Archive for October, 2010

Bolger: privatisation has failed

Written By: - Date published: 9:03 am, October 14th, 2010 - 100 comments

20 years too late, Spud has announced that the neoliberal privatisation agenda has been a failure. He says we sold the wrong things, sold them the wrong way, got too little money, and created private monopolies. Of course, what we should have done is hold on to our assets, rather than turning them into cash cows for foreign owners.

Open mike 14/10/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 14th, 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…

Waking up to the oil crisis

Written By: - Date published: 11:05 pm, October 13th, 2010 - 73 comments

Parliament has published a research paper called The Next Oil Shock. It’s a pretty sober look at the difficulties the world is facing in producing enough oil to meet demand. The conclusions are inescapable: we can’t produce enough oil and a cycle of oil-driven recessions is coming. Are our leaders finally waking up to the impeding crisis of peak oil?

Latest Roy Morgan poll

Written By: - Date published: 8:17 pm, October 13th, 2010 - 103 comments

Nat 49.5%, Lab 36.5%, Gre 8%, NZF 2.5%, MAO 2.5% ACT 0.5%

Highest Labour vote since Helen Clark was PM. Lowest ACT vote in many many years. Key’s still holding the Nats up high.

Celia seizes victory

Written By: - Date published: 7:04 pm, October 13th, 2010 - 41 comments

Congratulations to Celia Wade-Brown, Wellington’s new Green mayor. Apart from the understandable exception of Christchurch, we’ve seen a Leftwing landslide across the main centres and in many of the provincial councils too. The people have voted for community, democracy, and sustainability, and against corporate cronyism. See ya Kerry.

More ACT identity theft?

Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, October 13th, 2010 - 20 comments

In recent days, David Garrett has been spotted hanging around Parliament. Now, The Standard has acquired a picture of ACT’s new MP, ‘Hilary Calvert’, arriving at Parliament. It raises further identity theft questions within the party.

Evidence suggests that the real Calvert was brain-dead at least two weeks ago.

Treasury’s Welfare Proposals

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, October 13th, 2010 - 61 comments

Treasury have made their submission to the Welfare Working Group. Amongst the usual beneficiary-bashing and demands for privatisation, there are a couple of rare admissions that workers’ rights need strengthening. Which do we think will make it through…

Principals join Standards opposition

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, October 13th, 2010 - 9 comments

The New Zealand Principals’ Federation has launched their campaign against the Government’s National Standards. The weight of informed debate lies against the Standards achieving what they are purported to deliver. A growing number of education practitioners want the Government to go back to first principles and revisit the design of the Standards.

Prendergast doesn’t get it

Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, October 13th, 2010 - 40 comments

According to Kerry Prendergast, STV may cost her election as mayor of Wellington, and therefore it is undemocratic.  Good doublethink there Kerry.

UPDATE: Prendergast really doesn’t get it – Celia is Mayor!… Lost by 176 votes.

TVNZ golden handshake for bigot?

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, October 13th, 2010 - 35 comments

If you resign from your job today will your boss give you half a year’s pay as a parting gift? No? Funny because that, apparently, is standard practice for high-paid stars. It is being reported Paul Henry received up to $150,000 from TVNZ when he resigned due to the storm over his racist remarks. And that was regarded as a good deal for TVNZ!

Doing nothing as dole numbers rise

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, October 13th, 2010 - 17 comments

It was a year ago that Paula Bennett first declared victory over rising unemployment. Since then, John Key has been working his economic strategy hard: high-fiving every schoolgirl he can find, playing with spiders, announcing and re-annoucing literally tens of kilometres of cycleway, smiling and waving till it hurts. But dole numbers are rising.

To be “a bit more like a New Zealander” means _____?

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, October 13th, 2010 - 12 comments

So after all that hoo-ha I did have to think for a while what it means to look and sound like a New Zealander. My personal opinion is that for a lot of us there isn’t a particular look, but there probably is a sound. I think that like the French, we tend to regard […]

A PM but not a leader

Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, October 13th, 2010 - 92 comments

New Zealand is small country, far from anywhere, always on the edge of irrelevance.  To continue our proud heritage of principled and effective international contributions, to hold our heads up high on the world stage, New Zealand needs a leader.  But all we have is a PM.

Open mike 13/10/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 13th, 2010 - 19 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…

Williams and Trotter on Carter’s expulsion

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 pm, October 12th, 2010 - 13 comments

RNZ’s Kathryn Ryan talks to Mike Williams and Chris Trotter about Chris Carter’s expulsion.

