Author Archive

Joycie says relax

Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, September 6th, 2012 - 20 comments

Steven Joyce is meant to be the Jobs Czar. So, what’s his reaction to another hundred job losses yesterday at the Bluff smelter and the threat of the loss of 3,200 more? “If [Tiwai Pt closed], it would adjust different things like investment profiles and all sorts of things” but no worries because Rio Tinto and Meridian will “come to some arrangement”.

Spring Creek & the Government’s priorities

Written By: - Date published: 7:54 am, September 5th, 2012 - 42 comments

I’m no fan of coal mining, obviously. We need to reduce the amount of carbon we put in the atmosphere dramatically and stopping digging it up would be a good start. But the Nats have no such concerns. They want more jobs in hydrocarbon extraction. So, why the lack of any kind of response from National to stop job losses at Spring Creek?

Nats’ heartland says asset sales don’t add up

Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, September 3rd, 2012 - 82 comments

Last week, TVNZ covered a MYOB poll that showed 50% of small business owners disagreed with asset sales and 21% supported it. That’s 2.5 to 1 of ones of National’s core votes opposed to its flagship policy. They oppose asset sales for a simple reason: the numbers don’t add up. They wouldn’t sell high profit […]

Right votes for future asset sales

Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, August 30th, 2012 - 16 comments

National, Banks, and Dunne voted to keep the door open for more asset sales yesterday. Clayton Cosgrove’s Bill would have required a super-majority in Parliament or a referendum to move more companies out of the SOE Act – a necessary step in the privatisation process. Dunne in particular has promised not to support further asset sales, yet given a chance to stop them, he refused.

Getting ahead of themselves?

Written By: - Date published: 7:37 am, August 29th, 2012 - 42 comments

If the Government still hasn’t decided whether to sell the assets, why is its stockbroker advertising them?

Could it be that the Nats’ consideration of the Tribunal’s findings is just a sham?

Marriage equality set to pass

Written By: - Date published: 8:23 am, August 28th, 2012 - 33 comments

Louisa Wall’s marriage equality bill comes before Parliament tomorrow – there’ll be a rally outside. It should pass comfortably. 61 MPs have said they’ll support it to at least first reading and only quarter of that number say they will oppose it. Many of the 30-odd undecideds will vote no but some will be voting ‘yes’. I think we’ll see about 70 votes in favour.

Know when to fold ’em

Written By: - Date published: 1:34 pm, August 26th, 2012 - 26 comments

National’s asset sales programme is in crisis. Key has three options on asset sales – plow ahead, cut a deal with iwi, or call it quits. The smart thing to do, for the good of the country and for National’s own good, remains to drop the policy altogether. But they won’t. Instead, they’ll play the race card. But that old joker isn’t the trump it once was.

Nats back to censoring the press

Written By: - Date published: 7:43 am, August 24th, 2012 - 102 comments

The Government has injuncted* RNZ from running a story based on a leaked Kiwirail document that shows National’s under-investment in Kiwirail will make the tracks more dangerous and less useable at a time when it is firing 200 maintenance staff. Brownlee’s excuse? “the media outlet that wanted to publish an opinion about that document was going to do so in a most irresponsible way”

Just give it up

Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, August 23rd, 2012 - 50 comments

The Nats’ asset sales are beset at all sides. The companies aren’t ready for sale. Their future revenue is too uncertain to attract investors. The Government would end up with more debt not less. New, hidden, fiscal costs keep on coming to light. Few New Zealanders want to buy the shares. Over 200,000 have signed a petition against the sales.

Joyce’s latest list

Written By: - Date published: 9:01 am, August 22nd, 2012 - 39 comments

You have to remember sometimes that Steven Joyce’s introduction to politics was as a campaign strategist. That explains why he is still obsessed with style over substance. He’s released the second of six glossy publications from his new Mobie super-ministry. Like the previous one – like the decision to form the super-ministry – there’s no meat behind it: the point is merely to appear busy.

The optics of the thing

Written By: - Date published: 10:04 am, August 18th, 2012 - 39 comments

When he was Don Brash’s campaign manager, Steven Joyce used to talk about the ‘optics’ being what matters. Well, let’s consider the optics of a fat, bald old man personally insulting three good-looking young journalists every time they ask him sensible questions. If I were Joyce’s media minder, I would have had my head in my hands throughout Joyce’s appearance on The Nation this morning.

