Author Archive

Parliament pay dispute just the start

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:21 am, October 15th, 2009 - 9 comments

Non-political staff Parliamentary Service are in industrial action. They want to keep their redundancy provisions that were bargained for years ago and get pay into the collective. Right now HR decides their wages. They’re meant use this performance pay system but now they’re saying there’s no money and no cost of living adjustments. The pay […]

Derek Fox on Rugby World Cup

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:01 pm, October 14th, 2009 - 28 comments

Up until a few hours ago Derek Fox was the Chief Press Sec for the Co-leaders of the Maori Party. He resigned from that position this morning, evidently deeply dissatisfied. Shortly after resigning he gave an interview on 9 to noon – scathing of the World Cup bid (embedded below).

Poor managers hurting NZ

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 1:23 pm, October 14th, 2009 - 22 comments

What a sad state the management workforce of this country is in. Just think about these recent stories: Open Country, locking out their workers, employing scab labour, creating an environmental mess and blaming it on the workers they locked out – all because the workers joined the union and wanted some guaranteed hours. The appalling way that […]

March for action on climate change

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:31 pm, October 14th, 2009 - 12 comments

Let’s have a good turn out. Incidentally, with 1,700 workers at Justice joining 140 of their Parliamentary Service comrades in industrial action as they try to win a meager cost of living pay adjustment, and more departments soon to join them, Parliament’s front lawn could be a busy place in the weeks to come. Strange […]

The PSA-SFWU non-merger

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:45 am, October 14th, 2009 - 2 comments

Farrar’s published what he calls an ‘internal union email’ about the PSA and the SFWU’s decision not to amalgamate. Considering it was sent out to 70,000 people more than a week ago I wouldn’t get too excited. The amalgamation talks always struck me as an odd idea. The organising cultures and the membership profiles of […]

NZ Bus spins as 5pm deadline passes

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:06 pm, October 13th, 2009 - 3 comments

The front page leads on Herald and Stuff report: NZ Bus will lift its lockout notice and resume services on Thursday morning “as a gesture of good will”, if the unions stop strike action and agree to reach a settlement, the company says. I do despair about our media sometimes. This is not a new offer. […]

Beyond parody

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 5:05 pm, October 13th, 2009 - 13 comments

I was joking when I said all we need now is for Sharples to up the ante in the government vs government bidding war, but this government is truly beyond parody. “Just before heading into the House today Mr Sharples talked to reporters, and was clearly furious and openly critical of National. He called what […]

Labour drops the ball

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 4:28 pm, October 13th, 2009 - 79 comments

Labour’s pathetic response to Treasury’s flat tax proposal has come in for some well deserved criticism over at No Right Turn, and I have to agree it’s a pretty basic failure on Labour’s part. Faced with a reactionary and regressive proposal that amounts to a full-frontal attack on their founding values and the people they […]

Beyond belief

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:39 pm, October 13th, 2009 - 23 comments

So, let me get this straight. Pita Sharples, treating his ministry’s budget like a personal slush fund, decided that TPK would give Maori TV $3 million to add to its bid for free-to-air TV rights for the Rugby World Cup. That extra $3 mil made Maori TV the front-runner to get the rights. Now, the […]

Toad asks: Who paid for what, Nick?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:30 pm, October 13th, 2009 - 1 comment

Following my post yesterday, toad on g.blog raises some questions about Nick Smith’s expense claims: In the Dompost article, Nick Smith said “I had to spend $152,000 to make [his electoral office, which he owns] usable I don’t dispute that. But who paid the $152,000? Was it Smith personally? Or was at least some of it from a […]

Lee admits she stole taxpayer money

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:00 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 20 comments

Just two hours after TV3 revealed that Melissa Lee had stolen $100,000 from NZ on Air, Lee announced she will pay the money back. Just a few hours earlier she had been insisting it was her money, just a confusion over accounting. Her tune has only changed because TV3’s story exposed that cover story as […]

Lee’s fingers in the till covered up by Coleman

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:07 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 4 comments

A leak has revealed that Melissa Lee is under investigation for pilfering taxpayers’ money. Before the Mt Albert by-election she was cleared of a different rip-off, but it turns out that NZ on Air was still investigating her for keeping $100,000 of contingency funds that should have been returned to NZ on Air. Lee denies any […]

Nick pulls a Bill

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:39 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 19 comments

Nick Smith has taken a leaf out of the Double Dipton school of politics, calling journalists and swearing at them when the coverage isn’t to his liking. Now, to be fair to Smith, he’s got a point about the story the Dom published on Saturday. The story said Smith and six other MPs (all but […]

ARC threatens to terminate NZ Bus contract

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:53 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 35 comments

ARC chairman Mike Lee has delivered a blunt ultimatum to NZ Bus as its lockout of drivers reaches day five. “We have had enough. Auckland will not be held to ransom. If you can’t deliver the services that the people of Auckland rely on, then we will have to find someone else who can… “NZ […]

Dead peasant insurance

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:33 pm, October 10th, 2009 - 18 comments

In case you needed reminding how completely deviod of morals and ethics unbridled capitalism is, meet dead peasant insurance. Here’s Mark Ames of Exiled Online‘s beautiful rant against employers making money off their workers’ deaths, and the whole screwed up, unethical, inhuman system:

Blast from the past

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:56 pm, October 9th, 2009 - 37 comments

I see Winston Peters is trying to resurrect his political career with another racist rant about immigration. I don’t think there’s much point in giving the man any more attention. My views are pretty much the same as No Right Turn. All I’d add is that it’s actually kind of tragic to see Winston carry […]

