Author Archive
More flooding
Written By: - Date published: 10:28 am, June 21st, 2015 - 37 comments
All the best to those affected by the latest round of flooding.
National running short of coalition partners
Written By: - Date published: 8:17 am, June 20th, 2015 - 14 comments
There’s a lot of chatter about the Conservative Party at the moment, but the Nats are the only ones who have a reason to care.
A partial list of current scandals
Written By: - Date published: 9:01 am, June 18th, 2015 - 64 comments
For those of you who are keeping score at home.
Southern DHB sacked
Written By: - Date published: 12:36 pm, June 17th, 2015 - 53 comments
Southern DHB sacked – scapegoats for systematic underfunding of the health sector.
The death of trickle down economics and the mess we’re in
Written By: - Date published: 7:11 am, June 17th, 2015 - 139 comments
Trickle down economics is pronounced dead by the IMF. Housing, the working poor and the economy – the policy settings are wrong everywhere.
Ghost houses and the invisible hand
Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, June 16th, 2015 - 243 comments
Auckland has an urgent deficit of 20,000 to 30,000 houses. Meanwhile 22,000 houses are sitting empty. Behold the efficiency of the market!
It’s just too expensive to act on climate change
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, June 15th, 2015 - 187 comments
Imagine Wellington without coastal roads. Of course, it’s just too expensive to take action on our greenhouse gas emissions…
Affordable – in your dreams
Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, June 15th, 2015 - 69 comments
Even under the best assumptions National’s “affordable” houses in Auckland are not actually affordable for the average paid worker. Nick Smith is dreaming.
The TV3 boycott
Written By: - Date published: 8:06 am, June 13th, 2015 - 121 comments
Boycotts are a two-edged sword. The call to boycott TV3 is not a simple matter.
Bravo big business!
Written By: - Date published: 7:11 am, June 12th, 2015 - 87 comments
Bravo to those “big business” leaders who have come out in support of strong universal health and safety legislation. Shame on the Collins faction in Cabinet who are fighting to water it down.
TPP designed to cripple our health system
Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, June 11th, 2015 - 80 comments
“[The TPP] appears to be designed to cripple New Zealand’s strong public healthcare programme and to inhibit the adoption of similar programmes in developing countries.”
Nick Smith on housing then and now
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, June 11th, 2015 - 66 comments
In 2013 Nick Smith promised an effective housing WOF. Yesterday he said “People dying in winter of pneumonia and other illnesses is not new.” Has National ever kept a constructive sounding social policy promise?
OECD sounding the alarm
Written By: - Date published: 10:26 am, June 10th, 2015 - 84 comments
Freeing up Auckland land for private development and sale at market rates isn’t going to cut it.
Another death linked to cold state house
Written By: - Date published: 5:03 pm, June 9th, 2015 - 127 comments
This should not be happening in New Zealand.
Predictable collapse in TV3 numbers
Written By: - Date published: 4:47 pm, June 8th, 2015 - 73 comments
“Prime News outrates TV3 as audience numbers halve”
Anti-union rant in The Herald
Written By: - Date published: 12:43 pm, June 8th, 2015 - 72 comments
An anonymous editorial in The Herald this morning really is atrocious. Apparently the limited uptake one of the Nats’ pet education policies is all the fault of the unions.
Update on dirty politics developments
Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, June 7th, 2015 - 189 comments
A brief roundup of coverage and developments in the latest dirty politics revelations.
Welcome to The Standard
Written By: - Date published: 10:13 am, June 6th, 2015 - 87 comments
Welcome to any new readers checking out this blog today as a result of the “dirty politics” segment on The Nation. Here’s a bit about us…
Update: For those that didn’t see The Nation, there is a summary in The Herald.
The shame of poverty in NZ
Written By: - Date published: 7:11 am, June 6th, 2015 - 30 comments
According to the Ministry of Social Development child poverty is worse in NZ than in any European country. According to the Child Poverty Action Group new figures are going to show an increase in poverty. According to the coroner a damp unhealthy state house contributed to the death of a child. Welcome to the “brighter future”.
Government buys a fight with iwi
Written By: - Date published: 7:11 am, June 5th, 2015 - 57 comments
The Nats seem determined to buy a fight with iwi over Auckland land, practically challenging them to court action. Do they really think this is going to end well for them?
Herald supports Greens on climate change
Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, June 4th, 2015 - 96 comments
Even an anonymous editorial in The Herald supports The Greens’ proposal for discussions with National on climate change. Key needs to acknowledge the facts, get some guts, and stop playing politics with the issue.
Auckland land shambles
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, June 3rd, 2015 - 90 comments
The problems for National’s housing plans for keep coming, with Ngati Whatua pointing out that it has first call on the land to be “freed up” under treaty agreements.
National standards aren’t
Written By: - Date published: 8:03 am, June 3rd, 2015 - 67 comments
Further evidence that “national standards” are an omnishambles.
Colmar Brunton poll
Written By: - Date published: 11:03 am, June 2nd, 2015 - 53 comments
I’ll cautiously call the previous Roy Morgan, which caused so much angst, an outlier.
Shaw interview – we have a crony capitalist state
Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, June 2nd, 2015 - 61 comments
New Greens co-leader James Shaw on: climate change, ruling out coalition with National, creeping crony capitalism, and more…
Voices of the people on emissions targets and climate change
Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, June 1st, 2015 - 37 comments
A record of the Dunedin consultation meeting on NZ’s emission targets. It was an extraordinary evening. So many people spoke with concern, with intelligence, with anger, with compassion, with emotion. Some spoke with hope, some without.
Please – make a written submission before Wednesday.
Schools under pressure
Written By: - Date published: 2:38 pm, May 31st, 2015 - 12 comments
Schools are not adequately funded for the job we ask them to do.
Auto Kiwisaver
Written By: - Date published: 11:54 am, May 29th, 2015 - 60 comments
Nice to see English acknowledging the importance of Kiwisaver – thanks Michael Cullen, thanks Helen Clark! I certainly support default enrollment. But – isn’t this Big Government Nanny State Gone Mad?
All our eggs in the dairy basket
Written By: - Date published: 12:27 pm, May 28th, 2015 - 157 comments
This government has been artificiality buoyed by a diary boom, now the bust leaves us highly exposed.
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