Author Archive

Benefit numbers continue to climb

Written By: - Date published: 6:30 am, January 20th, 2011 - 43 comments

Remember back when Labour was in power and the Right had this myth that dole numbers had only dropped because Labour had moved people to other benefits? It wasn’t true but that didn’t stop John Key saying it during one of the 2008 debates as he promised to get more people into work. Now, 2 years later, 83,879 more Kiwis are on benefits.

Minimum wage review

Written By: - Date published: 2:08 pm, January 18th, 2011 - 243 comments

When the government, eventually, gets back from its month-long holiday, it needs to review the minimum wage. To keep up with inflation, the increase needs to be at least 50 cents an hour to $13.25. If we want to catch Australia, we should copy them and lift it to $15.

Privatisation stalking-horses on the hoof

Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, January 17th, 2011 - 15 comments

The Herald today has an article that serves as a stalking-horse for privatisation of public assets. Privatisation is a core part of National’s agenda- it will have to push for it in some form at the election. Articles like this one are all about softening us up for that campaign.

Aging car fleet & peak oil

Written By: - Date published: 10:11 am, January 17th, 2011 - 70 comments

The few neoliberals who can bring themselves to acknowledge that peak oil is inevitable and upon us argue it’s not really a problem: ‘when prices rise, people will buy alternatives instead, like electric cars’. But peak oil causes recessions and recessions kill car sales. Even if enough electric cars could be made, could we afford to buy them?

So, it is about cost?

Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, January 17th, 2011 - 207 comments

You would think that, to reassure the families and satisfy critics, the government would have released detailed technical analysis showing why re-entering Pike River will never be possible. Instead, we got vague, contradictory statements only after the media pressed Key for answers. Now, a mining expert has confirmed the mine’s atmosphere is stable and can be made breathable cheaply.

More privatisation by stealth

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, January 16th, 2011 - 29 comments

Since it came to office, National has cut the Conservation budget in real terms by 2% and the cuts are going to get deeper. Now, we learn that DoC is looking at contracting out camping areas on the conservation estate to be run for a profit. Coincidence? I think not. It’s privatisation by stealth.

Old guard moving on, really?

Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, January 16th, 2011 - 34 comments

A strange little article in the Sunday-Star Times praises National’s ‘rejuvenation’ project. Well, excuse me but 3 MPs out of 53 announcing their retirement and 2 quitting under clouds of corruption during a term hardly equals rejuvenation. In fact, National faces the same problem that Labour did – too little turnover.

New Citizens meet Natural Dairy in Beijing

Written By: - Date published: 10:32 pm, January 14th, 2011 - 40 comments

Does this Herald article about the New Citizen Party meeting in Beijing make anyone else uneasy? I’ve no problem with a new political party that’s targeted at migrants. My concern is the apparent links with the Chinese Government. We don’t want a foreign government putting up a proxy in our elections.

Kiwis happy with MMP

Written By: - Date published: 10:29 am, January 14th, 2011 - 98 comments

The Right hates MMP. Back in the good old FPP days, about 20% of voters backed leftwing parties like Values, the Alliance, and Social Credit but got nearly no representation. National could govern alone with just 35% of the vote or fewer votes than the other major party. The Right was happy with that. So, they’ll be pissed Kiwis prefer MMP.

Job survivor island

Written By: - Date published: 11:11 am, January 13th, 2011 - 35 comments

The CTU have launched the latest of their quirky and cute campaigns. Job Survivor Island illustrates the effects on real people of the boss being able to sack you without cause while you are denied legal redress. 1 in 5 workers are sacked under fire at will. Don’t become one of them, resist fire at […]

The widening gap

Written By: - Date published: 11:12 pm, January 10th, 2011 - 93 comments

No, this post isn’t about Smile and Wave’s failure to close the gap with Australia. It’s about the widening gap between the tiny elite in this country and the rest of us. Even before the Great Recession, 10% controlled more wealth than the rest of us combined. The housing market shows that their wealth is still rising while ours falls.

