Archive for March, 2012

King salmon, stealing our future

Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, March 19th, 2012 - 26 comments

Imagine taking your children down to the park to find an overseas had set up a dairy farm in one corner. The shit builds up and flows onto the playground. You complain, but are told the farm is under no obligation to treat or retain their waste and the council has no powers to do anything about it. That’s what’s happening with aquaculture thanks to the EPA.

Best stick to the polling, Farrar

Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, March 19th, 2012 - 103 comments

David Farrar has had a go at David Clark for supposedly blaming (or crediting, Farrar can’t make up his mind) National for the revenue loss resulting from Labour’s 2008 tax cuts after Clark said that National’s tax cuts have sucked 2.5% of GDP out of the Crown’s revenue, widening the deficit by $5b a year. Either Farrar can’t read or he’s desperately spinning.

Remember 1984

Written By: - Date published: 6:52 am, March 19th, 2012 - 70 comments

Labour moving to the right would be a disaster for the left. It doesn’t need to, in order to lead a winning coalition at the next election. The last time a small cabal in Labour tried that strategy was in 1984 – it proved to be a disaster for New Zealand and for the Labour Party. I’m not sure that the Labour leadership is making a definitive shift to the right – more like a tentative search for the marshmallow centre. As a strategy, it is a recipe for failure.

Open mike 19/03/2012

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 19th, 2012 - 44 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…

Labour moving to the right?

Written By: - Date published: 11:09 am, March 18th, 2012 - 153 comments

Many commentators have interpreted David Shearer’s recent speech as signaling a “move to the right”. I think it’s too early to tell. But if it’s true, I think it’s good news for lefties…

Nats running a $5b a year strategic deficit

Written By: - Date published: 8:38 am, March 18th, 2012 - 112 comments

Labour’s Revenue spokesman, David Clark, has picked up on a statement in IRD’s Briefing to the Incoming Minister that “2.5 percentage points of this decline [in tax take as a percentage of GDP] is attributable to policy changes”. 2.5% of GDP is $5 billion a year. So, a huge chunk of the record deficits that National is running is attributable to their tax cuts for the rich.

Open mike 18/03/2012

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 18th, 2012 - 56 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…

Chinese threats over Crafars deal

Written By: - Date published: 1:59 pm, March 17th, 2012 - 141 comments

China’s political counsel (note, not a trade official) has threatened New Zealand over the Crafar Farms deal saying that New Zealand trade to China and investment from China is at risk. It seems an extraordinary action over a supposedly private business arrangement. As was Chinese Officials’ meeting with the OIO while the first Crafar farm decision was being made.

Port developments

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, March 17th, 2012 - 97 comments

Ports of Auckland management may be starting to realise that they have bitten off more than they can chew.  Faced with international union action, they have called a halt to the redundancy process.

Open mike 17/03/2012

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 17th, 2012 - 20 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…

Better ideas from Finland

Written By: - Date published: 2:43 pm, March 16th, 2012 - 55 comments

David Shearer used Finland as an example of successful small country economic development in  yesterday’s very good speech, but his main focus was on education. Dianne Ravitch in the NY Review of Books shows how Finland also leads the world in education – and with few tests and excellent teachers, they don’t need to bag any “bad” ones.

Weekend social 16/03/2012

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, March 16th, 2012 - 19 comments

Weekend social is for non political chat. What’s on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever. No politics, no aggro, why can’t we all just get along?

Key’s speech explained

Written By: - Date published: 12:34 pm, March 16th, 2012 - 13 comments

Reorganisation is busy-work for when you can’t think of anything useful to do.

Nats back down from ACC privatisation why not asset sales?

Written By: - Date published: 10:56 am, March 16th, 2012 - 16 comments

National has backed down from privatising ACC’s work account. To make it work, they were going to have to pump up ACC levies and make it pay a dividend to the Crown to make prices high enough for the private sector to compete. A sign of how weak the government is that they couldn’t push this through. Problem is, the same logic applies to asset sales.

National standards aren’t

Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, March 16th, 2012 - 34 comments

The predicted problems created by a “national standards” system are coming home to roost already.

Key’s reshuffle bad news for working Kiwis

Written By: - Date published: 8:03 am, March 16th, 2012 - 64 comments

The reshuffle announced yesterday effectively made Steven Joyce the new Minister of Labour.

Call me paranoid but I’m thinking that putting the Government’s bully-boy in charge of the rights of working Kiwis may not bode well for employment relations over the next few years.

