Archive for April, 2010

Confidence in Key govt falls off a cliff

Written By: - Date published: 12:42 am, April 12th, 2010 - 20 comments

Smile and wave is easy enough in the first year, people are willing to give you a chance. But at some point, the public expects a government to get to work tackling the big problems. National displays no will or ability to do so. In just two months, 1 in 8 Kiwis has switched from thinking the country is heading in the right direction under Key to thinking things are getting worse.

Fox News – driven by conservative bullshit

Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, April 11th, 2010 - 24 comments

Rachel Maddow has a look at exactly how much Fox News just makes stuff up and calls it news. It uses selectively edited stories like the ACORN ‘pimp’ story, the ‘climategate’ e-mails, and many other highly inaccurate ‘stories’, and promotes them for ratings.

In effect Fox News is the (un)official spin channel for conservative activists to peddle garbage entertainment on. Have a watch of Rachael as she tears the facade of conservative story telling apart.

Jones and CRU exonerated by parliamentary inquiry

Written By: - Date published: 12:07 pm, April 11th, 2010 - 31 comments

Big Ben British Parliament

We were off-air last weekend, so this story got missed.

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report into the disclosure of climate data by the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia has just been released.

Turns out that ‘climategate’ was just a pile of hot air and selective story telling by the denialist industry. Wasn’t that unexpected? Yeah right.

Garner coy on accusations

Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, April 11th, 2010 - 29 comments

The day after Zet’s post here on homophobic, imbalanced reporting by TV3’s Duncan Garner, Brian Edward’s wrote a scathing detailed deconstruction of Garner‘s repeatedly vicious coverage of Chris Carter. Edwards suggests Garner’s repeated attacks resemble a personal harassment campaign, a view Dim Post agrees with saying Garner’s obsession with Chris Carter has wandered into dark and […]

Foreshore and seabed a new ball game

Written By: - Date published: 7:12 am, April 11th, 2010 - 19 comments

National is offering significant new concessions on the foreshore and seabed. It’s a whole new ball game. Coming on top of Whanau Ora its second big win in a row for the Maori Party. Is this it? Will there be an agreed solution? Can the country put this issue behind it?

Open mike 11/04/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 11th, 2010 - 6 comments

Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

Nuke free US ships already welcome

Written By: - Date published: 6:13 pm, April 10th, 2010 - 13 comments

Geoffrey Palmer needs a holiday. It’s bad enough that he’s acting as the mouthpiece for John Key’s pro-whaling policy that has the Japanese applauding and our allies shaking their heads in dismay. Now, he’s saying we should allow visits by US naval vessels. If the US wants to send navy ships for a visit then all it has to do is what other nuclear powers like the UK do: confirm that the vessels it sends don’t breach our country’s laws. Is that too much to ask?

Will Winston be back in 2011?

Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, April 10th, 2010 - 100 comments

In politics nothing lasts forever. That is it seems, except the Rt Hon Winston Peters. The latest Roy Morgan poll has NZ First at 3%, just below the 5% threshold (Nats 49%, Lab 33%). With Peters once again creeping back into the media spotlight, you’ve got to wonder: Will Rodney Hide’s nightmare come true with the return of Winston Peters to Parliament in 2011?

British Tories won’t reduce income inequality

Written By: - Date published: 6:32 am, April 10th, 2010 - 12 comments

The British Tories wax on about a rise in income inequality under New Labour, but their line is a deliberate ploy that needs countering.

Open mike 10/04/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 10th, 2010 - 12 comments

Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

You know your policy sucks when…

Written By: - Date published: 12:42 pm, April 9th, 2010 - 21 comments

Even Guyon Espiner is concerned about the lack of quality analysis and policy design. If the government were serious about helping families in need it’s priority would be getting people back into work and better pay and conditions for low income workers. The fact that is has gone with this Whanau Ora nonsense shows it has no real intention of tackling the causes of this country’s social ills.

Whanau Ora minister, Foreshore sell-out

Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, April 9th, 2010 - 13 comments

Maori activists who want a better deal on the foreshore and seabed can rest assured that the Maori Party is about to sell them out. Tariana Turia just got herself a shiny new portfolio as Minister for Whanau Ora, whatever it is. Do you really think she’s going to give up a control over a policy that National has agreed to just for her? Do you really think she’ll stand strong on her principles over the foreshore and seabed if it means losing the Crown limo?

Take it out of my ‘tax cut’

Written By: - Date published: 9:22 am, April 9th, 2010 - 30 comments

So the govt wants to sue the Waihopai 3 for $1.1 mil. No pesky jury this time. The dudes only have a grand between them. Spending a couple of hundred thousand on lawyers’ fees to bankrupt some hippies. Doesn’t seem like the best use of taxpayer cash. Tell you what. If the govt really wants its $1.1 million they can take it out of our tax ‘cuts’. 25 cents each. That’ll be my tax cut pretty much gone.

The Waihopai spy base

Written By: - Date published: 7:31 am, April 9th, 2010 - 31 comments

The Waihopai spy base is very much in the news. Last month the Waihopai Three were acquitted of charges, provoking a storm of controversy (and congratulations). Yesterday came the news that the Government is considering further action against the three. There was also a “very unusual” statement about the role of Waihopai from the GCSB. Who to believe?

