Author Archive

Turei pushing me back to RAM

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:23 am, January 29th, 2010 - 62 comments

Check out this exchange between Trevor Mallard and Metiria Turei on his Facebook page (great how the new media allows these spur of the moment debates): Trevor Mallard: 25c/hour. $10 week for 40 hours then minus tax, extra acc, ets charges. Not fair John Key. It should be $15 Metiria Turei: Trevor, with genuine respect, […]

Privatisation failures: Telecom

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:01 am, January 28th, 2010 - 28 comments

If Telecom were an SOE there would be cries to privatise it. These repeated crashes of XT simply aren’t good enough. Just the latest in a litany of failures since it was sold. Fact is, we should haven’t sold Telecom in the first place. Just needed to start running it properly. Now, we’re sending profits overseas […]

Why should the rich get to queue-jump?

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:41 am, January 26th, 2010 - 141 comments

Rahui Katene is worried that people who can’t afford stomach staplings here (which supposedly cures diabetes, although the evidence is mixed) are getting unsafe surgeries done overseas. The problem is the private health industry. A private stomach stapling costs $28,000. Well beyond the reach of most. Only the well-off can afford it. The result: allocation […]

The power of public condemnation

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 3:39 pm, January 25th, 2010 - 23 comments

Phew, that was quick. Yesterday John Kingi writes to us about Club Physical promoting homophobic myths. I publish his email. The same day a 300 member Facebook group pops up, and John’s on NewstalkZB and GayNZ. Today, Club Physical’s apologising. A lot of the righties complained that we shouldn’t have posted this. Suspect that deep down they are sympathetic […]

Tax cuts for tax cheats

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 7:39 am, January 22nd, 2010 - 55 comments

The Right’s main justification for the highway robbery of cutting the top tax rate to 30% then funding it by increasing rents and charging the 78% of people who earn under $48,000 2.5% more GST is: ‘Half of the richest 100 avoid paying the top rate anyway. May as well reward them and all the ones who don’t rip us off massive […]

Cameron Slater’s shame: his latest moneymaker

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:12 am, January 19th, 2010 - 100 comments

Cameron ‘Whaleoil’ Slater has launched ‘SHAME’. It’s supposedly a lobby group to get suppression laws changed. Really, it looks like a money making scheme for the workshy Slater. SHAME seems to have no members apart from Slater. He says “We are fortunate to be supported by Michael Laws and John Banks, plus many others.” Note: […]

Bigot gets a bashing

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:39 am, January 17th, 2010 - 70 comments

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow covers the outragous comments by rightwing Christian fundamentalist Pat Robertson on the Haitian earthquake. Great to see this bigot confronted. Need more Maddows in journalism. [First time I’ve embedded from MSNBC. It’s awesome. They let you clip their video just for the parts you want. Fantastic innovation.]

I don’t know, what do you think?

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 8:43 am, January 14th, 2010 - 28 comments

Less than a week before the opening of the new $80 million Supreme Court building in Wellington, Prime Minister John Key is reserving judgment on the design. Asked what he thought of the building, which has a bronze facade designed to look like pohutukawa and rata trees wrapped around the top, he was less than […]

Scumbag Slater attacks child sex victim just to get some attention

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:00 am, January 12th, 2010 - 104 comments

The other day on the telly, Cameron Slater said why he had breached suppression orders intended to protect the identity of sex attack victims in two cases involving an alleged celebrity assailant, but not a third. ‘It involves a kid’ stated he. How noble. How fine. He’s making a point. He won’t hurt a child to […]

Slater’s attention-seeking attack on sex abuse victim

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:03 am, January 11th, 2010 - 73 comments

So, Slater wants to be a martyr. Fits well with his personal myth of the hard done by battler fighting this PC world. Yes, it must be hard being the son of a former National Party President. Living the welfare queen lifestyle ripping off an insurance company. Daddy always around to bail you out. But […]

Foreign banks buggering NZ

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 4:34 pm, January 10th, 2010 - 86 comments

I’m no big city banker. But I was under the impression that profit is the income that is left over once you’ve paid your costs. Once you pay your tax on that, your net profit is what is left to pay to the owners as dividends or reinvest. So how the hell did the Aussie-owned banks […]

MSM: you supply the spin, we publish it

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 3:59 pm, December 22nd, 2009 - 80 comments

There’s a Youtube clip on Stuff of Key talking on The Edge. Presumably filmed by one of Key’s people. It’s run as headline news. Yup. You got that right. It’s now news when Key appears for a soft interview on other media. Not the first time. A month or so ago Stuff ran his video […]

All skite, no substance

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 4:51 pm, December 17th, 2009 - 10 comments

A text from a mate: Bill English says “I never thought running a government in a recession would be so easy” Mate, it’s always easy to do f#ck all. Ain’t so easy for the poor at xmas. Can’t help notice that English is also claiming he, not Key, runs the government. Inasmuch as anyone does.

