Archive for February, 2010
Key’s magic money-pot
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, February 10th, 2010 - 25 comments
John Key has indicated that the Government will lift the GST rate to 15% and remove depreciation from investment houses. According to the Tax Working Group, that’ll raise $3.6 billion. That revenue will then be spent on compensation and tax cuts. First, he has promised compensation for the GST increase to beneficiaries, people on working […]
John Key’s “step change”
Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, February 10th, 2010 - 15 comments
Any questions?
(Sort of a) caption contest
Written By: - Date published: 9:18 am, February 10th, 2010 - 54 comments
Someone’s noticed that during her recent Tea Party speech Palin had “Energy”, “Tax,” and “Lift Americans Spirits” written on her hand – she used it to crib from when questioned about Republican priorities. A spy pic from the House yesterday suggests that Key’s taken a leaf out of Palin’s book. Any ideas what it says?
How did Nats know parents’ addresses?
Written By: - Date published: 6:57 am, February 10th, 2010 - 31 comments
You’ll recall that last week National spent $200,000 of taxpayer dollars on a proganda drop defending its national standards. This was a targeted exercise – 350,000 of the pamphlets were produced, enough for the parents of each primary school pupil. So, how did they know what addresses to send them to? You can’t get information on […]
Open mike 10/02/2010
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 10th, 2010 - 24 comments
Topics of interest, announcements, general discussion. The usual rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Commentators damning of Key’s visionless speech
Written By: - Date published: 5:46 pm, February 9th, 2010 - 97 comments
Bernard Hickey: He had a chance to follow up all the talk of real reform to create a ‘step change’. He had all the experts under the sun from inside and outside of government telling him he needed to do something. He commissioned reports. He talked a good game. Today he did nothing. He did […]
Key: we’re a less than half-decent govt
Written By: - Date published: 4:19 pm, February 9th, 2010 - 28 comments
Good spotting by Jake Quinn: during the 2008 election, John Key ruled out raising GST, as the Herald reported back in October of that year: ‘National leader John Key said told (sic) a press conference this morning that if National is elected and does a ‘half decent job’ at growing the economy, then increasing GST […]
Goff’s response to Key
Written By: - Date published: 2:53 pm, February 9th, 2010 - 79 comments
Even National Party pollster, David Farrar, could only give Key’s speech a B Goff says that it’s ‘Alan Bollard 1, John Key 0’. There’s talk of a step change but no actual plan that will close the gaps. ‘No bold plan, no plan at all’ ‘Big Tuesday? More like tip-toe Tuesday’ Rubbishs the notion that […]
Key’s statement to Parliament
Written By: - Date published: 2:34 pm, February 9th, 2010 - 59 comments
Very little specific so far. According to Stuff, National will increase GST to ‘up to’ 15% – which I take to mean 15%. He has ruled out a land tax, capital gains tax, or tax on risk-free rate of return. That leaves just closing the loopholes that allow landlords to offset losses on investment properties against […]
Fair share for workers best way to close gap with Aussie
Written By: - Date published: 10:56 am, February 9th, 2010 - 21 comments
30 years ago, according to John Key, wages in Australia and New Zealand were the same. Since then New Zealand wages have stagnated and Australian wages haven grown away from us to the point where they are nearly 40% higher. The conventional wisdom is that this is due to faster economic growth in Australia, driven […]
Ideology trumps science for the Right
Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, February 9th, 2010 - 63 comments
Consider these results from opinion surveys of experts different areas of research, I won’t tell you the areas of research just yet: In one, 97% of actively publishing experts agree with a statement (I’ll give you the statement below) concerning their field. In the other field, 46.5% of experts fully agreed with the statement, 27.9% agreed […]
Great expectations
Written By: - Date published: 7:28 am, February 9th, 2010 - 19 comments
“This is his most important speech since he entered Parliament in 2002.” That’s Duncan Garner on Key’s speech today. Other political commentators have been emphasising its importance too: John Armstrong: “What has so far been a comparatively easy ride for Key now starts to get much bumpier. The time has come to do the difficult […]
Open mike 09/02/2010
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 9th, 2010 - 10 comments
Topics of interest, announcements, general discussion. The usual rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Key: Look over here! Please, look over here
Written By: - Date published: 6:45 pm, February 8th, 2010 - 44 comments
Well, wages are stagnating, unemployment is just shy of its all-time high, crime is up, and there is no chance of the Government fulfilling its flagship promise – closing the gap with Australia by 2025. Tomorrow, a make or break speech will lay out Key’s programme of action for the year ahead, and expectations are […]
Policy roulette
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, February 8th, 2010 - 29 comments
I don’t recall the date or anything, but I remember the exact moment I decided to get politically active. Rob Muldoon was called by some brave journalist on the fact that National seemed to be ignoring all its election manifesto promises. Muldoon just grunted, and said that manifesto promises were dreamed up by advertisers, and […]
Quick thoughts
Written By: - Date published: 11:06 am, February 8th, 2010 - 36 comments
It’s obvious to anyone with a brain that a government that spends half its time on holiday and the rest on PR stunts is never going to get New Zealand to catch Australia by 2025 but having the Reserve Bank Governor say its impossible, that’s hugely embarrassing. Of course, Key is refusing to acknowledge the […]
When was the last time Key mentioned the ‘underclass’?
