Written By: - Date published: 12:36 pm, February 5th, 2010 - 8 comments
Following the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to allow unlimited corporate funding of federal campaigns, Murray Hill Inc. today announced it was filing to run for U.S. Congress. Read the whole press release. Here’s their first campaign ad:
Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, February 5th, 2010 - 29 comments
The Tax Working Group’s summary presentation at their December seminar came from a senior partner from one of the Big 4 accountancy firms, Price Waterhouse. One scenario for the preferred ultimate outcome aligned income, trustee and company tax at 27%, paid for by increasing GST to 15%. At the top: Big change The graph tops […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, February 5th, 2010 - 48 comments
Nearly a year ago, John Key, shaken by the first whispers of disquiet over his government’s month-long holiday at the height of an economic crisis (whispers that would later grow into cries of ‘Do Nothing’ Key), decided to hold the Prime Minister’s Jobs Summit. This would not be a talk-fest, it would be a ‘do-fest’ […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, February 5th, 2010 - 7 comments
The CTU is launching its “that’s gotta hurt” campaign against government cuts to ACC on the big screens at the Sevens today and the result is not what you’d expect from the normally rather earnest organisation. S
Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, February 5th, 2010 - 53 comments
A panicked, chaotic series of excuses poured forth from John Key’s mouth yesterday as he attempted to shift the blame for the shocking unemployment numbers on to someone, anyone, else: “He told reporters it was important to note the economy was not losing jobs, it was a case of not creating new ones fast enough.” […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 5th, 2010 - 50 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…
Written By: - Date published: 4:35 pm, February 4th, 2010 - 28 comments
The British PM Gordon Brown has announced he will push through legislation giving citizens the chance to vote on whether to dump First Past the Post (FPP) in favour of Alternative Vote (AV). According to The Guardian: Brown staked his authority on committing his party not just to a referendum on the alternative vote, but […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:54 pm, February 4th, 2010 - 59 comments
Andrew Campbell It should come as no surprise that unemployment hit 7.3% today. That’s what happens when a government does virtually nothing to support job creation when there is a recession. But instead of announcing a plan to address this massive economic and social issue the Minister for Unemployment, Paula Bennett, is blaming a growth […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:25 pm, February 4th, 2010 - 28 comments
Unemployment is now 7.3%. The highest since the 90s. What, you don’t remember that decade? Well, you’re in a for a treat. Govt says population rise behind high unemployment Social Development Minister Paula Bennett pointed to an increase of 14,500 people in the working age population. “There are simply more people joining the workforce, which […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:25 pm, February 4th, 2010 - 16 comments
I wasn’t expecting to do another in this series so soon, but then I’m much too polite to decline a clear invitation like this. John Key says that parents should not have to put up with “creeping political correctness in our schools”. So what does “creeping political correctness in our schools” mean? Its tempting to […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, February 4th, 2010 - 113 comments
Unemployment hit a startling 7.3% in the December quarter, far higher than the 6.8% expected. There are now 159,000 officially unemployed workers in New Zealand. Add in the those who want to work but have given up looking and there are 276,000 jobless Kiwis who wanting a job. That’s the highest number of jobless since […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:26 am, February 4th, 2010 - 11 comments
Saw this in the new culture/humour page in the Dom: Glad to see the “do-nothing PM” as Rodney Hide called John Key doing plenty of late. Take the past fortnight for example; there’s been the barbecue and beer with Prince William, photo ops with punters at the Wellington races, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony and practice […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, February 4th, 2010 - 17 comments
Well, there can’t be any doubt now, Anne Tolley is this government’s worst minister. A failure that stands out among failures. She had an Auckland university pay to take her on a chopper ride because she didn’t understand what was meant by getting a “helicopter view of the sector”. She complained to her advisors about […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:24 am, February 4th, 2010 - 13 comments
Telecom is threatening to throw up to 1,500 workers out of their jobs so it can increase profits by offshoring. A good government in this situation is talks to the company, uses the bully pulpit. Telecom should be reminded that it is hoping to make a bomb off the government’s broadband fund. They should be reminded that the one […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, February 4th, 2010 - 76 comments
Does anyone else think it’s a coincidence that Granny Herald has tried to start a meaningless debate over the national flag – ’11 of 18 Order of NZ members support change!’ wow-wee – just as the wheels come off a flagship National policy? Nah. Me neither.
Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, February 4th, 2010 - 22 comments
So, John Key and Pita Sharples put Hone Harawira in charge of deciding which flag will fly to represent Maori on government buildings on Waitangi Day. Only four options are put up: the New Zealand flag, the New Zealand ensign, the 1835 United Tribes flag, and Tino Rangatiratanga. It was always pretty obvious what the result […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 4th, 2010 - 8 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…
Written By: - Date published: 9:05 pm, February 3rd, 2010 - 1 comment
I’m totally rapt with Lyn Collie & Briar March getting the recognition for their documentary “There once was an island”. Lyn talked about it on Nightline last night.
Written By: - Date published: 12:58 pm, February 3rd, 2010 - 49 comments
This is the first post in an occasional series that will translate Tory speak into plain language (fellow writers and guest posters are welcome to play!). Today’s exhibit is this corker from the Double Dip: “Finance Minister Bill English today confirmed Budget 2010 will be delivered on May 20 and will set out important policies […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:26 am, February 3rd, 2010 - 28 comments
Remember how John Key said he “would love to see wages drop“. You might remember the big corporate media refused to run it, and the head of APN held an emergency meeting with Key then pressured the journalist who had reported the comments to retract them, which he would not do, and then APN published […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, February 3rd, 2010 - 32 comments
Welcome back, John Armstrong. In your piece today you wrote about John Key’s emergency efforts to cover for Anne Tolley’s disasterious handling of national standards: “It is effectively the first of what is likely to be a series of initiatives this year to bury the overstated claims that he has been a “do little” prime […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:28 am, February 3rd, 2010 - 14 comments
Last October I posted on National’s plan to fold the State Services Commission into the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Yesterday, Labour’s Grant Robertson revived the rumour. And since then Government pollster David Farrar has spent much of his energy reserves vigorously defending any transfer of power that may occur. But we should watch closely to […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, February 3rd, 2010 - 70 comments
The latest round of the Labour Cost Index is out and it shows that the nation’s 400,000 union members are the workers holding their ground as businesses try to cut wage costs to preserve their profit margins: Inflation was 2% this year. If you didn’t get a pay rise to match or beat that, your […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 3rd, 2010 - 35 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…
Written By: - Date published: 7:05 pm, February 2nd, 2010 - 31 comments
In a sure sign that the political phone is off the hook for John ‘Mayor for Remuera’ Banks, the deputy mayor of Rodney John Kirikiri has a scathing letter in yesterday’s Herald criticising the super-mayoral candidate’s cynical electioneering. After a couple of high-profile high-cost staff hires (he has ex 3 News political reporter Scott Campbell […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:59 pm, February 2nd, 2010 - 24 comments
Gordon Campbell has written in Werewolf an excellent pre-review about the Defense White Paper due for release in March. Needless to say whatever it returns with will be controversial because it helps to define the direction of the next few decades of expenditure and focus for our military.
Then we will not have some of the remarkably stupid ‘debate’ by the ossified that happened in the early 2000’s as the Labour government implemented the Quigley review of the armed forces. This pushed the army to the fore, and relegated the other two services to a support role.
It was clear that many in that debate never bothered to read the Quigley report.
Written By: - Date published: 1:17 pm, February 2nd, 2010 - 87 comments
So, I’m at a cafe having lunch and there’s some fat middle-aged businessmen having lunch at the table beside me. One of them is talking about Blair’s appearance at the inquiry on the invasion of Iraq and says “all these namby-pambies say ‘oh we shouldn’t have invaded’ but they would have shut up if Saddam […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:36 am, February 2nd, 2010 - 38 comments
Oh, sure, the Nats will lock a person up longer after they commit a crime, if they get caught. But what they won’t do is prevent them commiting the crime in the first place. National will spend a fortune on counter-productive vengence after you’ve become a victim of crime but not a fraction of that on saving the crime from happening in […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, February 2nd, 2010 - 127 comments
One of the old saws that the Right brings out whenever the topic of increasing the minimum wage comes up is ‘oh no, it will increase unemployment’. They said it this year. The Business Roundtable said it every year as the Fifth Labour Government put up the minimum wage and unemployment kept falling. Hell, they […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:04 am, February 2nd, 2010 - 20 comments
TVNZ reports: “Associate Education Minister Pita Sharples has labelled the National Standards policy as damaging to Maori but later refused to comment after being shut down by the Prime Minister.” Well, Pita, points for having your heart in the right place but how much longer will you put up with the indignity of being gagged […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, February 2nd, 2010 - Comments Off on Reminder – Drinking Liberally Auckland
The first Auckland Drinking Liberally of 2010 takes place TODAY upstairs at The Purple Bar @ The Naval and Family and features new Labour MP Kelvin Davis (and we’re hoping to get Maori Party leader Pita Sharples) to talk about the Treaty of Waitangi in the 21st century. When: 7pm next TUESDAY 2 February Where: […]
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