Archive for September, 2009

Banks bullshits on North Shore – shows up Bhatnager as a hypocrite

Written By: - Date published: 1:08 pm, September 27th, 2009 - 18 comments

This week John Banks took his faltering super mayoralty campaign to the Takapuna Rotary Club on Auckland’s North Shore. Banks tried to butter up the locals by talking about the time he was elected to the Birkenhead Borough Council waaaaaaaaaay back in 1977 (hint: you’re almost at retirement age Mr Banks time to step down). […]

Billalice in Wonderwelly

Written By: - Date published: 8:04 am, September 27th, 2009 - 4 comments

Things must be getting decidedly trippy for Deputy PM Bill English about now, and not in a good way. While his glorious leader is off overseas playing the Jester Statesman, back home Bill’s future is looking gloomier by the day. With the Auditor General looking into English‘s Krishna-like claims of being able to exist in […]

Pecuniary interest

Written By: - Date published: 6:24 pm, September 26th, 2009 - 10 comments

John Key has repeatedly said Bill English did not have a”pecuniary interest” in the house he lives in in Wellington with his family. It was apparently the Richard Worth test No 1 – Bill told him so. The Auditor-General’s website deals with the issue of pecuniary interest in offering guidance to Local Authorities regarding conflicts […]

Armstrong takes on Double Dipton

Written By: - Date published: 2:19 pm, September 26th, 2009 - 5 comments

John Armstrong joins the list of commentators saying Bill English shouldn’t get a cent for his housing rort: The time has come for Bill “Double Dipton” English to end the charade. Now, being Armstrong, the reasons aren’t principled, it’s all about limiting the damage to National: The possibility of the watchdog of public spending investigating the Minister […]

Reverse Midas Touch

Written By: - Date published: 1:41 pm, September 26th, 2009 - 14 comments

And so ends a great day’s trading under the erstwhile eye of Mr Key. Looks like they won’t be inviting John back to give the opening bell at the NYSE.

Trivial

Written By: - Date published: 11:33 am, September 26th, 2009 - 81 comments

The more I think about it, the more Key’s Letterman approach is demeaning both to his office and New Zealand. Sure he did the stand up comedy competently but is that what we want our PM reduced to? A gag to be treated at best as a cute nobody, at worst dismissively, by some variety […]

Socialist America

Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, September 26th, 2009 - 8 comments

The health care debate going on in America is a very serious debate, and who wins it has important implications for what kind of direction America takes from here (more in a later post perhaps). The Republican / Conservative / talk back radio framing of the debate is as dishonest as it is predictable. This […]

Yo John, I’m happy for you and imma let you finish…

Written By: - Date published: 3:05 pm, September 25th, 2009 - 33 comments

Sent in by a reader:

David Clendon

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, September 25th, 2009 - 14 comments

Following Sue Bradford’s resignation, next into Parliament on the Greens’ list is David Clendon, an Auckland business advisor and lecturer in resource management of Pakeha and Ngapuhi me Te Roroa descent. As the Greens’ candidate in Helensville last year, Clendon won more candidate votes (6%) than the Greens won party votes (4.9%) . Not a […]

Caption competition

Written By: - Date published: 2:46 pm, September 25th, 2009 - 35 comments

Auditor-General to enquire re English

Written By: - Date published: 12:27 pm, September 25th, 2009 - 35 comments

Herald reports that AG will make preliminary enquiries into English’s housing payment. This follows a suggestion in today’s Business Herald that his credibility is affected by ongoing questions and the AG should investigate.

Curiouser and curiouser

Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, September 25th, 2009 - 4 comments

It’s not just Bill English that’s twisting in the wind over the rearrangement of his affairs to provide a pecuniary benefit to his family. Here is a copy (PDF link) of the Parliamentary Services email tabled in the House by Pete Hodgson this week. It shows that: Parliamentary Services was requested to take a lease […]

Key’s Top Ten

Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, September 25th, 2009 - 57 comments

Obviously, the most important thing ever is how John Key did on Letterman. It’s quite cute actually, Key’s clearly a bit nervous standing out on the big stage. It really does remind you that we’re a little country. But Letterman’s very nice, although he does forget why Key’s there for a moment. He knows we’re […]

Stupid hypocritical ACE cuts

Written By: - Date published: 11:16 am, September 25th, 2009 - 8 comments

Night classes – Adult and Community Education (ACE). An incredibly cost effective and valuable part of the NZ education sector for decades. The ACE budget has been eviscerated by National, cut from $16m to $3m. Effectively a death blow, most of the infrastructure and expertise will go. Right from the start reaction has been strong […]

A sad day for the parliamentary Left

Written By: - Date published: 10:32 am, September 25th, 2009 - 40 comments

Stuff has announced the resignation of Sue Bradford from parliament. Over the years Sue has championed more pro-worker legislation than just about any MP I can think of and has in the last few years been a backroom powerhouse for the Greens through her ability to deal with people with a warmth and sincerity that […]

Informative journalism

Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, September 25th, 2009 - 4 comments

Colin Espiner: “For some reason that I don’t quite understand, unemployment usually continues to rise at the end of recessions, and there’s normally a lag time of something like a year before it falls.” I can help with that one. When a down-turn starts, employers generally don’t know how bad or how long it will […]

