Archive for April, 2014

Key Govt asset stripping state housing

Written By: - Date published: 7:56 am, April 25th, 2014 - 54 comments

Phil Twyford has exposed the government’s asset-stripping approach to running down state housing, while  favouring of private & overseas entities.  The Greens & Mana have strong policies for increasing the amount of state housing. Still waiting for a commitment from Labour.

Open mike 25/04/2014

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 25th, 2014 - 201 comments

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

Politics bruises even Shane Jones

Written By: - Date published: 4:06 pm, April 24th, 2014 - 108 comments

While I know many on here aren’t sad to see Shane go, I think he’s a lost voice for Labour – and we’ll need others to step up into his place. I also think we might be a little less visceral and personal in our attacks on politicians if we were a little quicker to realise they are human.
Also: Shane Jones Media Watch

Labour and the working class

Written By: - Date published: 11:18 am, April 24th, 2014 - 325 comments

Shane Jones’ retirement has made some say that it is evidence that Labour is becoming less relevant to the working class.  Josie Pagani says that the party should be concentrating more on jobs, better pay, and on celebrating opportunities for all of us to do better in life.  She should read the party’s policy platform before she makes this criticism because it talks about nothing but job creation, better pay and improving our quality of life.

LocalBodies: John Key Aspires to Mediocrity

Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, April 24th, 2014 - 26 comments

Local Bodies provides this interesting comparison on John Key compared to some of the more ethical leaders of our past. Suffice it to say that the ever forgetful John Key doesn’t measure up to past standards. He is really only distinguished the his sustained level of  pathetic mediocrity.

Polity: Shane Jones speaks out

Written By: - Date published: 8:56 am, April 24th, 2014 - 116 comments

If you are going to demand that everyone else be a team player within Labour, accommodating in the caucus views they do not agree with, you can’t then turn around and refuse to be a team player in a Labour-led government with another party whose views you may not agree with. Either everyone is a team player, or nobody is. Shane Jones included.

 

Open mike 24/04/2014

Written By: - Date published: 6:30 am, April 24th, 2014 - 239 comments

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

NRT: The Greens’ “internet bill of rights”

Written By: - Date published: 10:55 pm, April 23rd, 2014 - 2 comments

No Right Turn is critical of the implementation aspects of the Greens’ internet bill of rights. Looking at his points about its flaws, it does appear that it has few real teeth. “…if you want to outlaw ISPS shaping customer traffic for anti-competitive reasons” … “then amend the Telecommunications Act to outlaw it. It wouldn’t sound as great as an “internet bill of rights”, but it would do the job better, and with more certainty of the outcome. Trying to use a general law to do it, without checking the underlying policy details, doesn’t just risk failure – it also comes across as lazy.”

NRT: “Shoulder-tapping” vs public service values

Written By: - Date published: 11:39 am, April 23rd, 2014 - 59 comments

Another angle to the Shane Jones resignation: “Mr Jones said he would leave Parliament next month after he was shoulder tapped by Foreign Minister Murray McCully for a new role as a roving economic ambassador across the Pacific.”

This is of course a total violation of public service values, and an unlawful exercise of Ministerial power.

Stepping up: new energy from Kelvin Davis

Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, April 23rd, 2014 - 115 comments

Labour has swung positively behind the change from Jones to Kelvin Davis.  In his interview on TV3’s First Line this morning, Davis was confident, down-to-earth, & energetic. Hone Harawira & Davis are strong candidates for Te Tai Tokerau and those struggling on low incomes. Both would be assets for a Labour-led government.

Russel & Metiria – or Winston?

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, April 23rd, 2014 - 133 comments

Yesterday Rob Salmond commented on Labour’s two likeliest options for coalition partners after the 2014 election, and had some interesting things to say about New Zealand First and the Greens. But I must beg to differ on the suggested advantages of offering a plum deal to Winston and expecting Russel and Metiria to play along […]

Open mike 23/04/2014

Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, April 23rd, 2014 - 186 comments

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

Shane Jones standing down as MP

Written By: - Date published: 6:12 pm, April 22nd, 2014 - 508 comments

Breaking. Just on One News – Shane Jones will not be standing in the elections for Labour or any other party. More as it comes to hand. NZ Herald – Jones to leave politics at the end of next month. Stuff – Kelvin Davis next on list. Davis – a very good replacement.

Polity: I am still holding out for a three-way

Written By: - Date published: 12:38 pm, April 22nd, 2014 - 110 comments

I think the pundits misjudge Peters. I think he wants a major, polity-based legacy in the 2014-2017 term, as well as baubles. Only the left can offer this. With the left, Peters can be The Man who Saved the Power Companies. National cannot compete with that. Which gives everyone on the left, including the Greens, some leverage. So count me out of the consensus that Winston in Cabinet means no Greens in Cabinet. I see a feasible three-way deal on the horizon.

