Author Archive

Another sad day in Afghanistan

Written By: - Date published: 6:50 am, August 5th, 2010 - 136 comments

New Zealand has suffered its first combat death in Afghanistan. This is an increasingly deadly war as the foreign forces slowly lose ground. They have suffered nearly two thousand dead now – more in the past two months than in the first 3 years. No-one knows how many Afghans have died.

Kiwis back smoking ban

Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, August 4th, 2010 - 62 comments

A survey by ASH backs up one by UMR back in May showing that 60% of Kiwis back an end to commercial tobacco sales by 2020. I’m surprised by how strong the public mood for a ban is and not quite sure whether I agree.

Victory within reach, if they’ll grab for it

Written By: - Date published: 11:07 am, August 2nd, 2010 - 48 comments

Labour has, to date, failed to give the people who voted for it 3 of the last 4 elections a reason to come back. But that doesn’t mean all is lost. The Left is not just Labour. A 5% shift in the polls, the same scale as the shift that has already happened this past year, would be all it takes to get those numbers even and make the Maori Party – or maybe Winston – kingmaker.

Talk of double dip-recession increases

Written By: - Date published: 9:20 am, August 2nd, 2010 - 98 comments

Perpetual growth is the cornerstone of our liberal democratic/capitalist system. It is fundamentally threatened. A double-dip recession is widely expected but most aren’t prepared to acknowledge the underlying problem that isn’t going away.

Wage gap $40 a week wider under Nats

Written By: - Date published: 11:39 am, July 28th, 2010 - 95 comments

Closing the wage gap with Australia was one of National’s key promises in the leadup to the 2008 election, but the Dom Post reports today that the wage gap has grown by another $40 a week under National’s watch.

Can we stop pretending now that National ever really had a plan to close the wage gap?

Key gambles with Aucklanders’ future

Written By: - Date published: 11:51 am, July 27th, 2010 - 53 comments

John Key glibly admitted yesterday that the Supercity is “risky”. We’ve been saying it all along and the evidence is all that the Supercity will be expensive, unrepresentative, and unresponsive to local needs.

So, if it’s so risky, why the hell is Key doing it?

Unusual uncertainty heralds an uncertain new world

Written By: - Date published: 6:55 am, July 23rd, 2010 - 42 comments

Despite a textbook response by the world’s major governments to the great recession, US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says the outlook remains ‘unusually uncertain’. The economic players can’t understand why the normal strong recovery hasn’t followed the recession. They don’t understand we have reached the limits to growth.

Brownlee’s power reforms hurt national interest

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, July 22nd, 2010 - 23 comments

We’ve seen the last minute back down on mining after tens of thousands of Kiwis stood up, we’re seeing a growing tide of anger as Kiwis realise that all our work rights and wages are for the chop.. but one policy that has avoided public criticism on the level it is getting from within the industry is Gerry Brownlee’s mad electricity reforms.

A new state housing agenda

Written By: - Date published: 2:31 pm, July 21st, 2010 - 35 comments

The country is short about 10,000 houses and many of the houses we do have (mostly privately owned rentals) are unhealthy. The housing shortage was a driver of the last housing boom and is still keeping house prices excessively high, while poor quality housing means higher health costs, more sick days, and kids that are sick so often it disrupts their education. It would be sensible on every level to build the extra houses we need, and the government should take the lead role.

Where is National’s economic plan?

Written By: - Date published: 12:20 pm, July 21st, 2010 - 106 comments

It became increasingly clear this year that National’s longer-term economic plan, such as they had one, could be summed up as “tax cuts and mining”.

With mining in national parks now out of the picture, just what is National’s plan to grow the economy and lift our wages to Australian levels?

The price of trade

Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, July 20th, 2010 - 36 comments

The textbooks tell us that free trade is good because it means a more efficient use of resources. But the reality is that often the ‘competitive advantage’ one country has in producing a product compared to others isn’t some natural resource or better legal or physical infrastructure that makes business more efficient. Too often, the cheapest countries are the cheapest because they pay their workers the least and don’t protect their environment.

