bill english
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National Party economics: make $2 billion, spend 5
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 pm, June 29th, 2013 - 89 comments
The National Party are the good economic managers, right? So why are they spending money we don’t actually have yet?
Nats split on food in schools?
Written By: - Date published: 6:40 am, May 29th, 2013 - 87 comments
Does food in schools show up a split in National between the hardline conservatives who would leave kids hungry in the name of parental responsibility, and pragmatists who will swallow a dead rat every now and again in an attempt to stay popular?
When an “accord” is not
Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, May 17th, 2013 - 130 comments
Yesterday’s budget is a sop to affordable housing & aims to privatise state housing. Penny Hulse says the government’s related “housing accord” Bill is at odds with the agreement her council has not yet ratified. It overrides local democracy & endangers the AKL “agreement”. [Update] Waitakere News analysis
English in denial on climate change
Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, March 18th, 2013 - 172 comments
Corin Dann interviewed Bill English very well on climate change and the drought yesterday on Q+A. It was clear that English has his head in the dust. Despite claiming that the government is leading on climate change, English would barely let the ‘cc’ words pass his lips and referred ‘dry cycles’, as if climate change is just temporary, so not really worth worrying about.
English drained Solid
Written By: - Date published: 11:53 am, March 14th, 2013 - 57 comments
Some great work from Labour yesterday as they got the documents showing Bill English being advised about Solid Energy’s predicted lower profits from a lower coal price – and asking for a bigger dividend anyway.
Thinking too small
Written By: - Date published: 8:18 am, March 13th, 2013 - 24 comments
John Armstrong thinks poor Bill English has got it tough with the current drought and its impact on the budget. You’re thinking too small John. Way too small.
Did we just hear Steven Joyce sh*t all over his colleagues?!?!
Written By: - Date published: 3:48 pm, February 1st, 2013 - 93 comments
Reprinted with permission from Frankly Speaking. Three ministers dropped in the Novopay mess by Steven Joyce. Three ministers parroting very similar lines…
Sick
Written By: - Date published: 4:21 pm, January 23rd, 2013 - 90 comments
Bill English’s priority in 2013 will be to “bed in” welfare reforms. Because that’s where the big fiscal savings lie. He’s hoping to cut 44,000 beneficiaries and save $1.6 billion by 2016-17. Which would be fantastic if this was a jobs government focussed on employment growth and those 44,000 were going into decent paying jobs. […]
ImperatorFish: John Key’s Reshuffle Analysed
Written By: - Date published: 1:41 pm, January 23rd, 2013 - 7 comments
The biggest winner is Dr Nick Smith. He returns to Cabinet after his fall from grace last year, and is appointed as Minister for Creating a Perception of Crisis in Order to Justify Savage Cutbacks in Entitlements.
The biggest losers are Kate Wilkinson and Phil Heatley, who have been dropped from Cabinet altogether. Both have failed to perform, and their inability to communicate with the smoothness of someone like Hekia Parata will have counted against them.
Hello everybody! Hi Dr Nick!
Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, January 22nd, 2013 - 39 comments
So Nick Smith is to be returned to cabinet after spending nearly a year on the bench for his ethical flaws. Presumably 10 months on the back benches heals all those desires to abuse your powers to try to help your friends get money.
The dark side
Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, December 16th, 2012 - 75 comments
Fran O’Sullivan & Audrey Young are awestruck by Judith Collins as ruthless Force. FO’S does a fan-girl rave, slipping into fanfic mode.Was the Binnie episode a daring bid to become the next Nat leader? Will English & Joyce respond with callous, socially-destructive manoeuvres?
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.
It’s not the growth that’s grumpy
Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, November 9th, 2012 - 11 comments
The last time unemployment was this high, Bill English was Finance Minister and his government was facing electoral oblivion. I don’t remember his excuses last time but this time he’s taken a different excuse from Key and Joyce. English calls this ‘grumpy growth’. Of course, it’s not growth, it’s the exact opposite. If this is ‘grumpy growth’, I suppose Hurricane Sandy was ‘grumpy sunshine’.
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.
Where are the resignations?
Written By: - Date published: 10:12 am, September 30th, 2012 - 87 comments
John Key refuses to accept any responsibility for what his spies get up to. The only point of democratic responsibility for our spies doesn’t monitor them and won’t take the blame for failing to do so. He won’t fire a corrupt, lying minister, either. The rot is spreading to the public service. There has been not one resignation, not a single one, due to the Dotcom debacle.
Tribunal calls for asset sale delay
Written By: - Date published: 4:30 pm, August 24th, 2012 - 63 comments
Waitangi Tribunal says Government must halt asset sales until Treaty issues sorted, and Tom Scott gives a progress report. National’s wheels are coming off.