Bennett, a disgrace to her office

Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, August 17th, 2012 - 25 comments

You can’t really understand and fix a problem unless you have some reference points to measure progress against. So, when Paula Bennett’s Green Paper on poverty said that 20% of children live in poverty, people said ‘wow, what are you policies to reduce this and how much will they reduce it by’. But Bennett has no policies to reduce poverty, so she’s resorted to zen-like wavering over whether we can and should measure poverty.

Sell assets to avoid debt; take on debt to build motorways – huh?

Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, August 16th, 2012 - 76 comments

So, let me get this straight. Debt is bad. So bad, in fact, that the Government is willing to sell assets that produce higher returns than its cost of borrowing to free up money and avoid taking on more debt. But this same Government is now planning to borrow to fill a $5 billion hole in its transport budget caused by its unneeded motorway projects.

Privileged try to turn Kiwis against each other

Written By: - Date published: 8:22 am, August 14th, 2012 - 213 comments

National Party campaign designer John Ansell and Invercargill-based racist Loius Crimp are planning a $2 million campaign to whip up racial hatred between Pakeha and Maori. I don’t think people will be fooled, even if anyone publishes their material. We’ve moved past the Owera days. Everyone will see this is about NACToids’ privilege, not Maori privilege.

Quick thoughts on MMP changes

Written By: - Date published: 8:08 am, August 14th, 2012 - 19 comments

Lowering the threshold to 4% is a step in the right direction but why not go further? Getting rid of coattailing is negative in theory but in practice could stop anti-democratic gaming by major parties protecting tiny client parties. Abolishing overhangs is bad – it just increases disproportionality for parties with strong electorate support vs party support – ie the Maori Party.

What if they threw an asset sale & nobody came?

Written By: - Date published: 7:58 am, August 13th, 2012 - 49 comments

A TVNZ poll matches the results of the TV3 poll on whether people would buy shares in the asset sales. Only 50% say they definitely have $1,000 to spare to buy what they already own. Only 13% say they would “very likely” use that money to buy those shares. Hardly the ‘vast majority’. Most of us would end up dispossessed.

Asset sales could be delayed a year or more

Written By: - Date published: 8:35 am, August 7th, 2012 - 52 comments

“Unusual and inappropriate” – that’s how the Waitangi Tribunal has described National’s ‘report by August 24th or we’ll ignore you’ ultimatum. Imagine if you or I were party to a court case and tried that! Now, the Tribunal is going to deliver a truncated report before that deadline and the full one in September. This is going to the courts. Injunctions will delay the sale.

Fran O’Sullivan: in praise of central planning

Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, August 4th, 2012 - 57 comments

Has Fran O’Sullivan been replaced by a communist infiltrator? Today, she gushes over a central government plan to use emergency powers to appropriate land and bypass RMA property rights. She even suggests the Government could use such powers to redesign other CBDs according to its own grand plans. Next, she’ll be calling for a 5-year plan.

Robber’s charter

Written By: - Date published: 10:17 am, August 3rd, 2012 - 117 comments

So, the Nats want unqualified teachers teaching the country’s most disadvantaged kids in charter schools. This is meant to close the gap with rich kids. Oddly, private schools opt for trained teachers. Also, oddly, it was only 2 months ago that the Nats were saying they wanted all teachers to have post-grad qualifications. Why the back-flip? It’s all about that well known route to economic and social success: driving down teachers’ wages.

Waitangi Tribunal could exercise binding powers

Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, August 1st, 2012 - 124 comments

If John Key chooses to ignore the Waitangi Tribunal and continue to foment racial division in a desperate bid to split opposition to asset sales, he may be in for a nasty surprise. The Waitangi Tribunal has noted it has the power to make binding recommendations over memoralised land. Key doesn’t think Mighty River has any memoralised land. Yes, it does.

No legal power for looters’ bonus

Written By: - Date published: 8:47 am, July 31st, 2012 - 56 comments

I missed this last week: Key is now conceding that he doesn’t have legal authority to give away shares for free in a looters’ bonus. In June, Key and English arrogantly dismissed questions from Russel Norman on the legal authority to give away hundreds of millions of dollars worth of shares to the looters. Last week, Key sheepishly admitted that Norman is right.

