Archive for October, 2009

We still pay, ACC or no ACC

Written By: - Date published: 10:01 am, October 13th, 2009 - 25 comments

Labour’s David Parker has been a bit slow reacting to National’s latest attack on ACC but now he’s in play he has a killer point to make: if ACC cover is cut, the costs of what was paid for by ACC will still have to be paid for by society somehow. The treatments and lost […]

Why no punishment for Westpac?

Written By: - Date published: 8:26 am, October 13th, 2009 - 80 comments

You would have seen that Westpac was found to have undertaken the largest theft of tax money in New Zealand history. From 1998 to 2002, they hid $586 million in tax due to our government. Add about 6% interest a year and the total they owe us is $961 million. My problem is that the […]

Open mike 13/10/09

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 13th, 2009 - 33 comments

We’re trying a daily “Open mike”. This is a place for anyone to post comments on topics that might be of interest, and for any discussion following up on the comments. Over to you…

Lee admits she stole taxpayer money

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 20 comments

Just two hours after TV3 revealed that Melissa Lee had stolen $100,000 from NZ on Air, Lee announced she will pay the money back. Just a few hours earlier she had been insisting it was her money, just a confusion over accounting. Her tune has only changed because TV3’s story exposed that cover story as […]

A quick question

Written By: - Date published: 8:14 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 26 comments

Do any health insurance companies fully fund long-term claims in the way ACC is being asked to?

Lee’s fingers in the till covered up by Coleman

Written By: - Date published: 8:07 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 4 comments

A leak has revealed that Melissa Lee is under investigation for pilfering taxpayers’ money. Before the Mt Albert by-election she was cleared of a different rip-off, but it turns out that NZ on Air was still investigating her for keeping $100,000 of contingency funds that should have been returned to NZ on Air. Lee denies any […]

Electoral SM

Written By: - Date published: 7:08 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 5 comments

Philip Temple makes some good points in the Herald today: The Minister of Justice, Simon Power, indicated that he would soon present a paper to Cabinet on the proposed referendum on MMP. Presumably this will hold true to National’s election promise, that it will be held “without any further consideration”. Meaning no consultation with the […]

Nick pulls a Bill

Written By: - Date published: 3:39 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 19 comments

Nick Smith has taken a leaf out of the Double Dipton school of politics, calling journalists and swearing at them when the coverage isn’t to his liking. Now, to be fair to Smith, he’s got a point about the story the Dom published on Saturday. The story said Smith and six other MPs (all but […]

Paula, honestly, put away the champagne

Written By: - Date published: 1:20 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 2 comments

So, in the week to October 2, 1950 people signed up to the dole and 2040 went off it. Time to celebrate according to Paula Bennett – unemployment’s going down! But one thing we know about Bennett is she doesn’t have a good grasp of detail – in fact, she has to have everything reduced […]

ARC threatens to terminate NZ Bus contract

Written By: - Date published: 12:53 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 35 comments

ARC chairman Mike Lee has delivered a blunt ultimatum to NZ Bus as its lockout of drivers reaches day five. “We have had enough. Auckland will not be held to ransom. If you can’t deliver the services that the people of Auckland rely on, then we will have to find someone else who can… “NZ […]

Nats find no government waste

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 8 comments

I missed this one a few weeks ago but it’s worth pointing out. National spent $300,000 hiring half a dozen supposed business geniuses for $2,000 a day to find places to cut costs in the public sector. Called them ‘purchase advisers’. They ought to be able to find heaps to cut eh? I mean, National […]

First, manufacture a crisis…

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, October 12th, 2009 - 49 comments

The first thing you need to understand is ACC is not spending more money than it is taking in through levies. It is not going bust. It is not ‘making a loss’ despite what Nick Smith writes and the media faithfully repeats, but, then, they got taken in by this same trick six months ago. […]

War on P

Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, October 12th, 2009 - 28 comments

Did John Key pick up a pair of cowboy boots on his latest trip? Because he’s come back talking like some kind of macho macho man: My message to the gangs is clear. This Government is coming after your business and we will use every tool we have to destroy it. We will be ruthless […]

Open mike 12/10/09

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 12th, 2009 - 10 comments

We’re trying a daily “Open mike”. This is a place for anyone to post comments on topics that might be of interest, and for any discussion following up on the comments. Over to you…

Money and justice

Written By: - Date published: 4:24 pm, October 11th, 2009 - 32 comments

Jenny Ruth has the best comment I’ve seen on Philip Field’s sentence in today’s Sunday Star-Times – not available on the paper’s website or on Stuff.co.nz. Taito Philip Field was a pompous twit over the Thai tilers’ affair, particularly in his inept attempts at a cover-up, but his six -year jail sentence is outrageous. Ruth […]

Some advice for the Greens

Written By: - Date published: 1:25 pm, October 11th, 2009 - 66 comments

The Greens are continuing their idiotic policy of “neither left nor right” today with a calculated smear of Sue Bradford in the Sunday Star Times. As far as I can see the story has been fed out by someone high in the party as a way of distancing the Greens from Bradford and her Left […]