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, February 8th, 2010 - 9 comments
I was thinking the other day about John Key’s underclass speech. It was always pure gimmickry, as was the whole exploitation of Aroha. But how long would he keep up the facade once the PR value had worn off?
Cowardly
Written By: - Date published: 7:43 am, February 8th, 2010 - 51 comments
A foreign politician celebrates an act of terrorism on our shores and our Prime Minister refuses to comment on the matter? WTF?
Nats lying over firing Aroha’s mum?
Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, February 8th, 2010 - 30 comments
In yesterday’s Herald Jackie Blue told us she’d sacked the mother of young Aroha because she had to merge offices with Sam Lotu-Iiga. But some investigative work at The Hand Mirror suggests otherwise…
Open mike 08/02/2010
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 8th, 2010 - 29 comments
Topics of interest, announcements, general discussion. The usual rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Shorter Lhaws
Written By: - Date published: 4:36 pm, February 7th, 2010 - 71 comments
All teachers are feminist pinkos. And they’re badly dressed. And too nice to the kids. It wasn’t like that in my day. And didn’t I turn out just fine? That’s why we need national standards. Perhaps the most compelling argument against national standards I have read so far.
National, time to put your dog on a leash
Written By: - Date published: 12:17 pm, February 7th, 2010 - 49 comments
As surely an endorphin high fades, Cameron Slater was going to do something to get his name back in the media. He’s been trying to test the boundaries for a few weeks. He’s been ignored. So, stepped it up a few gears. He’s named another person on name suppression. He doesn’t care that the name […]
The victims of Brand Key
Written By: - Date published: 8:12 am, February 7th, 2010 - 52 comments
Remember the struggling Auckland family that John Key used in 2007 to help build his brand? Well, according to the Herald: The mother of the 12-year-old girl John Key took to Waitangi three years ago says she has been let down by the Prime Minister, and her daughter now wants nothing to do with him. […]
Poneke: If only scientists were more like god…
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, February 7th, 2010 - 79 comments
Poneke’s weblog recently wrote a critical post about ‘climategate’ where he has had a look through the subset of selectively leaked pages of private correspondence thieved from the CRU at the University of East Anglia. His analysis didn’t bother to look at the science of climate change virtually at all, and what science was looked at was full of myths. Furthermore it wasn’t particularly original. Most appeared to have been cribbed from a number of climate change denialist sites and throughly debunked in part or as a whole by many other sites. It was hardly the type of original thinking that David Farrar at kiwiblog should have labeled as being
Poneke’s full post is a must read. It is also the sort of journalism that should be in the mainstream media.
Open mike 07/02/2010
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 7th, 2010 - 3 comments
Topics of interest, announcements, general discussion. The usual rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Unemployment: real action, not vague promises needed
Written By: - Date published: 4:41 pm, February 6th, 2010 - 43 comments
The Herald reports: “[Key] also raised the 15 per cent Maori unemployment rate, saying improving education outcomes for Maori children would help address that.” Improved education sounds good but: 1) how is Key going to actually lift Maori educational achievement? Not by cutting millions from the education budget like he did last year. Not by […]
And again nothing happened
Written By: - Date published: 12:56 pm, February 6th, 2010 - 2 comments
The usual suspects are bleating on about John Key’s big speech on Tuesday. As I’ve pointed out again and again this sort of thing is treated by Key as a PR event in which the talk is big and the action minimal. Just like John’s plan to save the whales. What we’ll see on Tuesday […]
Paula, John, seriously, put away the champagne
Written By: - Date published: 12:53 pm, February 6th, 2010 - 2 comments
Paula Bennett and John Key have been, once again, prematurely popping the bottle of champagne to celebrate the end of rising unemployment. In the face of the shocking 7.3% unemployment rate announced on Thursday, the pair responded by saying ‘ah, but that was December quarter things are better now.’ They pointed to the number […]
A principal writes
Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, February 6th, 2010 - 86 comments
School principal Pat Newman posted the following as a comment on Red Alert. It’s not a polished piece written with distribution in mind, but it’s from the heart, and well worth reproducing here (minor typos corrected). Pat added several further excellent comments, follow the link above. I speak as a principal of a Decile 2 […]
Open mike 06/02/2010
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 6th, 2010 - 34 comments
Topics of interest, announcements, general discussion. The usual rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Pay the money back, John
Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, February 5th, 2010 - 22 comments
Today’s editorial in the Herald is headlined “Class standards leaflet a misuse of public funds.” It says: In response to criticism from educationists and an opposition roadshow by the primary teachers’ union, National MPs will host public meetings around the country and information on the standards will be mailed out to households. Unfortunately, this material, […]
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