Secret ballots for strikes

Written By: - Date published: 8:47 am, September 25th, 2009 - 60 comments

Tau Henare has put a private members’ bill in the ballot that would require ballots by union members on strike action to be held in secret. Henare draws on his memories from the 1980s as a union organiser and reckons that open ballots are used to intimidate workers into toeing the line. Well, maybe it […]

The economy of hero worship

Written By: - Date published: 11:20 pm, September 24th, 2009 - 30 comments

I wish that I got praise heaped on me at my job for exchanging a bit of small-talk with the popular dude. Don’t want to take away from Key’s achievement. I mean wow, he shook the Obama’s hand and didn’t muck it up. I’m looking forward to the gushing accolades when he manages to crack a […]

Chauvel on the ETS

Written By: - Date published: 4:54 pm, September 24th, 2009 - 35 comments

In his speech as Labour climate change spokesperson, Charles Chauvel confirmed the new information on the ETS that Jeanette Fitzsimons revealed today. It was a pretty good speech, especially the conclusion:  “Labour will have no option but to repeal these changes when next in power. We could have had a broad-based, bipartisan, sustainable ETS but National […]

Nats to subsidise big polluters by $2 billion a year

Written By: - Date published: 3:29 pm, September 24th, 2009 - 19 comments

Last night, non-government parties finally got a peak at the new emissions trading bill. Nick Smith still didn’t have it finished, it was in draft form, and by all accounts it’s a mess. As Jeanette Fitzsimons reports, however, the draft ETS did reveal something important. See, on Tuesday Smith tabled in Parliament a bizarre table […]

Building constituencies

Written By: - Date published: 12:31 pm, September 24th, 2009 - 5 comments

On Tuesday, both Sue Kedgley and Sue Moroney tabled petitions in Parliament with over 15,000 signatures, on food standards in schools and pay equity respectively. That’s an incredible achievement. Most petitions get a few hundred, maybe a thousand signatures. Generally, not a lot of organising energy goes into getting signatures for them because, frankly, they […]

Sir Howard Morrison dies

Written By: - Date published: 11:05 am, September 24th, 2009 - 28 comments

This was always a favourite of mine.

Banning smoking

Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, September 24th, 2009 - 69 comments

I have a lot of respect for Hone Harawira. The voting for a Tory government thing has lessened it but his hatred for the tobacco companies balances things out. Harawira wants smoking banned. Says he would love to whip or worse the smoking company bosses (you know they cut the price of cigarettes during the recession so […]

Drinking Liberally Wellington and Dunedin

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, September 24th, 2009 - Comments Off on Drinking Liberally Wellington and Dunedin

**Wellington** Today – September 24, 2009, from 5.30pm. The Southern Cross Abel Smith Street Phil Saxby on drug law reform *Dunedin** Tuesday September 29th, 2009, from 7pm CIRCADIAN RHYTHM <– we’ve changed venue! St Andrew St Green MP Sue Bradford

Get it in writing

Written By: - Date published: 11:05 pm, September 23rd, 2009 - 49 comments

Watching the Maori Party get done over by National is getting painful. The MP thought they had a good faith dialogue on the issue of Maori seats on the Auckland Council, but before the select committee process was even finished Key announced that there would be no seats. The MP abandoned all its environmental principles […]

Open Country now assaulting workers

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, September 23rd, 2009 - 68 comments

The Talleys-owned Open Country Cheese dispute took a new turn today after it was revealed that a senior manager, not content with just bullying workers, has assaulted one of them. Here’s what Giovanni Moana, the worker concerned, had to say: “I was told to put my head through a window in the packing room at […]

Wee gripes: Bad looks

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, September 23rd, 2009 - 13 comments

Espiner the Younger wrote: Hutch’s biggest mistake wasn’t reading and driving, in my opinion. It was reading and driving in a sign-written car with his name on it. Now, that is silly. No. The problem is doing something dangerous and probably illegal (got to constitute reckless driving, surely). It’s not a ‘bad look’. It’s dumb […]

Farmers Weekly on Open Country

Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, September 23rd, 2009 - 11 comments

Reader sent in this cartoon from the latest NZ Farmers Weekly. Things have got to be bad for Open Country when even the farming press is turning on them.

Yes, we’re screwed

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, September 23rd, 2009 - 10 comments

On Monday, New Yorkers discovered their free rightwing rag, the New York Post, had suddenly come over all green. The front-page was typical NYP: a headline screaming “we’re screwed”. The difference was that, in a reversal of the norm, the paper was fake but the facts were real. The Yes-Men had produced a 32-page newspaper on […]

John and Bill cost us $7 million in two months

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 23rd, 2009 - 47 comments

You’ll remember that in the Budget National decided to suspend payments to the Cullen Fund, which is designed to help fund the future cost of superannuation. At the time, John Key and Bill English said we were losing money on the Fund and we couldn’t afford to borrow to put money into it. They compared […]

Back into growth

Written By: - Date published: 11:27 am, September 23rd, 2009 - 5 comments

The newly released figures show 0.1% growth in the June quarter. The March figure was also revised up to -0.8% (from -1.0%). Here comes the sun? Not quite. 0.1% is pretty damn weak. It’s below population growth (0.25% per quarter) so, we’re still worse off per person. And we’re a long way below the economic […]