Author Archive

None so blind

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:01 pm, July 17th, 2009 - 19 comments

I read Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard’s speech on Tuesday with great interest. It’s an informative, if very mainstream review of the recession thus far and the outlook. He points out “The international financial crisis actually played little role in the early part of New Zealand’s economic recession. Rather, it was drought, falling house prices […]

Credit outlook cut but it’s not a credit rating downgrade

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 3:00 am, July 17th, 2009 - 49 comments

So, Fitch, the third of the big three sovereign credit ratings agencies, has moved the Government’s rating from a stable outlook to a negative outlook. Does this mean that John Key will be admitting that he has delivered a credit downgrade, like he was boasting of an upgrade when S&P (another of the big 3) moved us […]

Fire at Will: abuses, no new jobs

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:55 am, July 15th, 2009 - 9 comments

The Key Government decided not to monitor the implementation of its Fire at Will law. It probably feared embarrassment. Fortunately, the EMA and CTU have done something to fill the gap (from RNZ report, not yet online). The EMA conducted a survey of members and the CTU has asked workers to come to them for assistance if […]

The danger of Key’s low wage economy

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:24 am, July 14th, 2009 - 47 comments

As you know, things are tough in the job market at the moment. The firm figures won’t be out until later this month but unemployment has grown by probably well over 50,000 so far this year. The number of the dole has shot from 37,000 in March to 50,000 now and is growing at 1200 a […]

EEC votes ‘No’ on should-a.com

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:45 pm, July 13th, 2009 - 16 comments

should-a.com, the site that lets you write your own parody of the upcoming referendum question, has been issued with a takedown notice by the Electoral Enrolment Centre. It’s a shame that the EEC hasn’t had a sense of humour about this but, more importantly, it reveals once again the weakness of our free speech protections […]

Big dreams, no delivery

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 6:58 pm, July 12th, 2009 - 12 comments

Tv1 has revealed that our daydreamer PM had much much bigger plans for the cycleway. Like excited schoolkids, he and good mate Mark Weldon of the NZX drew up plans for a grand cycle race to be called the Sir Edmund Hillary tour that would go the length of New Zealand along the cycleway. They […]

Another new left blog

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:13 pm, July 11th, 2009 - 12 comments

Elsewoman. We’ve been remiss in not getting this on the blogroll earlier. Anne’s been giving us hassles. And rightly so, her blog is good reading. Anne describes herself as “Editor, writer, grumpy second wave feminist”, a bit of a different perspective from the other feminst blogs, which are by and large third wave. Like Mars […]

New left blog

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:50 pm, July 11th, 2009 - Comments Off on New left blog

Mars 2 Earth is one of the vanishingly few blogs written from a Maori perspective (with quite a bit of environmentalism thrown in). Muscular discourse and some sharp writing. Thankfully, it’s not just identity politics either, some good materialist values coming through too. While Maori Party successes are celebrated, he doesn’t go that step further that […]

Political violence

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 3:30 pm, July 10th, 2009 - 15 comments

A Nelson man attempted to buy a gun to shoot Nick Smith. Details are scant. What could have been a nasty situation looks like is has been well-handled by the Police and DPS. It must be one of the gnawing worries of being an MP. You and your family are exposed to people who blame […]

Good news for care workers

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:30 pm, July 10th, 2009 - 8 comments

It’s good news that carers for people with intellectual disabilities are getting more recognition. A court decision has found that sleep-over shifts are work and, so, workers need to be paid at least the minimum wage for the whole shift, not just when they have to get up to assist the person. Apparently, that will […]

‘Frontline’ cut for phantom savings

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:00 pm, July 8th, 2009 - 9 comments

MAF Biosecurity is set to cut 60 jobs – 30 of them filled. It claims the fall in imports means it’s over budget and doesn’t need so many staff. I’ve got a few problems with that. Let’s assume these 30 workers about to get the sack are on the average wage ($48,000). The savings from […]

Oil’s well that ends well?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:52 am, July 7th, 2009 - 46 comments

Now days everybody wanna talk, like they got something to say, but nothing comes out when they move their lips, just a bunch of gibberish, and all of you act like you forgot about oil. Yup, just when you thought it was safe to go back into the dealer’s lot, oil is back and in […]

What goes up

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 5:21 am, July 7th, 2009 - 15 comments

There’s a lot of empty, over-optimistic talk around at the moment about ‘green-shoots’ in the economy. Supposedly, these are little early signs of recovery which mean that soon everything will be back to normal and we can go back to getting rich selling each other houses with money we borrowed from the Japanese. Things will get […]

Double strength spin from Armstrong

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 5:17 pm, July 4th, 2009 - 14 comments

Former journalist John Armstrong runs National’s line on health today: The Cabinet’s loosening of rules on district health boards farming out non-urgent surgical operations to private hospitals is the logical step to take for a Government trying to get more from less…Monday’s decision is a step towards public and private providers eventually competing for the […]

Time for Labour to listen

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:50 am, July 4th, 2009 - 19 comments

I have to disagree with my comrade ayb on his post calling for Labour to come up with a more detailed program. Though I understand the desire to see Labour come up some new and inspiring left-wing agenda, now is not the time. Sure, maybe Phil Goff should come out with his own version of […]

Labour lolz

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:48 pm, July 3rd, 2009 - 36 comments

