Author Archive

Good jab, now land some punches

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 5:04 am, July 21st, 2009 - 88 comments

It was excellent to see Phil Goff laying down the gauntlet to Key yesterday. He announced Labour’s policy to temporarily relax partner means testing for the dole and promised a recession response package. On the same day, Key’s big achievement was noting the Hillary family had settled their dispute with Auckland museum. Goff is saying […]

“Creeping communism” a success

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:07 pm, July 20th, 2009 - 6 comments

Missed this from a couple of days ago: For the first time in 25 years, the incomes of those in lower brackets grew more quickly than those on higher incomes, the Household Income Survey by the Social Development Ministry found. It credits Working for Families with the turnaround and says it also helped avert a […]

Time for a real debate on the economy

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:45 am, July 20th, 2009 - 62 comments

I wish Finlay MacDonald wrote more about politics and less about cats and kids and stuff because he’s well worth reading when he’s on a serious topic.. and a weekly column in the Sunday Star-Times is a hell of a thing to waste. His piece yesterday eviscerates Key’s vacuous economic speech from last week. He […]

Mike Smith steps down

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:48 am, July 20th, 2009 - 16 comments

Labour General Secretary Mike Smith has announced he will retire at the party’s national conference in September. He’s the last of the four – Helen and the three Mikes – who led the parliamentary and party wings during the fifth Labour Government to step down. While Mike Williams ran fundraising, Smith concentrated more on organisation […]

Elias is right, will we listen?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:32 am, July 18th, 2009 - 44 comments

The rednecks have predictably got themselves into a tizzy over Chief Justice Sian Elias’s comments on the need for judicial reform. I think you should read the speech for yourselves. It is an expert in the field discussing how the justice system is failing. Failing both victims and offenders, and the taxpayer. I’ll put in […]

Musings on fluff

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 6:00 am, July 16th, 2009 - 15 comments

Claire Trevett wrote me a very cordial email in response to my criticism of her reports from Key’s trip around the Islands. I want to say from the start this reply is meant in the same constructive tone. Trevett points out that there were in fact two articles each day – one serious, one ‘colour […]

Key grins blankly, shrugs shoulders

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:00 am, July 15th, 2009 - 42 comments

I was going to do a fisking of Key’s ‘major speech‘ today. But there’s nothing to fisk, no substance, no ideas, no vision. There’s just endless recycling of the same old Crosby-Textor lines and waffle. In fact, there’s one section that is just a bunch of rehashed lines – one after the other. You get […]

Leak: Key’s next big plan revealed

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 4:10 am, July 15th, 2009 - 19 comments

Today Key is giving a major speech on the economy. He told Oliver Driver on Sunrise yesterday that it would be “pretty high level”, and he wasn’t joking. The Sir Peter Blake Awesome Stratosphere Rollercoaster will rise from Queen’s Wharf, circle the Sky tower, rise to a height of 1500m, and do a twisting loop before plunging […]

Folic acid fiasco

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 2:00 pm, July 14th, 2009 - 30 comments

I just don’t see why medicating an entire population to prevent a handful of spina bifida cases, which will only work if women eat far more bread than they do, is a good idea. It’s such a grossly untargeted and unsophisticated approach. Saying ‘well many women don’t get enough folic acid and many pregnancies are […]

Nats can NOHSAC

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:00 pm, July 14th, 2009 - 7 comments

One of the most fundamental rights at work is the right to come home at the end of the day healthy and safe. Now that work right, like so many others, has come under attack from National. NOHSAC, the National Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Committee, was set up by Margaret Wilson in 2003 to […]

Big Mac nation

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:00 pm, July 13th, 2009 - 99 comments

New Zealanders are now the third fattest nation in the world according to a report covered in today’s Christchurch Press. New Zealand faces a healthcare time-bomb as a new report ranks the country once touted for its outdoorsy, fit population as the third-fattest nation after Mexico and the United States. Health authorities fear disease and […]

Standard scoop: Why Key fired Worth

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:30 am, July 13th, 2009 - 81 comments

Last Monday, John Key said you, the people of New Zealand, don’t have the right to know why a minister in your government was sacked. We think you do have that right. And so do others. We have been told the reason from sources in and around the National party. The only reason for Key […]

The Daily Refrain on swine flu

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 7:45 am, July 11th, 2009 - 1 comment

Sometimes writing is hard. Especially when one is hungover for the third morning in a row. Thank God for Youtube. This one goes out to all our readers who are, or will be, addled by swine flu. Honestly, if you aren’t watching The Daily Refrain, you’re wasting your life.

Labour always hated the Nazis

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:51 pm, July 9th, 2009 - 51 comments

I have to confess some confusion about this study that supposedly shows the First Labour Government was tight with Hitler. They were real, deep-red socialists. To get to power they had to overcome the fascist New Zealand Legion that backed National. Fascism was anathema to socialism – the biggest battles of all time were fought out […]

Great expectations?