Transmission Gully- $1bln white elephant

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:01 am, December 17th, 2009 - 119 comments

Here’s a prediction. Transmission Gully will never be built. There’s a reason that Labour kept pushing Transmission Gully off. The Benefit/Cost ratio is sh*t. “It is likely that the benefit-cost ratio for the Transmission Gully route is less than 1” says Joyce. Disgracefully, NZTA is too ashamed to publish the actual number. Transmission Gully will […]

Nats offer Maori flags & baubles, not representation & jobs

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:13 pm, December 15th, 2009 - 12 comments

NZPA: The Maori Party has withdrawn its support for a government bill after its bid to have Maori members on polytechnic councils failed. The Maori Party put up an amendment which would have ensured that councils had at least three Maori members. The Government didn’t accept the amendment and it was defeated. The Maori Party […]

Labour’s flag strategy

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 2:48 pm, December 15th, 2009 - 44 comments

Colin Espiner: After making inroads in the latest TV3 poll, Goff has clearly taken fright after the reaction to his nationhood speech. How else to explain his perplexing decision not to comment on the announcement by Prime Minister John Key that the Maori tino rangatiratanga flag will fly on Waitangi Day? This decision by Key […]

Call of the week

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 7:19 am, December 11th, 2009 - 8 comments

Fitzsimons: If Barack Obama comes to Copenhagen saying ‘yes we can do much more’ will the Prime Minister say ‘no we can’t, but can I still have a photo-op?’

Players only love you when they’re playing

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 8:44 am, December 9th, 2009 - 52 comments

O’Sullivan“[Key] indicated that one of the reasons why he had been loath to sign up earlier for the Copenhagen event was because it would clash with the Fleetwood Mac gig”. He went on to make some bad puns about Fleetwood Mac-based headlines. Let me get this straight. Key wanted to skip the meeting to determine […]

Double standards or no standards?

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 12:13 pm, December 8th, 2009 - 7 comments

Key wouldn’t say why he fired Worth, claiming he feared contaminating a police investigation. But he will trample all over a police investigation by saying they shouldn’t prosecute Harawira*. Credibility – fail. *They shouldn’t. OK for me to say that. I’m not PM.

So, where’s the plan?

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 12:42 pm, December 7th, 2009 - 34 comments

The Brash Report was supposed to tell us how to catch up to Aussie, as per Key’s promise. It was just the same old ideas. No real analysis. A radical plan with no evidence it would work. It became, perhaps as always intended, just a PR exercise for National: ‘Look what crazy old Brash wants […]

Wee gripes: get it right

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:23 am, December 4th, 2009 - 7 comments

Some dude sent me this from the awful Trans-Tasman: “More than five months after Richard Worth resigned as a minister and quit Parliament amid a sex scandal, police have closed their file and decided he won’t face any charges. A complaint laid by a Korean businesswoman and revelations of an incident involving a woman member […]

Remember this?

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:49 am, December 1st, 2009 - 23 comments

Pascal’s Bookie dug up this classic in the comments: Congratulations…. You always knew that politics would be exciting, but I guess that neither of us thought that it would get quite this exciting quite so soon. Don, I wish you all the very best I am confident of your capacity to lead National and ultimately […]

Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 8:00 am, December 1st, 2009 - 10 comments

Everyone played their part in reacting to the Brash Report. Bosses uncritically applauded it. Unions forcefully rejected it. Labour and the Greens exposed it as a strawman. Key bravely slew the strawman. And the Maori Party, well: “One of the recommendations in the report promoted bridging the income gap between New Zealand and Australia, and […]

Where’s Key?

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:39 am, November 30th, 2009 - 17 comments

Brash’s taskforce releases its report today. Where’s Key? CHOGM ended yesterday but he’s not back until Wednesday. Catching Aussie by 2025 is meant to be his big vision. He can’t get them to wait a couple of days or get back quicker? We know this serious stuff isn’t really Key’s thing. But the fact that […]

Rolling maul of disasters

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:47 am, November 26th, 2009 - 28 comments

In case you’re just waking up to it, this government is a disaster zone. If it’s not one or the other of the support parties falling apart, it’s a corrupt minister. If it’s not either of those, it’s a minister behaving bizarrely or a shambolic attempt to pass an awful law over the head of […]

Key’s flagship policy now his joke

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:19 am, November 23rd, 2009 - 27 comments

Anyone with a brain has always known Key’s cycleway is a joke. The sick thing is he’s now using it as a punchline himself: Barack Obama’s planned White House Job Summit struck a note with our own PM when he heard about it during the Singapore Apec meeting. “Maybe he’ll do a national cycleway,” John […]

Bikoi

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 2:16 pm, November 17th, 2009 - 44 comments

Just got away from the bikoi at Parliament. What a sight. At least 6,000 people they reckon. The lawn and half the forecourt covered. Tui flying overhead joining in the fun. The bikers know are they being treated unfairly and National is using their levy money to pay for false propaganda for levy increases. They […]

Maori Party schism inevitable

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 3:22 pm, November 13th, 2009 - 39 comments

The Maori Party was never going to be a sustainable political vehicle. No political movement that tries to exist in defiance of the material conditions of its constituents can be, and the economic interests of the wealthy Maori elite and the Maori working class are simply incompatible. The Maori Party has to continually choose which […]

Information from the uninformed

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 7:01 am, November 12th, 2009 - 3 comments

Thing that got me about Bill English’s propaganda ad was how god awful the original script was. Can you imagine the Deputy Prime Minister, the Southern Man of New Zealand politics, and former professional punching bag saying “It’s time to give the snip snap to the zip zap plastic fantastic?” Just gets worse. Here’s questions from […]

Socialism is Democracy

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 4:30 pm, November 11th, 2009 - 61 comments

This hilarious stoush between Moore and CNN’s Wolf Blitzer is worth a look too. Hat tip: The kids at the Workers Party.

Ngapuhi embarrassed by Harawira

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:32 am, November 11th, 2009 - 19 comments

Check out this press release: Maori Leader Rejects Harawira Apology as “Embarrassing” and issues his own apology Ngapuhi Leader and senior relative to Hone Harawira, David Rankin, says he is embarrassed by the apology the MP has given. “Harawira has disgraced our iwi with his gutter language, and has casued more racial division in New […]