Author Archive

Police Association offers a recipe for dead cops

Written By: - Date published: 12:35 pm, January 13th, 2013 - 122 comments

In December, a cop had his taser taken off him and fired at him. The Police Association said the solution is for cops to be armed. Judith Collins got it right, “if that was a gun [not a Taser] we’d probably be going to a funeral, actually, for a police officer”. On Friday, an armed cop had his gun taken off him. The Police Association’s answer: cops should pull their guns earlier.

Mr Fail strikes again

Written By: - Date published: 11:35 am, January 10th, 2013 - 7 comments

On Monday, Steven Joyce promised lots of new jobs in the wood manufacturing industry thanks to the wonders of foreign investment and a do nothing government, and called the Left anti-jobs. On Wednesday, wood manufacturer Norske Skog sacked 110 workers. What’s Joyce’s next trick, attend a funeral, tell the departed to ‘wake up’, and blame the rest of the congregation when he doesn’t?

It’s the market, baby

Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, January 9th, 2013 - 319 comments

I went to the supermarket and said “I want your best meat for $9 a kg”. They said I could have pre-cooked sausages or the cheapest mince for that. But I wanted good meat! So I went to other supermarkets and butchers. Some wouldn’t sell me anything for that much, none would supply the quality I wanted. They say I’m mad. But, when this business does it, they’re the victims.

Killing the Cullen Fund’s costing us

Written By: - Date published: 7:58 am, January 8th, 2013 - 45 comments

David Shearer recently picked up National’s policy of not contributing to the Cullen Fund while the Government’s in deficit but there’s nothing about being in deficit that alters the case for investing the Cullen Fund. As long as the return exceeds the Crown’s cost of capital, it’s worthwhile. So, how much have the canned contributions cost us so far? $1.2b.

The brighter future – now with wood

Written By: - Date published: 7:47 am, January 7th, 2013 - 40 comments

Steven Joyce pops up today in the Herald to promise more jobs. Apparently, the Chinese are going to invest in wood manufacturing here because the power’s cheap. Funny, the power’s been the same price for a while and… um… wood manufacturing has collapsed 15% under Joyce’s watch. Looks like another hollow promise from the least successful economic development minister in history.

NZ falling in education under Nats

Written By: - Date published: 9:20 am, December 21st, 2012 - 21 comments

The other day, David Farrar helpfully linked to an international report (here, here, and here) into achievement in education. Somehow though, he missed the part where educational achievement rose in all but one measure under Labour and then fell in each measure under National.

Govt tries to bully Wellington Council

Written By: - Date published: 8:54 am, December 20th, 2012 - 14 comments

Wellington Council has voted to spend some time looking at a new alternative to the Basin Fly-over plan. The government’s response has been to threaten the council that other transport investment in Wellington will be scrapped unless they get their concrete monstrosity built. In related news, NZTA systemically under-estimates the costs and overstates the benefits of roading projects.

Margin of error

Written By: - Date published: 10:09 am, December 19th, 2012 - 16 comments

So, National’s still on track to surplus in 2014/15, eh? A $66m surplus. Well, don’t be counting those chickens just yet. That projected surplus is just 0.07% of projected spending and revenue that year. That makes wafer thin look fat. And it’s not exactly like Treasury has a good record predicting 2.5 years ahead. But there’s a bigger question: is any surplus worth any price?

Nats’ 170,000 jobs evaporate

Written By: - Date published: 6:46 am, December 19th, 2012 - 33 comments

In Budget 2011, National made a big song and dance over the projection that ‘they’ would create 170,000 jobs in the next four years. Leaving aside the fact that they were counting jobs from the year before in their four year total, the promise basically rested on creating 57,000 jobs this year. So, what’s the latest update on that figure? … 0.

A $3 billion loan for Transmission Gully

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, December 10th, 2012 - 33 comments

Transmission Gully is meant to cost about a billion dollars to deliver about half that in benefits, right? Well, thanks to the magic of Public Private Partnerships, National’s managed to triple that cost! If they manage to get the contract signed before the next election, they’ll lock us into annual payments of $120-$130m – totaling $3 billion over 25 years.

