Author Archive

A taxing question or two

Written By: - Date published: 8:35 am, March 24th, 2017 - 46 comments

Apple aren’t paying tax – are we doing all we can so multi-national’s do pay their share? And would the public actually prefer a tax rise (and decent housing/ health / education) rather than a tax cut?

Climate Change and Us

Written By: - Date published: 4:02 pm, March 21st, 2017 - 4 comments

3 major environmental reports today – the OECD says our economy is beyond environmental limits; a cross party group of MPs sponsor research into the way to net zero emissions; and the World Meteorological Organisation has a stark look at continued climate change.

2040? The robots will have taken over

Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, March 8th, 2017 - 53 comments

Bill English’s new super plan falls between 2 stools. The super cost crisis that he’s trying to summon up, is before 2040 if it exists. The solution was the Cullen Fund. By 2040 you’re just adding yet another Baby Boomer cost onto GenX and the millenials, and there’s going to be a shortage of jobs anyway, without adding 65 & 66 year-olds to our dole queues.

Just allow more shit – a metaphor for this government

Written By: - Date published: 4:21 pm, February 23rd, 2017 - 125 comments

So National’s great plan for swimmable rivers by 2040 is to allow twice as much shit in them and still call them “swimmable.”

State care inquiry

Written By: - Date published: 1:22 pm, February 16th, 2017 - 6 comments

credit: Aaron Smale RNZ

We need one – and an apology.  Bill may wonder aloud whether we’ll learn much, but I wonder if he’s more concerned we’ll learn too much…

Housing? A National mess

Written By: - Date published: 12:06 pm, December 15th, 2016 - 97 comments

3 stories from Checkpoint yesterday that add up to a picture of National’s response to housing: waste on unacceptable temporary housing; empty state houses where they’re needed most; and vilify anyone who dares complain.

Meanwhile, the Housing Crisis

Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, December 7th, 2016 - 18 comments

Bill English and Paula Bennett won’t be thinking about it this week, but Auckland’s Housing Crisis continues to get worse.

Mr Key’s Achievements

Written By: - Date published: 4:55 pm, December 6th, 2016 - 56 comments

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Fund the Police!

Written By: - Date published: 7:25 am, December 2nd, 2016 - 21 comments

Judith Collins is letting organised criminals off the hook as she insists the Police make burglary a priority.

Tolley needs to apologise

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, November 30th, 2016 - 34 comments

Kim Hill had an astounding and outstanding interview with Anne Tolley this morning on RNZ. The 7.30 news was delayed 12 minutes as Tolley evaded the fact that thousands of children were abused by the state in the 50s and 60s, and she refused to hold an inquiry into just how many thousands. She also […]

Elf & Safety

Written By: - Date published: 3:56 pm, November 24th, 2016 - 6 comments

It was disappointing to see Michael Woodhouse’s complacency for the government at one worker each week dying on the job. That can’t be acceptable. The new health & safety laws are a big improvement, and are making a difference in NZ businesses.  It took a ridiculous time (and workers continuing to die) from Pike River […]

The sharemarket moved because…

Written By: - Date published: 10:07 am, November 23rd, 2016 - 17 comments

This is just something that gets my goat, and there was a particularly egregious example on the RNZ Business News this morning. Apparently Wall St was going ‘gangbusters’, and the reason they came up with for that was ‘Wall St’ liking Donald Trump’s policies (lowering tax and building infrastructure apparently).  Not long ago Wall St […]

Lessons?

Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, November 12th, 2016 - 116 comments

What can we learn from the election of Donald J Drumpf?

Margins

Written By: - Date published: 7:40 am, November 11th, 2016 - 82 comments

1 in 100 US voters switch and the polls would have been right, and we’d be talking about progressive America, destroyed Republicans and the ‘blue wall’.

Gate-gate

Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, November 9th, 2016 - 21 comments

Somehow Brownlee’s got away with it. Felix Marwick did good work on his OIA, to find out that Gerry Brownlee’s account of events didn’t stack up. Oddly only Rodney Hide is calling him out for it. He forced his way through (entry was “not freely given”), without a boarding pass, and could have had a […]

Tax-cuts or… Education

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, October 28th, 2016 - 6 comments

National’s dangling tax cuts, but there are far more important things to be spending public money on.  Today: Education.