Key tells Maori Party to shove off

Written By: - Date published: 1:09 pm, July 19th, 2010 - 25 comments

The Maori Party’s support has been a vital element of the sheep’s clothing this rightwing government has worn until now. It has been the fig leaf behind which the true nature of the rightwing agenda of the National Party has hidden. Key’s speech shows, National will no longer be willing to compromise to gain its support and does not particularly want it.

Natonomics and Fire at Will

Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, July 19th, 2010 - 157 comments

Extending Fire at Will and attacking union access to worksites undermines workers’ rights and is simply economic vandalism. Weaker work rights will tend to lead to lower wages (already falling under John Key’s watch), low wages lead to underinvestment and poor economic performance, and lack of work rights increases the risk in changing jobs making labour allocation less efficient.

It’s different when it’s your job

Written By: - Date published: 12:50 am, July 18th, 2010 - 47 comments

It was mainly young and poor workers on the minimum wage who were its victims of Fire at Will before. But now the middle class’s jobs will be on the knife edge too and they’re not happy. This will be an issue that causes National to bleed votes, especially if Labour and the unions organise a strong campaign. Middle NZ doesn’t care about poor workers but it’s different when it’s your job at risk.

Another stage, another clown act, as Key keeps distracting

Written By: - Date published: 8:06 am, July 17th, 2010 - 12 comments

Fran O’Sullivan calls John Key ‘Cheerleader-in-Chief’ today. I still prefer rodeo clown. But she’s on the money, for the most part, in her description of National as a party afraid of the public and afraid of its base, and most afraid of what would happen if the public ever found out about its base’s ideological plans for our country. National has become completely stage-managed and has chosen a clown for a leader precisely because a clown is distracting.

Crash National’s Party – Protest for Fairness at Work

Written By: - Date published: 2:05 pm, July 16th, 2010 - 57 comments

At the National Party conference in Auckland this weekend, John Key is expected to announce drastic attacks on workers’ rights.

You can stand up and fight back against this madness by joining the protest at 10am on Sunday at Sky City Hotel in Auckland.

Can we talk about the issues please?

Written By: - Date published: 10:42 am, July 14th, 2010 - 25 comments

Can we pease have some reporting on the actual issues in the super-major race and where the candidates stand? I’m so sick and tired of loading the news-sites to be told who spent what on what (with the implication that there’s all a massive scandal somewhere) or a factual piece reporting on the opinion of some supposed expert on how the candiates are doing as if it’s a horse race.

Private prison a money-waster, despite Collins’ spin

Written By: - Date published: 6:55 am, July 13th, 2010 - 9 comments

Judith Collins is lauding the $1.2 billion of economic activity that will suppoedly result from the private prison at Wiri. But wait, the government is planning to spend $101 million on construction and $40m per year for 30 years on wages. That’s $1.3b spent for only in $1.2b of economic activity. How’s that? Oh, yeah, the private foreign owner who will be taking hundreds of millions offshore.

Murdering statistics

Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, July 12th, 2010 - 16 comments

Something that really boiled my blood a few weeks back, but which I haven’t had a chance to write about yet was this post by National Party pollster David Farrar on the topic of a recent lull in homicides in a single police district. It was the worst kind of politics – a person who knows his argument is false taking advantage of the suffering of people and the ignorance of his audience for petty party political points scoring.

Deepening the stockmarket

Written By: - Date published: 11:26 pm, July 11th, 2010 - 48 comments

Can someone explain to me this ‘deepening the stockmarket’ line that the Right uses for privatisation? I consider myself reasonably well informed on these issues but I just can’t see the value to the country of the government selling public assets to a handful of stockmarket participants. Why is ‘deepening’ the stockmarket by giving up our public assets a good thing?

Nothing better to be doing

Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, July 8th, 2010 - 20 comments

Is $175 an hour to hire a clown a good deal? Because you and I might think we are paying $350,000 a year plus expenses for a Prime Minister but it seems not. Yesterday, he spnt his time opening a pizza place. Next week: Key attends opening of letter.

