Author Archive
Maori Party to help Nats kill carbon emissions cap
Written By: - Date published: 5:15 pm, September 14th, 2009 - 78 comments
Nick Smith has just announced a deal with the Maori Party to replace the existing Emissions Trading Scheme with a do-nothing joke. The new ETS will allocate polluting rights (carbon credits) free to polluters for the first years and then at a low capped price thereafter. Agriculture, source of 50% of our greenhouse pollution, will not be […]
Another lagging indicator
Written By: - Date published: 5:02 am, September 14th, 2009 - 11 comments
The New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services has released its annual Vulnerability Report. Due to rising unemployment, 219,000 children now live in households whose main income is a benefit- up 20,000 in the past year – and one in six newborns are born into a benefit dependent home. These children growing up in poverty-ridden houses […]
No good faith from Nats
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 pm, September 13th, 2009 - 25 comments
Finance Minister Bill English has told doctors, teachers, and other public servants that they will not be getting pay-raises when their collective contracts come up for renewal. That is constitutionally outrageous and a big political mistake. Ministers are not allowed to direct public sector pay negotiations. It is clearly against the rules of the State Sector […]
Which side are you on?
Written By: - Date published: 11:38 am, September 12th, 2009 - 7 comments
Following on from the workers’ rights/class war theme of the last few days, here’s an old classic:
Redundancy protection – it’s only fair
Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, September 11th, 2009 - 20 comments
A coalition of unions, Labour, the Greens, the Maori Party, and community groups has come together to support Darian Fenton’s Redundancy Protection Bill. There’s a website, facebook group, petition, and other ways you can get involved. The Bill, due to be debated later this month, would set a minimum level of redundancy protection for all […]
It ain’t over ’til it’s over
Written By: - Date published: 11:46 am, September 10th, 2009 - 11 comments
The economists think the recession is probably over (for now). If you’re one of the lucky ones, you may very well be thinking ‘well that wasn’t so bad’ but what does the end of the recession mean? All it means is that the economy is has stopped shrinking. Now, say you and me were out climbing a mountain […]
Why Supplementary Member sucks
Written By: - Date published: 7:08 pm, September 9th, 2009 - 64 comments
National and the business elite led by former Telecom chairman Peter Shirtcliffe (who led the pro-FPP campaign back in the 1990s) want to replace MMP with a voting system called Supplementary Member. SM is kind of a halfway house between FPP and MMP. Rather than the total number of seats a party has in Parliament […]
Clueless
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, September 9th, 2009 - 21 comments
John Key has admitted he didn’t bother to get detailed briefings before sending our SAS to kill and possibly die for a corrupt regime in Afghanistan: Hon Phil Goff: Was the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade, John Allen, correct in stating on Q+A on Television New Zealand on Sunday that ‘we didn’t advise the Government to send […]
Abuse of process
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, September 9th, 2009 - 7 comments
National put Parliament back into urgency yesterday. It is ramming through the extension to the retail deposit guarantee, the RMA amendments, changes to the Biosecurity Act (and something else that escapes my memory). The RMA changes are particularly contentious but we won’t get to know what the Government is planning until hours before it passes […]
Key’s lies on housing rort exposed
Written By: - Date published: 5:54 am, September 9th, 2009 - 13 comments
As I alluded to yesterday, the claims from John Key that he has slashed hundreds of thousands of dollars from the cost of ministerial housing are rubbish. The media did a pretty good job of exposing the lie (except TV3 who just had some junior reporter toeing Key’s line). Here’s how it works. Ministerial services […]
A rort is a rort is a rort
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, September 8th, 2009 - 48 comments
And by any other name it smells as bad. John Key has annouced a reform of the rules for ministerial accommodation allowance. A fixed, automatic allowance will now be paid to all out of Wellington ministers of $37,500 a year for their Wellington accomodation (or $30,000 if they own the house), slightly less than the highest spending ministers […]
Climate change in action
Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, September 7th, 2009 - 43 comments
The world’s oceans reached a record high temperature in July of 16.37 degrees, 0.59 degrees above the 20th century average. That might not sound a lot, and it wouldn’t be if we were talking about the variation in day to day temperature where you live, but we’re talking the whole world’s oceans. It takes an enormous amount […]
The mire
Written By: - Date published: 5:10 am, September 7th, 2009 - 16 comments
Last month’s Time magazine has an article that starts “to understand why the United States is losing in Afghanistan…” It’s a bombshell phrase, all the more for the fact that the reporter makes the statement in passing, as accepted fact. The article goes on to detail how Western money is going to fund the Afghan […]
A return to elected dictatorship?
Written By: - Date published: 1:17 pm, September 5th, 2009 - 53 comments
Back in the days of First Past the Post elections, we had what Geoffery Palmer termed ‘the fastest law in the West’ and the Prime Minister was effectively an elected dictator. The PM controlled Cabinet, the Cabinet controlled caucus of the majority party in what was by design a two-party system (in Parliament, there were […]
OECD child poverty report
Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, September 4th, 2009 - 4 comments
I’ve been having a look at the OECD’s report on child poverty. A lot of the data is quite of of date and so doesn’t reflect the every important impact of Working for Families, rising minimum wage, falling unemployment, and bottom-end tax cuts have had on child poverty in the last six years. We’re doing a lot better […]
10:10
Written By: - Date published: 8:25 am, September 4th, 2009 - 14 comments
The scientists say we need to reduce our greenhouse emissions by 40% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 if we want to even have a 50:50 chance of not starting runaway climate change (where temperature rises trigger the release of frozen methane and other effects that will rapidly heat the world to disastrous levels). So, […]
Are you smarter than a 10th year?
