Author Archive

Left to the market

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 2:10 pm, February 12th, 2009 - 34 comments

Two Pennsylvania Judges have been accused of taking bribes from private prison operators to ensure a reliable stream of prisoners. To quote Associated Press: In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately […]

Now with a little perspective

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 4:04 pm, February 11th, 2009 - 88 comments

I was going through some of my 2008 files yesterday and got a sudden reminder of just how nuts the right was getting toward the end: It got me thinking about all the other crazy shit that was going on last year and prior to it. the truck “strike”, the insane advertising the EMA did […]

Less a kickstart than a wee nudge with a soft shoe

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 1:36 pm, February 11th, 2009 - 19 comments

The kickstart package is out and it seems to be a mixture of work that was already going to happen and stuff that is worthy enough but not focused on much past the building industry. One of the concerns I have is with the fast-tracking of roading projects. For example just how much difference it […]

Sockpuppet of the right

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 1:10 pm, February 10th, 2009 - 13 comments

After yesterday’s early release of Roger Douglas’ Orewa speech set for 6pm this evening one of our (bafflingly tenacious) readers has sent us this: It seems this sockpuppet beat that sockpuppet to the punch.

Ironically, nothing ever goes right for Roger

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 5:35 pm, February 9th, 2009 - 62 comments

Roger Douglas has his big debut speech tomorrow night in Orewa. He’s been working hard and sucking the (tax payer funded) parliamentary library resources dry to get it right. The speech, which promises to restart the neoliberal revolution, is embargoed until he delivers it to a breathless crowd tomorrow night. You can read it here. […]

Control group

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 5:04 pm, February 9th, 2009 - 38 comments

I’ve got to admit there are days I wonder whether the National Party really have swung leftward. I mean I know they are a party of spin and I know they have enacted some nasty rightwing legislation but when I see them putting the minimum wage up, dancing with drag queens and hobnobbing with iwi […]

Who cares if it’s just PR?

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 10:09 am, February 9th, 2009 - 34 comments

There is a rumour in the Dom Post and the Herald that the minimum wage will be announced today and the Nats are going to increase it to either $12.50 or $12.40 depending on whether it’s Fairfax or APN you’re reading. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was true as John Key knows full well […]

Lest we forget

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 1:45 pm, January 31st, 2009 - 49 comments

The New Republic has a good article on Keynes that points out the tendency for governments (specifically in the US) to flock toward Keynesianism during the bad times and ignore it when things pick up and to implement the facets of Keynesianism that suited their own agenda rather than the nation as a whole: If […]

Blogger ethics

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 12:18 pm, January 30th, 2009 - 57 comments

I see that over at Kiwiblog DPF is hawking an Air New Zealand viral advertisement. Now DPF has had at least one junket from Air NZ and the airline is well known for its gifts to journalists and media outlets (mostly in terms of free flight). Given this situation I’d say the chances are quite […]

Fingers burned

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 11:02 am, January 29th, 2009 - 20 comments

Word is Tony Ryall is feeling a bit burned over the herceptin funding. Turns out the private specialists needed to administer the treatment are going to cost a wee bit more than he expected. That’s right, the scheme has been locked into legislation without being properly costed and now the government is stuck with the […]

Standard writer in shock agreement with KBR!

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 10:57 am, January 25th, 2009 - 35 comments

Over at Kiwiblog David and his rabid followers are screaming over the HoS’s treatment of National’s Social Development Minister Paula Bennett and the fact she has a defacto son in law who is a gang-member and who she took in while he was on bail. Shockingly, I think the Kiwiblog Right are right on this […]

Stop the auction

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 10:50 pm, January 23rd, 2009 - 31 comments

The tragic shooting death of Halatau Kianamanu Naitoko on the motorway today was not National’s fault. In fact it was nothing to do with National or Labour or any single policy from either of them. Ever. It wasn’t a sign of a government “soft on crime”, nor would it have been stopped by tougher sentencing. […]

A pointless symbolic distraction. At best.

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 11:24 am, January 23rd, 2009 - 17 comments

I’m the last person who’d criticise freezing the pay of our MPs but John Key’s cynical opportunism is at best a piece of pointless and time wasting PR and at worst a signal to attack Kiwi wages. Now before any of our regular right-wingers claim I’m reading too much into this it might pay to […]

Let’s see the options

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 10:45 am, January 22nd, 2009 - 24 comments

Over at the Dim Post Danyl is complaining about our complaining again. In a classic piece of sophistry he seems to have decided the recession is going long and from that (not so absolute) absolute he has constructed a premise that we need “massive infrastructure projects” which are funded at the expense of nearly every […]

A little help

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 1:13 pm, January 17th, 2009 - 25 comments

Oddly the Standard hasn’t received its invite to the “job summit” yet. I’m sure this is just an administrative error but just in case it’s not I’d like to offer the National/Act government a few ideas for their consideration. I’ll start with three of my favorites, none of which will surprise regular readers: 1. Home […]

Fox to guard the henhouse

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 6:46 pm, January 15th, 2009 - 61 comments

The National/Act government has announced its chair for the “job summit” and it’s stock exchange boss Mark Weldon. I may be missing something but I seem to remember this mess was started by the markets so it seems a bit strange to put someone who runs one in charge of cleaning it up. But after […]

ETS submissions open

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 2:48 pm, January 4th, 2009 - 33 comments

Submissions for the review of the Emissions Trading Scheme have opened but will close on the 13th of February. Given the time of year that’s a reasonably short submitting period, especially for legislation that has such far-reaching implications for New Zealand’s economy and international reputation. I expect the vested industry interests will have their submissions […]

Payback?

