Archive for August, 2010

An interesting result

Written By: - Date published: 9:20 am, August 22nd, 2010 - 37 comments

Australia is about to enter a new era in politics. They appear to have a hung parliament this morning according to the Sydney Morning Herald. There are a number of marginal seats in the balance. The single Green MP in the lower house and a number of independents will determine which major party forms a government.

Open mike 22/08/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 22nd, 2010 - 4 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…

Thousands protest Nats’ attack on our work rights

Written By: - Date published: 5:27 pm, August 21st, 2010 - 26 comments

Thousands of Kiwis turned out to protest National’s new labour legislation, a unjustified, spiteful attack on our work rights, which is simply designed to lower labour costs. The CTU has announced a campaign leading to national day of action on Oct 20th. Kiwi workers won’t take this lying down. We are fighting back.

Australian election

Written By: - Date published: 3:26 pm, August 21st, 2010 - 23 comments

Our cousins on the West Island are winding up their election day soon, culminating a dramatic couple of months for Australian politics. It may be that Kevin Rudd gets the last laugh…

Kudos to “The Veteran”

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, August 21st, 2010 - 21 comments

Reading about Act ritualistically disemboweling themselves this week has been interesting, and has quite a few implications for the political landscape at the next election. The factor that has been attracting my attention was highlighted by Fran O’Sullivan this morning – where did those defense papers wind up. Apparently with The Veteran at No Minister, who wins kudos from me by acting responsibly to the leak.

Pressured plonkers pull the plug on PEDA pingers

Written By: - Date published: 9:40 am, August 21st, 2010 - 10 comments

Quite suddenly, the government has pulled the plug on the contraversial $4.8 million in uncontested funding it awarded to the previously unknown Pacific Economic Development Agency in this year’s Budget.

It all stinks to high heaven.

Quick bites

Written By: - Date published: 7:37 am, August 21st, 2010 - 33 comments

There are a bunch of interesting little stories floating around this week that we didn’t get round to writing full posts on or that we wrote drafts for but never finished. So here’s a new, possibly weekly feature – Quick Bites:
NZ Institute: ‘Nats have no plan’
Suicide funding cut
Nats’ interesting donors
Workers’ rights under attack
One foot out of Iraq
Vultures
Party on Garth

Open mike 21/08/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 21st, 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…

Fairness at Work rallies 21 & 22 August

Written By: - Date published: 1:54 pm, August 20th, 2010 - 56 comments

Workers are getting together to oppose the government’s changes to employment law with rallies in the four main centres this weekend. Join your rally.
The Saturday rallies against National’s anti-work rights bill assemble at:
Auckland, QE2 Square, bottom of Queen St – 1pm
Wellington, Civic Square – 1pm
Christchurch, Catherdal Square – 1pm
and on Sunday:
Dunedin, Dental School, Great King St – 11am

Can we trust MPs while they have secret trusts?

Written By: - Date published: 1:08 pm, August 20th, 2010 - 11 comments

Registrar of Pecuniary Interests Margaret Bazley, the country’s busiest pensioner, has presented recommendations for improving the transparency of MPs’ financial interests. It seems like good stuff, but it ignores the elephant in the room – the ability of MPs to use trusts to hide their shareholdings, and their conflicts of interest, from the public.

English still busy fudging the numbers

Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, August 20th, 2010 - 27 comments

Bill English thinks he has proven that wages grew just 3% under Labour and grew 15.5% under National in the 1990s. How’s he done it? By taking a ridiculous definition of wages and a very convenient timeframe. Bill, this is getting old. Your distortions are transparent and exposing you is too easy. How about, rather than fudging historic numbers, you get on with your job of building a better future?

Teacher-bashing morons

Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, August 20th, 2010 - 47 comments

This government is attacking education at every level. In particular it is attacking teachers over national standards. National blogger DPF’s post yesterday was a particularly disgraceful example. Arrogant, ignorant, and full of lies.

Sir Peter and his DonKey

Written By: - Date published: 9:09 am, August 20th, 2010 - 13 comments

Sir Peter Gluckman wants more investment in early childhood. $1 invested in young children now gives $13 in adulthood, but his day-trader DonKey’s short-termism sees only cuts and short-change for our greatest resource.

ACT’s demise bad news for neo-liberals

Written By: - Date published: 6:33 am, August 20th, 2010 - 37 comments

No wonder Winston Peters is smiling. His personal vendetta with Hide must be at on the forefront of his mind as he watches his nemesis sink.

But what does ACT’s impending demise actually mean for other parties? It’s not good news for National.

Open mike 20/08/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 20th, 2010 - 35 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…

Douglas adds to Key’s ACT headache

Written By: - Date published: 4:07 pm, August 19th, 2010 - 34 comments

ACT’s meltdown continues, with comments from ACT founder and current MP Sir Roger Douglas illustrating that all is not well in the caucus. According to Stuff,  Sir Roger Douglas is saying he is not sure he will stand at the next election. He also said the party had to show it was stable. “I don’t […]

Government NACTered

Written By: - Date published: 2:11 pm, August 19th, 2010 - 35 comments

Kingmaker Winston Peters today dashed the second term chances of the troubled National-ACT coalition government. Political commentator Q Werty describes this as a risky but gutsy move by the principled Peters.