Juking the stats

Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, March 16th, 2012 - 12 comments

There’s some odd omissions from Key’s new ’10 targets’. There’s nothing hard. Nothing about closing the gap with Australia, formerly goal number 1. Nothing about creating jobs, despite 170,000 being promised. Nothing about the cycleway that was going to end the recession. It invites a closer look at the 10 targets. And then you discover, they’ll all happen anyway.

Open mike 16/03/2012

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 16th, 2012 - 45 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…

Operation 8 verdict

Written By: - Date published: 2:26 pm, March 15th, 2012 - 46 comments

The judge is just dismissing the jury for the day – they will resume deliberations tomorrow morning.

If this is it…

Written By: - Date published: 12:43 pm, March 15th, 2012 - 20 comments

Key and co’s habit of making vague lists of things they would like to happen, rather then doing anything to make them happen, is becoming a joke. The other day it was a 6 point business action plan, not to be confused with their 4 priorities or 6 point plan for growth or 120 point economic plan. Key’s big speech today addresses the 4 priorites with a 10 point wishlist. English says they’ll be divided into 5 themes. 4 priorites times 10 results divided by 5 themes. You’ll need NCEA level 2 just to do the maths.

Mythbustin’: Waitakere Man

Written By: - Date published: 10:57 am, March 15th, 2012 - 54 comments

Chris Trotter invented the myth of the so-called ‘Waitakere Man’. It assumes Labour has lost voters because we’re all contractors now or in roles where we could be contractors, and don’t need their union-based labour policies and benefit system but want simpler rules for small business. No factory or retail workers in this model. Problem is, it’s not true.

On those that need to work harder

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, March 15th, 2012 - 14 comments

Recently, an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal describing how CEOs around the world spend their time.  The article drew on data from a larger study, the Executive Time Use Project . This project relied on reports of time use by CEO’s personal assistants; making it more accurate. It came across my usual reading and I thought I might share some of the findings with you.

Shearer’s speech exceeds expectations

Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, March 15th, 2012 - 211 comments

You all know that many of  us authors at The Standard have been critical of David Shearer. Well, I’ve just read Shearer’s speech. It’s brilliant. It talks about the big issues head on and unapologetically. There’s no party line pap and some nice stylistic points. It damns Key without ever mentioning him or his government and is an even more devastating critique of Key for it.

Pearson goes to ground over privacy scandal

Written By: - Date published: 7:27 am, March 15th, 2012 - 32 comments

It’s a bit rich that PoAL are claiming they’re “investigating” online privacy breaches now when it’s obvious they’ve been colluding with Cameron Slater for months.

It’s also interesting that the limited “no comment” comment PoAL has issued has been in Tony Gibson’s name rather than Richard Pearson’s.

Open mike 15/03/2012

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 15th, 2012 - 37 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’s laundry list of broken promises

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 pm, March 14th, 2012 - 57 comments

He must resign. Surely. Here is Key, speaking to the PSA in 2008, making very specific promises about public service jobs, tax cuts, and asset sales that helped him get elected. Promises he has since broken. There’s no excuse. He wasn’t blind-sided by events. He made these promises never intending to keep them. Key is refusing to comment but if the man has any ethics he’ll resign.

Shearer’s Starting Speech

Written By: - Date published: 4:40 pm, March 14th, 2012 - 11 comments

Tomorrow morning, 7.30, livestreaming on labour.org.nz

Key: better for me if you don’t vote

Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, March 14th, 2012 - 32 comments

Key hates interest-free student loans, the only thing that has kept thousands more from leaving the country for higher wages, but says “it’s not politically sustainable to put interest back on student loans”. Why? “That is about the only thing that will get [young people] out of bed before 7 o’clock at night to vote”. Key’s willing to keep a policy he hates as long as you don’t vote.

ImperatorFish: A Political Appointment To The Law Commission?

Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, March 14th, 2012 - 2 comments

Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here.

National appointing one of their own as member without any proper consultation – will people take the Law Commission seriously any more?

Wastewatch: measuring graduate incomes

Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, March 14th, 2012 - 22 comments

The Nats abandoned their wastewatch.co.nz site a few years back after being unable to identify significant waste. They should have just waited a few years. Now, the examples are neverending.
Today’s case: Steven Joyce’s plan to publish the average incomes of graduates of different courses. A huge administrative task to tell us nothing.

More from the Port…

Written By: - Date published: 7:25 am, March 14th, 2012 - 6 comments

Emergency Council Meetings, mediation, court action – the fight continues on a number of fronts. But at the core of the dispute is the SuperCity structure National set up – to give Council company boards free-rein, and democratically elected members no say.