Archive for September, 2009

Kate’s pretext falls over

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, September 4th, 2009 - 8 comments

Yesterday, National’s Kate Wilkinson tried to use a dispute over how to apply the new rest breaks law for air traffic controllers as a pretext for taking away our right to rest and meal breaks. She tried to paint the dispute over breaks as being about union intransigence, with the “Airline Pilots Association (ALPA) unwilling […]

OECD child poverty report

Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, September 4th, 2009 - 4 comments

I’ve been having a look at the OECD’s report on child poverty. A lot of the data is quite of of date and so doesn’t reflect the every important impact of Working for Families, rising minimum wage, falling unemployment, and bottom-end tax cuts have had on child poverty in the last six years.  We’re doing a lot better […]

Wanganui: a Laws unto itself

Written By: - Date published: 10:03 am, September 4th, 2009 - 45 comments

The Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Act 2009, which prohibits the display of gang insignia in a public place, so clearly infringes of freedom of expression and association that it’s almost as though it was made up as an exam question for law students in a Bill of Rights class. The Act defines ‘gang insignia’ to include […]

10:10

Written By: - Date published: 8:25 am, September 4th, 2009 - 14 comments

The scientists say we need to reduce our greenhouse emissions by 40% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 if we want to even have a 50:50 chance of not starting runaway climate change (where temperature rises trigger the release of frozen methane and other effects that will rapidly heat the world to disastrous levels). So, […]

Rest-breaks under attack

Written By: - Date published: 9:47 pm, September 3rd, 2009 - 18 comments

In 1908, the miners at Blackball took a famous strike over the right to take rest breaks at work. For most of the rest of the century this was enshrined in law and in our culture as a basic right of all working New Zealanders. That is, of course, until the National Government of the […]

Protect our natural heritage

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, September 3rd, 2009 - 14 comments

The Greens are leading a petition campaign, asking Parliament to: reject any move to mine our national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, marine reserves, protected islands, the Coromandel’s beautiful land and waters, and all other treasured places protected by Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act 1991; furthermore, we ask that the House of Representative put in […]

An angry little sadsack

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, September 3rd, 2009 - 66 comments

I know a dude who went to law school. In one of his lecture theatres was this ‘old guy’ who was always whining (especially about anything to do with Maori), couldn’t keep up with the material, and always seemed intent on making himself the centre of attention. Finally, the dude leaned over to his mate […]

Politically illiterate authoritarian git

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, September 3rd, 2009 - 71 comments

There are an interesting couple of posts over at Red Alert about an editorial in the Dominion Post yesterday. Grant Robertson describes it as a bitter diatribe. Trevor Mallard thinks it is a bit over the top. I think that the editor who wrote it is an authoritarian git who really needs to consider why […]

Does John Key believe a word he says?

Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, September 3rd, 2009 - 22 comments

This 2007 quote from John Key is doing the rounds among angry “No” voters: Labour shows contempt for New Zealanders The Labour Government has shown utter contempt for New Zealanders and the democratic process with its plan to railroad the anti-smacking bill through Parliament, says National Party Leader John Key. “The Labour-led Government knows the […]

Are you smarter than a 10th year?

Written By: - Date published: 4:57 am, September 3rd, 2009 - 50 comments

Meet Robert Wadlow. When he died in 1940, he was the tallest ever recorded person, standing 8 feet, 11 and a half inches tall (2.72m) . That record still stands. The tallest living person, Bao Xishun, is a comparatively puny 7 feet, 9 inches (2.36m). As we all know, the typical person is getting taller. […]

Foodstuffs: Voluntary regulation fails

Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, September 2nd, 2009 - 44 comments

I find myself in the curious position of sympathising with a company reneging on an environmental promise. Foodstuffs announced yesterday that the charge on plastic bag was to be optional, and that they would not charge people for plastic bags if they object. Get Real, a New Zealand organisation campaigning for the elimination of disposable […]

Wee gripes: temporal confusion and the recession

Written By: - Date published: 1:28 pm, September 2nd, 2009 - 13 comments

The Herald editorial this morning calling for mining DoC land: “That resource represents wealth which this country is in little position to ignore. Such is especially the case when the value of gold is particularly high, as is usually so in recessionary times.” Nick Smith on why the ETS needs to be gutted: “we’re in […]

