Archive for May, 2013

Governing for their rich mates (again)

Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, May 12th, 2013 - 242 comments

Rob Stock at the Sunday Star Times reports that National plans to dump state housing on NGOs and flog land to developers.

National are governing for their rich mates again.

The neoliberalisation of Universities

Written By: - Date published: 8:08 am, May 12th, 2013 - 43 comments

An article in today’s Sunday Star Times, provides evidence of an organised business in providing students with assignments for their tertiary education courses.  The focus is on Chinese ethnicity.  Ultimately, the blame for such rorts lies with the neoliberalisation of universities: the undermining of the critical endeavour of education.

Open mike 12/05/2013

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 12th, 2013 - 59 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…

Please, please educate the fuckwits

Written By: - Date published: 11:15 am, May 11th, 2013 - 127 comments

The story this morning of a hotelier in Whangarei causing a lesbian couple to seek another place to sleep. That she was worried about them doing “sodomy” under her roof might be amusing. However the coprolalia syndrome that it displays has been tiresomely endemic amongst the self-ordained fuckwits in recent months. When will they take time to educate themselves so they don’t look like they just have brain defects?

Poverty Watch 30

Written By: - Date published: 9:11 am, May 11th, 2013 - 10 comments

Welcome to Poverty Watch, a weekly update on National’s lack of response to the urgent and growing issue of poverty in NZ. This week we continue with the 2012 report from the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, and “sympathise” with those poor Herald readers who are just sick to death of all those beggars on Queen St…

The King stay the King … the pawns, in the game, they get capped quick

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, May 11th, 2013 - 113 comments

So, Key wants Gilmore gone. Gilmore lied to Key about the whether he threatened the waiter with the wrath of the PM’s office. Bringing Key’s office itself was bad enough but Key accepted Gilmore’s lie. When that lie was exposed, Key knew his authority as leader had been trifled with. Gilmore now has to go. But Key can’t boot him. So, out is coming the dirt.

Open mike 11/05/2013

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 11th, 2013 - 158 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 sign up for KiwiBuild?

Written By: - Date published: 6:16 pm, May 10th, 2013 - 26 comments

KiwiBuild has already been a success, scaring the Nats in to producing, in conjunction with Len Brown’s Auckland, a more significant housing policy. The “Unitary Plan” is woefully short on detail, but it concedes that KiwiBuild’s target of 10,000 new homes a year is easily achievable (I guess it’s only impossible when Labour propose it).

Weekend social 10/05/2013

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, May 10th, 2013 - 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?

Pot and Kettle

Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, May 10th, 2013 - 60 comments

Key on Gilmore on front page of today’s DomPost: “In the end, to make a contribution, you have to have integrity, and to have integrity there has to be a directness and fullness in your answers.” That’s why Key has no integrity about GCSB – there was no directness and fulness in his answers about it, either in Parliament or to the “knucklehead” media.

Spin-bustin’: unemployment drop

Written By: - Date published: 9:22 am, May 10th, 2013 - 11 comments

The working age population grows by around 30,000 a year. A bit over two-thirds of them work or want a job. So, to keep unemployment from rising, the economy needs at least 20,000 additional jobs per year. So, the drop in unemployment must mean we did that and some last year, eh? No. Just 8,000 jobs were added last year. Unemployment fell because people dropped out.

Spin-bustin’: new investors scared off MRP

Written By: - Date published: 8:19 am, May 10th, 2013 - 27 comments

The Nats’ spin is that ‘mums and dads’ were scared off investing in Mighty River Power by the Green-Labour NZ Power plan to reduce power prices but sophisticated buyers bought in. Look at the evidence: 80,000 of the 113,000 retail investors are new to the stockmarket and they boost stockmarket participation by 20%. Hence there were 400,000 existing Kiwi shareholders, and less than 10% of them bought in.

Open mike 10/05/2013

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 10th, 2013 - 163 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…

Advocacy is the core of any charity

Written By: - Date published: 5:26 am, May 10th, 2013 - 35 comments

Yesterday’s NZ Herald editorial gave a hard-line conservative view of what a charity should be. Charities should and must deal with ills of society on a person by person basis without attempting to fix the causation. That sounds more like a parasitical “charity” like the workhouses of the 19th century or the adoption factories of the 20th than anything that a person of goodwill would choose to support.

Selling Mighty River cost you $100m

Written By: - Date published: 7:33 pm, May 9th, 2013 - 158 comments

National admitted today that the sale of Mighty River cost around $100m, and that the paltry 2.5% of New Zealanders who bought an average of $8,000 each are not typical Kiwis. The figures themselves are shocking but the politics is really revealing. English didn’t try to avoid the unpalatable failure of asset sales, he was flippant. He is so out of touch he doesn’t see the problem.

