Author Archive

NZ closes the gap with Aussie

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:30 am, January 15th, 2010 - 21 comments

Well, I didn’t think it could done but it has been. National has been promising to close the gap with Australia, and damned if it hasn’t happened already. The Nats’ target was 2025, it didn’t even take a year. In fact, we’re now above Australia and accelerating away while they fall. Unfortunately, it’s the wrong […]

Crime rises, Nats’ get tough policies have no effect

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:21 am, January 13th, 2010 - 62 comments

You might recall that a bit over a year ago a salesman in a nice suit with a nice smile came and sold us a brighter future. We haven’t seen all that much of that salesman since then but we can remember what he promised to deliver in that ‘brighter future’. We even have the […]

Even Banks against Key’s ‘Party Central’ fiasco

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 6:57 am, January 13th, 2010 - 6 comments

At first, I thought I must have been dreaming yesterday morning. There was John Banks loudly attacking central government politicians from Wellington. How dare they impose expensive and unjustified costs on Aucklanders? Why were they so insistent on rushing through their own ideas rather than taking the time to come to an enduring solution that Aucklanders […]

Govt: All workers to get same holidays as PM

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 6:03 am, January 12th, 2010 - 85 comments

Workers to get same holidays as PM Monday, 11/01/2010, 11:30pm Press release: New Zealand Government The Government will raise the minimum annual leave entitlement for all workers from four weeks a year to seven, Prime Minister John Key said today. “This will bring the holiday entitlements of all Kiwis into line with the vacations I […]

Key adopts Bush foreign policy

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:12 pm, January 11th, 2010 - 37 comments

“We’ve got no intention of cutting and running from Afghanistan,” the Prime Minister said from his holiday home in Hawaii.* If you’re a keen watcher of political rhetoric, you might recognise that phrase – Bush used to accuse Democrats of wanting to ‘cut and run’ from Iraq. It’s not just rhetoric, John Key’s foreign policy […]

Nats: anti-whalers’ lives forfeit on the altar of trade

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:04 am, January 8th, 2010 - 131 comments

On Wednesday, Japanese whalers tried to murder five New Zealanders. There is no other way to put it. They ran down a ship many times smaller than theirs in the high seas. It is only luck that the ramming did not sink the Ady Gil. The lives of the crew of the Ady Gil were […]

Govt to waste $400 million on white elephant highway

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:24 am, January 7th, 2010 - 132 comments

Steven Joyce has finally revealed the benefit/cost ratio for the billion dollar Transmission Gully project. A few weeks ago he was mocking Sue Kedgley for saying that the costs would outweigh the benefits and claiming that the BCR would be about 1.5 ($1.50 benefit for each $1 spent). It turns out Joyce was lying. There is just […]

The house that slavery built

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:24 pm, January 6th, 2010 - 35 comments

There’s no denying that the Burj Khalifa is impressive. Not all that much short of a kilometre high, it’s easily the highest building on Earth. It loses some of the lustre, though, when you think about what it actually is. This building makes no economic sense, it was built on borrowed money by a country […]

Great balls of fire

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:27 pm, January 6th, 2010 - 15 comments

The Kepler Telescope was launched into space and began transmitting data last year. It’s job is to find evidence of planets outside our solar system, especially Earth-like ones. It is the first telescope that will be able to detect such small planets on orbits in their stars’ habitable zones (where the temperature is right for liquid […]

Right’s threadbare excuses for tax gifts for the rich

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:16 pm, January 5th, 2010 - 71 comments

The Right is trying to build momentum for more tax cuts for the rich. The argument comes on three fronts: ‘if we don’t lower company tax rates even further businesses will run away’, ‘if we don’t lower income tax on the rich even more, they’ll run away’, ‘tax rates should be the same or people […]

Between Nats lines, not much to be found

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:29 pm, January 4th, 2010 - 54 comments

Bill English has usurped his do-nothing leader with an op-ed in the Herald framing National’s agenda for the year to come. This piece was English’s chance to convince New Zealanders to accept his agenda. He gets off to a bad start: As New Zealand emerges from recession, the Government’s focus has firmly shifted towards significantly lifting our […]

A fair pay-rise not unreasonable

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:23 am, December 28th, 2009 - 10 comments

An interesting piece on the SST yesterday: English has warned public servants such as teachers and nurses not to expect pay increases that are “out of line with realistic expectations”. “I think we will see quite a few sparks fly,” O’Reilly said. “Government departments are being told how much they can spend so you’re going […]

Bad brew

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:52 pm, December 18th, 2009 - 31 comments

If a tourist buys something in New Zealand for export or that they don’t take possession of within New Zealand, they can get a GST refund on it. Most tourists don’t know this and it’s only relevant in exceptional circumstances, not for the kind of purchases that most tourists make while here. Cameron Brewer from […]

Bullet dodged

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:30 am, December 17th, 2009 - 76 comments

Well, that could have been embarrassing. John Key on the world stage, along with leaders of other countries in what has been billed the ‘greatest debate on Earth’ had the potential to be very painful. It goes without saying that he would have treated the whole thing as a PR event. National was already preparing […]

Economic illiteracy

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 4:21 pm, December 16th, 2009 - 7 comments

More economic illiteracy from our old friend: Certainly given the rhetoric from the finance minister of late I’d thought the numbers would be worse than the Budget, not better. Um, everyone knew they would be better. We’ve known for months. The recession was over earlier than expected and that improves all the numbers. what was […]

Capital market taskforce pushes asset sales scam

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:00 pm, December 16th, 2009 - 47 comments