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 10:34 am, January 3rd, 2009 - 28 comments

National’s decision to allow a 40% increase in endangered Sea Lion kill-quota for the squid fishing industry is old news but I haven’t seen it covered anywhere except in a link in one of Steve’s posts a week or so ago so I’m assuming it was lost in the xmas rush. It shouldn’t have been. […]

For richer

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 12:17 pm, December 30th, 2008 - 27 comments

I’ve spent the last week touring around the provinces and catching up with old friends and family I haven’t seen for years and part of this has meant traveling to places I haven’t been in over a decade. Nearly every town big or small that I’ve past through has been bigger and seemed far more […]

Debt

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 9:19 am, December 27th, 2008 - 11 comments

A couple of good but not quite satisfying articles today. The first is Brian Gaynor’s analysis of the economy in which he lays out where we stand financially as a nation and blames the housing boom for our current account deficit: But the message from both the GDP and current account figures is that New […]

Homegrown

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 12:09 pm, December 26th, 2008 - 11 comments

At the end of my post a couple of days ago I touched on the notion of a new Zealand identity and a Left nationalism. Since then I’ve been thinking about the value of the last government’s moves to foster national identity and their remarkable success in doing so and concluded that this is quite […]

No Xmas

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 8:50 am, December 25th, 2008 - 4 comments

And before anyone calls sour grapes I have to say even John deserves some xmas cheer but this was just too funny not to post today.

A real alternative

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 5:15 pm, December 24th, 2008 - 21 comments

One of Bruce Jesson’s constant bugbears during the New Right revolution of the 80’s and 90’s was that the Left allowed itself to be positioned as conservative. That we were simply fighting for the status quo rather than providing a proper progressive alternative to the imported market ideology that was being foist upon us. He […]

“Newspaper of record”

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 9:58 am, December 23rd, 2008 - 8 comments

A friend just flicked me an article from the Nation which shows just how the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia was misrepresented by the New York Times and other US media. Written by a journalist who was actually on the ground during the invasion, Mark Ames, it shows the sharp end of the manufacturing of […]

Good one Bill II

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 8:19 am, December 19th, 2008 - 35 comments

It’s good to see Bill English acknowledge the last government has left New Zealand in a good position to face the economic crisis. The only shame is that he’s using that position to throw money at people who are more likely to pay down debt and increase savings than engage in stimulatory spending.

Good one Bill

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 10:59 am, December 18th, 2008 - 20 comments

Bill English has stopped the sale of BlueScope’s Taharoa ironsands business to a Chinese investor based on the fact that it won’t bring any value to New Zealand. Good on him. If we aren’t going to profit from investment then why should we allow it? Of course there is the small issue of hypocrisy given […]

Class divide

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 4:08 pm, December 12th, 2008 - 117 comments

Taken a matter of minutes ago, the Workers Party protest outside John Key’s multimillion dollar Parnell mansion. Just to remind you that we’ve just seen a man worth tens of millions of dollars take work rights off a whole bunch of people who earn minimum wage. In case you’re wondering what they’re holding up, it’s […]

HRC calls for consultation on fire at will

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 4:17 pm, December 10th, 2008 - 18 comments

This just in: the Human Rights Commission has called for the fire at will bill to be put to select committee: The Human Rights Commission has urgently requested the Government to reconsider its decision not to allow the 90-day bill to go to a select committee. “Rushed legislation is potentially risky legislation and this is […]

F*ck Democracy II

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 11:00 am, December 10th, 2008 - 20 comments

This from Lew in the comments section of my last post: Shortly after the House resumed at 0900, Darren Hughes requested that the bills about to be debated be tabled so members could read them before debating them. Just before 1000 he asked what progress had been made, and was told by the Speaker that […]

F*ck democracy

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 9:30 am, December 10th, 2008 - 17 comments

No Right Turn has an excellent post pointing out that National is misusing urgency in a manner unseen since the bad old days of Douglas and Richardson: You have to go back to Douglas and Richardson to see this sort of abuse of the Parliamentary process. And if this is how National intends to run […]

Work rights? Gone by Xmas

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 9:22 am, December 9th, 2008 - 40 comments

Tracy Watkins reports that the National/Act government will be taking all work rights from anyone in a new job in a firm with 20 staff or less and they’re going to do it under urgency. I’ve heard that the question of whether to proceed with the bill under urgency was still being hotly debated within […]