Tax-cuts or… fixing Child Poverty

Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, October 25th, 2016 - 128 comments

Before National get too excited about tax cuts, perhaps they should sort out some of the more pressing issues in the society they govern – like all those kids in poverty.

Tax-cuts or… Housing

Written By: - Date published: 8:36 am, October 21st, 2016 - 21 comments

The government is proud of their surplus, which at 0.7% of GDP isn’t quite as dramatic as the 9% of GDP deficit they had in 2011.  But as soon as we have a surplus, National starts salivating over tax cuts.  But may I continue on where I left off on other things that are far […]

One Billion Dollars

Written By: - Date published: 1:57 pm, October 18th, 2016 - 6 comments

Treasury papers just released show National’s Housing Infrastructure Fund to be everything you expected it to be: a quickly cobbled together headline.

Tax-cuts or… Health

Written By: - Date published: 8:16 am, October 18th, 2016 - 135 comments

Health – particularly mental health – is underfunded, resulting in strikes over patient safety and units shutdown due to staff shortages. And unnecessary deaths. So why is the government even thinking about tax-cuts when our services need investment?

unCOOL

Written By: - Date published: 1:35 pm, October 17th, 2016 - 6 comments

In August Hekia Parata announced her new COOL solution, that distinctly isn’t what it says on the tin.

Now’s your chance to submit your feedback on her proposal.

‘Too busy’

Written By: - Date published: 12:16 pm, October 17th, 2016 - 61 comments

National ministers have a habit of not wanting to turn up to the ‘hard’ questions, but Paula Bennett has been severely caught out by RNZ

Goff on foreign buyers; and Vote!

Written By: - Date published: 2:06 pm, October 3rd, 2016 - 5 comments

Ban them / tax them, but lets reduce demand. And make sure you get your vote in for local elections!

How difficult to measure poverty?

Written By: - Date published: 9:47 am, October 3rd, 2016 - 104 comments

Amazing lead story on RNZ – Easier to count rodents than kids in poverty, suggests Key. There are a number of good measures, any one of which would do, but the new Children’s Commissioner just wants to get past that debate and get onto doing stuff to reduce the numbers. A government that is all […]

False Equivalence

Written By: - Date published: 4:47 pm, October 2nd, 2016 - 21 comments

John Oliver excellent as always – this time on the difference in scandal quality between Clinton & Trump.

New GG

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, September 29th, 2016 - 24 comments

Congrats to Dame Patsy and how strange it’s always such a small story…

When’s the Republic coming?

Cronyism

Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, September 29th, 2016 - 70 comments

So Paula Bennett has been giving a lolly scramble to her National mates with the Rules Reduction Taskforce.

Which is fine, because the Taskforce did great work in finding out that the ‘loopy’ rule of lolly scrambles being illegal wasn’t in fact true.

Polls

Written By: - Date published: 8:22 am, September 28th, 2016 - 61 comments

While politicos were watching Hillary defeat Donald in the first debate, Roy Morgan released their latest poll, showing Labour massively up and National down a chunk. Is the media narrative broken?

HoliPay fiasco – 1 in 3 workers robbed

Written By: - Date published: 6:51 am, September 26th, 2016 - 48 comments

Do you work irregular shifts (even only occasionally)?  Overtime?  Sometimes on Public Holidays?

Then you’re probably part of the 1 in 3 workers owed more than $2 billion lost thru incorrect calculations of holiday pay.

Thanks Steven Joyce.

Is Vic Crone racist?

Written By: - Date published: 10:51 am, September 22nd, 2016 - 198 comments

Vic Crone is trying to make a story out of the fact that Phil Goff is against foreign ownership of our housing stock, but accepted $250,000 from the NZ Chinese community at a fundraiser. Does she not see a difference between NZ Chinese and foreigners?

Economics is still lost

Written By: - Date published: 12:25 pm, September 20th, 2016 - 54 comments

Paul Romer is an economist highly respected by his peers, and about to become the Chief Economist at the World Bank. He’s also just published a paper rubbishing the last 3 decades of macroeconomics.

Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator at the Financial Times is challenging fractional reserve banking. It’s certainly time for some new ideas.