - 12 comments

Apart from when it’s customary, at maiden speeches, valedictories, and the Budget, it’s a rare speech that warrants a standing ovation in Parliament. Phil Goff got one yesterday for his speech on the urgent debate into the deployment of the SAS to Afghanistan. The text is here but it’s the delivery that really makes it*. Competent, […]

More National sleeze

Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, August 19th, 2009 - 62 comments

There’s been an attempt to force Peter Goodfellow, the brand new President of the National Party, to step down. The move came from the party’s board, worried that negative news around Goodfellow would damage the party if he hangs around. However, it looks like John Key has decided to back Goodfellow and that’s put the […]

GST up? It depends

Written By: - Date published: 5:08 am, August 19th, 2009 - 40 comments

The Government’s Tax Working Group has proposed increasing GST to 15-20% to pay for cuts to income tax. I’m not automatically against GST or even raising it, if it’s part of the right package. Here’s the issues as I see them: Points in favour of increasing GST Taxing spending is better than taxing income: generally, […]

A question of trusts

Written By: - Date published: 1:17 pm, August 18th, 2009 - 52 comments

Here is Bill English in the cocktail tapes talking about Working for Families: “the reality is if we had been the government, with the surpluses they had, we would have done something similar, like Working for Families… there’s a set of inevitable problems, it’s like physics… If you give people cash [that abates as income […]

Subsidizing polluting industries costs taxpayers directly

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, August 18th, 2009 - 34 comments

An excellent post from Idiot Savant (reproduced with permission) on the cost to taxpayers of subsidizing polluting industries. I haven’t noticed the mainstream media reporting this critical aspect of the governments climate change proposals. Too hard for them to grasp perhaps? Climate change: An illustration How unfair is the government’s plan to cap the price […]

DPB: it’s for the kids

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, August 18th, 2009 - 40 comments

A lot of right-wing beliefs can be traced back to a few core values. Two apply to the DPB debate: a penny-pinching self-centredness a moral viewpoint that good people prosper thanks to hard work and, therefore, anyone who isn’t prosperous is the author of their own demise, which makes them undeserving of help. They object […]

Breeding for a business

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, August 18th, 2009 - 29 comments

In 2002, John Key (then a free-speaking backbencher) told the Sunday-Star Times: “We’ve seen enormous growth in the number of people on the DPB, and where people have been, for want of a better term, breeding for a business” Of course, it wasn’t true that DPB numbers were growing – they’re down 16% over the last […]

Punching below our weight

Written By: - Date published: 5:43 am, August 18th, 2009 - 37 comments

I’m proud to be a Kiwi, and I’ve always enjoyed celebrating the successes of our tiny country. It’s not often that I feel ashamed of our role in the world. But our National Government’s position on greenhouse gas emissions is a disgrace. It’s not just that our emissions reduction target is too low, it’s that […]

A really crappy day

Written By: - Date published: 5:00 am, August 18th, 2009 - 37 comments

I hadn’t been to a protest in months. After everything I’ve been through, activist stuff tends to make me more than a little angry, which is part of the reason I’ve kept away from the front line for a while. Of course, being as assertive as I am, whenever there is trouble, it seems to […]

Keep digging

Written By: - Date published: 2:31 pm, August 17th, 2009 - 23 comments

Just noticed the interview with Garrett in the Sunday-Star Times: “Garrett, who “wore overalls and not a suit” while working as a roughneck on oil rigs as a young man, makes no apologies for being a politician that calls a spade “a bloody shovel”.” A spade isn’t a shovel. A spade is made for digging. […]

Smackathon planned

Written By: - Date published: 1:41 pm, August 17th, 2009 - 44 comments

Anti-violence campaigners are urging Auckland parents to be especially vigilant in the wake of news that “Vote No” campaigner Larry Baldock is planning a referrendum victory party at a secret Auckland hotel. Local supermarkets have reported selling out of wooden spoons, extension cords and lengths of copper piping in the lead up to the event. […]

On their coat-tails

Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, August 17th, 2009 - 40 comments

Jon Stewart talks to Austan Goolsbee, Chief Economist for President Obama’s Economic Recovery Board: “when you’re looking in the face of the next great depression, that’s not the time to tighten the belt” Now, I’m not as optimisitc as Goolsbee about the long-term outlook but thank goodness the governments of the major countries didn’t go […]

Still lying, Still spying

Written By: - Date published: 9:39 am, August 17th, 2009 - 25 comments

A media release yesterday from the Justice NOW collective! shows how both police and corporate spies are still taking a major interest in the activities of small peaceful protest groups. From the media release: The anti-terror police are still spying on legitimate political protest, and they are still lying to the public about what they […]

Let the bashing begin

Written By: - Date published: 7:45 am, August 17th, 2009 - 61 comments

I see Paula Bennett has been busy dog-whistling on beneficiaries, firstly by releasing figures showing 307 beneficiaries receive more than $1000 a week and then by claiming she “suspects” special needs grants are being abused. Given the hatefest her potentially unlawful release of Natasha Fuller and Jennifer Johnson’s income details caused last time there’s no […]

