Archive for October, 2013

Mana Party and Maori Party to commence discussions

Written By: - Date published: 5:52 pm, October 25th, 2013 - 48 comments

The Maori Party has accepted an invitation extended by the Mana Party to enter into discussions on how they can work together on a kaupapa by kaupapa basis.  Is this a further threat to National’s parliamentary majority?

Lucy Lawless to Steven Joyce: ‘U killed NZ film industry’

Written By: - Date published: 2:23 pm, October 25th, 2013 - 103 comments

NZ needs government legislation & financial support to maintain local screen productions.  Steven Joyce makes some hollow noises about prioritising NZ-focused productions, while allowing the Auckland industry to decline.  Lucy Lawless blames Joyce for NZ Film tax rebates & prioritising BIG Oil.

Asset sales: Key’s scorched earth tactics will backfire

Written By: - Date published: 9:14 am, October 25th, 2013 - 60 comments

Granny supported little Johnny’s plan to go off to market and sell the family’s cash cow. But even she’s furious that what he’s come back with amounts to nothing more than a hill of beans. As Granny Herald notes, the Nats’ determination to push ahead with the remaining sales regardless is all about ideology, and the knowledge that they’re going to lose the next election.

The English are also selling their assets cheaply

Written By: - Date published: 8:35 am, October 25th, 2013 - 23 comments

Meridian’s share price appears to be under value and will no doubt ensure that shareholders reap an early bonus.  With a rate of return of over 10% for the first year you have to wonder what economic genius decided to sell shares to pay down debt with an interest rate of half that amount.

Over in the UK the tories there have engaged in a similar exercise where Royal Mail was sold under value and shareholders watched as their shares went up in value by over 60% in a month.

I wonder if Key and English have been receiving lessons from the Tories?

Open mike 25/10/2013

Written By: - Date published: 7:26 am, October 25th, 2013 - 165 comments

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

NZ’s struggling screen industry

Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, October 24th, 2013 - 117 comments

The NZ screen industry is in a precarious state, unable to compete with incentives in other countries to attract the crums from Hollywood productions, impacted by the currency high dollar rate.  Innovative ideas needed for an independent NZ industry, linked with public broadcasting TV & online viewing. [Updated: Maori TV & Barry Barclay]

The Meridian flop

Written By: - Date published: 7:29 am, October 24th, 2013 - 143 comments

National’s trying to blame it on Labour and the Greens for the Meridian sale flop, which attracted only a quarter of the expected ‘mums and dads’ (rich ‘mums and dads’ who put in $18k each). But let’s just get this straight: the decision to sell was National’s. If they don’t think they’re getting the price that they should for the sales, then they should stop them.

Open mike 24/10/2013

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 24th, 2013 - 125 comments

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

Government in trouble over Meridian Float

Written By: - Date published: 8:33 pm, October 23rd, 2013 - 34 comments

The Government has announced the results of the Meridian Share float and the results are all bad.  The country will receive up to $1.1 billion less than the shares were worth in 2011 and overseas entities will own 13% of the shares.  Remind me why we are selling the shares ?

SkyCity deal gets sleazier

Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, October 23rd, 2013 - 14 comments

It raised a few eyebrows when the Catholic Church appeared to back the SkyCity deal. Seamus Donegan appeared before the select committee for the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, saying they couldn’t find a link between pokies and problem gambling. Turns out that Donegan’s submission was the opposite of the Commission’s real position, and he’s National MP Sam Lotu-Iiga’s electorate chair.

Quote of the day: “Atlas shrugs off climate change”

Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, October 23rd, 2013 - 37 comments

Kennedy Graham’s post on NZ’s appalling record on climate change:  ‘Atlas shrugs off climate change – a New Zealand policy failure of monumental proportions‘, includes a great quote about Key shrugging in the face of his (and “neoliberalism”) failures.  So apt.

What a major oil spill means for NZ

Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, October 23rd, 2013 - 47 comments

Greenpeace has released scientific modelling of what would happen if a major oil well blowout (like Deepwater Horizon) were to occur at either of the sites were Anadarko is preparing to start deepwater drilling. It shows the dramatic size that a spill could reach, affecting beaches and fisheries. And, remember, our response force for such an event is three dinghies.

Fight you bastards fight

Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, October 23rd, 2013 - 49 comments

At least one MP if not the whole of National’s caucus knew that the news concerning Len Brown and Bevan Chuang would break soon eight days before it did.  Slater’s and Palino’s claims are becoming more and more difficult to believe.  And in a comment yesterday Bad12 sums up why this is such bad news for National.

Taking from the poor to pay the rich

Written By: - Date published: 7:29 am, October 23rd, 2013 - 119 comments

In the same week the government announces a five million dollar gift to a yachting syndicate, Child Poverty Action Group has revealed that 13,000 of our poorest families have had their income slashed.

None so blind as those who invent their own reality

Written By: - Date published: 7:12 am, October 23rd, 2013 - 93 comments

my little pony friendship is magic haters gonna hate

Is the Prime Minister John Key who claims to know what Labour has supposedly said in secret talks with SkyCity (talks that Cunliffe denies have happened) because it’s ‘all over town’ the same Prime Minister John Key who couldn’t be bothered to read a police report on one of his ministers who is now going to be tried for the offences investigated in said report? Asking for a friend.