Wee gripes: Business confidence

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, September 2nd, 2009 - 6 comments

Question: ‘Do you expect business conditions to improve in the next 12 months?’ Answer: ‘Well, we’re in the worst recession in a life-time but everyone says it’s coming to an end and our prospects are looking a bit better, obviously that’s going to be better than now – so, yes’ Headline: ‘Business confidence hits record […]

More votes than voters

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, September 2nd, 2009 - 12 comments

The Economist has an article on the recent election in New Zealand’s current region of conflict – Afghanistan. The title of the article says it all really, so that is the title of the post. But here are a selection of depressing quotes from the article to make people realize why this is currently a […]

Always an excuse to do nothing

Written By: - Date published: 9:20 am, September 2nd, 2009 - 64 comments

Remember FART (Farmers Against Ridiculous Taxes)? Shane Arden driving Myrtle the Tractor up the steps of Parliament? Bill English with his poster carrying the sexist attack on Helen Clark: “the mad cow shouldn’t have signed”? (actually, it was Jenny Shipley who signed us on to Kyoto)    All that wailing and gnashing of teeth, all […]

Let them drink… bottled water.

Written By: - Date published: 8:09 am, September 2nd, 2009 - 4 comments

Not surprised to see that the Government has confirmed the Drinking Water Subsidy Scheme is being put on hold and reviewed. The subsidy aims to improve drinking water supplies in small communities of under 5000 people, and improve life for the 9% of the population whose current supply is sub-standard. Those of us living in […]

Capitalism, it’s not a love-in

Written By: - Date published: 5:10 am, September 2nd, 2009 - 38 comments

I find the Right’s assumption that the bosses are acting in some greater interest fascinating. There’s this unwillingness to believe that the bosses would be acting in their own interests and that what’s in their interests are often not in the interests of the rest of us. Look at the comments yesterday on the Telecom […]

Devil in the detail

Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, September 1st, 2009 - 31 comments

I’ve had a further read of the select committee report on the Emissions Trading Scheme, and found a huge problem – National, United Future, and ACT want to get rid of the cap on emissions. The normal emissions trading scheme is called cap and trade. A cap on the total number of carbon credits is […]

Stop pandering to the modern flat earthers

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, September 1st, 2009 - 62 comments

ACT as part of its coalition agreement, and probably as a result of their funders conditions, forced a review of the Emissions Trading Scheme last year. The review has concluded that the science is valid and chosen to go with the IPCC 4th report as a basis. This is of course extremely conservative and doesn’t […]

“Science”

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, September 1st, 2009 - 51 comments

ACT Party Press Release 1/4/2010: ACT has now identified the number one threat to personal freedom, to unbounded economic growth and to vast wealth for all who deserve it. It is “science”. “Science” creates nothing but trouble. “Science” causes climate change. The essence of the matter is that New Zealanders are being asked to cut […]

Wee gripes

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, September 1st, 2009 - 16 comments

Seeing as Zet’s taken to writing serious posts these days, I thought I’d try my hand at a few wee gripes: – I see Larry Baldock’s still crying about the stupid, leading question on the smacking referendum being ignored, while Family First continues to run full page ads in the newspaper whining that the Government […]

NZ for sale

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, September 1st, 2009 - 2 comments

I was browsing through our image archives and came across this, which I think is from a protest before the election: Well, they got it wrong about Kiwirail but they got it the main bit right – under National, NZ is for sale to overseas multinationals. Who else do you think is going to be […]

Victory for Zeal320 workers

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, September 1st, 2009 - 7 comments

A good outcome from the Zeal320 dispute. The deal doesn’t quite close the gap between Zeal320 workers and other AirNZ flight attendants but gets a long way there. It’s scary going out on strike, not knowing when you’ll be back to normal work and pay. AirNZ played very dirty. Zeal320 workers’ rosters were purposely organised […]

Telecom and the logic of capitalism

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, September 1st, 2009 - 69 comments

There’s nothing like a Tory Government in power and a monopolistic corporate flexing its muscle to remind you that capitalism is all about serving the bosses and screwing the workers. This Telecom dispute. The engineers are being made redundant from their current roles already in batches. On October 1, all the jobs will be gone […]