How the right kill social democracy

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, October 12th, 2010 - 55 comments

When one of the first truly social democratic governments was elected in North America it was attacked viciously from all sides. Read further if you want to know the lengths business, private media, the police, landlords, and lobbyists went to undermine the Rae Government in Ontario, Canada. There are lessons for New Zealand.

100% PURE…going…going…gone…

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, October 12th, 2010 - 25 comments

When the 2009 ‘streamlining and simplifying’ amendment to the RMA was rushed through parliament last year, many concerns were raised about new abilities for the Minister for the Environment to use National Environmental Standards (NES) to override local government regulations. Now an NES on forestry is being pushed through. It’s scary stuff.

CTU’s Alternative Economic Strategy

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, October 12th, 2010 - 17 comments

The CTU has just released its Alternative Economic Strategy. Well, they call it ‘alternative’ but it’s not like the Nats have one beyond Key smiling and waving. Anyway, the CTU’s Economic Strategy is an extremely impressive document. It goes through the current problems and suggests 100 reforms for a more successful, fair economy and country.

Ambitious for New Zealand

Written By: - Date published: 7:56 am, October 12th, 2010 - 18 comments

Don’t need to add much to these Herald headlines:
Tight-fisted Key deals blow to Brown’s rail plan‘. Do Nothing strikes again.
30 homes on offer in flagship Govt scheme‘. Thinking big. Genuine commitment.
CV error made by ‘somebody else’‘. For Nats, it’s always someone else’s fault.

Carter expelled

Written By: - Date published: 7:14 am, October 12th, 2010 - 109 comments

The Labour Party council has decided to expel Chris Carter from the party. While party members should be free to criticise the leadership, Carter went too far. He has repeatedly embarrassed and damaged the party. In doing so, he disrespected every member of the Labour Party – that’s the real crime.

Open mike 12/10/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 12th, 2010 - 57 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…

Carter faces the music

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 pm, October 11th, 2010 - 21 comments

Chris Carter faces a disciplinary hearing at labour HQ this evening. Already evicted from caucus, this meeting could result in sanctions from the Party including revoking his membership. But I don’t think it will come to that, and I don’t think it should for both principled and political reasons.

Caption competition

Written By: - Date published: 4:44 pm, October 11th, 2010 - 37 comments

Be captivating…

Hide begging for his political life

Written By: - Date published: 3:02 pm, October 11th, 2010 - 74 comments

So Rodney Hide is reduced to publicly begging for his political life, asking National for an easy ride in Epsom.  It will be interesting to keep an eye on National’s response.  Especially with the name of defeated Auckland Mayoral candidate John Banks already being mentioned…

‘Ask Me No Questions’ Key

Written By: - Date published: 1:39 pm, October 11th, 2010 - 14 comments

John Key has claimed that he doesn’t turn down many interview requests – but he turned down another one from Morning Report this morning.  In fact you can count on one hand the number of times he has appeared on Morning Report in each of the last 2 years.

Are we going to get a Breakfast that looks like New Zealand?

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, October 11th, 2010 - 24 comments

Last time I saw Breakfast I saw it was overwhelmingly pakeha, middle-class, and blonde.

Just wondering, now that Henry’s gone, if we’re going to get a Breakfast that looks like real New Zealand.

Exporting Dunedin

Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, October 11th, 2010 - 50 comments

David Clark is the Labour Party’s new candidate for Dunedin North.  He’s been talking to innovative local technology start-ups, and hearing about some of the barriers to success.

Next time, could we have a PM that looks and sounds a bit more like a PM?

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, October 11th, 2010 - 37 comments

Here’s John Key this morning on Breakfast, talking about Paul Henry’s resignation. Naturally he’s eager to downplay the influence of Kiwi-Indian business and diplomatic interests, and to deny any government involvement in the decision. The most revealing part of the interview is when Key stammers: “I have not spoke [sic] to Paul Henry” Key says […]

Key’s culture of impunity

Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, October 11th, 2010 - 18 comments

Despite a slew of scandals, Key has not enforced any ethical or professional standards on his ministers (apart from Worth, for whatever he did). Ministers know that Key will keep his personal brand clean but won’t do anything to pull them into line. This has created a culture of impunity in the government, which has started to spread wider.

Open mike 11/10/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 11th, 2010 - 82 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…

Paul Henry: Gone

Written By: - Date published: 6:06 pm, October 10th, 2010 - 117 comments

TVNZ have announced the resignation of Paul Henry. John Key’s going to have a LOT of angry rednecks on his case over this one. First Andy Haden, now Paul Henry. And then of course there are all the civilized people already on Key’s back about his gutless failure to protest Henry’s racism in the first place.

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