Key concedes Left has it right on foreign ownership

Written By: - Date published: 11:16 am, July 6th, 2010 - 46 comments

PM warns against Kiwis becoming ‘tenants’ – The Herald. John Key says that we’ve got to make sure we don’t sell too many of our assets and end up sending the profits overseas. Good stuff, it’s exactly what the Left has been saying and the opposite of National’s policy until now. I guess we’ll have to see if Key backs up his words with action.

God, she writes like she talks

Written By: - Date published: 2:44 pm, July 5th, 2010 - 55 comments

Paula Bennett in a letter to Tariana Turia: “Because of that sort of addiction it can be really tough on them and you see, certainly, financial hardship being increased and I think also with that sort of stress you can look at domestic violence,”. I don’t think that sentence would pass the national standard.

The Right unravels in Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 10:07 am, July 4th, 2010 - 43 comments

Things really are getting desperate for the Right in the super-mayor race. National and its allies keep up the attack but the public aren’t buying. Now, John Banks’ campaign is facing more right-wing candidates and is crapping itself that Stephen Tindell might enter the race.

Mummy! The bad man cut my pre-school’s funding!

Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, July 3rd, 2010 - 9 comments

John Key had a busy day playing rodeo-clown yesterday. Before having the Air Force fly him to Ohakune for the opening of 16 whole kilometres of cycleway Key had photo-op with children. It’s is a John Key favourite. The perfect distraction from lying in the House, the weak economy, and Anne Tolley. But the clown show doesn’t always go off without a hitch 🙂

Magical Budget causes imaginary closure of wage gap – Wong

Written By: - Date published: 9:57 am, July 2nd, 2010 - 25 comments

Pansy Wong on the gender wage gap: “It was the case that the gap was between men and women was at 12% since 2001. After 18 months of the National Government the pay gap is now 11%.” Um. No, it’s 12.3%. When are these Nats going to learn that in the age of the internet and publicly accessible statistics you can’t just lie and expect to get away with it?

English’s faith-based economics

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, July 2nd, 2010 - 90 comments

Bill English claims that our low national savings rate is due to the ‘government paying for everything’. According to English, people don’t need to save because the government pays for early childhood education, superannuation, Working for Families, and interest-free student loans. Does he have any evidence that is the case? Of course not. The evidence points the other way.

More Power to the man

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, July 1st, 2010 - 23 comments

So often, Parliamentary debates are pointless and pro forma. What a revelation, then, when Simon Power was so swayed by the Left’s MPs’ arguments that he hand-wrote an amendment to his Courts (Remote Participation) Bill guaranteeing defendants the right to choose to appear in person. A good day for rights. A good day for Parliament. Power for PM?

Nats push-polling on your dime?

Written By: - Date published: 1:19 am, July 1st, 2010 - 61 comments

A reader sent us these images of an addressed ‘survey’ he received in the mail from Melissa Lee. It makes interesting reading because it’s not actually an attempt to gather our opinions to inform National’s policies. It’s a cynical attempt to influence our views while pretending to care what we think. And the Nats are using our money to fund it.

Offenders’ Levy fails

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, June 30th, 2010 - 5 comments

Judith “Crushless” Collins always has plenty of bluster but behind it all she has done precious little. 18 months after her spin doctors gave the media her moniker, Collins has yet to have a single car crushed (which is a stupid and wasteful policy any way). Her Offenders’ levy is another flop – it’s only going to raise 40% of the money promised and most of that will be spent collecting it.

Mining royalties pathetic

Written By: - Date published: 10:52 pm, June 29th, 2010 - 33 comments

Our mineral wealth is a one-off endowment that belongs to all of us. If we let someone dig it up, it’s gone forever. We shouldn’t let our most precious environments be mined and when we do allow mining we need to get the most for it. It’s not good enough that the mining industry gets away with paying just $70 million in royalties for digging up $6 billion of minerals.

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