Archive for June, 2012
The game is rigged
Written By: - Date published: 8:50 am, June 12th, 2012 - 5 comments
Times are tight, right? You’ve probably been told that when your boss says you can’t have a pay rise that keeps up with inflation. Yeah, well. It seems that doesn’t apply to managers. The largest jump in median weekly income has been for managers – twice the change across all workers. In hourly terms, no-one is keeping up with inflation. Welcome to the brighter future.
What price an apology?
Written By: - Date published: 8:45 am, June 12th, 2012 - 23 comments
Parents and teachers are calling for Key to apologise over the stress and anxiety that Key’s government has caused them over the last 2 weeks. Want to guess how Key handled it?
The super disaster
Written By: - Date published: 7:09 am, June 12th, 2012 - 191 comments
On Superannuation Key is in a very strange position indeed, where keeping his word is doing him more harm than breaking it. It’s a disaster for the country.
Open mike 12/06/2012
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, June 12th, 2012 - 85 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…
ImperatorFish: Treasury Report On Sunlight Levels
Written By: - Date published: 1:48 pm, June 11th, 2012 - 9 comments
New Zealand has been enjoying a long period of uninterrupted sunlight, and this looks likely to continue until at least 2014. The abundance of light can be attributed to prudent and sensible economic management by government, and the implementation of sound fiscal and monetary policies.
National: looking after those in need
Written By: - Date published: 10:51 am, June 11th, 2012 - 22 comments
When Righties say we can’t afford to support solo mums, what do they think we can afford instead?
Unable to retire
Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, June 11th, 2012 - 11 comments
Sharples and Turia remind me of an old couple running the family store with no kids to pass it on to. They want to retire. If they do, that’ll be curtains for everything they’ve built. Without them, the Maori Party goes to a deserving death. Plus Key will be pressuring them to stay. They’re his only ghost of a chance. How much longer can they keep going? They’ll be 72 and 70 in 2014.
Trendy polls
Written By: - Date published: 7:21 am, June 11th, 2012 - 121 comments
The last three polls have all been good for the Left. I’d like to be able to point you to a poll of polls to have a look at the trend, but both Curia and Pundit are stuck in an April time warp.
Update: Great to see the Pundit poll of polls up to date again – check it out.
Open mike 11/06/2012
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, June 11th, 2012 - 152 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…
Nats try and fail to inoculate Key from Budget mess
Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, June 10th, 2012 - 64 comments
The Prime Minister chairs Cabinet, which signs the Budget off policy by policy. A competent Prime Minister would be intimately familiar with the major policy changes. So, it was very interesting to see Audrey Young’s ‘insider’ piece on the education debacle yesterday. Chock full of tidbits supplied by Murray McCully. All the blame sleeted home to Bill English and Hekia Parata. Crucially, John Key barely mentioned.
Open mike 10/06/2012
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, June 10th, 2012 - 185 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…
The Nats’ agenda
Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, June 9th, 2012 - 30 comments
You don’t usually see it stated as succinctly as this.
Do Economists have the answers?
Written By: - Date published: 7:40 am, June 9th, 2012 - 372 comments
Austerity: another great idea brought to you by the same people who got us into this mess. But some economists are able to think outside the orthodoxy: There Are Real Alternatives. See you at The Voyage.
Open mike 09/06/2012
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, June 9th, 2012 - 73 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…
Police Liaison = Police Trap
Written By: - Date published: 3:16 pm, June 8th, 2012 - 45 comments
Last week I wrote about how the mass arrest of protesters last week was planned by police from the beginning. A couple of days later I was told that 10 minutes before the march a Police Liaison Officer spoke to protest organisers and stated that police were only there to facilitate the march. I have now managed to track down the video of this conversation.
Weekend social 08/06/2012
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, June 8th, 2012 - 27 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?
Nats ramp up attacks on local government
Written By: - Date published: 12:19 pm, June 8th, 2012 - 21 comments
The neoliberals hate democracy. It tends to get in the way. Especially local government. It’s easier to control a single unicameral Parliament than it is to control 70-odd territorial authorities. National has attacked local government, particularly in Auckland and Canterbury but now they’re going all out with more dictatorships and forced mergers.
While I have your attention class…
Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, June 8th, 2012 - 6 comments
While the public’s attention is focused on educational issues, use the platform to press for change on the Nats other damaging educational initiatives, national standards and charter schools.
Nats to slam through asset sales
Written By: - Date published: 10:44 am, June 8th, 2012 - 59 comments
After hearing 150 oral submissions and receiving thousands more written ones, National’s members of the Finance and Select Committee shut down the Committee’s consideration of the evidence they had heard on the asset sales bill after just 1 hour. And why not? They had had Treasury write the Committee’s report before the submitters were even heard. Now, the legislation goes back to the House 6 weeks early to be slammed through its final stages.
Schadenfreude
Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, June 8th, 2012 - 38 comments
The hysterical right are pretty pissed that the Nats have backed down on class sizes. Let them rant all they like – the Nats can’t afford to listen.
Reaching Tipping Point
Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, June 8th, 2012 - 24 comments
Two major new reports out yesterday (from the UN and in Nature) show the earth is headed for a tipping point: our consumption is unsustainable, and we’re degrading the environment. Soon it will be beyond the point of return.
Flip-flop still leaves hole in education budget
Written By: - Date published: 6:28 am, June 8th, 2012 - 65 comments
With its polling slip-sliding away, National had no choice but to dump its ideological class size increases. But why did they dump the spending on teacher quality too? If that was such a priority that it justified sacking 1,000 teachers, couldn’t something else be cut? And what other education spending will now be cut to fill National’s budget hole?
Open mike 08/06/2012
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, June 8th, 2012 - 117 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…
Parata to the Headmaster’s office?
Written By: - Date published: 1:58 pm, June 7th, 2012 - 50 comments
Nanaia Mahuta has a wicked sense of humour, as well as being a very smart politician. Her report card on National’s performance on education gives Parata an F for failing to do homework. Parata may also risk expulsion., judging by John Key’s comments from London that she should talk to the unions. Looks like a call to the headmaster’s office coming up.
Update: Sure enough the Nats have backed down completely from upping class sizes.
Class sizes vox pop
Written By: - Date published: 12:08 pm, June 7th, 2012 - 14 comments
Public opinion is massively opposed to cutting teachers. When 50,000 people marched down Queen St the Nats dropped plans to mine conservation land. Time for another show of people power.
Don’t feed the troll
Written By: - Date published: 10:46 am, June 7th, 2012 - 33 comments
Bennett is running misdirection for the Parata. Not letting bad parents have more kids is nothing new. It’s just the existing powers courts have to order CYFS to take newborns into custody and to ban people from contact with kids. With the meaningless addition of making these orders before a woman is pregnant. Good talkback bait though. Bennett’s just trolling again. Which is all she seems good for.
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Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp');Got a good quiz question? Send Newsroom your questions.The post Newsroom daily quiz, Saturday 4 January appeared first on Newsroom. ...6 days ago
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