Archive for May, 2011

Open mike 27/05/2011

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 27th, 2011 - 53 comments

Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

Key: making shit up

Written By: - Date published: 4:23 pm, May 26th, 2011 - 41 comments

John Key just rumbles on from one lame excuse to the next on the ETS. First bringing farmers in was going to raise dairy prices, now he’s making other claims that don’t stack up.

Your chance to ask John the hard questions

Written By: - Date published: 2:36 pm, May 26th, 2011 - 47 comments

John wouldn’t answer our readers’ questions but he’s out in New Plymouth this Tuesday.

Get along and ask him the hard questions if you can.

And if you can’t get there make sure you email your question to editor@dailynews.co.nz

Caption contest

Written By: - Date published: 1:10 pm, May 26th, 2011 - 58 comments

Labour’s new online game

Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, May 26th, 2011 - 53 comments

Labour’s new online game is hilarious. Choose whether or not to take the options presented and see the results. Politics is all about choices

So much for seeking a mandate

Written By: - Date published: 10:56 am, May 26th, 2011 - 15 comments

Remember when John Key was promising that he would seek a mandate from the people at the election before starting to sell public assets and cutting Kiwisaver. It was only a week ago. And he’s breaking his promises already: the Kiwisaver cuts actually kick in on July 1, and the privatisation process is underway.

Parents Inc: it’s PEDA redux

Written By: - Date published: 9:41 am, May 26th, 2011 - 85 comments

In last year’s budget, the Nats awarded a $4.8m contract to an unknown organisation called PEDA without tender and against official advice. The people behind PEDA were apparently tied to Bill English via his wife. The full truth still hasn’t come out. Now, the Nats are up to the same trick with Parents Inc.

Who has the ideas?

Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, May 26th, 2011 - 62 comments

Last week we had National’s budget and Labour’s conference.  A chance for both parties to set out their ideas for the future.  National’s do-nothing budget went down like a lead balloon, while Labour started setting out promising new policy.  Looks like the 2011 election campaign will  be a contest between ideas and schoolboy mockery.

Open mike 26/05/2011

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 26th, 2011 - 30 comments

Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

Hansen calls for Key to lead on climate change

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 pm, May 25th, 2011 - 71 comments

Visionary climate change scientist James Hansen has written an open letter to John Key.

Caption contest

Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, May 25th, 2011 - 41 comments

Key’s dodgy scheming

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, May 25th, 2011 - 22 comments

*Key says that we will get to vote on his Kiwisaver cuts in the election. Truth is, they passed the law last week and the tax credits are cut from July 1. *What’s up with the dodgy Kiwibank numbers? Plans for sale? *The govt is importing World Cup workers while 270K are jobless. *Key’s jokes falling flat with pissed off voters.

CTU research on minimum wage

Written By: - Date published: 10:28 am, May 25th, 2011 - 24 comments

The response to two recent posts here at The Standard have shown what a contentious topic the minimum wage is.  So it’s timely that yesterday saw the release of the CTU’s summary of research on Minimum Wage and Jobs.

Climate change: Farmers can afford the ETS

Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, May 25th, 2011 - 45 comments

No Right Turn on the cost of the ETS to farmers.  Forecast to be paid over $8 per kilo for milk solids, what cost do you guess that the ETS subtracts from that sum?

R&D: Our future

Written By: - Date published: 6:27 am, May 25th, 2011 - 86 comments

National are bleating about Labour’s Research & Development tax credit – largely because as they have no economic plan of their own, so they can only talk about other parties’. But Labour’s R&D tax credit is in fact part of what’s desperately needed to get our economy moving in the right direction.

Open mike 25/05/2011

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 25th, 2011 - 54 comments

Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

Joyce’s broadband back-down

Written By: - Date published: 2:59 pm, May 24th, 2011 - 7 comments

Steven Joyce has been forced into a embarrassing back-down on giving a regulatory holiday to companies who won contracts for the Government’s Ultra Fast Broadband plan. But MrSmith wonders if leaving it up to Commerce Commission is going to be any better given its poor record under National.

