Author Archive

Shitting on the shoulders of giants

Written By: - Date published: 9:04 am, November 20th, 2012 - 85 comments

Those who control Labour at any given time are on the shoulders of giants. For the 4 years, Labour has been controlled by a clique that led Labour to its worst defeat. A year later, with their second choice frontman as leader, they’re still in charge and Labour’s still below its 2008 result, on track for another defeat. The membership voted no confidence in the old guard on Saturday.

It’s not the growth that’s grumpy

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, November 9th, 2012 - 11 comments

The last time unemployment was this high, Bill English was Finance Minister and his government was facing electoral oblivion. I don’t remember his excuses last time but this time he’s taken a different excuse from Key and Joyce. English calls this ‘grumpy growth’. Of course, it’s not growth, it’s the exact opposite. If this is ‘grumpy growth’, I suppose Hurricane Sandy was ‘grumpy sunshine’.

All reward, no responsibility

Written By: - Date published: 7:18 am, November 5th, 2012 - 37 comments

The bosses justify their huge pay packets by saying they’re the elite, the wealth creators. They get the money because their genius makes sure things work. But, when it all goes to hell it’s the minions who get blamed. While the CEO gets a $100K bonus when she quits after 11 months! Nice work if you can get it, which is why the bosses congratulated themselves with a 10% pay rise this year.

No, why would I?

Written By: - Date published: 10:21 am, October 26th, 2012 - 140 comments

Nats get desperate on asset sales

Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, October 24th, 2012 - 64 comments

The Nats have decided to try to lean on the judiciary to get asset sales handled the way they want. The Judge is ‘Red Ron’. The Court shouldn’t try to decide water rights at a level of general principle. The Maori Council mustn’t get legal aid. The case should be kicked straight up to the Supreme Court and settled before March. It’s not working. It’s not going to work. And the costs are mounting. Updated

The ‘there’s no class war in New Zealand’ monitor

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, October 18th, 2012 - 48 comments

There’s no class war in New Zealand. It’s not class war when the company that is laying off workers boosts its directors’ pay by 28%. It’s not class war when rich Tories who have given themselves massive tax cuts deny people on benefits are in poverty. It’s not class war when a rich Tory makes up numbers to oppose extending paid parental leave.

Not even trying any more

Written By: - Date published: 7:43 am, October 18th, 2012 - 35 comments

Key’s just straight up lying to the media now on easily verifiable facts. A 3news poll shows 57% said Parliament got it wrong keeping the drinking age at 18%. Key says: “That’s one of the reasons I voted for it to go to 20 – in line with what the public thought – but Parliament didn’t vote that one.” In reality, he voted split age and, then, to keep it 18.

Granny hugs the corpse of neoliberalism

Written By: - Date published: 9:11 am, October 15th, 2012 - 59 comments

Here’s Granny Herald’s genius plan for economic development: if Meridian can get more money for its power elsewhere, it should let Tiwai Point close. 3,000 jobs would be lost. Invercargill and Bluff would effectively be killed. But, hey, market forces! Problem is, if Meridian only considers its narrow commercial interests, it ignores the cost to the country as a whole.

Does Key give a damn any more?

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, October 10th, 2012 - 29 comments

My old man, a casual observer of politics, said the other day: “John boy doesn’t look like he wants to be there anymore”. I reckon he’s right. Except when he’s doing photo-ops, Key looks ever more grumpy and aloof. No wonder he’s spending so much time overseas. No wonder he’s making such bad decisions like betraying his promise to the Pike River families.

Lessons from abroad

Written By: - Date published: 7:11 am, October 8th, 2012 - 12 comments

John Key likes to reference Singapore as a model for New Zealand. He’s meeting their PM today. Obviously, we can’t move New Zealand to the world’s busiest shipping route but what else can we do to emulate Singapore’s economic success? Singapore hasn’t sold its SOEs – it has built them into a massive investment fund. And it doesn’t let its currency raise to kill its exporters – it intervenes.