Wheeler lies on bank profits

Written By: - Date published: 10:05 am, December 5th, 2012 - 33 comments

Last month, new Reserve Bank Governor Graeme Wheeler told Parliament that our banks aren’t excessively profitable – middle of the pack internationally. He was lying.

Ministers in a Lab/Green govt

Written By: - Date published: 7:32 am, December 4th, 2012 - 143 comments

Paddy Gower looked fit to burst with excitement over ‘Greens and Labour fighting over Finance portfolio‘ last night. Of course, the actual quote not so exciting – just Russel Norman saying it was one portfolio that would be the subject of negotiations in the formation of a Lab/Green govt. But it does raise a valid question – who would be ministers in a Lab/Green govt?

Meanwhile, on Planet Key

Written By: - Date published: 10:47 am, December 3rd, 2012 - 26 comments

Sure, National is still in the mid-40s and Key will back himself to crucify Shearer in the debates, but his own brand is suffering badly. He’s failed on jobs and increasingly being seen as out of touch. So, is making the news for eating a grasshopper really a smart move?

Key smacked down on jobs failure

Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, November 28th, 2012 - 68 comments

Dr Russel Norman: Does it not all boil down to the fact that whichever way you cut it, whichever statistics you care to choose, the Government has failed on jobs, unemployment has grown in New Zealand, and the number of jobs in the manufacturing sector has not grown; and is it not time he just admitted it and figured out what to do about it?

Politicians of the year

Written By: - Date published: 8:35 am, November 26th, 2012 - 40 comments

On Q+A, Russel Norman and Judith Collins were named politicians of the year. It’s as much about what they have done in this past year as where they are going. Norman has cleverly positioned himself as the voice of the Left on the economy – the economy is the issue and will continue to be so. Collins has softened her image to set herself up to replace Key.

Democracy is not the problem

Written By: - Date published: 8:50 am, November 23rd, 2012 - 47 comments

During the Labour conference, Armstrong patronisingly wrote “delegates were so blinded and so intoxicated by the prospect of securing a say in the election of future leaders that they did not think through the consequences”. Old Tories hate democracy. But it’s disappointing that Garner made the same mistakes. Democracy doesn’t weaken, it strengthens – ask the Greens.

1 in 6 Kiwis looking for work under National

Written By: - Date published: 12:16 pm, November 19th, 2012 - 9 comments

A closer look at the Household Labourforce Survey reveals startling facts: in the four years since the ‘brighter future’ began, in which time the adult population grew by 156,000, the number of fulltime jobs went down by 700. The number of part-time jobs is up a little – 25,000 – but 31,000 more part-timers want […]

War and peace

Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, November 19th, 2012 - 93 comments

Talk of a Labour leadership vote to be held this Tuesday blossomed and then faded on Sunday. Here’s what went down. The Mallard-led old guard thought they had found a procedural trick to embarrass Cunliffe. They could have an immediate caucus-only vote under the old rules, which would require 60% opposition to Shearer to succeed. But such a cynical attempt to disenfranchise the membership would have backfired

A reason to belong

Written By: - Date published: 7:48 am, November 18th, 2012 - 29 comments

For the first time in the history of New Zealand, being a member of a major party really means something. If you a member of Labour, you will have a choice in who your leader is. Can any but a handful of National apparatchiks say the same? It’s time for National’s members to ask whether they’re really members of just money pots. And it’s time for the Labour Ulterior to re-join.

Another dirty deal with SkyCity

Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, November 16th, 2012 - 12 comments

It now appears that the Government’s controversial plan to allow wealthy frequent flyers on state-owned China Southern Airlines to skip visa requirements was done to help SkyCity get more high-rolling Chinese gamblers visiting. It’s the warped priorities that gets me: the Nats are bending over backwards for SkyCity while insisting that they won’t ‘pick winners’ to save manufacturing jobs.

English puts us on a slippery slope to Greece

Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, November 15th, 2012 - 32 comments

The amount we have to borrow from the rest of the world is due to hit $17b a year by 2016. Our current account deficit is already the 2nd largest in the developed world and will soon be hitting disastrous levels. But English says ‘don’t worry, if that happens, our economy will just collapse, Greece-style’. I’m not reassured.