Nats lied – power prices to rise
Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, August 15th, 2012 - 36 comments
Minister after Minister denied it, but it turns out that common sense is right. Private power companies charge more. Privatisation surely means that prices will rise. Is it even news when this government lies these days?
The cost of asset sales
Written By: - Date published: 5:29 pm, July 24th, 2012 - 25 comments
Loyalty Scheme: $360 million.
Brokerage Fees: $90 million.
Advertising/PR: $30 million.
Iwi Settlements: $unknown.
Lost Revenue: $100 million/year.
ImperatorFish: Whose Planet Is This?
Written By: - Date published: 3:35 pm, July 23rd, 2012 - 17 comments
Imagine a place with a stagnant economy; led by a government that is anti-growth, doesn’t have any plan, and is not prepared to make the tough decisions needed to ensure the future prosperity of its people; where most people struggle to get ahead; and where those who aspire for better things are probably thinking of leaving.
Bill sez ‘time youse f*ck off’
Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, July 22nd, 2012 - 124 comments
An all-time record 53,900 people left New Zealand for Australia last year. Remember when John Key was going to stop the exodus by closing the wage gap? Yeah, that was a pretty funny joke. Now, here’s the punchline: Bill English now says that it’s a great thing that everyone is leaving for Australia. And the kicker, he wants to attract talent by driving down wages.
What’s Bill smoking?
Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, June 29th, 2012 - 40 comments
We’re getting used to the Nats running bash the beneficiary /poor /Maori /unemployed /criminal /etc distractions but it’s getting pretty bad when Bill English gets in on the act. Weirdly his idea of drug-testing beneficiaries seems to have been picked up from a Daily Show piece on how it failed in Florida – costing money, not saving it, and proving beneficiaries use drugs less than the rest of the population.
Efficient market hypothesis
Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, June 20th, 2012 - 87 comments
Bill English has attacked the MED numbers showing that private electricity companies are 12% more expensive than public ones saying that argument assumes “that hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders are systematically paying more for electricity than they could?”. Um… Has English heard of Powerswitch? That multi-million dollar government campaign is based on exactly that premise.
The Nats’ succession problem
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, June 14th, 2012 - 58 comments
John Key’s days are numbered. His personal popularity is falling. His brand is tied to unpopular asset sales and a pokies for convention centre deal that is now subject to an Auditor-General investigation. He’s not winning the next election. So a change of leader is coming: pre-election or post. But who can succeed him? Parata? Collins? Joyce? They’re all shot.
Retail Deposit Guarantee: When’s the enquiry?
Written By: - Date published: 7:46 am, June 1st, 2012 - 14 comments
Labour are pushing for an enquiry into how Treasury oversight of the Retail Deposit Guarantee Scheme was so poor that it has cost us hundreds of millions of dollars. Bill English can’t be allowed to hide this under the plus Treasury carpet, so his lack of oversight of Treasury isn’t shown up.
English taunts students
Written By: - Date published: 9:58 am, May 26th, 2012 - 65 comments
Taunting the young people who are getting the shitty end of the economic stick – does it get any more arrogant than that?
Stealth taxes
Written By: - Date published: 4:34 pm, May 23rd, 2012 - 8 comments
Bill English has introduced a number of stealth taxes over his time in office, to partly balance the loss his tax cuts for the rich has generated. The latest in this budget will be prescription costs and raising the price of Early Childhood Education (again). We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out if […]
Four years of failed promises
Written By: - Date published: 2:57 pm, May 22nd, 2012 - 22 comments
Labour has published its budget website and a video ripping John Key’s record of broken promises. It’s pretty damning. Yet Key and English want to claim that there’s nothing wrong and growth has been in line with projections. It’s like they’re operating in a parallel universe.
ImperatorFish: Good News On Asteroid Front Shows Government On Track
Written By: - Date published: 6:07 pm, May 21st, 2012 - 1 comment
Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here.
A guest post from the Finance Minister.
Banks has got to go
Written By: - Date published: 6:52 am, April 29th, 2012 - 182 comments
Key should go because of his dirty deal with SkyCity. Joyce too. Collins should go over the ACC leaks. Brownlee for sheer incompetence. English for shit-eating grin every time he fails to meet his own growth forecasts and announces more cuts. Add Banks to the list. His position in now untenable. The accusations are serious and credible. His excuses and memory lapses implausible. He must at least be stood down.
Nats’ economic failures just another excuse for cuts
Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, April 27th, 2012 - 16 comments
Didn’t take much clairvoyance to see that National would fail to meet its promise of a Budget surplus by 2014/15. You’ve never seen a Finance Minister have his forecasts cut so often and look so happy about it. His failure against his own artificial target gives him an excuse to cut. His party’s ineptness to blame but we pay. Students look to be his target this round.
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