Author Archive

The long game

Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, September 15th, 2012 - 41 comments

The government recently released a figure of $78 billion as the ‘lifetime cost’ of the benefit system. That number is the estimated answer to the question: ‘how much would we have to have put aside now to pay for the expected future cost of benefit payments to all current beneficiaries’. But the really question is: why would you want to know that?

Suffer the children

Written By: - Date published: 8:26 am, September 13th, 2012 - 17 comments

Over 2,200 children, according to the Government’s estimates, will end up living in households with their already meager benefit incomes cut in half under National’s plan to punish families who can’t afford to or don’t want to send their children to supposedly voluntarily early childhood education. I’ll give Bill English credit – he at least looked sick as he defended a policy of starving kids.

Nats: economic failures

Written By: - Date published: 10:57 am, September 12th, 2012 - 30 comments

Fresh from having to delay the sale of Mighty River for 6 months because of sheer incompetence and on the back of hundreds of jobs losses in our largest employing sector – manufacturing – Key went overseas to boost our exports. His Russian FTA talks were a dismal failure (wonder why) and, now, he’s re-heating a failed attempt to boost tourism.

We need a government that gives a f*ck

Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, September 11th, 2012 - 56 comments

The paper mill at Kawerau is halving its production, and its workforce. Another hundred plus jobs gone. Meanwhile, Norske Skog, which owns the mill, is expanding production at its paper mill in Tasmania. What’s the difference? In Australia, the government is investing in local production and local jobs to substitute imports. Here, our government doesn’t give a fuck.

Mine now, or later?

Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, September 6th, 2012 - 27 comments

Something struck me as weird about the Spring Creek closure. Why have they stopped mining immediately even though the future of the mine hasn’t been decided and the miners are still being paid? Why did Solid Energy consider it more economic to pay the miners to leave the coal in the ground than dig it up? The answer has big implications for the government’s mining obsession.

What the polls are saying

Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, September 4th, 2012 - 39 comments

I reckon that if Labour and the Greens combined get more votes than National next election, they’ll be able to find enough support parties to govern. Vice versa too. Until March, Lab+Green had been less then National for over four years. Since then, it has been equal or above half the time. In both August polls, Lab+Green was ahead.

What a shambles

Written By: - Date published: 8:01 am, September 4th, 2012 - 37 comments

I think Mike’s hit it on the head. National’s asset sales policy is dead, it just doesn’t know it yet. Key’s punted for touch, pushed the hard calls out by six months (at a cost of another $10 million to us, thank you very much). But what’s really going to have changed when we get to March 2013? Key’s ruled out giving iwi what they want. So, any sales will be blocked by court injunctions.

Quarter of a million signatures to Keep Our Assets

Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, September 3rd, 2012 - 41 comments

The Keep Our Assets Coalition has now collected 250,000 signatures for the petition for a referendum on asset sales in just four months. You need to help with the big final push – the Spring Collection – to get the last 60,000 signatures and the 10% spares within the coming month.

Big trouble for Groser

Written By: - Date published: 7:45 am, August 31st, 2012 - 63 comments

Suspicion is turning to Minister Tim Groser as the person who leaked information on Murray McCully’s botched reforms of Mfat. As I understand it, the suspicion is not that Groser directly told Goff but that Groser was ‘too loose’ in talking to some public servants about his criticisms of McCully’s botched reforms, who then became conduits for the information to Goff.

Nats hollow excuses on poverty

Written By: - Date published: 6:59 am, August 30th, 2012 - 90 comments

National has a line on child poverty to allow them to oppose actually doing anything: ‘Jobs! Jobs are the solution to poverty, not more assistance for poor kids. National is about jobs, not handouts! And we’ll get more jobs with mining!’ But their record doesn’t match the rhetoric … There are 65,000 more unemployed under National and hundreds of mining jobs are being lost.

Turning a blind eye to poverty

Written By: - Date published: 8:13 am, August 29th, 2012 - 117 comments

In Parliament yesterday, Metiria Turei challenged Key on his record on poverty, holding up a graph of the GINI index, showing the increase in inequality under National. Key nonsensically blamed the recession – why must it be that in a recession the poor get poorer while the rich still get richer? That’s a result of policy that protects the rich, not an inevitability.