Paying to hear what they want to hear

Written By: - Date published: 9:53 am, July 30th, 2012 - 4 comments

Consultants SKM wrote a report in 2008 that said the Puhoi to Wellsford Holiday Highway wasn’t worth the money it cost. Then, once National came in and decided the Holiday Highway was a ‘Road of National Significance’ they commissioned SKM to write a new report, which praised the project. Now, they’ve handed SKM lucrative contract for the investigation work. Is this what the $200m of taxpayer money spent on RoNS consultants so far has been going on?

The worst man on Earth

Written By: - Date published: 3:49 pm, July 28th, 2012 - 85 comments

I’m really looking forward to Peter Dunne retiring next election. Not as much as I would like to see him defeated but getting rid of him by any means is a godsend. This week, he has been blackmailing Labour: demanding they doff their caps to him or he would vote down their bills. So much for principle. His twitter account is a stream in invective unworthy of a minister of the Crown.

A good week for the opposition

Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, July 27th, 2012 - 52 comments

3 opposition private members’ Bills passed – extended paid parental leave, Mondayisation, and lobbying disclosure – on Wednesday (moving a ban on land sales to foreigners up the list). Then, all 5 drawn from the ballot on Thursday opposition bills too: marriage equality, $15hr minimum wage, super-majority/referendum protection for asset sales, charging government agencies that pay access to info, and controlling water pollution.

Banks lied while a minister

Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, July 27th, 2012 - 19 comments

Sure enough, this isn’t over for John Banks. He has now been caught out in a direct lie told while he was a minister. On April 27, when asked about Mr Dotcom’s donations, Mr Banks told the Herald: “I kept the finances of the campaign [at] arm’s length. Others were involved in collecting money and talking to people.” But the Police investigation shows that’s a lie.

Equal before the law?

Written By: - Date published: 10:32 pm, July 26th, 2012 - 53 comments

Police will not lay charges over the so-called banks.com saga. Assistant Police Commissioner Malcolm Burgess held a press conference this afternoon at Police National Headquarters in Wellington. Minister John Banks would be issued with a warning over the matter, Burgess said. While he only received a warning, Banks’ actions were illegal and future occurrences were likely to be prosecuted.

The nasty government

Written By: - Date published: 12:07 pm, July 26th, 2012 - 22 comments

National is threatening to veto a Labour bill to extend paid parental leave, claiming it costs too much. At the same time, they’re trying to defend writing a blank cheque for looters’ bonuses. And they’re getting nasty about it. Maggie Barry attacked Jacinda Ardern for not having children yet while John Key had a hissy fit at anyone who questioned his looters’ bonuses.

King Brownlee outside the law

Written By: - Date published: 1:26 pm, July 25th, 2012 - 26 comments

When the Nats created CERA – the Gerry Brownlee Enabling Act – they tried to make it so no-one could challenge his decisions under the Act in court. The Courts hate such ‘ouster clauses’ and react by allowing cases on whether a decision was made under the Act or was so wrong it wasn’t an exercise of the powers granted. Brownlee’s just found that it ain’t easy to make yourself dictator in a free society.

140,000 for a clean energy future

Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, July 25th, 2012 - 10 comments

The biggest petition to Parliament in 3 years was presented yesterday with Greenpeace’s 140,000 signature call for the Government to halt subsidisation of fossil fuels and invest in a clean energy future instead. 140,000 signatures is a remarkable achievement. Predictably, it got a nasty response from the Government. Their ugly attitude is turning off voters.

More Nat cronyism

Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, July 23rd, 2012 - 11 comments

Another example of cronyism from disgraced former minister Nick Smith has emerged. He overrode officials at the Ministry for the Environment, who had declined an application for $200,000 for meetings to resolve disputes between farmers and environmentalists in the Mackenzie Basin and Waitaki Valley, so a former Nat candidate could pocket the cash.

Bill sez ‘time youse f*ck off’

Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, July 22nd, 2012 - 124 comments

An all-time record 53,900 people left New Zealand for Australia last year. Remember when John Key was going to stop the exodus by closing the wage gap? Yeah, that was a pretty funny joke. Now, here’s the punchline: Bill English now says that it’s a great thing that everyone is leaving for Australia. And the kicker, he wants to attract talent by driving down wages.

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