It’s the little things …

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, April 22nd, 2014 - 36 comments

Another day and another hole in Judith Collins’ description of events surrounding the dinner that she had with senior Oravida figures and a Chinese Official who may or may not have been able to sort out importation problems for Oravida, a company who her husband is a Director of and who has made large donations to the National Party.

Wealth and the wealthy

Written By: - Date published: 8:28 am, April 22nd, 2014 - 28 comments

A NZer in Britain and a Briton in NZ – 2 CEOs complaining they get paid too much. And science shows the US is ruled by a bunch of oligs.

Open mike 22/04/2014

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 22nd, 2014 - 168 comments

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

Caption competition

Written By: - Date published: 12:05 pm, April 21st, 2014 - 95 comments

You know the rules

An Easter message: greed is not good

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, April 21st, 2014 - 14 comments

Greed used to be regarded as a major sin.  Now it is often seen as either trivial, or, in Gordon Gekko’s words, “Greed is good”.  Greed has become a religion, focused on the sacred “economy” and its “market” of (allegedly) “invisible hands”. Greed fuels inequality and undermines democracy. Democracy needs a more critical public sphere and media.

The drone strike killing of a Kiwi

Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, April 21st, 2014 - 282 comments

The Government is completely indifferent to the killing of innocent children and New Zealand citizens because it is part of the war against terrorism. But the extra judicial killing of innocent adults and children is by definition a terrorist act.

Open mike 21/04/2014

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 21st, 2014 - 134 comments

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

Environment on the edge

Written By: - Date published: 9:01 am, April 20th, 2014 - 41 comments

On Al Jazeera NewsHour this morning, there were two reports on environmental issues in different parts of the planet: stories of the tension between pursuit of economic “growth” and the destruction of the environment. In both countries, there are attempts to develop renewables, without changing the whole system.

The housing bubble

Written By: - Date published: 8:38 am, April 20th, 2014 - 176 comments

Another week and another report suggesting that New Zealand’s housing market is heading towards a potential crisis.  The Government’s primary response is to blame Labour.  The Greens and Labour have a collection of policies which would improve matters significantly.  But the politics are difficult because who would want to threaten the value of the family home?

Open mike 20/04/2014

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 20th, 2014 - 183 comments

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

The right wing only want to help us

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, April 19th, 2014 - 230 comments

Kiwi in America over at Kiwiblog has offered some no doubt heart felt advice to Labour on what it should be doing. But the advice appears to be based on a misunderstanding of the Party’s history and a wish that the Party becomes more like ACT. Why do right wingers think they can tell Labour what to do and is their advice sound?

Open mike 19/04/2014

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 19th, 2014 - 149 comments

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

Polity: Boundary changes

Written By: - Date published: 5:16 pm, April 18th, 2014 - 20 comments

Rob Salmond’s take on the boundary changes announced last week. In a MMP election system the actual electoral boundaries usually only really matter to a few MPs. It isn’t likely to make much of a difference unless National manages to have a cup of tea with a party with enough electoral muscle to get more than a single MP into the house and an electorate’s voters think this matters. After the John Banks/Act debacle who’d be moronic enough to think that electorate seats in a list do matter? Apart from our silly first-past-the-post stand-in-man for David Farrar of course…

How this site’s webservers now work

Written By: - Date published: 4:52 pm, April 18th, 2014 - 8 comments

This site gets rather a lot of comments. Every time a comment is made the page it is on has to be regenerated, which limits the amount of static caching that can be done. So on a dynamic site like this one we require rather a lot of raw processing power to generate dynamically pages that keep changing all of the day. These days we do it in the cloud, buying hours on servers as we require then. It saves us money and allows us to handle the story breaking peaks. Looks like we’re ready for election year.

The week that was

Written By: - Date published: 2:29 pm, April 18th, 2014 - 37 comments

The highs and lows and the good and bad of what was a fascinating week in Politics.

Polity: Labour’s manufacturing plan

Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, April 18th, 2014 - 10 comments

This is very good stuff. Having a tax break for R&D work has always been a no-brainer, and it is great to see it reconfirmed. Adding an accelerated depreciation scheme for new plant is a helpful addition. And partnering with more local firms for more locally-sourced government procurement makes perfect sense, too. Another no brainer for parties – like Labour – that actually care about local employment.

ImperatorFish: Judith Collins explains

Written By: - Date published: 8:14 am, April 18th, 2014 - 30 comments

Judith can’t believe she has to explain this all again