Half of rich still cheating on tax

Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, August 27th, 2012 - 75 comments

Remember how National’s excuse for cutting the top tax rate from 39% to align with the trust rate at 33% was that half of the rich were dodging the top tax rate – so, they should all get a tax cut. Tax cuts for tax cheats, it was called. And guess what? They’re still cheating. Only half of the ultra-rich are paying even that slashed 33% rate. When they cheat we pay with cut services, higher charges, and more government debt.

Sack PoAL management

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, August 27th, 2012 - 28 comments

Remember the Ports of Auckland lock-out? The bosses tried to starve out 300 worker to push through contracting out, and ‘save’ $6m a year. The workers won. Now, PoAL has reported a $12m loss caused by the $33m cost of the lockout. So, the bosses spent $33m trying to get a $6m a year ‘saving’.  Time the councils sacks the managers who wasted that money.

The wheels coming off

Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, August 22nd, 2012 - 46 comments

The Nats are admitting the wheels are coming of their asset sales programme. Solid Energy’s revenue is in free-fall. So is AirNZ’s. Nobody can predict the impact the water rights issue will have on the power companies. And Meridian is playing chicken with its main customer, the country’s largest energy consumer.

Petrol hits record

Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, August 22nd, 2012 - 210 comments

Z has set a new record for petrol prices with 91 up to $2.23. The others are expected to follow. We are in a new oil shock due to peak oil. The once unimaginable $2 a litre is now the low price. Ironically, the high dollar that is killing our exporters is protecting us from much higher petrol prices. So why is our government investing $12 billion on deepening our oil addiction?

10 Jacks are as good as their master

Written By: - Date published: 6:43 am, August 21st, 2012 - 128 comments

Compare the latest figures on CEO pay to the median income of New Zealanders and to the minimum wage. The average CEO gets 10 times the pay of a full-time minimum wage worker or the income of the typical Kiwi. The gap is growing. The CEO pay increase was 26 times the median income increase, 56 times what a full-time minimum wage earner got. Does anyone think this is a recipe for a happy and successful New Zealand?

Losing a generation

Written By: - Date published: 12:19 pm, August 20th, 2012 - 59 comments

There are just short of 630,000 people aged 20-29. A net 33,000 of them have left for Australia under National – 13,000 in the last year. That’s twice the rate of emigration under Labour. There’s also twice as many unemployed in this age group – 46,000. That’s 1 in 8 of our youngest generation of workers either leaving for Aussie or unemployed under National.

Would you buy shares in…

Written By: - Date published: 9:28 am, August 18th, 2012 - 42 comments

Mighty River, when its water use rights are in doubt? Meridian, when its deal with its largest customer is in question? Solid Energy, when it is reviewing all its operations due to the high dollar? Genesis, when Meridian could flood the market with cheap power if its deal with Rio Tinto falls through, and a future government is likely to sharply increase the cost of its emissions from Huntly?

Greens put pokies deal on ice

Written By: - Date published: 10:38 am, August 17th, 2012 - 3 comments

The Greens’ successful call for an Auditor General’s probe into the Government’s pokies-for-convention-centre deal with SkyCity has stalled the negiotations – despite the Nats’ claims it wouldn’t derail their attempt to sell our gambling law. No meetings have been held since the A-G’s investigation began two months ago. With any luck, it’ll push out the legislative timeline past the 2014 election.

Labour’s plan a real alternative to Nats’ failure

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, August 17th, 2012 - 33 comments

Labour’s hands on approach to economic management focused on boosting manufacturing stands in stark contrast to National’s failed record of big promises and no delivery. Manufacturing is our largest employer. It has lost 25,500 jobs under National. National has been pushing mining for four years. It employs 6,000 people, up just 600 under National.

Collins’ Bennett problem

Written By: - Date published: 12:13 pm, August 16th, 2012 - 22 comments

I look forward to Trevor Mallard and Andrew Little calling Paula Bennett as a witness in their defamation suit with Judith Collins. Bennett openly admits doing what Collins has sued Mallard and Little for accusing her of doing: using ministerial powers to leak the private details of a political opponent. Bennett even says she’ll do it again. She obviously doesn’t see doing it as hurting her reputation.

