Author Archive

Crime: out of control?

Written By: Tane - Date published: 3:07 pm, November 1st, 2007 - 59 comments

John Key made a speech to the Police Association today proposing a whole raft of new police powers, ranging from banning gangs to taking DNA samples from anyone who is arrested, regardless of whether they’re found guilty or innocent. To justify these proposed new powers he relied heavily on the subtext that crime is out […]

Labour recycling Ministers, says National

Written By: Tane - Date published: 3:39 pm, October 31st, 2007 - 29 comments

(Link)

Labour: who’s gonna get it?

Written By: Tane - Date published: 8:33 pm, October 30th, 2007 - 30 comments

Coming into an election when work rights is going to be a major issue, we’ve heard Ruth Dyson will be relinquishing her labour portfolio tomorrow. The big question is who’s going to pick it up? Across the ditch work rights has become the defining issue of the upcoming election and given National’s desperate attempts to […]

Herald Digipoll

Written By: Tane - Date published: 3:21 pm, October 30th, 2007 - 15 comments

Today’s Herald Digipoll is not good news for Labour, coming off the back of last week’s positive Roy Morgan poll which showed a centre-left majority. As the Herald notes, on the basis of this poll National has enough support to govern alone. But what it also demonstrates is the mistake National has made in devouring […]

National: it’s not worth the pay cut

Written By: Tane - Date published: 1:46 pm, October 19th, 2007 - 58 comments

The National Party are clearly worried. They’ve done pretty well so far with the populist rallying cry of tax cuts, but they always knew their record on wages would come up at some point. Because as National themselves are fully aware, while tax cuts might on the face of it put more money into workers’ […]

Not my family, bro

Written By: Tane - Date published: 4:10 pm, October 17th, 2007 - 25 comments

Radio Live reports that Richard Lewis and his Destiny Party have decided to form a new Christian party, this time without Gordon Copeland. They’re calling it the ‘Family Party’ and are trying to pose as a broad-based Christian movement. They have obvious reasons for doing so, but in politics it’s the money and the troops […]

Levin: hotbed of Tory militancy?

Written By: Tane - Date published: 12:44 pm, October 16th, 2007 - 3 comments

Just had this sent through to me by a Levin reader. The reference to the Federation of Labour and getting the army in to sort out the workers should have been a dead giveaway that the piece was thirty years old, but in the timewarp that is Levin you never can be too sure…

A nice little earner

Written By: Tane - Date published: 1:37 pm, October 13th, 2007 - 60 comments

I know the Nats are leaking all over the place, but this is getting ridiculous. From our homies over at Kiwiblogblog, here’s a sneak peak of National’s draft leaflets for 2008: Click the image for a larger version.

Overtaxed?

Written By: Tane - Date published: 9:57 am, October 12th, 2007 - 18 comments

There’s a lot of talk on the right about the surplus being evidence of ‘overtaxation’. But where exactly is the Government’s huge tax grab? According to Treasury, tax as a percentage of GDP has barely moved since 1998 – when we had no Working for Families, no Cullen Fund, no Kiwisaver, virtually no investment in […]

National’s cynical attack on disabled workers

Written By: Tane - Date published: 1:14 pm, October 10th, 2007 - 7 comments

History tells us the Nats will use any excuse they can to undermine people’s work rights, but this is low even for them. Desperate for an angle to oppose the extension of minimum wage rights to disabled workers, National hit on an idea: argue that paying disabled workers the legal minimum is actually bad for […]

No it doesn’t, John

Written By: Tane - Date published: 10:41 am, October 10th, 2007 - 9 comments

Looks like another batch of the infamous John Key posters has gone up all over central Wellington overnight, this time tackling John on privatisation. My spies tell me Wayne Mapp was spotted this morning shaking his head and looking rather unimpressed. Hate to break it to you Wayne, but as one of John Key’s advisers […]

Stuff-up

Written By: Tane - Date published: 2:25 pm, October 9th, 2007 - 2 comments

Anyone else notice this morning that Stuff.co.nz seemed to think it was February 26? Apparently Paul Holmes is going to be on Dancing with the Stars. The Brethren are having a cry about their election fiasco. And Britney is still in rehab.

Working Class Hero

Written By: Tane - Date published: 12:57 pm, October 5th, 2007 - 3 comments

(Via Concerned of Linwood)

Burma protests

Written By: Tane - Date published: 10:10 am, October 5th, 2007 - Comments Off on Burma protests

With the Burmese junta continuing its crackdown on democracy protesters, Amnesty International has organised a Global Day of Action for Burma this Saturday (that’s tomorrow), including protests in Christchurch, Wellington, Dunedin and Palmerston North. Details are: Christchurch: 12:00 – 15:00, Saturday 6 October, Victoria Square (cnr Colombo and Armagh Sts). Wellington: 12:00 – 14:00, Saturday […]

Port strike

Written By: Tane - Date published: 10:33 am, October 3rd, 2007 - 2 comments

In case anyone hasn’t noticed, the Ports of Auckland have been ground to a halt by strike action from 250 members of the Maritime Union. These guys are on as little as $13 an hour and have had their pay negotiations stalled by the company for nearly a year, so you can hardly blame them […]

She just gets worse.

Written By: Tane - Date published: 1:46 pm, October 2nd, 2007 - Comments Off on She just gets worse.

