Author Archive

Salt in the wound

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 12:25 pm, June 30th, 2011 - 81 comments

Two years ago, this government sparked the biggest protests in a generation when it tried to open up the most precious parts of our conservation estate to mining. The policy got canned but the agenda has continued below the surface. Now, 100 DoC staff have been sacked while the MED unit for oil drilling and mining will nearly double its staff.

Farrar’s tax cut chicanery

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 10:58 am, June 24th, 2011 - 98 comments

The National Research unit has created National pollster David Farrar has taken time out of his holiday to create a graph showing the reduction in tax across incomes. Supposedly it shows National’s tax cuts weren’t for the rich after all – we just imagined it! But the research unit Farrar have avoided some inconvenient facts.

If it quacks like a sexist duck…

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 8:32 pm, June 23rd, 2011 - 126 comments

Sure Alisdair Thompson’s comments today were sexist.

But they were also so dumb it’s hard to be offended.

Queen of Thorns explains

The buck stops with Gerry

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 12:33 pm, June 21st, 2011 - 9 comments

Every day more stories of the poor management of the Christchurch recovery are coming out. Delays in physical rebuilding are understandable. Delays in EQC payouts are another. They undermine the city’s economy and stop rebuilding. A reader has sent in their story. It’s one of many. Brownlee should have sorted this months ago.

The Magic Market

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 10:22 am, June 20th, 2011 - 64 comments

Low-paid, crappy job? It’s obviously your fault, according to the Right. You mustn’t have enough qualifications, or the correct ones. The good jobs are out there, they’re just hiding. Or, if they’re not, you can weave one from thin air. But, even if this free market magic were real, what’s the end point? The crap jobs still need to be filled.

Lifting productivity

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 9:45 am, June 17th, 2011 - 14 comments

So, the statement of intent from the Ministry of Health  has just been released. This document outlines how our health service will operate during the next three years; so what does it actually say? Is health truly safe under National?

Monopolies

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 12:49 pm, June 15th, 2011 - 271 comments

Natural monopolies should be controlled by councils or government. The so called free market has only one plan for them: extract as much money as they can, then keep milking them for all they are worth till the government steps in and regulates or is forced to buy the asset back with the private owners making a huge profit.

What about the Belgians?

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 12:58 pm, June 14th, 2011 - 18 comments

ianupnorth was interested in the Right’s frequent cries that ‘socialism’, even in its mildest forms, will destroy New Zealand. So, he looked at another small  first world country, with much in common with New Zealand – Belgium – to see how its statistics compared to ours, in light of its more socialist policies. What are the Belgians doing right that we refuse to do?

NZ deserves better than budget lies

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 10:34 am, June 10th, 2011 - 80 comments

The Budget is unravelling at a startling rate of knots. Bill English is floundering to explain his dodgy asset sales numbers that count the benefits but not the costs. Now, a senior minister has admitted that John Key’s claim that “there are 170,000 new jobs being created as a result of this Budget” is a lie. We actually really do deserve better than this.

No future in English & Brash’s neoliberal plans

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 10:57 am, June 7th, 2011 - 14 comments

Don Brash has attacked Bill English’s budget which he says fails to lay out a plan for New Zealand. The reality, I think, is that both have plan however there is little or no future in either plan. Neither Brash nor English have laid out a plan which deals with the present and quite near problems we will face.

Treasury says own forecasts too rosy

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 9:00 am, June 3rd, 2011 - 29 comments

Oh dear. Only two weeks after its Budget 2011 economic forecasts were released, Treasury is already warning they are too optimistic. In their defence, they say the forecasts were settled in April and growth prospects have got worse since then. Well, you’re not much of a forecaster if you can’t see that happening in the middle of an oil shock.

Peak oil enters mainstream: Labour listening, Nats not

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 9:00 am, May 27th, 2011 - 81 comments

The Greens and environmentalists have been talking about peak oil forever. Now, the IEA and IMF have joined them in warning that governments need to act immediately. Labour has pledged to cancel one of National’s white elephant motorways but that must only be the beginning. Meanwhile, the Nats are planning more ‘Roads of National Significance’.

Jacinda Ardern’s ‘Dear Don’ letter

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 11:59 am, May 24th, 2011 - 29 comments

Labour’s Jacinda Ardern replies to Don Brash’s letter to John Key: “In many ways though Mr Brash, I fear that you have written off not just my generation, but New Zealand. There was no hope in your letter, no sense of aspiration or of the idea that we can build a prosperous country”

Take control

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 11:59 am, May 20th, 2011 - 6 comments

It matters not who owns a thing, what really matters is “who controls it” . We have been watching our house being burgled for to long haven’t we? We seem to forget we are still in control of this country, and we the people need to get back that control, the control of our parliament, that belongs to us!