Nats’ motorways going on the credit card

Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, August 15th, 2012 - 44 comments

Transport spending has always been paid for out of road taxes. But National’s roads to nowhere cost too much. They’ve added huge top ups from general tax but it’s still not enough to meet the rising costs of the motorways. They’ve cut every other area of transport spending to the bone. Still not enough. Now, National’s going to start borrowing for their motorways.

Ministry of Silly Investments

Written By: - Date published: 6:50 am, August 13th, 2012 - 4 comments

The Nats spent $420,000 on branding for the Ministry of Science and Innovation, which only existed for 18 months before being swallowed  by MoBIE. It included money for branded play putty… Shearer’s right: “The Government’s supposed public service reform is an incoherent ego trip for ministers.”

$12 billion on roads no-one will use

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, August 12th, 2012 - 58 comments

Research from the Green Party shows that the $12 billion ‘Roads of National Significance’, the bulk of the next decade’s transport budget, would be on routes that carry just 4% of the country’s traffic. So, the other 96% of us are paying nearly $3,000 a head for roads that bugger all people will use. Traffic on many of the routes is actually falling.

162,000 unemployed just a “technical rise”

Written By: - Date published: 7:59 am, August 10th, 2012 - 277 comments

Key’s making excuses for his government’s pathetic record on jobs. Unemployment is going the wrong way but Key calls another 2,000 people without jobs to 162,000 – the highest number since 1994 – a “very small, technical rise“. 65,000 more unemployed under National. And we’re doing relatively badly. We’ve gone from 6th lowest unemployment in the OECD to 14th.

Working InZone

Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, August 9th, 2012 - 6 comments

Yesterday, National was patting itself on the back for getting, wait for it, 25 people into work and off benefits as part of rebuilding Christchurch. This in a $770,000 programme called Work InZone that was meant to get 100 people into work. This programme didn’t create jobs, it just helped get the select beneficiaries to the front of the queue for them. Just means someone else missed out.

Bet tunnels didn’t cost this much at Messines

Written By: - Date published: 7:33 am, August 8th, 2012 - 43 comments

How does it cost $75m to dig a 220m long tunnel? The Government is planning to tear up the 5-year old bypass road and put it underground to give space for the National War Memorial for $75m. You’re never going to win opposing a war memorial – even though the Nats cancelled it in 2009, which is why the cost is so high doing it at the last minute before the centenary of Gallipoli – but $350,000 a metre for a tunnel?

Farrar & the mystery of induced traffic

Written By: - Date published: 10:16 am, August 7th, 2012 - 8 comments

David Farrar notes that 4 of the 10 worst congestion points in New Zealand are in Wellington. He concludes “Transmission Gully will help with some of that, but not all”. Quite the opposite, old boy. Transmission Gully will not create any new capacity at any of these congestion points. In fact, NZTA says it will create more traffic heading into 3 of them.

King Gerry ripping off the peasants

Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, August 6th, 2012 - 22 comments

The design of the red-zone buy-out puts CERA first, the insurers seconds, and the earthquake victims last. Homeowners could take the 2007 valuation for their property, ignoring subsequent improvements, or the 2007 valuation for their land plus whatever their insurance company would give for the home. That generated a huge incentive for insurers to understate […]

Nats try to muscle the Waitangi Tribunal

Written By: - Date published: 7:29 am, August 3rd, 2012 - 67 comments

A stockmarket float can’t happen at just any time. It needs to be close to the annual report or late enough in the new year to allow new numbers to be made after the Christmas break. So 2 windows a year. 5 to the election. Treasury says the stockmarket can only handle 1 asset sale a window, preferably 1 a year. The Nats know they will lose the next election. So they can’t afford to lose this sales window if they’re to do all the sales by the election.

By the book

Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, August 2nd, 2012 - 60 comments

“At all times, Ministers are expected to act lawfully and to behave in a way that upholds, and is seen to uphold, the highest ethical standards. Ultimately, Ministers are accountable to the Prime Minister for their behaviour.” – The Cabinet Manual. John Banks lied to reporters, and the public, while a minister. That’s not upholding the highest ethical standards. When will John Key hold him to account?

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