Open mike 11/10/09

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 11th, 2009 - 17 comments

We’re trying a daily “Open mike”. This is a place for anyone to post comments on topics that might be of interest, and for any discussion following up on the comments. Over to you…

Dead peasant insurance

Written By: - Date published: 3:33 pm, October 10th, 2009 - 18 comments

In case you needed reminding how completely deviod of morals and ethics unbridled capitalism is, meet dead peasant insurance. Here’s Mark Ames of Exiled Online‘s beautiful rant against employers making money off their workers’ deaths, and the whole screwed up, unethical, inhuman system:

“Blow out” more like Blowup

Written By: - Date published: 1:29 pm, October 10th, 2009 - 11 comments

Readers of a certain age will remember an Antonioni film called Blowup. The title conceit involves a photographer who finds what appears to be a dead body in one of his photographs but when he blows the photo up to find out more all that happens is the resolution degrades. The more closely he looks […]

Give peace a chance

Written By: - Date published: 8:17 am, October 10th, 2009 - 40 comments

So President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace prize: OSLO – President Barack Obama on Friday won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said. “Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s […]

Open mike 10/10/09

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 10th, 2009 - 20 comments

We’re trying a daily “Open mike”. This is a place for anyone to post comments on topics that might be of interest, and for any discussion following up on the comments. Over to you…

The blue greenwash

Written By: - Date published: 4:24 pm, October 9th, 2009 - 10 comments

Mike Britton, the general manager of the Royal Forest & Bird Protection Society, writes today in the Dom about the gap that appears to be developing between National’s pre-election rhetoric and the post-election reality. Worth a look. In the lead-up to the election, John Key said National’s top three priorities were the three Es – […]

Blast from the past

Written By: - Date published: 3:56 pm, October 9th, 2009 - 37 comments

I see Winston Peters is trying to resurrect his political career with another racist rant about immigration. I don’t think there’s much point in giving the man any more attention. My views are pretty much the same as No Right Turn. All I’d add is that it’s actually kind of tragic to see Winston carry […]

Too late 3

Written By: - Date published: 12:38 pm, October 9th, 2009 - 7 comments

I know I’m banging on about it this week, but it’s rather an important topic! This clip from Wake Up Freak Out is an accessible introduction to the science of the tipping points that are going to accelerate climate change. As the title of my posts in this series suggests, I think we’re too late. […]

Trans-Tasman picks Power

Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, October 9th, 2009 - 17 comments

Some of you will get the Trans-Tasman emailed to your work each Thursday. For those of you who don’t know it, it’s a little rag written by anonymous Tory hacks. Purports to have the inside word on goings on in politics and business on both sides of the Tasman. It’s one of those publications which uses that odious, […]

Shame on you, TVNZ

Written By: - Date published: 10:51 am, October 9th, 2009 - 17 comments

I’ve just seen in the Herald that TVNZ has been using one of their TV ‘psychics’ in the Aisling Symes case. It’s bad enough that they had this charlatan, Deb Webbers, on Breakfast talking about the case. It’s reprehensible that they put this confidence trickster in touch with the family. That they put brain rotting […]

The bizarre world of sensible sentencing

Written By: - Date published: 10:05 am, October 9th, 2009 - 20 comments

Stabbing a kid to death is OK because it’s: “expressing frustration over [tagging]” Taking away people’s access to the most effective ‘flu and cold treatment because it’s a minor source for an ingredient(less than a third of pseudoephedrine comes from pharmacies according to Key),  for a drug the use of which is already in decline: “a […]

30 years without smacking

Written By: - Date published: 8:37 am, October 9th, 2009 - 21 comments

Sweden has had a smacking ban for 30 years. How is that working out? Stockholm When celebrating the 30th anniversary of the world’s first national ban on corporal punishment of children last month, Sweden’s social affairs minister, Göran Hägglund, claimed a dramatic success over something many Swedes now consider a scourge. “Colleagues from other countries […]

Open mike 09/10/09

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 9th, 2009 - 22 comments

We’re trying a daily “Open mike”.   This is a place for anyone to post comments on topics that might be of interest, and for any discussion following up on the comments.  Over to you…

The Bridgeman Concrete lockout ends successfully

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 pm, October 8th, 2009 - 14 comments

The Bridgeman Concrete workers locked out for nine days hardened their picket last week. Two concrete trucks couldn’t leave the depo, costing the company $3,000 in ruined concrete. The company responded by caving in, and lifted the lock out. As well as lifting their lockout Bridgeman also conceded to workers’ demands for a fairer redundancy agreement that […]

Photos from the Auckland bus driver lockout

Written By: - Date published: 4:25 pm, October 8th, 2009 - 18 comments

Some photos from the Auckland bus driver lockout. The drivers showed up to the depots today to demonstrate they were willing to work, while the NZ Bus/Infratil managers stared at them from behind locked gates. These are from the picket line at the Mt Roskill depot: No Right Turn reports there will be a picket […]