How’s this for employment conditions?

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, May 24th, 2011 - 33 comments

Here’s a stunning headline from the Herald on the glamour of working at SkyCity casino:

Flea collars for SkyCity staff

Perhaps next they could introduce compulsory de-lousing baths at the end of each shift?

Jacinda Ardern’s ‘Dear Don’ letter

Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, May 24th, 2011 - 29 comments

Labour’s Jacinda Ardern replies to Don Brash’s letter to John Key: “In many ways though Mr Brash, I fear that you have written off not just my generation, but New Zealand. There was no hope in your letter, no sense of aspiration or of the idea that we can build a prosperous country”

Disgraceful

Written By: - Date published: 9:59 am, May 24th, 2011 - 55 comments

“The worst display from a Prime Minister since the schnapps election” – that’s what a journo said about Key the other day. No, it wasn’t about him being a multi-millionaire who gave himself tens of thousands of tax cuts opposing a fair wage increase for the lowest paid workers. It was this disgraceful behaviour on Budget Day. Watch.

Choosing to be poor

Written By: - Date published: 7:32 am, May 24th, 2011 - 24 comments

Prominent  scientist Sir Paul Callaghan thinks Kiwis are choosing to be poor.  I reckon he’s right too, but we probably disagree about the reasons.

$15 per hour unaffordable?

Written By: - Date published: 7:06 am, May 24th, 2011 - 296 comments

I just love seeing fat, rich men who have received massive tax cuts paid for with borrowed money like John Key and Phil O’Reilly saying that a $15 an hour minimum wage is unaffordable (Key also says governments can’t raise wages, yet he claims to have done just that). Lets check out one large minimum wage employer’s ability to pay.

Open mike 24/05/2011

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 24th, 2011 - 61 comments

Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

A big gap to close

Written By: - Date published: 9:12 pm, May 23rd, 2011 - 29 comments

The latest Roy Morgan poll is not good reading for the political left.  But it’s not quite time to despair yet!

Lunatic prophecies

Written By: - Date published: 2:32 pm, May 23rd, 2011 - 10 comments

Cartoonist Guy Body in The Herald, with one of those pictures that is worth a thousand words…

Key clueless on Chch rebuild

Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, May 23rd, 2011 - 11 comments

John Key thinks he can smile and wave his way through the worst natural disaster this country has faced. He acts like all he has to do is cheer-lead and the city will rebuild itself. It’s a stunning dereliction of duty. The contrast with the vision and leadership the Left is showing is marked.

The lazy unemployed

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, May 23rd, 2011 - 22 comments

John Key reckons the unemployed need “a kick in the pants”.  Paula Bennett reckons the Nats’ harsh reforms mean that “the dream is over” for beneficiaries.  Meanwhile, back in the real world…

Right still attacking the minimum wage

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, May 23rd, 2011 - 194 comments

Labour’s pledge of a $15 hour minimum wage is worth more than any tax cut – $66 a week net to a full-time minimum wage worker. The right is crying it’ll hurt the economy and destroys jobs. That’s rubbish. In particular, the history of changes to the youth minimum wage shows no relation to youth unemployment. The Right are just making excuses for ripping-off workers.

Open mike 23/05/2011

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 23rd, 2011 - 76 comments

Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

National vs Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 1:42 am, May 23rd, 2011 - 23 comments

National are not acting in accordance with Auckland’s wishes. Aucklanders want public transport, and its Council wants a quality compact sustainable eco-city – National seem to be aiming to frustrate that. Aucklanders should submit their views to strengthen our voice against the government.

Goff unveils Labour’s vision

Written By: - Date published: 1:21 pm, May 22nd, 2011 - 90 comments

Phil Goff has announced that Labour will bring agriculture into the Emissions Trading Scheme earlier and use the extra revenue to fund R&D, much of which will be into clean tech and low-carbon farming. There’s a swath of announcements showing Goff’s Labour has the vision Key’s National lacks. Labour is making positive choices while being fiscally responsible.