If you thought Herald columnist and shill for big business Fran O’Sullivan couldn’t get any worse, think again. Here she is on Sunday, discussing a Business Council for Sustainable Development report on the health system: There is no evidence that trade-offs, such as people working into their 70s and thus reducing their own health drag […]

Ryall reveals his hollowness on Agenda

Written By: Tane - Date published: 3:54 pm, October 1st, 2007 - 13 comments

all_your_base has already posted on Tony Ryall’s weasel words on yesterday’s Agenda programme, but what struck me about the interview was Ryall’s utter hollowness on policy. Here he is farming out elective surgery to the private sector: GUYON: Okay let’s talk about elective surgery because the Ministry of Health says at the moment the private […]

Burma rally pics

Written By: Tane - Date published: 10:51 am, October 1st, 2007 - Comments Off on Burma rally pics

Some pics from Saturday’s rally for Burmese democracy: More at Auckland’s Burning and Indymedia.

Support the Burmese uprising

Written By: Tane - Date published: 11:52 am, September 28th, 2007 - 1 comment

If you’re in Auckland make sure you get along to tomorrow’s rally supporting the Burmese people in their courageous struggle for democracy. These people are standing unarmed against a vicious dictatorship that has a history of massacring its own people – the least we can do is stand with them to show our support. When: […]

NDU, SFWU and Unite to form super-union

Written By: Tane - Date published: 2:23 pm, September 26th, 2007 - 9 comments

I was wondering when this was going to break. From Molesworth and Featherston this morning (offline, subscription only): Two private-sector unions are poised to join forces, potentially creating a major new force in industrial relations. Sources say that the Service and Food Workers’ Union and the National Distribution Union reached a heads-of-agreement last week over […]

Double Standards

Written By: Tane - Date published: 12:19 pm, September 26th, 2007 - 1 comment

We’ve had a few emails from readers this week asking whether this website has anything to with the NZ Standard posters that having been turning up around Wellington. Just to set the record straight, while the The Standard shares the anti-Rickards sentiment, the posters are nothing to do with us. In any case, we’d like […]

Support for National on asset sales

Written By: Tane - Date published: 4:50 pm, September 25th, 2007 - 1 comment

Looks like National’s finally got some support for its policy to sell the family silver to pay for tax cuts… from Gordon Copeland. “The partial sale of SOE shares to mum and dad Kiwi investors, combined with ongoing majority ownership and control by the state is right on the money,” said Mr Copeland. “Does it […]

What is this woman doing in Parliament?

Written By: Tane - Date published: 5:00 pm, September 24th, 2007 - 6 comments

Here’s a tip you can take to the bank: if you’re ever worried you’re no good at your job and need some cheering up, you can’t go too far wrong with Heather Roy’s Diary. Of all the dreadful, party-approved pap that streams out of Parliament on a Friday afternoon, Heather’s newsletter is surely the pick […]

Trotter on the Electoral Finance Bill

Written By: Tane - Date published: 7:37 pm, September 22nd, 2007 - 7 comments

For those who haven’t seen it yet, Chris Trotter had a great piece in yesterday’s Dom Post about the Electoral Finance Bill. In it, he takes issue with the narrow legal definition of freedom of expression taken up by the Human Rights commission in its submission on the bill, and in doing so reveals the […]

Question

Written By: Tane - Date published: 11:21 am, September 19th, 2007 - 1 comment

Brian Tamaki’s announcement yesterday that he would be deregistering the Destiny Party raised a number of questions, but there’s one that just keeps bugging me – Why Was Their Press Release Written Entirely In Title Case?

PC still going mad, it would appear

Written By: Tane - Date published: 2:48 pm, September 14th, 2007 - 11 comments

One of John Key’s first rebranding exercises after he took over the National Party was to dump Wayne Mapp from his position as PC Eradicator and try to distance the party from some of the more reactionary rhetoric that had become its stock-in-trade under Don Brash. This makes a lot of sense from National’s perspective, […]

Lockwood Smith, man of the people

Written By: Tane - Date published: 4:50 pm, September 12th, 2007 - 9 comments

Captions welcome. Via nznationalparty on flickr

Unite ends youth rates at McDonalds

Written By: Tane - Date published: 1:11 pm, September 12th, 2007 - Comments Off on Unite ends youth rates at McDonalds

Congratulations to Unite for ending youth rates at McDonalds. Not that you’ll get that story from the media coverage, which gives the impression McDonald’s just decided to give up youth rates to be nice and fails to even mention the role of union campaigns like Supersize My Pay, Youth Rates Suck or Endyouthratesnow. Is it […]

A raw nerve?

Written By: Tane - Date published: 6:22 pm, September 11th, 2007 - 4 comments

Did anyone else see the anti-John Key posters in Wellington yesterday morning? It was every National Party spin doctor’s worst nightmare: a picture of John Key looking rattled and wrinkled, placed on a black background next to the words that will no doubt come to haunt him during the election campaign: “Climate change is a […]

National and climate change

Written By: Tane - Date published: 5:20 pm, September 6th, 2007 - 14 comments

Greenpeace seems strangely surprised at John Key’s statement that George Bush and John Howard are “going in the right direction” on climate change and his refusal to criticise them for not signing up to Kyoto. Here’s Greenpeace executive director Bunny McDiarmid: John Key’s support for John Howard and George Bush’s stance on climate change is […]

Stood up, fought back

Written By: Tane - Date published: 12:04 am, September 4th, 2007 - 1 comment

The National Distribution Union‘s put a together a bit of a clip showing some of the struggles its members have been through over the past year. And what a year it’s been. Faced with a month-long supermarket lockout, an attempt by National to strip them of their work rights, the collapse of Feltex and two […]