Author Archive

Phil Davison, bringing the passion back to politics

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 5:33 pm, September 19th, 2010 - 8 comments

Some people are passionate about local government finances. Really, really, really embarrassingly passionate. Love when he says “If nominated tonight, I can guarantee with 100% certainty that what you are seeing tonight will be what everyone outside those doors will see over the next 8 weeks”. That’d be the clincher for any undecideds.

Caption contest

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 1:00 pm, September 17th, 2010 - 18 comments

Thanks to all the other writers for excellent pieces on the serious issues. Time for a lighter subject. Fortunately, when you’ve got a clown for PM, there’s always a laugh to be had. Couldn’t help wondering why Key’s sitting in the middle row here. Made way for Brownlee Maximus perhaps?

Brown to beat Banks, don’t tell Granny

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:28 am, September 16th, 2010 - 11 comments

Two more Supercity polls. Brown ahead 29% v 17% in a Horizon poll. Herald’s Digipoll has it closer – 29.8% v 27.8%. Brown still ahead. Naturally, the Herald calls it too close to call. Looks like the Right’s plan for an Auckland coup is coming unstuck. Guess they’re lucky Labour and the Greens supported their nation-wide coup instead.

Broken principles and broken windows

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 7:33 pm, September 5th, 2010 - 48 comments

Rich investor and you put your money in a dodgy finance company? Did the company collapse? You get your money back. No questions. Lost your job thanks to this endless recession? Couldn’t afford insurance? Property damaged in the quake? Key says you can get stuffed. It’s called class war. Also, Key thinks the clean-up will be an economic stimulus. Someone tell this money-man about the broken windows fallacy.

Priorities

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 1:33 pm, September 3rd, 2010 - 16 comments

Important issues:
jobs, wages, public service cuts, Supercity & ECAN, national savings, climate change
Not important issues:
how we get a figurehead Head of State

Whatever happened to…

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 1:34 pm, September 2nd, 2010 - 6 comments

Few stories that have slipped through the cracks are bothering me:
Whatever happened to Tolley’s diplomatic squad investigation? What about Coldplay’s damages for when National stole ‘Clocks’? And Bennett’s apology to Fuller? And that mysterious company in the Caymans that bought Key’s shares? And why was Worth really sacked?

Key: Obama’s my pen pal

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 12:33 pm, September 1st, 2010 - 14 comments

Key says his personal relationship with Obama (met the guy twice) means he can call him. Don’t think it’s your winning grin mate. Think it’s because you’re PM of New Zealand. Anyway, this ain’t a game of collecting phone numbers, John. You’ve got to deliver something concrete. How’s that free trade deal coming?

A few questions

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:53 am, August 28th, 2010 - 40 comments

1) Did the PM declare his conflict of interest when the alcohol reforms were debated at Cabinet?
2) Aren’t these exactly the reforms you would expect from a guy who owns a high end winery? No extra excise. No controls on advertising. Demonise the kids.
3) Has National or any of its MPs recieved donations from alcohol sellers? Like Tony Astle, for example?

Massive series of blasts to close gap with Australia

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 1:08 pm, August 19th, 2010 - 5 comments

Prime Minister John Key today outlined a plan to close the gap with Australia using his skills as a money trader and a stockpile of ex-Soviet nukes.

Boscawen new ACT deputy

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 1:55 pm, August 17th, 2010 - 38 comments

Clad in traditional climate change denier headwear, John Boscawen today assumed the role of ACT Deputy Leader, vowing to use his new powers to launch a crusade against NIWA. Standing beside him, Rodney Hide told reporters “Don’t give me that look. At least he’s not David Garrett”

Nats fear flood of justice

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 2:31 pm, August 11th, 2010 - 14 comments

Finlayson says that paying compo to women abused by cops would “open the floodgates”. In other words, he reckons all the other claims that would come out of the woodwork would cost too much. What’s right is right. No matter the cost. ‘Floodgates’ is just an admission that the hundreds have been harmed. This government doesn’t have the guts to do right by them.

The â€œscrew youâ€ government

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 7:26 am, August 10th, 2010 - 9 comments

Lost your job? Screw you…

Don’t ask directions from Colin

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:12 am, August 3rd, 2010 - 15 comments

Needed a laugh. Luckily, C Espiner always delivers: “While his predecessor was fond of visiting Europe, Key has virtually snubbed the northern hemisphere since he has been prime minister.”

Where’s their evidence?

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 2:00 pm, July 26th, 2010 - 13 comments

National wants to make a change, they’ve got to make a powerful case that the change will have the results they claim. So where’s their evidence? Where are the models, the studies, the scenarios? They haven’t got any. This is faith-based government. Based on faith in the neo-liberal god. This is guess based government. The guess being that we’ll keep voting for that Nice Man Mr Key.

A chilling vision of the future?

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:51 am, July 19th, 2010 - 41 comments

Cutting education is the dumbest thing a government can do. You want a prosperous, clean, low-crime, happy, dynamic society with a bright future? You want to invest in education. Even if you’re a Tory you want education – smart drones produce more than uneducated ones. Yet these morons are cutting education at both ends. Where does this lead?

PM punts for growth

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:39 am, July 15th, 2010 - 16 comments

Prime Minister John Key today conceded that growth remains too weak, unemployment is too high, and that it is unacceptable that workers’ wages are going backwards when he promised they would match Australia’s in just 15 years. Speaking to a rapturous crowd of schoolchildren and journalists, Key announced a bold new economic agenda.

I was just following the market’s orders

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:48 am, July 14th, 2010 - 31 comments

Should be no surprise to anyone that the Nats and Maori Party are cutting help for tobacco addicts while upping the cost of their ciggies. They don’t care about better health. Don’t care about helping poor people get off an expensive habit. It’s all about sopping the poor and give aways for the rich. But you know who did grind my gears? Those tabacco execs the other week.