Race for 2011 wide open

Written By: - Date published: 6:48 am, January 10th, 2011 - 68 comments

Campbell has a good post on the problem of voters’ emotional reactions to Key and Goff as exemplified by the Sunday-Star Times Horizon poll (the striking thing is how little emotional response they elicit). I’ll look at the party numbers. Horizon tries to include which way the undecideds will fall – the results have National worried.

Richer without air combat wing

Written By: - Date published: 7:10 pm, January 8th, 2011 - 46 comments

Why New Zealand’s lack of a fast jet military capability is suddenly an issue? We been fine without it for nine years. Renowned defence expert David Farrar weighs calls the decision to mothball the Skyhawks and Aermacchis ‘terrible’, citing the $34 million spent keeping them saleable, but how’s that compare to the cost of keeping them flying?

Food prices hit new record

Written By: - Date published: 7:10 am, January 7th, 2011 - 67 comments

With oil heading back to $100+ a barrel, food prices are also rising. That makes sense, fuel and fertiliser from oil are major food production costs. The global food price index is now higher than it was in 2008. In New Zealand, we’re supposed to celebrate high food prices but the reality is it means starvation and social unrest around the world.

Why didn’t the warning sound at Pike River?

Written By: - Date published: 9:22 pm, January 6th, 2011 - 44 comments

I never, ever thought I would say this but there’s a very good article in Investigate this week. It’s about the Pike River disaster. With methane sensors in place, alarms should have gone off well before the gas reached combustible level. Investigate reveals the sensors may have been disabled by workers who would lose pay if they had to stop work.

Dunedin Council peak oil report

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, January 5th, 2011 - 11 comments

In December, Dunedin City Council released its Peak Oil Vulnerability Analysis. We’re going to weather the peak oil age largely reliant on the built environment we already have in place – we can’t tear it all down and start again in time – but, the report shows there’s a lot we can do with the infrastructure we have to make it less oil-dependent.

Goff on the year ahead

Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, January 4th, 2011 - 38 comments

Following Key’s ‘I’ll have a hissy fit and quit if you don’t re-elect me’ interview yesterday, the Herald has an interview with Phil Goff. The contrast is stark between smile and wave’s self-centred answers and Goff’s focus on delivering real results for NZ.

The big factor for election 2011 – petrol prices

Written By: - Date published: 5:50 pm, January 3rd, 2011 - 67 comments

I’ve been traveling around for Christmas/New Year’s. It hadn’t hit me until I drove about 1000kms around NZ just how much more expensive petrol has become. The extra cost is a shock when you fill up and it hurts the economy. I got wondering what the political impact is. The numbers suggest it matters a lot.

It’s official: 2nd recession has begun

Written By: - Date published: 1:18 pm, December 23rd, 2010 - 126 comments

The economy shrank by 0.2% in the September Quarter. None of the forecasters had dared to predict it would be this bad, except yours truly : ) because I looked at the facts, rather than being taken in by Key’s rosy spin. The money trader’s economic record is looking pretty disgraceful now, isn’t it? Hope smile and wave is enjoying the Hawaii sun.

3 million pageviews this year

Written By: - Date published: 12:13 am, December 23rd, 2010 - 26 comments

Yesterday, we hit 3 million pageviews for 2010. Today, we’ll have our millionth visit. 45% growth on 2009 even with the few days we were offline and a couple when stats data wasn’t captured. It’s not just a small cadre of hardcore fans (although, do we love you guys and girls) – over 212,000 unique visitors have visited The Standard this year.

Last Roy Morgan of the year

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, December 22nd, 2010 - 37 comments

It’s First Past the Post thinking to look at the polling gap between National and Labour and conclude National will romp home. MMP is here and set to stay – it means the coalition with the support of a majority of MPs governs, not necessarily the largest party. The final Roy Morgan of the year lets us look at the trends in support for Left and Right.