Open mike 23/10/2013

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 23rd, 2013 - 114 comments

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

Fuck off, Bob Jones: and advertisers? Be warned

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 pm, October 22nd, 2013 - 94 comments

Bob Jones has produced another disgusting “opinion piece”, and the New Zealand Herald has once again been disgusting enough to publish it. I completely understand that a lot of people don’t have the spoons for taking on yet another awful triggery misogynist piece of shit produced by an awful misogynist piece of shit.  On this […]

Because it’s all about “me”

Written By: - Date published: 6:24 pm, October 22nd, 2013 - 22 comments

Cunliffe talked of moving from a “from a cost-based to a values-based” strategy. We need a new narrative: valuing all, including children of those on benefits; about long term benefits for all of less inequality & poverty, and more affordable housing & better public transport, & more.

“Do we want to play Russian roulette with two bullets or one?”

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, October 22nd, 2013 - 68 comments

Lord Nicolas Stern, who wrote a ground-breaking report on the economic costs of climate change against the costs of stopping it (conclusion: stopping it is cheap compared to the cost of not), has changed his mind. Climate change is getting worse, faster, and heading to worse results than he thought. It’s no longer a matter of avoiding disaster, but how bad it gets.

Open mike 22/10/2013

Written By: - Date published: 4:45 am, October 22nd, 2013 - 225 comments

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

Cam Slater: politely being called a lying arsehole

Written By: - Date published: 2:28 am, October 22nd, 2013 - 130 comments

I’ve been trying to think of a way of expressing my complete and utter distaste for the arsehole of the local blogs and politics. But someone beat me to it. Hamish Price has been attacked in the usual way by Cameron Slater. Here is his facebook statement in response.

This rings quite true to me from what I know of the people and timelines.

KiwiFund: nationalisation or competition?

Written By: - Date published: 8:05 pm, October 21st, 2013 - 61 comments

Winston Peters’ KiwiFund proposal would nationalise KiwiSaver.  Russel Norman supports it, but in competition with private schemes.  Cunliffe is open to negotiation.  Key is dismissive, but says Peters is so untrustworthy he is likely to back down & form an alliance with National anyway.

National’s Civil War

Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, October 21st, 2013 - 171 comments

It is clear that there is significant concern within the National Party with the behaviour of Cameron Slater and there is worry that a New Zealand version of the Tea party is forming.  There is an interesting battle developing between the civilised cautious wing of the Party and the Tea Party take no prisoners approach of Slater and Lusk.  The future of the National Party is at stake …

Random impertinent questions

Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, October 21st, 2013 - 66 comments

Who says the ‘threatening texts’ in the Brown/Slater/Palino came from Brown’s camp? Didn’t the threatening text push Chuang into the affidavit, after weeks of being pressured by Palino advisor, Wewege? Doesn’t that make those texts awful useful for Slater/Palino? Do you believe Palino knew nothing of the affair, as he claims? If the purpose of the affidavit had been to present it to Brown quietly and get him to resign, wouldn’t that be blackmail?

Open mike 21/10/2013

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 21st, 2013 - 160 comments

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

Tat Loo: Viper Pilot

Written By: - Date published: 12:40 pm, October 20th, 2013 - 333 comments

You can get buried in the minutiae of policy detail, House speeches and daily news cycles, thinking that success there will win an election. Outside the Thorndon Bubble however, nothing is further from the truth. A reconnected Labour Party presenting gutsy alternatives using a narrative quite different to the old neoliberal consensus is starting to get serious voter attention. Now is the time to press ‘turbo boost’.

The red tide rising

Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, October 20th, 2013 - 40 comments

National led the combined Labour+Green vote for 76 successive Roy Morgan polls. But how times have changed. The Left’s led 10 of the last 14 polls, and all the last five. With solid vision, policies, and a credible candidate for PM, the Left finally has the goods to win. Watch for the cracks to appear in the Nats as they position for a post-Key future.

Open mike 20/10/2013

Written By: - Date published: 6:40 am, October 20th, 2013 - 94 comments

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

Playing dirty: The politics of contradiction

Written By: - Date published: 8:03 pm, October 19th, 2013 - 169 comments

Slater’s track record speaks for itself. As the Brown-Chuang-Wewege-Palino story unfolds, his angle on the story shifts, and the contradictions abound. On The Nation this morning,  Slater lays it out: politics is a dirty game, and that’s the game he’s playing.

Open mike 19/10/2013

Written By: - Date published: 6:38 am, October 19th, 2013 - 202 comments

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

Palino and Slater have to be joking

Written By: - Date published: 9:23 pm, October 18th, 2013 - 261 comments

Of course John Palino did not know about the Len Brown Bevan Chuang relationship despite Chuang’s boyfriend who knew of the relationship being on his campaign team and despite Cameron Slater’s father being Palino’s campaign manager. Update: The Herald this morning has reported that Chuang claims to have met Palino for 90 minutes two days before the news of the affair was made public where the disclosing to Brown of the news was discussed.