John Key’s disaster capitalism

Written By: - Date published: 1:07 pm, May 9th, 2013 - 31 comments

The latest Household Labour Force Employment statistics are out, and on the surface, look good for John and Bill.  But this is driven by improved employment in Canterbury over the last quarter.  Grant Robertson says, “Disaster recovery is not a plan for jobs”.

The climate reality pledge

Written By: - Date published: 11:44 am, May 9th, 2013 - 32 comments

“… I demand action from our leaders to work on solutions to the climate crisis. I pledge to get involved …”

The cost of our clothes

Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, May 9th, 2013 - 23 comments

Big Western retailers provide us with relatively cheap clothing, through paying low wages in countries where industrial health and safety is poorly regulated. Last month a big garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed, killing over 700 800 people. Ultimately we are all damaged by the profiteering of the elites.

Because things aren’t quite tough enough

Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, May 9th, 2013 - 24 comments

Because things aren’t quite tough enough for first-time home buyers yet.

MRP sale fail numbers

Written By: - Date published: 6:03 am, May 9th, 2013 - 194 comments

Here are the numbers that sum up the MRP sale fail – foremost among them the $1,000 that the government has spent per Kiwi investor attracted.

Open mike 09/05/2013

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, May 9th, 2013 - 228 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…

Caption Contest

Written By: - Date published: 8:44 pm, May 8th, 2013 - 95 comments

Well Key’s cornerstone policy, the one that many commentators claimed was him showing his mettle, has come to fruition. And it’s such a poison chalice he didn’t even have the guts to show up for the big reveal in person (spoiler: less than half the number of people who signed up to oppose asset sales signed up to buy).

Review: Fighting to Choose by Alison McCulloch

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 pm, May 8th, 2013 - 61 comments

Abortion has a long and dramatic history in NZ, but it’s not a history we talk about, or remember.  And remembering that history is vital to our continuing push for reproductive rights today.  That’s where Alison McCulloch comes in, with a new, brilliant, history of the struggle so far.

Key cheated of his rightful victory!

Written By: - Date published: 4:02 pm, May 8th, 2013 - 35 comments

We don’t often take Key’s side here at The Standard, but I think that most of us here would agree that on this occasion John Key has been cheated out of a victory that was rightfully his.

What if Gilmore quits?

Written By: - Date published: 2:25 pm, May 8th, 2013 - 105 comments

Stuff is reporting that John Key is signalling for Aaron Gilmore to stand down.  What are the possible implications? [update: information about Claudette Hauiti, next National’s list]

Shearer’s pre budget speech

Written By: - Date published: 12:24 pm, May 8th, 2013 - 20 comments

This morning David Shearer gave Labour’s “pre budget” speech. No new policy, but plenty of good one-liners and a strong statement of Labour’s position.

GCSB Bill: & Dotcom versus FBI, “NZ Intelligence Community” et al

Written By: - Date published: 10:21 am, May 8th, 2013 - 47 comments

John Key is using “urgency” to push through his anti-democratic Big brother GCSB surveillance Bill.  Dotcom’s lawyers have released a 39 page white paper making a range of allegations against the FBI, Obama & NZ authorities. Peters is keeping his cards close to his chest. Update: Peters’ calls government “bully boy” & will vote against the Bill.

Gilmore’s position now untenable

Written By: - Date published: 9:39 am, May 8th, 2013 - 72 comments

From a text exchange leaked to Newstalk ZB it seems that Aaron Gilmore has lied to the PM. The ball is in Key’s court now…

Congratulations EPMU

Written By: - Date published: 8:19 am, May 8th, 2013 - 7 comments

The EPMU has won back millions of dollars of back-pay for workers at Tiwai point after taking a case at the employment authority.

Nats have held us back for four years

Written By: - Date published: 7:47 am, May 8th, 2013 - 22 comments

We’re in yet another round of talk of “green shoots” of economic recovery, complete with the hype of an optimistic budget. Maybe they’re right this time, but the recovery, when it does happen, will be in spite of the National government, not because of them. All National have done is hold us back for four years.

Warehouse adopts living wage

Written By: - Date published: 7:34 am, May 8th, 2013 - 66 comments

The Warehouse has adopted a policy of paying a living wage of $18.50-$20 an hour for longer-term employees. It’s a really positive move and The Warehouse is to be congratulated. It’ll cost about $2.5m a year, or 5% of profits. As we’ve seen in the NZ Power debate, it’s a rare thing for major companies to look beyond their balancesheets to the community they exist within. Now, who’s next?

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