Nats: no plan, no hope to offer

Written By: - Date published: 9:06 pm, October 7th, 2012 - 8 comments

I turned on the news hoping to see the Nats’ rebuttal of the Greens’ detailed plan to protect Kiwi manufacturing like our competitors are doing. Instead, I saw a smirking fuck who has overseen the loss of 40,000 manufacturing jobs say ‘the high dollar’s good’. Joyce actually says a over-valued dollar is a good thing. ‘Flat-screen tellies are cheaper! Pity you don’t have a job to buy one!’

Planet Key receding from reality at light speed

Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, October 3rd, 2012 - 37 comments

Law enforcement on Planet Key must be a strange business: “Mr Key says he called in the police on the teapot tapes because he wanted to find out if there had been an offence. He argues Dotcom is different, because his Government has already admitted what it did was unlawful.” So, what do the Planet Key Police do they do when they catch a crim? Tag him and let him go?

Update: Breaking news – we all expected this didn’t we – Key was briefed on the Dotcom case in February.

Key changes tune, orders GCSB review

Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, October 2nd, 2012 - 71 comments

Last week, Key tried to tell us that the illegal spying on Kim Dotcom – which he, the minister, we’re supposed to believe wasn’t told about for 8 months – was down to one agent’s ‘brain fade’. Uh huh. So, why has he now appointed a senior public servant to review and reform GCSB? You don’t do that when the problem was one person’s human error.

[Update: Lol at Key. Police are launching a high powered inquiry after he said there was no need for one]

National’s new slogan

Written By: - Date published: 8:28 am, September 25th, 2012 - 23 comments

The cancer-mongers’ new ads

Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, September 23rd, 2012 - 43 comments

I reckon my theory that the tobacco industry’s stupid ‘agree/disagree’ ad campaign is actually just a way of chucking millions at cash-strapped media outlets to buy their silence (and even backing from Granny) has been confirmed. By one simple fact. The new TV ad, which appeals to crass nationalism to argue that we shouldn’t adopt the Aussie plain-packaging law, is voiced by an Aussie.

Right wing bigot pines for days of right wing bigotry

Written By: - Date published: 10:42 am, September 22nd, 2012 - 180 comments

John Roughan has a whinge about Campbell Live’s coverage of the Christchurch school closures in today’s Herald.

Poor John pines for the days when Paul Holmes was broadcasting rightwing bullsh*t nationwide every evening.

Iwi want no part of sham talks

Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, September 19th, 2012 - 16 comments


Only 12 people turned up to Key’s first sham talks with iwi. He might have gotten a better turnout if he had come with cupcakes or, you know, a genuine intention to negotiate in good faith.

Sham consultation begins

Written By: - Date published: 8:18 am, September 18th, 2012 - 13 comments

The Nats are beginning their sham consultation with a handful of tame ‘Iwi Leaders’ today. The hui will be by invitation and will not include the Maori Council, which iwi have appointed to lead for them on the water rights issue. Of course, National doesn’t want a real debate. It won’t genuinely discuss shares plus. This is a fake process. And it will all end up in court next year.

My 2 cents

Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, September 17th, 2012 - 49 comments

It must be pretty sweet when your full-time job is to write 4 500-word columns of opinion a week. It’s even sweeter when you can use those 500 words to have a whinge at your critics rather than write about things that your audience, you know, gives a crap about. The weird thing about Armstrong’s article is it first attempts to refute the critics and then provides excuses. But, in truth, it’s a personal tirade. And the place for that isn’t a national newspaper column: it’s a blog.

Crackdown on Working for Families children

Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, September 12th, 2012 - 13 comments

Families will lose half their Working for Families payments if they don’t put their kids in ECE or make sure they have the Well Child checks, under reforms to be announced by Paula Bennett the next time National needs a distraction from its failed economic management. ‘When you’re getting public money, the government can demand anything of you: even if it isn’t compulsory and even if you can’t afford it,’ said Bennett.

How long have they been sitting on that?

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 pm, September 10th, 2012 - 75 comments

Shearer gets some traction with a policy that neatly targets parents’ concerns about education, hits a link in the poverty cycle, and is third way enough that National can’t really object. And what happens? National runs a little beat up on how Shearer’s masters thesis says you can’t ignore Maori beliefs in taniwha when allocating water rights. Wonder how long they were sitting on that.