Mum & Dad investors keen to put a few mil in privatised assets

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:47 pm, July 10th, 2010 - 12 comments

Kiwi Dad Michael Fay and his wife Sarah announced today that they would be keen to invest in any SOEs the government privatises. “My old mate David Richwhite and myself made $500 million off the last round privatisation.” said Fay, “It was a great success. We used other people’s money to buy public assets. Asset-stripped, flogged them off and walked away”

What’s Key in Korea for again?

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 6:32 am, July 7th, 2010 - 17 comments

Key’s worried about us being even more bought out by foreigners. Key’s in South Korea about to sign a Free Trade Agreement. New Zealand already has nearly no tariffs. Everyone knows the sweetener for the other side in these deals is opening up investment in NZ. So, Key’s railing against foreign ownership while making it […]

The continuing education of Anne Tolley

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 7:29 am, July 3rd, 2010 - 15 comments

Tolley told principals they should stop talking to the media about national standards. Their criticisms are valid. She would rather silence the critics than fix the problems. A wise authority figure power talks softly and carries a big stick. An idiot with an ego problem yells loudly while carrying no stick. Threatening 500 pillars of local communities when you’ve got no power over them. That’s just dumb.

The education of Anne Tolley

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 12:07 pm, July 2nd, 2010 - 18 comments

Tolley’s snookered herself. Either: Parliamentary Library republishes the paper with the few phrases that annoy her gone = Looks like Library has caved to her attacks. Tolley’s a bully. Has attacked the Library’s neutrality. Or they decide the phrases are substantively OK. Republish = Tolley looks like an idiot. Her National Standards further undermined.

Key bullish on Kiwi, bearish on pandas

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 1:01 pm, June 28th, 2010 - 27 comments

Itching to get back into the markets, and having solved all New Zealand’s economic and social woes in 18 short months, John Key has announced he is putting aside his Prime Ministierial duties to become the country’s head trader in exotic animals.

Rules of politics

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:00 am, June 28th, 2010 - 20 comments

Rule 1: Don’t compare yourself to Jesus in any way. Didn’t work for Lennon. Won’t work for you. Rule 2: Don’t keep talking about a negative issue once its reached a conclusion. Rule 3: If you’re going to reduce your entire campaign to smearing your opponent, you better make sure your own house is in order

They’re white and rich, so it’s news

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:06 am, June 23rd, 2010 - 26 comments

Why should we care about five dead rich mining executives? Makes me feel pretty sick thinking about the warped coverage these stories get. Deaths of poor dark-skinned people by the hundred are so routinely ignored. And anyone ask what they were mining there? Foreign mining interests in that part of the world triggered the Great War of Africa. But who cares, eh?

Transcript: John Banks to Colin Craig

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:06 pm, June 22nd, 2010 - 5 comments

John Banks’ supercity mayor campaign is failing. A month of smears hasn’t worked. The rot is so deep competition from the Right is emerging. The guy who spent $100 per marcher on on the anti-smacking march, Colin Craig, looks set to run. I’ve obtained a copy of the transcript of Banks’ call to Craig when he heard the news.

Do we now kowtow?

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 2:09 pm, June 19th, 2010 - 49 comments

The police won’t lay charges against the security guard who assaulted Russel Norman. Fair enough I guess. They’re out of here today. Probably too minor to justify a prosecution. That doesn’t make what happened OK. A thug for a foreign power violated the rights of one of our MPs on the grounds of our Parliament. A display of contempt for our sovereignty. And our democracy.

Numbers I pulled out of my arse show Brown unhurt by Nat smears

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 1:40 pm, June 19th, 2010 - 24 comments

My new poll shows Len Brown will get 90% of the vote. Even though the survey is unscientific and consisted of a self-selected group most of whom think like me, it provides an interesting take on the two weeks of intense political and media scrutiny of Mr Brown’s credit card expenses.

Sack ’em all

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:55 pm, June 10th, 2010 - 100 comments

McCully and Groser put their drinking habits on the taxpayer bill. Jones charged his own, um, habit. Carter played far too loose. All broke the rules. Carter and Jones paid the money back eventually. Groser and McCully better soon.
I say we deserve better. And if one’s gotta go, they’ve all got to go. Goff, Key, which one of you is going to set the standard? Sack ’em all.

Buyer’s remorse on both sides of the Tasman

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:17 am, June 8th, 2010 - 30 comments

Aussies are looking more and more likely to elect Abbott. Terrible. Guy’s a chauvinistic prick who admitted you can’t trust a word he says. Shows how poorly Rudd has done some things. People are thinking the Liberals weren’t so bad after all. Likewise, Goff is in with a decent sniff in 2011. Solely because of […]

It’s not ok. It’s racist

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:42 pm, May 31st, 2010 - 33 comments

McCully, Key, listen up. The real problem with Haden’s comment isn’t using the term ‘darkie’. The problem is he thinks limiting the number of Polynesians in their team is a key to the Crusaders success. Something the Blues should imitate. Haden apologised to the ‘darkie’ line. Hasn’t apologised for the real racism. How much is he being paid by the government? Do we want a racist representative?

Key’s deceit sees Tuhoe walk away

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:47 am, May 28th, 2010 - 46 comments

Tuhoe are about to walk away from their Treaty talks. More power to them. Key has screwed them over. They’ve been waiting generations. They can afford to wait a little longer until we have a decent PM. Or they can go to the UN, see what that DRIP really means. This is where ‘take it or leave it’ Key gets us. He’s trying to get the cheapest deal. Should be focused on justice.