I reckon Red Alert, the Labour MPs’ blog, has been a huge success. It’s great to see MPs unscripted and it’s good for them to get the instant public reaction in the comments. It’s also a bit of a political risk. When you’re allowing instant, uncensored public reaction you can’t hide from criticism and you […]

Excuses excuses

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:20 am, July 2nd, 2009 - 15 comments

First, it was ‘we’re going to do everything we can to keep Kiwis in jobs’ Next, it was ‘yeah, OK, we haven’t done anything significant to keep people in jobs (we borrowed a couple of small programmes from the Greens and the unions, though) but who cares? Look, other countries have more unemployed, so, um, […]

When spin goes wrong

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 3:57 pm, July 1st, 2009 - 20 comments

Richard Long, the main man behind Don Brash’s racist Owera speech is just about the poorest propagandist you get: “Why only two to a cell? When that suggestion replaced the blackboard menu outside a cafe in Ngaio, Wellington, a few months ago, it was clear the Government had won the “lock them up and throw […]

Nats give ticket-clipper to private hospitals

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:20 pm, June 30th, 2009 - 8 comments

The government has changed the rules so that DHBs can make standing contracts for private hospitals to perform public elective surgeries. If DHBs start to contract large numbers of electives to these private providers, they will have to hire more medical staff and they’ll have to poach them from the public system. It’s not like […]

Two birds with one stone

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:50 am, June 30th, 2009 - 11 comments

In 2007, in election mode, John Key was talking up National’s commitment to the environment and the Enviroschools programme: Without a trace of irony, the video ends with ‘join the conversation’. It’s clear now that you can converse all you want with Key. He won’t listen. They’ve cancelled Enviroschools. Undermining education and the environment with […]

Nats ignored Treasury’s warnings on cancelling Cullen Fund payments

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:27 pm, June 27th, 2009 - 18 comments

In the newly released Budget papers Treasury acknowledges that cancelling the Cullen Fund contributions would only reduce debt by 5% (more than offset by increase in assets) and it will put our ability to pay for superannuation at risk in the long-term: While the contributions holiday component of the package helps to reduce gross debt, […]

Tax cuts, one-off payment, or something better?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:45 pm, June 27th, 2009 - 46 comments

Budget papers just released reveal that Treasury recommended a package of measures to reduce debt including an 8-year suspension of the Cullen fund contributions, new operating allowances of $1 billion, rather than $1.75 billion and cancelling the tax cuts and giving New Zealanders $1billion worth of one-off payments instead. This either would have taken the form […]

Change of tune

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:15 pm, June 25th, 2009 - 30 comments

A couple of weeks ago, David Farrar was all for investigating MPs’ expenses here. He was covering the UK scandal in depth. He tired to make a mountain out of a molehill when the Greens released their expenses. Now his tune has suddenly changed. Now he’s going to great lengths to explain the system isn’t […]

What, me worry?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:00 pm, June 24th, 2009 - 53 comments

Apparently, Minister for Unemployment Paula Bennett doesn’t like reading too much, She prefers to have things explained to her with whiteboards, charts, and graphs. Now, we’ve received one of those graphs with Bennett’s notes added. Seems she’s as relaxed about soaring unemployment as Key:

1 million Aussies? Don’t get too excited

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:43 am, June 23rd, 2009 - 17 comments

So 1,001,880 Australians visited New Zealand in the year to May, up 3.7% over the last May year despite the recession Yay? Well don’t pop the bubbly just yet. The total number of visitors fell 2.6% from 2,482,881 to 2,418,647. The decrease from other countries wiped out the gain from Australia. And here’s the important […]

Treasury on swine flu

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:07 pm, June 22nd, 2009 - 15 comments

Here’s the key part of Treasury’s report on the impact of swine flu, released on Friday: Typically Treasury, it’s more interested in GDP than anything (not to say the effects on the economy won’t be big – it should extend the recession by another two quarters). I’m more concerned about 0.08% population mortality rate, which […]

Unedifying

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:44 am, June 19th, 2009 - 29 comments

The Herald reports Pita Sharples has backed down on his demand to ‘open’ the universities to Maori. Now he says: “he wants Maori to have free access to universities but only if they pass a course showing they have reached required standards.” We already have that, Pita. Just get whatever they call UE these days […]

Who pays for swine flu?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:17 pm, June 18th, 2009 - 15 comments

A lot of people (like a million people or more according to the experts) are set to get sick from swine flu or not be able to go to work because the business is shut because of swine flu. What will happen to people’s incomes when they can’t work because of swine flu? The statutory […]

Still voting yes

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:13 am, June 18th, 2009 - 86 comments

I fully understand the political reasons for both Key and Goff not voting in the upcoming referendum. Neither want to have an official position that either puts them on the side of the child-beaters and against a law they recently voted for, or that puts them on the side that may well be heavily defeated. […]

Swine flu information pack

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:40 am, June 17th, 2009 - 19 comments

It’s appalling that if you go to the Ministry of Health or Beehive websites there is nothing easy to find about how we as individuals should be reacting to the swine flu pandemic (plenty of info on the Jobs[sic] Summit though). All the experts say exponential spread is now inevitable. The government should be making […]

Perspective

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:30 am, June 16th, 2009 - 71 comments

National’s line is that they are doing ‘everything possible save jobs and keep people in employment’. Are they living up to the promise? Not even close. The other week Paula Bennett was asked in the House how many jobs had been saved by initatives from John Key’s ‘Jobs Summit’. She proudly replied ‘223’, then corrected […]