Who’s heading in the right direction?

Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, September 10th, 2012 - 13 comments

While Labour and the Greens are laying out concrete policies to tackle poverty and its consequences that lead to life-long problems (child payment and home insulation from the Greens, food in schools and reading recovery from Labour), National MPs are acting as slum landlords, refusing to spend a few thousand dollars to bring their rentals up to standard.

Schadenfreude

Written By: - Date published: 7:31 am, September 3rd, 2012 - 21 comments

I hope you won’t think less of me when I say I’m enjoying Key’s angst over baby formula companies using him in their ads in China. Key says it wasn’t an endorsement when he went to the factory, signed a tin of formula, and smiled for the cameras holding it. That, we’re supposed to believe, isn’t a promotion. Actually, it’s meant to be a one-way promotion: of Key.

The conservative’s nightmare

Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, August 31st, 2012 - 51 comments

Soon, a 18-year old gay man will be able to get married and, then, celebrate by having a drink. If Jacinda Ardern’s Bill passes, he’ll be able to adopt his husband’s child. And, if David Clark’s Bill passes – he can then earn $15 an hour at his minimum wage job! It really is the conservative’s nightmare at the moment. I’m loving it.

The drinking age

Written By: - Date published: 12:20 pm, August 30th, 2012 - 107 comments

The alcohol reforms miss the real issues and focuses on wowserism over teens drinking, instead. The Hospitality Association will be rubbing its hands at the split age suggestion. But there ins’t a growing problem with booze. Alcohol consumption is falling. 25 years ago, we consumed 140 litres of alcoholic beverages per person (including children!) per year. Today, that number is 105 litres.

Just another sell-out

Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, August 27th, 2012 - 130 comments

The Maori Party is meeting with National to discuss the Waitangi Tribunal’s report on water and asset sales today. Notice how no-one’s saying ‘will they walk if the Nats ignore the Tribunal and proceed to breach the Treaty?’ That’s what happens when you cry wolf then sell out time after time. Everyone knows Turia wants her comfy limo seat more than anything else.

Can’t buy me love

Written By: - Date published: 9:09 am, August 24th, 2012 - 16 comments

The Cancer-mongers’ ad campaign is complete crap. Ineffectual ads that won’t get anyone on side. Doesn’t matter though. They’re not aiming to convince you with the ads themselves. The actual aim’s to put a few hundred thousand dollars in media outlets’ pockets with the promise of more for favourable coverage. The Herald made it a bit blatant though – running a fawning editorial the day after the first full-page ad.

Feel the burn

Written By: - Date published: 2:29 pm, August 23rd, 2012 - 82 comments

Crossing the line is an occupational hazard of public political comment. Especially when you set yourself up as an edgy persona. Fortunately, there’s a warning system. You think you’re being clever, but the animal part of your brain feels its wrong- it’s that burning feeling in the back of your neck. Next time, Trev, feel the burn.

Towards a metric for Prime Ministerial decision-making

Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, August 21st, 2012 - 72 comments

So, a pre-planned trip to watch a son’s baseball and a week’s holiday in the States is more important than attending 2 soldiers’ funerals. But attending 3 soldiers’ funerals outranks attending the Pacific Island Forum attended by the region’s leaders. A question for the reader: how many Little League games beats a pull aside with Julia Gillard on boat people?

Another dark day for NZ in Afghanistan

Written By: - Date published: 7:48 am, August 20th, 2012 - 220 comments

3 New Zealand soldiers have been killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. 5 dead in a fortnight. That’s a big cost. All in the same area of Bamiyan Province. John Key has used American chickenhawk language saying “we won’t cut and run”. Actually, we’re leaving in 2013 anyway. The question is whether its worth the cost of hanging around another year.

Replying to cancer-mongers

Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, August 16th, 2012 - 23 comments

The Australian Government has won a Supreme Court case on its plain packaging law. The tobacco companies are now planning to take it to the WTO. I hope Gillard responds to the law suit with a letter along the lines of: “Dear Cancer-mongers, Consider yourselves lucky we don’t nationalise your assets and pass a law to have you arrested for corporate homicide. Go fuck yourselves. Regards, Julia.”

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