Written By: - Date published: 4:57 am, September 3rd, 2009 - 50 comments
Meet Robert Wadlow. When he died in 1940, he was the tallest ever recorded person, standing 8 feet, 11 and a half inches tall (2.72m) . That record still stands. The tallest living person, Bao Xishun, is a comparatively puny 7 feet, 9 inches (2.36m). As we all know, the typical person is getting taller. […]
Wee gripes: temporal confusion and the recession
Written By: - Date published: 1:28 pm, September 2nd, 2009 - 13 comments
The Herald editorial this morning calling for mining DoC land: “That resource represents wealth which this country is in little position to ignore. Such is especially the case when the value of gold is particularly high, as is usually so in recessionary times.” Nick Smith on why the ETS needs to be gutted: “we’re in […]
Wee gripes: Business confidence
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, September 2nd, 2009 - 6 comments
Question: ‘Do you expect business conditions to improve in the next 12 months?’ Answer: ‘Well, we’re in the worst recession in a life-time but everyone says it’s coming to an end and our prospects are looking a bit better, obviously that’s going to be better than now – so, yes’ Headline: ‘Business confidence hits record […]
Always an excuse to do nothing
Written By: - Date published: 9:20 am, September 2nd, 2009 - 64 comments
Remember FART (Farmers Against Ridiculous Taxes)? Shane Arden driving Myrtle the Tractor up the steps of Parliament? Bill English with his poster carrying the sexist attack on Helen Clark: “the mad cow shouldn’t have signed”? (actually, it was Jenny Shipley who signed us on to Kyoto) All that wailing and gnashing of teeth, all […]
Devil in the detail
Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, September 1st, 2009 - 31 comments
I’ve had a further read of the select committee report on the Emissions Trading Scheme, and found a huge problem – National, United Future, and ACT want to get rid of the cap on emissions. The normal emissions trading scheme is called cap and trade. A cap on the total number of carbon credits is […]
NZ for sale
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, September 1st, 2009 - 2 comments
I was browsing through our image archives and came across this, which I think is from a protest before the election: Well, they got it wrong about Kiwirail but they got it the main bit right – under National, NZ is for sale to overseas multinationals. Who else do you think is going to be […]
Emissions Trading Scheme report released
Written By: - Date published: 4:44 pm, August 31st, 2009 - 25 comments
The report of the special select committee on the Emissions Trading Scheme has been released. I’ve only had a chance to read the recommendations and the minority reports (the whole thing is 130 pages). The committee (with the exception of ACT) says that the climate change is a real and serious environmental and economic threat […]
The emerging landowner class
Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, August 31st, 2009 - 38 comments
Why are house prices rising at the same time as mortgagee sales are hitting record highs? More people than ever are unable to meet their mortgage, and a growing proportion of them owned only a single home. It’s not just speculators losing their shirts. With so many people losing their jobs and few people getting payrises […]
Trippin’
Written By: - Date published: 12:01 pm, August 28th, 2009 - 2 comments
How’s this for some positive spin? Australia is coming off worse in the battle for trans-Tasman tourism, with New Zealand reporting a record surge in the number of visitors in July. The number of Australians who crossed the Tasman for a holiday last month was 47,748, a rise of 37 per cent on the same […]
Minority Report
Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, August 28th, 2009 - 25 comments
National is attempting to re-write the Emissions Trading Scheme. The new version it has come up with through the special select committee would be weaker than the already weak version Labour passed. But they’ve got a numbers problem. ACT won’t ever vote for doing anything about climate change, the Greens, the Progressives and Labour won’t vote for the […]
Transport: on the wrong track
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, August 27th, 2009 - 53 comments
The government’s 3-year transport spending plan is out. Where’s all the cash going? Surprise, surpise it’s state highways. We’re going to spend $1.5 billion a year on state highways and just $300 million on public transport. Meanwhile, oil’s above $US70 a barrel and staying there, petrol is pushing $1.70 a litre – the highest it’s […]
S59, an opening for Winston?
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, August 27th, 2009 - 18 comments
In 2007, 113 MPs voted for the Bradford amendment to s59 of the Crime Act. Eight voted against it. One of them was Winston Peters. Flash forward to 2009. The referendum has shown widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo – it’s dissatisfaction based on myths but the dissatisfaction is real. And neither of the major […]
Apply the brakes, before it’s too late
Written By: - Date published: 8:45 am, August 27th, 2009 - 27 comments
The real estate agencies and the newspapers, both of which have an interest in a booming property market, are predicting that housing prices will surge over the next three years. Apparently, houses will go up 11% this coming year and 24% over the next three years. Let’s have a look at what that looks like, once inflation […]
Basher bill puts pressure on Key
Written By: - Date published: 2:13 pm, August 26th, 2009 - 104 comments
John Boscawen’s private members’ bill to amend s59 of the Crimes Act has been drawn from the ballot. Essentially it would take us back to square one in the smacking/child assault issue. The bill would allow parents and adults to assault* children for the purposes of correction as long as the level of the force […]
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