Author Archive

Arguing with a rightie about youth minimum wages

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:43 am, March 20th, 2010 - 30 comments

With one eye firmly on the polls and an awareness that cutting wages by stealth is one thing but actually lowering wages is another, National has decided to oppose Roger Douglas’s youth minimum wage reduction bill. That hasn’t stopped the right activists from promoting it though, so I thought it would be worthwhile having a wee post summarising the arguments on both sides

Nats favour Turia, screw Sharples

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:42 am, March 19th, 2010 - 25 comments

Seats on the supercity, 3 strikes, tertiary cuts, national standards, RWC TV, ETS, foreshore and seabed (soon enough). The list of issues that the Maori Party has been shafted by National on keeps growing. Yet Tariana Turia’s ill-defined ‘Whanua Ora’ policy, which looks like nothing so much as privisation by stealth, gets carte blanche. What’s going on here?

Voting ban for prisoners irrational

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:54 am, March 19th, 2010 - 146 comments

Paul Quinn’s Electoral (Disqualification of Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill appears to be unjustifiably inconsistent with the electoral rights affirmed by s 12 of the Bill of Rights Act.

That’s the view of Attorney General Chris Finlayson, whose National Party is supporting the bill to select committee regardless.

‘Front-line’ needs ‘back-office’

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:50 am, March 19th, 2010 - 9 comments

The head of the nurses’ union, Geoff Annals, has given a vivid analogy for why his ‘front-line’ nurses oppose ‘back-office’ staff cuts: “I’ve flown very often but I’ve never seen many staff essential to the safety of my flights. I’ve never seen an air traffic controller for example. Does that mean that air traffic controllers should be dispensed with?”

Waihopai victory

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:18 pm, March 18th, 2010 - 99 comments

The not guilty verdicts in the Waihopai spy base case is a victory for the peace movement and proof of the value of the jury system. A jury of the activists peers were able to decide that it would not be just to convict them. Strict legalism could not beat society’s innate sense of justice. Unfortunately, National is moving to restrict our right to trial by jury.

Why English lies

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:40 am, March 18th, 2010 - 9 comments

As you’ll be aware, I’ve been pretty flabbergasted by the way day after day Bill English is getting up in the House and telling out and out lies about Labour’s record on the economy only for Labour to sit there and take it. Well, I’ve been thinking about this a little more and I think I get it now. He can’t talk up his own performance – there’s nothing to skite about and it’s against his political strategy even if there were some successes to point to

‘Oh, oh’: sound of a minister floundering

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:23 am, March 18th, 2010 - 30 comments

Which minister will be next to go? Rodney Hide or Anne Tolley? If competence was a condition of keeping their job, both would be long gone. But doing a good minister has never been a job requirement in John Key’s government. It comes down to which of them makes a spectacular mistake so serious that […]

Cynical denialism will cost us all

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:21 am, March 18th, 2010 - 36 comments

David Farrar is not stupid. Like everyone with a brain, he knows that climate change is a real and dangerous threat caused by human greenhouse gases emissions. Yet he persists in making denialist dog-whistles to his readers, always being careful never to outright deny climate change himself. He and all the leaders of denialism are telling what they know to be lies to people they know to be idiots.

Nats to pay miners to dig up national parks

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:37 am, March 17th, 2010 - 14 comments

During Question Time yesterday, Metiria Turei exposed National’s plan to subsidise mineral exploration by foreign companies in the most important parts of our national parks.

John Key refused to confirm Turei’s information but couldn’t deny it. Clearly, the Nats had been planning to slip it through in the Budget unnoticed.

More lies from English, Key in lala-land

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:31 am, March 17th, 2010 - 15 comments

Bill English can’t defend his economic record, 2.2% fall in GDP, still rising unemployment, falling wages, GDP per capita still falling and not expected to return to pre-recession levels until 2012, so he’s telling more lies about Labour’s record instead. Meanwhile, the Do Nothing Prime Minister is still daydreaming about his cycleway, which he now says will create “a lot more” than 4,000 jobs.

50 dollars and northwards

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:30 am, March 16th, 2010 - 14 comments

Felix can hardly contain himself at the prospect of National’s tax changes: Woohoo!! Told you my mate Mr Key would be able to deliver a â€œnorth of $50 a weekâ€ tax cut. And you all said he wouldn’t. So who’s looking stupid now eh? I mean sure, you need to bring in $180,000 a year to get it but just get off your arse and be a bit more ambitious whydontcha?

Newspapers/govt seed scientific ignorance

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:12 am, March 16th, 2010 - 46 comments

My mouth dropped yesterday when I read in the Dompost an editorial lamenting the “scientifically ignorant public, suspicious of the work many scientists do”. What shocked me was the chutzpah of the lament coming from a newspaper that fuels scientific illiteracy. Today, the Dompost has yet another anti-science, illiterate climate change denier column. Meanwhile, for all its talk, Key’s Government is cutting science jobs.

Andrew Little eyes New Plymouth

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 4:42 pm, March 15th, 2010 - 19 comments

I didn’t actually realise that the fact that Andrew Little is considering standing for Labour in New Plymouth in 2011 was news to anyone. I would think that New Plymouth is a natural seat for him.

Farrar’s analysis makes the old mistake of looking at the party votes instead of the candidate votes.

Child offending up with higher unemployment

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:55 am, March 15th, 2010 - 8 comments

The Herald has a little shock piece on child offending: “5-year-old sex offender on crime list“. Of course, what the offence was isn’t mentioned and there’s good reasons why children aren’t held legally responsible for their actions. There is an interesting sentence though: “Although the numbers are slightly up on the previous year, they are […]

GST hike = tax cut for rich only

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:49 pm, March 14th, 2010 - 50 comments

The numbers of National’s tax money go round leaked to the SST. I have worked out who wins and who loses. Key claimed that no-one will be worse off and the bulk will be much better off but 10% are worse off and 80% get next to nothing (without even counting the rent hikes). The elite get $100 in net tax cuts for every $1 the typical Kiwi gets.

