Author Archive

What’s so urgent?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:00 pm, October 28th, 2009 - 12 comments

As we endure the 6th consecutive week of National putting Parliament into urgency, new stats show that this government is abusing urgency to an unprecedented extent. Here’s the % of sitting time under urgency in recent Parliaments (the current one is the 49th): In it’s three terms in office, Labour took between 7.3 (first term) […]

Remember who they’re fighting for

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:30 am, October 28th, 2009 - Comments Off on Remember who they’re fighting for

This memo was sent by the Insurance Council to its members in 2005 but it may as well have been sent this week. Because as sure as National was keeping its agenda secret and having clandestine talks with the insurers about privatising ACC in 2005 they will be having the same talks under wraps while […]

RBNZ chickens out on vital new rules

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:00 am, October 27th, 2009 - 2 comments

What a shame that the Reserve Bank has backed down on new the prudential liquidity rules that require the banks to raise a higher percentage of their money from longer term deposits. The rules were to come in at the start of next year, but the banks complained and in this country business always get its way so […]

Big business demands to pillage state

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 5:49 pm, October 24th, 2009 - 18 comments

Fran O’Sullivan runs up some more big business proposals today unsubtly reminding Key that big business, which put up the cash to get him into power, expects pay back by being allowed to pillage the State: Behind the scenes the two task-forces investigating capital markets and tax reforms are taking a look at whether a […]

Right by accident?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:01 am, October 24th, 2009 - 9 comments

We’ve been pretty hard, although justifiably so, on Colin Espiner recently and I’m loath to do it again. He does put himself out there more than other journos with his blog and that’s admirable. On the other hand, can we let comments like these in his post on the MMP referenda go? We don’t yet […]

The urgency of love

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:00 am, October 23rd, 2009 - 7 comments

One thing about love is that what you abhor or hate in others you tolerate, even admire, in the object of your affection. Take the media’s handling of Parliament going into Urgency. When Labour filibustered over the second Auckland Supercity Bill, there were articles in the newspapers and snide remarks from news commentators about the […]

National announces ACC privatisation

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 5:26 pm, October 22nd, 2009 - 59 comments

National is going to privatise ACC. As part of the deal for support on its ACC cuts and levy hikes from the Maori Party and ACT, it will be privatising ACC’s Work Account (the part paid by employers for workplace accidents). First, there will be a perfunctory report provided by the ACC Stocktake Group, a […]

Chopper chops science education

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:30 pm, October 22nd, 2009 - 24 comments

National’s Anne Tolley, our education minister who thought that taking a ‘helicopter view’ of something meant taking a ride in a chopper, is cutting education resources so we can have an additional measure of how well kids are learning. $10 million is being taken out of extra support for Science, PE, and art teaching in […]

Govt tax advisor told Westpac how to cheat on taxes

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:17 am, October 22nd, 2009 - 3 comments

John Shewan is a member of the Government’s Tax Working Group. A decade ago he was advising Westpac what minimal amount of tax it should pay to avoid arousing IRD’s suspicion as it perpetrated the single biggest tax rip off in New Zealand history. Here’s the key bit from the High Court judgment: [563] In […]

Key’s divide and rule to cut wages

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:28 am, October 22nd, 2009 - 20 comments

John Key says that if school support staff want pay-rises then teachers should sacrifice the ones they bargained for. Tell him to get stuffed. I don’t see him and his rich mates handing back the hundreds of dollars a week each in tax-cuts that National gave. I don’t see Key or his buddies Mark Weldon and Rob Fyfe […]

Labour Day, a time to celebrate

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:00 pm, October 21st, 2009 - 16 comments

Next Monday, you have a paid day off. Do you know why? Because workers organised themselves into unions and fought for better pay and conditions, starting with an 8-hour day. Labour Day is both a product of those achievements and a chance to celebrate them. The TEU has set up a Labour Day website to remind […]

Battle to keep MMP set to heat up

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:00 pm, October 21st, 2009 - 13 comments

It’s a pretty special situation where you get praise just for not cheating but John Armstrong heaps it on Simon Power today. Power has gone with the only acceptable structure for a vote on MMP. A two-stage decision where we first decide whether we want change and indicate our preferred alternative then, if a majority […]

Maori Party supports foreign business over working Maori

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:55 am, October 21st, 2009 - 26 comments

It is a reflection of the schizophrenic nature of the Maori Party that one day they’re professing to care about poor Maori who are apparently missing out on their ACC entitlements and the next day they’re backing privatisation of ACC, which would lead to even worse outcomes for those Maori, because it might be a […]

Farrar says: carpe diem National

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:00 pm, October 20th, 2009 - 13 comments

An interesting post from David Farrar calling for National to implement radical rightwing policies while it still has the support to get away with it: The long-term goal is lifting our economic growth. No. As we know, lifting GDP growth is not an end itself, even the creators of GDP said as much. The long-term […]

Big bucks for Aussie insurers in ACC privatisation

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:30 am, October 20th, 2009 - 9 comments

It seems certain National will begin the privatisation of ACC starting with opening the work account to private competition. As happened in 1998, private insurers will cream off large and low-risk employers with loss-leading special deals to gain market share, leaving the taxpayer to shoulder the burden of the rest, and put up premiums later. […]

Told you so: Right pushes ACC privatisation

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:00 pm, October 19th, 2009 - 57 comments