Open mike 09/04/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 9th, 2010 - 28 comments

Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

Whanau Ora report unacceptably poor

Written By: - Date published: 6:42 pm, April 8th, 2010 - 41 comments

The Whanau Ora Taskforce report is out and it fails to even attempt to answer simple questions like ‘why is Whanau Ora the best way to help families’. It provides no evidence it will work. Check out the graphic to the right – what does it even mean? All we do know is Whanau Ora will put public money in unaccountable private hands and be privatisation by stealth.

50,000 Kiwis missed this

Written By: - Date published: 3:13 pm, April 8th, 2010 - 28 comments

According to Roy Morgan, the Herald lost 50,000 readers last year, an achievement only surpassed by the Sunday Star-Times, which shed 107,000 (17%!). After reading a piece that mickysavage alerted me to. I’m left wondering if there’s a link with the quality of journalism in the Herald and those 50,000 lost readers.

People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones

Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, April 8th, 2010 - 24 comments

Recently, and for good reason, New Zealanders and the media have objected to companies using palm oil due the deforestation caused by the palm oil industry. For New Zealand to take such a stance, when our diary industry has a similarly devastating impact on the environment, is hypocritical. We need to clean up our own act if we’re going to criticise others.

Tax hikes fail to cause ‘brain’ drain in UK

Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, April 8th, 2010 - 39 comments

George Monbiot writes: It’s a bitter blow. When the government proposed a windfall tax on bonuses and a 50p top rate of income tax, thousands of bankers and corporate executives promised to leave the country and move to Switzerland(1,2). Now we discover that the policy has failed: the number of financiers applying for a Swiss work permit fell by 7% last year.

National’s Magnificent Seven

Written By: - Date published: 9:25 am, April 8th, 2010 - 49 comments

A while ago at a barbeque a couple of friends were discussing the “Seven Good Pairs of Hands Theory”, namely, that a good government only needs seven very good people at its core to run effectively. Indeed, more than seven can often be problematic because of competition issues, but that isn’t usually a problem in New […]

Lies strengthen case against David Carter

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, April 8th, 2010 - 6 comments

It’s the lies that get you. That’s what Agriculture Minister David Carter and John Key are learning as more details of Carter’s conflict of interest over the legislation that removed the Environment Canterbury councilare emerging. Carter and Key now have to explain why they have lied and misled, which will be tricky to explain if they continue to insist there’s no ministerial misbehaviour to cover up.

Open mike 08/04/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 8th, 2010 - 29 comments

Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

More to worry about

Written By: - Date published: 11:48 pm, April 7th, 2010 - 40 comments

Whanau Ora is, apparently, about giving a big pile of money to private groups under so-called ‘high trust’ contracts and expecting them to get on and deliver a whole range of public services that have previously been the responsibility of accountable government departments. What could go wrong? Quite a bit suggests this story

Poll watching – the British elections

Written By: - Date published: 6:59 pm, April 7th, 2010 - 8 comments

As we hit mid-term in our election cycle, political addicts are casting their eyes over to the UK. Now the latest Guardian poll shows that the gap between the two main parties is now at four points – the closest in an ICM poll for almost two years…

Paying MPs’ court costs

Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, April 7th, 2010 - 22 comments

I don’t have a problem with MPs being able to get public funding for court cases arising from their professional activities. You wouldn’t expect private sector employees who are taken to court over their actions in their job to be forced to pay their own way. But what a sense of entitlement Gerry Brownlee has.

Allied with murderers

Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, April 7th, 2010 - 41 comments

Wikileaks has revealed footage shot from a US Apache helicopter in Iraq in 2007 as they callously murder a dozen Iraqi civilians. Every time you read of some wedding convey being shot up or a houseful of ‘insurgents’ being bombed remember this video and remember that our soldiers are now part of the combat force that is committing these same barbaric acts in Afghanistan.

Sticking it to the underclass

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, April 7th, 2010 - 39 comments

Remember “the underclass”? They were briefly fashionable in National circles in 2007. Now that they are the government National’s policies for the underclass seem to involve a good deal of beneficiary bashing. Invalids are being thrown off their benefit before the new legislation is even in effect. Election promises are being broken to remove the carrot and wield the stick. How will this help the underclass?

Open mike 07/04/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 7th, 2010 - 45 comments

Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

How’s that change coming? – Emigration

Written By: - Date published: 12:02 am, April 7th, 2010 - 16 comments

That Nice Mr Key promised that, through the power of tax cuts, he would stop so many Kiwi emigrating to Australia. Well, we had tax cuts so what happened to the number of Kiwis heading over the ditch? Must have dried up, right? Sorry kids, after a recession-induced lull, emigration is climbing as Kiwis seek greener pastures in the red country. Just one more promise Key couldn’t keep.

Nats’ homophobic dog-whistling continues

Written By: - Date published: 10:21 pm, April 6th, 2010 - 107 comments

3News viewers were left wondering if Duncan Garner is still pissed after the long weekend tonight. Using material that has clearly come from Jason Ede in Key’s office Murray McCully, Garner played the message-bearer for National’s continuing attacks on Labour’s gay MPs. It makes me heave that Garner, one of the best journos in the country, should lower himself to become part of this dirty, homophobic campaign.

Humour of the week

Written By: - Date published: 9:01 pm, April 6th, 2010 - 10 comments

David Slack says..

“Qantas passenger threatened to bring down flight with the power of his mind. Ten bucks says he’s wearing an ACT T-shirt”

But it made me laugh after a hard weekend. as it perfectly reflects that way I feel about the breed.