What’s a decade between friends?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:09 am, March 14th, 2010 - 29 comments

Deborah Coddington writes:
“In 1994, not long after Rodney Hide became leader of Act,…”
Umm, Hide became leader in 2004. To be fair, the rest of Coddington’s piece offers a pretty good examination of Act’s fundamental problems.

Wage gap is the John Key credibility gap

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:34 am, March 13th, 2010 - 46 comments

There’s a nickname for John Key that’s picking up currency from both Left and Right around the blogosphere: ‘smile and wave’. The one thing Key can be depended on is to turn up grinning in some cheesy photo op. All his promises fall by the wayside. Meanwhile, 276,000 Kiwis are jobless, the wage gap with Australia keeps widening, and so does Key’s credibility gap.

Save Radio NZ dethrones Key

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:38 am, March 12th, 2010 - 14 comments

Who would have thought that a Facebook group advocating to keep Radio NZ funded and commercial-free would overtake Prime Minister John Key’s fan group for number of members? Well, yesterday at 9.30, just over three weeks since it was founded, the Save Radio New Zealand group reached 18,973 members, passing Key’s 18,972. That gives a […]

The cruelest cuts

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:29 am, March 12th, 2010 - 8 comments

Cuts to prisoner rehabilitation, night classes, and the Super Gold Card aren’t about saving money. The government is only too happy to sign blank cheques for stupid projects like Transmission Gully and the Holiday Highway on the vaguest cost estimates. No, these successful policies are having the financial life bled out of them because they contradict National’s ideology.

Arch-bishop on our national shame

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:55 am, March 11th, 2010 - 30 comments

When a guy who was imprisoned and tortured by Idi Amin calls the conditions in which prisoners are kept in New Zealand “a source of shame and disgrace” you know we have problems. Unfortunately, it has become acceptable in this modern political environment to view prisoners as less than human

The kneejerk and the jackboot

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:52 am, March 11th, 2010 - 3 comments

Sometimes you get a really pleasant surprise and I got one today from Garth George. Despite being a pretty old school conservative he gives a stunning rebuke of the knee-jerk authoritarianism/fascism/randianism that so often characterises the thinking of the Right these days and was recently highlighted by David Garrett’s call for sterilisation of the poor.

High unemployment helps Nats keep wages down

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:12 am, March 11th, 2010 - 21 comments

While other countries have used their strong public sectors to steady the private sector and keep unemployment down during the economic downturn, our government is compounding unemployment by cutting the public sector, throwing people out of jobs and feeding worker insecurity.

A sign of how corporates think

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:00 am, March 11th, 2010 - 20 comments

The more I think about the ‘Wellywood’ sign the angrier I get. Who does Wellington Airport think they are imposing this monstrosity on the people of Wellington without any consultation? It’s just another example of the corporate mentality in this country – a subtle blend of arrogance and idiocy.

But how much did the bus cost?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:49 am, March 10th, 2010 - 24 comments

“Tolley finds ally in school mum” screams the headline of Audrey Young’s piece today.

When National runs a bus tour the Herald is desperate in its attempts to drum up support, when it’s Labour all they want to talk about is how much the bus is costing the taxpayer.

Joyce dumbing down education

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:10 pm, March 9th, 2010 - 28 comments

So Steven Joyce’s big bright idea for tertiary education (which he recently inherited from the hopeless Anne Tolley) is to punish institutions with low pass rates by cutting their funding. It’s basically the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.It reflects the typical short-term thinking of the capitalist class and its political party.

Who were the Nat leakers?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:09 pm, March 9th, 2010 - 40 comments

Michael is dead right. The most important thing about the Hollow Men is not how Nicky Hager got the information but what the information is. It reveals National’s modern politics in all its unprincipled ugliness. Nonetheless, which Nats gave Hager the information is a subject of legitimate interest. I have some theories.

Meanwhile, at nationalmps.co.nz…

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:16 am, March 9th, 2010 - 19 comments

Remember how a couple of months back National set up NationalMPs? It was meant to be their answer to Red Alert, Labour’s frequently raucous, unstagemanaged blog where Labour’s MPs write what they want. But the Nats’ attempt is deadly dull. Either the leadership is gagging them or the Nat MPs are dreadful bores.

Glorified holiday for Bennett

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:23 am, March 9th, 2010 - 45 comments

There are 276,000 jobless Kiwis. The seasonally-adjusted trend on dole numbers is still on the rise. Many other people fall through the gaps and are unable to get public assistance in their time of need.
What better time for the Minister for Social Development to bugger off for five weeks?

Aussie wages outstripping NZ

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 7:40 am, March 9th, 2010 - 19 comments

In NZ, the average FTE wage rose 2.86% after inflation – $891 to $934 – over the past year. In Aussie, it was 3.6% above inflation – $1159 to $1226. When will John Key admit that he sold us a lie? When will the media call on him to resign if no progress is made on the one substantial promise of a ‘brighter future’ at he made?

The end of the line

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:00 am, March 8th, 2010 - 3 comments

This month there are a series of showings of The End of the Line around New Zealand. This acclaimed documentary looks at how overfishing is destroying fish populations and ultimately endangering the industries and cultures that depend on them. This is a problem we can solve relatively simply.

The minister who cried ‘recovery’

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:33 pm, March 7th, 2010 - 43 comments

Can someone at MSD please explain to Paula Bennett a season is? Our lazy minister is once again claiming victory over rising unemployment because of the seasonal drop in unemployment numbers. Worryingly, the decline between January and February was less than the average in recent years.