Archive for January, 2015

Only in Queensland

Written By: - Date published: 7:22 pm, January 25th, 2015 - 13 comments

Queensland Liberal Country Party Premier Campbell Newman has claimed that the Queensland Labor Party is funded by gangs because some people have told him so.  Yet he refuses to acknowledge the urgency of climate change even though pretty well every climate change scientist in the world is telling him it is real and we need to act now.  Can you detect the scent of hypocrisy?

The image of farming

Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, January 25th, 2015 - 98 comments

Farmers are copping stick for doing what the rest of us are doing. We all need to change, not just them.

Open mike 25/01/2015

Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, January 25th, 2015 - 171 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 state of the union

Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, January 24th, 2015 - 75 comments

American commentator William Rivers Pitt on Obama’s state of the union.

Armstrong and Small on Nick Smith’s RMA reforms

Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, January 24th, 2015 - 26 comments

Senior political reporters Vern Small and John Armstrong have both chosen to pan Nick Smith’s proposed RMA changes using remarkably similar logic.  Update: and Fran O’Sullivan has a go too.

Metiria Turei’s speech prepared for Ratana

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, January 24th, 2015 - 88 comments

Metiria Turei’s speech prepared for delivery at Ratana has attracted some attention for her strong criticism of John Key’s revisionism of Aotearoa’s history in suggesting that Aotearoa was settled peaceably.

Open mike 24/01/2015

Written By: - Date published: 7:08 am, January 24th, 2015 - 199 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 …

Weekend social 23/01/2015

Written By: - Date published: 1:01 pm, January 23rd, 2015 - 39 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?

Number of Reported Child Abuse cases have dropped

Written By: - Date published: 12:27 pm, January 23rd, 2015 - 27 comments

For the first time in ten years, reported cases of child abuse have declined. Minister Tolley and I are in agreement, that the number is still appallingly high. I sincerely hope that the reduction over the last year is due to government policies because then we can expect the downward trend to continue over the […]

The last gasp of oil

Written By: - Date published: 8:23 am, January 23rd, 2015 - 109 comments

Fracking has created a short term oil glut. That’s bad news for climate change. Could we at least find a silver lining in this carbon cloud, or will it be business as usual?

Open mike 23/01/2015

Written By: - Date published: 6:30 am, January 23rd, 2015 - 213 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 …

Odgers in s**t

Written By: - Date published: 3:45 pm, January 22nd, 2015 - 30 comments

That’s as in spat. Characteristic. Richard Smith of Naked Capitalism questioned her Samoan fiduciary company fronting for a company delisted from GXG Markets, a small European exchange. It’s an interesting story, and Smith promises more to come from GXG about New Zealand if not Odgers.

The mathematics of surveillance

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, January 22nd, 2015 - 30 comments

Mass surveillance cannot accomplish its stated goals, and it’s likely that many within the security / government system understand this full well.

Nick Smith’s RMA reforms – low cost housing in Epsom?

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, January 22nd, 2015 - 84 comments

Nick Smith has given his housing speech and blamed Auckland’s housing crisis on the RMA. A Treasury commissioned report, based on discussions with developers, has put dollar figures on what the RMA is allegedly costing. The logic of the analysis is that by reducing urban design standards we will make housing more affordable.  Updated with link to Rob Salmond Polity post.

Open mike 22/01/2015

Written By: - Date published: 6:56 am, January 22nd, 2015 - 266 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 …

Guantanamo Diary

Written By: - Date published: 11:10 pm, January 21st, 2015 - 4 comments

The Guardian has some amazing extracts from a diary that Guantánamo detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi kept and gave to his lawyers. It’s the first book by a serving Guantanamo inmate.

The prince and the pea

Written By: - Date published: 8:45 pm, January 21st, 2015 - 80 comments

I have pointed out before that Bomber Bradbury is wee bit unsuited to the two way dialogue of the blogs. A fragile prima donna who doesn’t like to be contradicted by the people he gallantly slags off in his routine piques of bitchy ranting. Updated with Bomber proving the point as his manufactured myths fall apart.

But which club?

Written By: - Date published: 3:41 pm, January 21st, 2015 - 7 comments

I think when justifying sending troops to Iraq the club John Key is really talking about is the group of right-wing political parties known as the International Democratic Union. Today Key chairs its Executive in Sarajevo, his first meeting as President. This move by Key to the IDU is calculated; he sees himself as leader of the world right-wing club and this is the first step to his international political career post New Zealand politics.

Beneficiaries falling

Written By: - Date published: 1:59 pm, January 21st, 2015 - 12 comments

Falling numbers yes, but falling through the cracks.

The price of the club

Written By: - Date published: 8:17 am, January 21st, 2015 - 179 comments

Yesterday Key justified our likely military intervention in Iraq as “the price” of being in “the club” with other Five Eyes countries.

Where is Cameron Slater?

Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, January 21st, 2015 - 142 comments

Yesterday I got contacted about Cameron Slater’s current address. Apparently the arsehole of the kiwi blogosphere hasn’t been paying his court ordered judgements against him that have been incurred in recent years. The person who contacted me wanted to serve a notice to bankrupt him.

Open mike 21/01/2015

Written By: - Date published: 6:50 am, January 21st, 2015 - 268 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 …

Who was the better economic manager – Helen Clark or John Key?

Written By: - Date published: 6:59 pm, January 20th, 2015 - 150 comments

Sometimes a simple graph is much more eloquent and powerful than a whole lot of words …

NRT: GCHQ spies on journalists

Written By: - Date published: 4:30 pm, January 20th, 2015 - 7 comments

I/S – “GCHQ considers investigative journalists a “security threat” alongside hackers and terrorists”…

NRT: Our financial laws mean nothing

Written By: - Date published: 4:25 pm, January 20th, 2015 - 20 comments

I/S – “the Financial Markets Authority knew about almost 4,000 crimes and never bothered to prosecute any of them”…

Espiner profile on Andrew Little

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, January 20th, 2015 - 17 comments

Guyon Espiner has a paywalled profile of Andrew Little up at The Listener.

RMA reforms … be very afraid

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, January 20th, 2015 - 97 comments

Nick Smith today announced proposed changes to the Resource Management Act. It is likely he will resuscitate the reforms that were stalled after Peter Dunne refused to support them last year. ACT’s David Seymour has said he will support the changes even though he did not know what they are. Treasury are to release a paper with proposals for change. Updated lprent – yep National stupidity reprised.

Where have all the houses gone?

Written By: - Date published: 7:10 am, January 20th, 2015 - 131 comments

Yesterday it was announced that Auckland is the ninth least affordable city in the world requiring 8.3 times their average wage to buy a home. Reducing regulation hasn’t worked, otherwise more than 20 homes would have been built under the 2013 fast track accord. The problem is a shortage of affordable housing.

Open mike 20/01/2015

Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, January 20th, 2015 - 139 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 …

Top 1% own 50% of world wealth: Oxfam

Written By: - Date published: 10:44 pm, January 19th, 2015 - 241 comments

Winnie Biyanyima of Oxfam is one of six co-chairs at the Davos World Economic Forum. She says her role  is to challenge the powerful elites, and she goes armed with a new report that shows that on current trends by next year the world’s richest !% will hold more wealth than the other 99%. She’s got some good ideas on what to do about it too.

An interesting milestone

Written By: - Date published: 4:22 pm, January 19th, 2015 - 37 comments

An interesting milestone in inequality is about to be passed.