The enemy isn’t on your side

Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, November 15th, 2012 - 186 comments

Politics 101 for Labour leaders: when a right-wing columnist tells you to piss off your party and your base to ‘win the centre’ she probably doesn’t have your best interests at heart. The truth of it is, Labour didn’t lose the last two elections by losing the centre and it won’t win by trying to win back votes from National. It’s the Labour non-vote that matters.

Any way you cut it, National’s failed on jobs

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, November 14th, 2012 - 15 comments

It was a bizarre Question Time yesterday with Key, English, and Joyce all answering questions on the dire jobs numbers and giving contradictory excuses. It was statistical noise, the wrong statistic to look at, the rest of the world’s fault, pretty good comparatively… But the truth of it is that, any way you cut it, National has failed on jobs.

National’s failure: 400,000 wanting work

Written By: - Date published: 6:40 am, November 9th, 2012 - 202 comments

Remember when Key’s excuse for rising unemployment was that it was a “lagging indicator” and the numbers would soon fall? Well, that was 3 years ago and its been lagging a hell of a long time because, since then 25,000 more Kiwis have become unemployed. So, what was the excuse yesterday with the shocking unemployment numbers?

Neoliberal dinosaurs

Written By: - Date published: 7:48 am, November 8th, 2012 - 18 comments

The deficit so far this year is half a billion dollars worse than expected in the first 3 months of this fiscal year. But English says don’t worry – he’s going to make the 2014/15 surplus, and he doesn’t care what he cuts. Meanwhile, the new Reserve Bank Governor says that borrowing is out of control and the dollar is too high – but he won’t do anything about it. Neoliberal dinosaurs both.

Manufacturing crisis deepens

Written By: - Date published: 7:34 am, November 7th, 2012 - 81 comments

Yesterday, 60 highly paid jobs at Rakon where lost and we learned 5,700 manufacturing jobs had been lost in the past year. The reason, the high dollar made manufacturing here untenable. Steve Joyce shrugged his shoulders like it was nothing to do with him. But it’s his government’s failures that are forcing Kiwi manufacturers overseas.

Unbecoming & out of touch

Written By: - Date published: 12:17 pm, November 6th, 2012 - 171 comments

I just wonder in what world John Key thinks that it’s OK for the PM to go around slagging off and insulting people in public. Planet Key, perhaps. Why does he think it’s OK for him to call a visitor to our country ‘”thick as batshit”? Why does he think that it’s not homophobic to use “gay” as an insult? And does he think it’s not hurtful when he says “gay” is a synonym for “weird”?

I don’t think I’ll be taking his advice

Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, November 2nd, 2012 - 133 comments

On the back of Duncan Garner’s scathing piece on David Shearer, David Farrar endorses Grant Robertson for leader. Yeah, because his last recommendation’s worked out so well. Call me cynical, but I just don’t think National’s pollster has the Left’s interests at heart. No, I don’t think people will be looking to the Right for advice on who should lead Labour again.

Kapiti Expressway a half billion dollar waste

Written By: - Date published: 8:27 am, November 1st, 2012 - 65 comments

Campbell Live had a piece on Monday based on a leaked report into the benefit cost ratio of National’s Kapiti Expressway project. Now, in its evidence to the EPA hearings on the project, NZTA has claimed the BCR was 0.93 – ie you only get 93 cents worth of gain for each dollar spent. It turns out that was a massive exaggeration. In reality, we get 20 cents of value for every dollar spent.

Housing NZ to build to sell

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, October 31st, 2012 - 22 comments

Housing New Zealand is going to build some affordable houses in Christchurch and then sell them. It’s not a bad idea. In fact, if it were done right and en masse, it should have been a centrepiece of National’s empty ‘affordable housing’ announcment. But I fear it won’t be done right. It’s not enough just to build affordable homes: you need to make sure landlords don’t snap them up.

On the tip of his tongue

Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, October 30th, 2012 - 36 comments

It was almost funny listening to Bill English on Checkpoint. He had identified all, or at least most of, the problems with housing in Auckland: in short, nobody’s building affordable houses, the prevelance of bespoke houses pushes up prices, and speculative capital raises them even more. But his solutions were all, well, not solutions: try to make consenting even quicker, more sprawl.

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