Last Thursday, Colin Espiner was mocking all of us who said that National and other rightwing groups were trying to create a sense of crisis around ACC to soften us up for privatisation: “That somehow this is all just a VRWC* to derail the ACC, lower public confidence in it, and then sell it to […]

Smith still lying with numbers

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:03 pm, October 19th, 2009 - 7 comments

Last week, David Parker asked Nick Smith what the “whole-of-life cost to ACC of all new claims” for the last year were. Smith’s answer surprised everyone because it made no sense. He told us that claims made last year alone would cost $7 billion over their lifes. If that were really so, ACC’s liablities would […]

Woodhouse: ACC not in crisis

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:23 am, October 19th, 2009 - 13 comments

A fascinating interview with the Sir Owen Woodhouse in the Herald today. Sir Owen has led an amazing life – after helping supply Yugoslav partisans fighting the Nazis, he rose through the ranks of our judiciary becoming a Privy Councillor and President of the Court of Appeal, and is still going strong at 93. His most enduring achievement, […]

Don’t let State Houses become private slums

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:30 pm, October 16th, 2009 - 2 comments

The other day on Red Alert, Chris Hipkins related an interesting story about how National’s last round of State House sales went awry: Recently I went to visit a state house tenant in their home to talk about some problems they had been having with Housing New Zealand. They wanted their home heating and insulation […]

ACC a good investor

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:24 am, October 16th, 2009 - 40 comments

The other day, John Key said “ACC’s investment portfolio had not been working well”. Now, if there’s one golden rule regarding people with power it’s never take what they say for granted. And that’s never been more true than with this Prime Minister. So, I took a look at ACC’s annual report (Colin Espiner et […]

It’s called politics, Colin

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 4:11 am, October 16th, 2009 - 30 comments

Colin, I think we need to discuss your work: the conspiracy theory peddled by Labour and the EPMU (i.e. Labour) that somehow this is all just a VRWC to derail the ACC, lower public confidence in it, and then sell it to the highest (or any) bidder just doesn’t ring true for me. Don’t you […]

Spin-busting: ACC rises and cuts

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:45 pm, October 15th, 2009 - 38 comments

The Herald’s editorial today largely reads like it was written by Nick Smith and John Judge, so let’s use it as the basis for some spin-busting (my source is the ACC annual report unless otherwise mentioned): opponents say any change would be a prelude to privatisation. Yet all this exaggeration could not disguise the fact […]

One law for all?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:44 am, October 15th, 2009 - 10 comments

Over on g.blog, toad has noticed something: If you or I steal money, it is theft. We get taken to court, and get fined or go to prison. When MPs do it, it is an ‘accounting error‘. When Cabinet Ministers do it, it is ‘not a good look‘. And when banks do it, it is […]

National’s subsidies for polluters to cost $73 billion

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:36 am, October 14th, 2009 - 6 comments

A newly released government paper shows that by 2050 government debt will be $54-$73 billion higher than it otherwise would be due to National’s subsidies for carbon polluters. According to the paper: Treasury has modelled these costs [the free allocations to polluters] and, while the model has limitations, they estimate that, if a 1.3% phase […]

Oldest trick in the book

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 5:49 am, October 14th, 2009 - 7 comments

How do you get someone to change their mind about something they like? Simple, find one negative element to it (nothing is perfect) and blow it into a major issue. Nick Smith knows how to do this, he’s built a career on it. Now, he’s trying to make compensation payments to criminals the issue in […]

Flat tax: works for Lithuania and Albania, eh?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:33 pm, October 13th, 2009 - 34 comments

Predictably, the ideological vanguardists at Treasury are rolling out the flat tax argument again. For some unknown reason Radio NZ hasn’t published the Treasury papers they obtained under the OIA but the idea this time seems to be to use the money raised from higher GST, capital gains tax, land tax, changes to tax treatment […]

We still pay, ACC or no ACC

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:01 am, October 13th, 2009 - 25 comments

Labour’s David Parker has been a bit slow reacting to National’s latest attack on ACC but now he’s in play he has a killer point to make: if ACC cover is cut, the costs of what was paid for by ACC will still have to be paid for by society somehow. The treatments and lost […]

Why no punishment for Westpac?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:26 am, October 13th, 2009 - 80 comments

You would have seen that Westpac was found to have undertaken the largest theft of tax money in New Zealand history. From 1998 to 2002, they hid $586 million in tax due to our government. Add about 6% interest a year and the total they owe us is $961 million. My problem is that the […]

Paula, honestly, put away the champagne

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:20 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 2 comments

So, in the week to October 2, 1950 people signed up to the dole and 2040 went off it. Time to celebrate according to Paula Bennett – unemployment’s going down! But one thing we know about Bennett is she doesn’t have a good grasp of detail – in fact, she has to have everything reduced […]

First, manufacture a crisis…

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:00 am, October 12th, 2009 - 49 comments

The first thing you need to understand is ACC is not spending more money than it is taking in through levies. It is not going bust. It is not ‘making a loss’ despite what Nick Smith writes and the media faithfully repeats, but, then, they got taken in by this same trick six months ago. […]

Shame on you, TVNZ

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:51 am, October 9th, 2009 - 17 comments

I’ve just seen in the Herald that TVNZ has been using one of their TV ‘psychics’ in the Aisling Symes case. It’s bad enough that they had this charlatan, Deb Webbers, on Breakfast talking about the case. It’s reprehensible that they put this confidence trickster in touch with the family. That they put brain rotting […]