Blood for milk? Pull the other one

Written By: - Date published: 8:44 pm, December 20th, 2010 - 29 comments

It’s surreal to see people who cried that not going into Iraq has cost us a trade deal with the US, now saying that the Reconstruction Team Labour sent was to get access for our milk exports. The claim’s based on a US Embassy cable but that doesn’t make it gospel. In reality, the Right wanted us to fight in Iraq to get an FTA with the US.

2011: year of the next mega-shock

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, December 20th, 2010 - 47 comments

Liam Dann had a very good piece in the Herald the other day about rising commodity prices. Despite insipid growth, prices of food and oil, the fuels of our civilisation are through the roof. The underlying meaning of those high prices is we’re having to devote more of our resources to feeding and fueling ourselves, leaving less for anything else.

Electricity privatisation begins

Written By: - Date published: 1:58 pm, December 19th, 2010 - 39 comments

What to do if you’re a government with an ideological fixation on selling assets, which is hugely unpopular? The public will catch on if you put SOEs as full entities up for auction. So, you don’t sell off the companies. Instead, you sell off the things they own or, through bond issues, their profit streams. We’ve been warning this would happen. Now, it is.

Ideology causes power price spike

Written By: - Date published: 7:16 am, December 18th, 2010 - 30 comments

Brownlee ignored warnings that his reforms would increase power prices, not lower them as intended. Wholesale power prices have spiked from $50 to $300 per MWH. Exporters have cut production. Residential users are next. With power up and petrol breaking $2 a litre, energy is a handbrake on this supposed economic recovery.

The new economy: Govt as an economic actor

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, December 17th, 2010 - 42 comments

Three government investment decisions in the last couple of weeks have shown the deficiencies in the neoliberal way of doing things. SOE Solid Energy’s lignite-to-liquids obsession, Kiwirail buying trains in China rather than making them itself and Steven Joyce decision to re-create Telecom’s monopoly by giving it 70-84% of the broadband contracts.

Exploiting disaster

Written By: - Date published: 11:47 pm, December 16th, 2010 - 33 comments

It’s a tough Christmas for far too many Kiwis. Poverty is up, wages are down. 350,000 Kiwis are jobless or underemployed. The job losses are still coming. The rich got tax cuts, 70% got nothing. Drought is spreading. Thousands of Cantabrians face an uncertain future. Meanwhile, the Nats cynically exploit disaster to advance their agenda.

Goff’s end of year speech

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, December 16th, 2010 - 41 comments

A very good close of year speech from Phil Goff in the House yesterday. I think this is the kind of thing we want to see more of next year. Phil’s job is to crystalise the vague sense of dissatisfaction that most people feel with the Key Government with himself as the spokesperson for those Key has betrayed and let down.

Wong resigns from Parliament

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, December 14th, 2010 - 72 comments

Corrupt former National minister Pansy Wong has finally done the right thing and resigned from Parliament. Key didn’t want her to go. This doesn’t change the need for the Auditor-General to investigate the abuse of her travel perks. [Update: Key announces March 5 by-election (a very quick response from him having just learnt her personal, […]

Tax cuts for rich at heart of debt problem

Written By: - Date published: 6:19 am, December 14th, 2010 - 52 comments

Two years ago we had one of the best government balance sheets in the world. Key said we didn’t have a debt problem. Two years of him as PM, and we sure have one now. When we learn exactly how dire things are later today, remember that National brought this on us by borrowing $3 billion a year for tax cuts that no-one noticed.

Is enough being done for Canterbury?

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, December 13th, 2010 - 54 comments

I was in Christchurch this weekend for the second time since the quake. It felt like things are gradually getting worse. Compared to the pre-Christmas bustle in other cities, Christchurch CBD was a ghost-town. The public service’s emergency preparedness got us through the initial disaster – has enough been done since? What are your impressions?

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