Another government-appointed taskforce of rightwing, market ideologues (this time appointed by Labour, the fools) has reported and, surprise, surprise, their report is a rightwing prescription without any supporting argument that it would be good for the country. The headline recommendation of the Capital Market Development Taskforce is that the government sell shares in SOEs. The […]

English’s big promises proven hollow

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:25 am, December 16th, 2009 - 26 comments

An extraordinary moment in Question Time as John Boscawen skewered National’s hollow promise to close the wage gap with Australia by 2025. Watch the video and listen to Bill English’s voice. He was simply left high and dry when Boscawen asked him for some actual evidence that the gap is going to close: Boscawen: By how much […]

Why deny: the bought priesthood

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 7:57 am, December 16th, 2009 - 54 comments

There are some very wealthy industries that make their money off burning fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse gases. It is in their financial interest to prevent action to tackle climate change, so they fund lobby groups and denier propaganda. There is a large population of ‘useful idiots‘ who soak up this propaganda and repeat it. They […]

Neolibs’ great experiment in meltdown

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:45 pm, December 15th, 2009 - 41 comments

With huge infusions of EU cash and deregulation that brought in foreign companies looking to make a quick buck, Ireland’s economy grew pretty quickly over the past 25 years. On the back of their new-found wealth, Irish governments implemented a neoliberal revolution – cutting taxes for the rich, privatising public assets, the usual formula for […]

Nats’ ‘stimulus’: $200K per job

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:45 am, December 15th, 2009 - 12 comments

National claims it created 2,300 jobs with its stimulus spending. Of course, most of this supposed stimulus was smoke and mirrors – re-announcing existing spending – and 2,300 is bugger all when there are over quarter of a million Kiwis out of work. But I had a few more problems with this announcement. Firstly, I […]

Why deny: the useful idiots

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 7:29 am, December 15th, 2009 - 91 comments

According to myth (it seems), Lenin called socialists in the West ‘useful idiots’ – people whose ideological fervour saw them accidentally aid the realpolitik aims of the USSR. Similarly, an army of useful idiots are the greenhouse polluters’ best weapon as they attempt to save their right to pollute for profit. These are people who […]

Sharples: ‘ETS short-sighted, that’s why we supported it’

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:00 pm, December 14th, 2009 - 27 comments

I could hardly believe my ears when I heard Waatea News on RNZ this morning. Pita Sharples admitted that the Maori Party knew supporting National’s ETS would mean worse environmental outcomes and would cost the country $110 billion in subsidies for polluters but they did it anyway to keep the price of fuel a bit […]

Why deny: the lobby groups/polluters

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:00 am, December 14th, 2009 - 93 comments

This is the first in a three part series on the climate change denial industry. I’m trying to understand why there is such a powerful, well-funded, and ideologically solid body of opposition to a body of scientific evidence that even the scientists employed by one of the chief denier lobby groups called “undeniable” (in a […]

Just asking

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:40 am, December 11th, 2009 - 11 comments

It has been treated as gospel that if the Australians, for inadequately explained reasons, drop their corporate tax rate from 30% to 25%, then we, for inadequately explained reasons, will have to follow suit. Why? Where is the proof that the $900 million a year that cut would cost us is justified? Did the economy […]

ACC levy hikes another step to privatisation

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:40 am, December 11th, 2009 - 79 comments

As expected, Nick Smith has imposed substantial ACC levy hikes on families. For a worker on $40,000 with a car, you’re looking at $150 more a year. I would say that would take a large bite out of most people’s tax cuts but the fact is most people didn’t get a tax cut from National. […]

$100,000 for 10 hours work

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 6:28 pm, December 10th, 2009 - 40 comments

No, this post isn’t about the 2025 Taskforce, it’s about Rodney Hide’s round the world holiday with his girlfriend on your dime. Heavily censored official papers reveal that on this 12-day, $100,000 trip (not including the salaries of Hide and the two officials who went with him), Hide spent just 10 hours in meetings on […]

Govt spending – the big lie

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 3:30 pm, December 10th, 2009 - 45 comments

I’m kind of embarrassed. I should know by now never to trust a word out of Bill English’s mouth. I should have checked his repeated claims that government spending rocketed under Labour. English likes to say that because of Labour government spending increased by 45% over the five years from 2004 to 2009. As David […]

There is power in a union

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:00 pm, December 10th, 2009 - 7 comments

About a month ago I used the Stats NZ Labour Cost Index to come up with the approximate distribution of payrises for unionised and non-unionised workers. I showed that most union members got payrises this year and most non-union members didn’t. Turns out that was pretty much on the money. The EPMU released figures yesterday […]

This is climate change

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:00 am, December 10th, 2009 - 82 comments

Climate change has melted the sea ice where polar bears catch seals. Starving, they are turning to cannibalism. Here a male bear takes the remains of a cub, which it had taken from its mother. This is climate change. This is just the beginning. I have a terrible feeling that this picture is an omen of things […]

No spark in Nats’ power reforms

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 4:34 pm, December 9th, 2009 - 39 comments

A friend just texted: “Brownlee’s power reforms look relatively benign, what’s the catch?” It’s true, Brownlee’s reforms are just minor tinkering. The only thing of note is the needless little kick in the guts for environmentalists by making Meridian take on Whirinaki. And that tells us something. For all National’s bluster in opposition about power […]

Above all that kind of thing

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:11 am, December 9th, 2009 - 23 comments

RNZ, Nov 6: Sean Plunket “Most commentators say you’re leadership style has been one that has sought to avoid personal attacks and name calling” John Key “Well, I don’t think that [personal attacks and name calling] get you anywhere” Parliament yesterday (just examples from one day) Key “I guess the difference between me and the […]