Massive series of blasts to close gap with Australia

Written By: - Date published: 1:08 pm, August 19th, 2010 - 5 comments

Prime Minister John Key today outlined a plan to close the gap with Australia using his skills as a money trader and a stockpile of ex-Soviet nukes.

Key backs the bully, loses a good minister

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, August 19th, 2010 - 24 comments

John Key allowed one of the ministers he appointed to be bullied out of her job and replaced by a man chosen by Rodney Hide, and he didn’t even ask Hide why. As more details emerge, it looks like Hide is the one in the wrong. Will Key now discipline Hide and invite Roy, who has been acclaimed as a good minister in a bad bunch, back on board? Not likely. The guy’s barely awake these days.

Take him up on the offer, Phil

Written By: - Date published: 7:52 am, August 19th, 2010 - 28 comments

John Key said yesterday: “the gap with Australia is definitely closing … If [Phil Goff] wants to pop up for a coffee I will take him through the numbers, and I can take him through a few others.” I say go for it, Phil. I’m dying to see what numbers Key is talking about. Because the reality is that we are falling behind Australia on every measure, while Key just smiles and waves.

Open mike 19/08/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 19th, 2010 - 33 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…

Peters vs Key

Written By: - Date published: 8:27 pm, August 18th, 2010 - 53 comments

TV3 is reporting Winston Peters will standing at the next election… against John Key in Helensville. Those are candidate meetings I for one wouldn’t want to miss!

An inflated star collapsing

Written By: - Date published: 5:55 pm, August 18th, 2010 - 37 comments

Watching ACT at present must be similar to watching a red giant finishing consuming all of its helium, expel its envelope, and collapse down to dwarf star. A breaking Herald report on the back story of the ACT leadership assassination says Heather Roy’s “leaked documents…portray Act leader Rodney Hide as an abusive, intimidating bully”

One of these things is not like the other XI

Written By: - Date published: 4:25 pm, August 18th, 2010 - 18 comments

One of these things is not like the other, One of these things is not quite the same Can you guess which one is not like the other, Can you tell me before I finish the game?

An Authoritarian Act

Written By: - Date published: 2:52 pm, August 18th, 2010 - 14 comments

So Rodney can’t keep 4 other people on side. The liberal and authoritarian split in Act has had its blood-letting and the authoritarians have won. Where will the neo-liberal idealogues go? And how will Epsom react to this change in philosophy in a year’s time?

Karma on the beach

Written By: - Date published: 1:52 pm, August 18th, 2010 - 28 comments

A new lobby group, the “Costal Coalition”, crawled out from under a rock today. Above is their first billboard, one of several planned for Wellington and Auckland. It’s a distasteful, damaging campaign, but National and their associated hacks have no grounds for complaint.

The Irrationality of the Free-Market

Written By: - Date published: 12:29 pm, August 18th, 2010 - 74 comments

There really isn’t any doubt about this any more, the free-market ideology put forward by the Chicago School of Economics (and the Austrian school) and slavishly followed by National, Act and Labour is predicted on fully informed individuals making rational choices. But individuals just don’t have enough knowledge to know what is best and the market as a whole is irrational as a result.

Does Key know why he replaced Roy with Boscawen?

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, August 18th, 2010 - 31 comments

We’re in a depressingly familiar position under this Key government: We don’t know why one of our government’s ministers was forced to resign yesterday. It’s not good enough in this age of supposedly open and transparent government. The really scary thing this time is it appears the Prime Minister doesn’t know either.

Key voters waking up, pity about the hangover they’ve given us

Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, August 18th, 2010 - 81 comments

National is governing like National governs. Anyone could have foreseen this, there were plenty of clues, but its only now are people who switched to Key waking up to the fact that he’s just the grinning face on the same old beast. I wonder: if someone is smart enough to see that Key’s government is a failure now, how were they dumb enough to ever believe things would be different?

Bill English: making it up as he goes along

Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, August 18th, 2010 - 28 comments

Parliament erupted in laughter yesterday as Bill English made up more ‘facts’ to attack Labour’s economic performance. Even if his accusations against Labour’s record were true, he doesn’t have any solutions himself. Indeed, the reason he is spending so much time trying to smear Labour’s record is he is desperate to make is own record look less appalling by comparison.

Pakistan: Donate Now

Written By: - Date published: 7:31 am, August 18th, 2010 - 4 comments

The UN says the number of people suffering from the massive floods in Pakistan — an estimated 20 million — could exceed the combined total of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the 2005 Kashmir earthquake.  But where there was massive generosity in response to those tragedies, in the past week […]