The bizarre world of sensible sentencing

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:05 am, October 9th, 2009 - 20 comments

Stabbing a kid to death is OK because it’s: “expressing frustration over [tagging]” Taking away people’s access to the most effective ‘flu and cold treatment because it’s a minor source for an ingredient(less than a third of pseudoephedrine comes from pharmacies according to Key), for a drug the use of which is already in decline: “a […]

Labour needs to get beside the workers

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:00 am, October 8th, 2009 - 37 comments

You know, if you look back to all the elections since 1957, there’s only three you would say the Left lost outright – 1975, 1990, and 2008. In the Holyoake years, too much of the vote was being wasted on Left-leaning Social Credit, Muldoon lost 1978 and 1981 but got more seats, the country voted […]

Six years jail for Field

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 2:20 pm, October 6th, 2009 - 119 comments

Taito Philip Field has been sentenced to six years jail for bribery and corruption. Field is a prime example of the ability of power to corrupt. He let down all those who put their trust in him – his community, his former party, and the voters. We are fortunate that in New Zealand corruption by […]

Drivers locked out for following their contracts

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:15 pm, October 6th, 2009 - 51 comments

Yesterday, around 1,000 bus drivers and support staff issued noticed to their employer, NZ Bus owned by Infratil, that from Thursday they would be working to rule in protest over the company’s unacceptable pay offer. Essentially, the company wants to combine several existing collective agreements by keeping the weakest elements of each. Sure, it’s offered […]

Parliamentary staff begin industrial action

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 4:23 pm, October 5th, 2009 - 6 comments

Low-level industrial action has begun at Parliament after workers rejected an offer from the employer that would have slashed redundancy provisions and kept pay outside the collective, meaning wage cuts for the foreseeable future. The management is trying to please their political bosses by cutting wages and is looking at outsourcing the provision of security […]

Industrial roundup: Open Country

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 1:19 pm, October 5th, 2009 - 4 comments

Last week the Employment Court decided that Talleys-owned Open Country was acting illegally in locking out its unionised staff. The Court upheld the right of workers to demand a collective agreement and stated it was illegal for the Talleys to lock them out rather than attempt collective negiotations. Despite this, the lockout continues and the […]

Industrial roundup: Telecom

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 1:03 pm, October 5th, 2009 - 1 comment

Visionstream completed its takeover of the Auckland and Northland patch on Thursday and it’s now become clear that they’ve failed to meet the terms of their contract with Telecom as workers have continued to hold out despite being made redundant. The situation is just crazy. Because of Telecom’s mismanagement there are now hundreds of redundant […]

Key’s speeder-gate

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:02 am, October 5th, 2009 - 31 comments

When they’re struggling to defend Bill English’s housing rip-off, or John Key’s clowning, or Richard Worth’s dodgy dealings, or Anne Tolley’s incompetence, or Paula Bennett’s bullying, righties will still often try to deflect by recalling the time the car Helen Clark was in sped in Canterbury. Speeder-gate remains one of the worst things idealogs of the […]

Show some decorum, David

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:49 pm, October 4th, 2009 - 19 comments

It was inevitable that Farrar would do this, although I really hoped he wouldn’t. His post criticising Chris Carter for being in Samoa is a shameless attempt to make political capital off tragedy. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, Winne Laban headed to Samoa to assist her family there. Carter went as her support person, […]

It’s not about Dipton, it’s about corruption

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 4:36 pm, October 3rd, 2009 - 29 comments

Colin Espiner: “To start with the ironical, Acting Prime Minister Bill English had no sooner hauled his protesting family back to Dipton for the parliamentary recess to prove that it was still really his home than he had to come straight back to Wellington again [to deal with the tsunami]. It neatly illustrated his argument, […]

When you wake up to the fact your paper is Tory

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 2:43 pm, September 30th, 2009 - 29 comments

Hilarious reading through the Herald’s Your Views on election funding. Seems the Herald’s meek acceptance of the Government’s electoral funding plans has alerted a few of their readers to the fact they were duped by the paper’s blatant political advocacy for National last year. Here’s what Jay of Swanson had to say: I am gobsmacked […]

Open Country shows contempt for the law

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:54 am, September 30th, 2009 - 8 comments

The Talleys and National Party linked Open Country Cheese continues to show its contempt for the law as it attempts to break the Dairy Workers Union. You’ll be aware that Open Country laid down a six week lockout notice to try and force workers to leave the union. So far it hasn’t worked and on […]

Next, I’m going to Disneyland

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:17 am, September 29th, 2009 - 47 comments

I was surprised to see this at the bottom of John Key’s press release on the English housing allowance scandal: “The PM is overseas and is not available for interview.” The Acting Prime Minister is going down in flames and the Prime Minister won’t be interviewed? What’s he up to? Turns out, Key’s doing something […]

English admits he’s been rorting us

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:58 pm, September 28th, 2009 - 27 comments

Bill English has now paid back all the money he rorted from the taxpayer via the ministerial housing allowance during this term of Parliament. Of course, he continues to plead innocence but his actions amount to an admission of culpability and all the other facts tell us he purposely set out to rip us off. […]

Pay freeze would cause long-term damage

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 5:38 am, September 28th, 2009 - 27 comments

While filling his own pockets with our money, Bill ‘Double Dipton’ English is threatening public sevants with a five-year pay freeze – with inflation, that’s a 10% pay cut. The government can afford to give its workers small cost of living adjustments – the cost is relatively trivial. Parliament workers recently rejected an offer that […]