The cost of doing nothing

Written By: - Date published: 6:15 am, August 17th, 2009 - 54 comments

The climate change debate is over (apart from a few luntatics of course). The debate is now about what to do, and the current focus is on the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately we’re only getting half of the story on the costs. Here’s a typical example of half-assed coverage: National has set […]

Not yours to sell

Written By: - Date published: 6:46 pm, August 16th, 2009 - 28 comments

This video from Phil Twyford, Labour’s spokesperson on the campaign to make sure that Rodney Hide is prevented from buggering Auckland by selling critical assets to his mates in the business community so they can raise prices, diminish maintenance, stop capacity building, and make more profits for themselves. Given the history of natural monopoly privatizations […]

On cultural relativism

Written By: - Date published: 3:17 pm, August 16th, 2009 - 22 comments

It’s a pretty rare thing for a conviction for manslaughter not to lead to some jail time. In the past 28 years, only 69 of 814 convictions haven’t resulted in a custodial sentence*. I would have thought that not getting jail time would be especially rare when the killing was at the more culpable end of the […]

Nip it in the bud

Written By: - Date published: 2:19 pm, August 16th, 2009 - 19 comments

Reading the Herald on Sunday piece about this senior political figure in the domestic violence dispute, I’m surprised his party hasn’t made him step down yet. I know that he has a right to fair process in the legal issue but from the facts that are public, it’s hard to see how he hasn’t crossed the moral […]

On the scrap heap

Written By: - Date published: 3:50 pm, August 15th, 2009 - 26 comments

Call me old fashioned if you will, but I like the idea that reforms of government activity should be concieved and implemented by experts in the particular field in question. Which makes me wonder, why the hell has Tony Ryall appointed a financial guy, Murray Horn, to lead a ministerial review into the health system? […]

The great leader

Written By: - Date published: 3:06 pm, August 15th, 2009 - 2 comments

Something about the title of this press release from Peter Dunne yesterday just made me laugh:   Call for leadership, vision from pharmacy workshop And, inevitably, it led to this:   

Heart you too, John

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, August 15th, 2009 - 38 comments

In former journalist John Armstrong’s piece today, he also writes: “a frustration and impatience towards National still displayed by some of the shriller Labour-aligned blogs, which find fault with anything and everything the Key Government does while expecting their breathless critiques to somehow bring forward its demise” Aww, you noticed 😀 Seriously though, John. Any […]

Eventually but not yet

Written By: - Date published: 11:43 am, August 15th, 2009 - 40 comments

John Armstrong quotes a man who ran into Phil Goff during Labour’s reconnection tour last week: “Listen, mate. You know we voted these guys in seven months ago. You don’t expect us to come up and say we did the wrong thing yet, do you?” Now, Armstrong takes that as dooming Labour but look at […]

Reverse Robin hood

Written By: - Date published: 8:47 am, August 15th, 2009 - 26 comments

John Key’s policy to get kids into sport turns out to be a transfer of dollars from low decile schools to high decile ones. When I say “policy” what I should say is “photo opportunity” as Key launched the scheme at a South Auckland school (ironically it will be South Auckland schools are most likely […]

Kohia te kai rangatira, ruia te taitea

Written By: - Date published: 5:06 pm, August 14th, 2009 - 68 comments

For just a moment today, perhaps set aside a little time for reflection on, or to lift a glass and toast those New Zealanders who are ‘one of us’ and not ‘one of them’. Ivor Lloyd Richardson, Silvia Rose Cartwright, Leonard Ramsay Castle, Witi Ihimaera-Smiler, Nigel (Sam) Neill, Vincent O’Sullivan, Ranginui Walker, Cassia Joy Cowley, […]

It’s Labour’s fault it didn’t rain!

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, August 14th, 2009 - 33 comments

One of Bill English’s favourite lines is that New Zealand entered recession ahead of the rest of the world ‘due to Labour’s mismanagement of the economy’ and that’s why his government is unable to get off its arse now. Pity that Agriculture Minister David Carter had to go and spoil the lie for him: “Agriculture […]

Malthusian merriment

Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, August 14th, 2009 - 74 comments

In the wake of a rather nasty piece of ‘satire’ on another blog earlier this week, I’ve been thinking about over-population. It’s a pretty sensitive topic, and one that is easily derailed by the kind of ‘forced abortion’ scaremongering that Farrar practices so well. I’m intending to write a more substantive piece later today on […]

Editorials blogs and anonymity

Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, August 14th, 2009 - 26 comments

What is the difference between a newspaper editorial and a post on a popular political blog? I was pondering this question because I was struck recently by the difference in quality in a couple of recent Herald editorials. This one was an utter disgrace, cheering on Paula Bennett for (as seems almost certain) breaking the […]