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

Clare Trevett, I know it’s very exciting going on a free trip to the islands but could we have some actual reporting? You spent half your report from Tonga talking about the king’s dogs and how funny Key and the Dictator of Tonga are. Might have been nice to hear something about the start of […]

Who will mourn the MSM’s passing?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 5:25 am, July 9th, 2009 - 22 comments

Can you believe that TV One had an hour long special on Michael Jackson’s funeral and then ten minutes in the news? Excuse my language but what the fuck is wrong with our media? A mate emailed me after he saw the TVNZ presser (yes, they put one out) announcing the one-hour special saying, ‘I […]

Fran pumping Brash for productivity taskforce

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:34 am, July 8th, 2009 - 18 comments

A few weeks ago the NZPA reported that the Government had agreed to establish a taskforce to “work on ways to close the productivity gap between Australia and New Zealand”. The taskforce would be selected by ACT leader Rodney Hide and would be announced within the month. The story then sank without a trace. So […]

Privileges complaints laid

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:56 am, July 8th, 2009 - 12 comments

A number of poor performing ministers like Paula Bennett, Kate Wilkinson, Anne Tolley, Pita Sharples, Tariana Turia, Rodney Hide, Pansy Wong, and Key himself, have tried to extradite themselves from sticky situations in the House by lying. It was only a matter of time until one of them lied so blatantly that a privileges complaint was […]

Robert Reid to lead NDU

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 4:45 pm, July 7th, 2009 - 6 comments

As has been expected for some time, the National Distribution Union has announced that its President, Robert Reid, will be taking over as National Secretary from Laila Harre in August. Harre will leave with a stronger union than she found it, and will probably be remembered best for the epic Progressive lockout, as well as […]

Symbol or substance?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:11 am, July 7th, 2009 - 28 comments

It seems to me that National has fundamentally misunderstood what the foreshore and seabed debate is about. Key’s statements yesterday suggest it is about a mere symbolical recognition of an iwi’s traditional ties to sections of foreshore and seabed. It’s not. He seems to think it’s about beaches. It’s not. He seems to equate mana […]

Reminder

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 5:00 pm, July 6th, 2009 - 12 comments

1) Go read Editing the Herald. 2) Bookmark it. 3) Read it every day. It’s the best thing on the Internet.

OIA confirms: No reason to cut Cullen Fund contributions

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:02 pm, July 6th, 2009 - 72 comments

Well, we told you so. The Nats lied for weeks that a credit rating downgrade would be imposed on us if we didn’t cut contributions to the SuperFund. We didn’t fall for that for a minute. Even before the Budget, we pointed out that, except for the extraordinary conditions of the last two years, managed […]

CycleWatch – 100 days

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 7:47 am, July 5th, 2009 - 12 comments

As CycleWatch hits 100 days, John Key’s been caught with his pants down. As No Right Turn explains a few days ago: [There has been no cost-benefit analysis] and now it seems to have abandoned its own timetable for beginning the project. Either that, or the Prime Minister is going to pull the initial selection […]

Show pony

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:00 pm, July 4th, 2009 - 26 comments

Fran O’Sullivan, who championed National most ardently in Opposition, has become disillusioned with Key as PM. She savages him today, saying he has a “deep need” to be “Mr Popularity”: Prime Minister John Key’s practised inclination – crack a few jokes about daughter Steffie usurping his credit card and/or messing up her en suite and son Max telling […]

Private member’s ballot

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:28 pm, July 3rd, 2009 - Comments Off on Private member’s ballot

The Left continues to have luck with the private member’s bill ballot, getting both of the bills drawn today just like a couple of weeks back (well, not so much luck, most of the bills in the ballot are from the Left). Metiria Turei’s Marine Animals Protection Law Reform Bill was drawn, which while worthy […]

A “Charter for Blackmail and rent-seeking by Maori interests”

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:21 pm, July 3rd, 2009 - 16 comments

Further to my post yesterday, a reader sent in this quote from 2004: Mr English’s view was not [National’s] official line. As expressed by strategist Murray McCully, it is that the bill is a “charter for blackmail and rent-seeking by Maori interests”. Let’s be clear. National opposed the Foreshore & Seabed Act because they thought […]

Bill sez: ‘pay cuts for youse’

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:20 am, July 3rd, 2009 - 91 comments

Yesterday in Question Time, Bill English sent a message loud and clear to teachers, police, doctors, nurses, and all other public servants (‘frontline’ or not): under National, you’ll be getting pay-cuts, don’t expect cost of living adjustments, watch as your pay-packet buys less and less. Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Government has stated a number of […]

Cowardice, bigotry and saying whatever it takes

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:00 am, July 2nd, 2009 - 77 comments

I’ll be glad to see the back of the Foreshore & Seabed Act. For many on the Left, including myself, its been a monument to Labour’s failure of nerve in the face of a campaign by National to exploit the underlying racism of Pakeha New Zealand for electoral gain. Yes, there was a certain electoral […]

Just laugh in their faces

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 5:39 am, July 2nd, 2009 - 26 comments

National is overseeing the most dramatic rise in unemployment on record (yep, 2000 a week is more than the 1980s, more than the 1990s). They’ve got no answers, no ideas. All they can talk about is what Goff said 20 years ago and laugh. Like 2000 people a week losing their livelihoods is some kind […]

Foreshore review dead-on

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:16 pm, July 1st, 2009 - 106 comments

The Foreshore and Seabed review panel have reported back with the recommendation that the law be scrapped and people be allowed to attempt to prove ownership rights over the foreshore and seabed in court as they can with any other land. Good. Ever since the Government issued a proclamation in 1872 to stop the Native […]

Out of her depth

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 1:20 pm, July 1st, 2009 - 13 comments

I wonder if Patrick Gower could keep a straight face while writing this: Social Development Minister Paula Bennett has dropped her additional Disability Issues portfolio because Prime Minister John Key wants her to concentrate on the growing numbers of people losing their jobs. Note his phrasing. Not ‘concentrate on reducing the growing number of people […]