bill english

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He’s good where he is, thanks

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:19 am, October 1st, 2009 - 42 comments

Around the media, they’re talking about the growing odds English will be sacked. The other day, my mate Marty asked ‘who would replace Bill?’ and I said Key should show him the door. I’ve changed my mind. The corrupt prick’s clearly set up his finances to scam the max out of the public. He tried to get away with […]

Johnnie’s Boys

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 10:39 am, September 30th, 2009 - 6 comments

subversifpoet sent us this song about our corrupt government:

Poor Bill

Written By: r0b - Date published: 8:34 am, September 30th, 2009 - 33 comments

Bill English is teetering on the edge. National spinners are claiming that he has done what is needed to “close the issue down”. Labour are going to keep pushing. National’s next step will be to run a “poor Bill” defence. “Poor Bill has paid it back, what more can he do?”, “Poor Bill was just […]

Talk about politics

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 8:47 pm, September 29th, 2009 - 28 comments

RNZ’s Kathryn Ryan talks to Matthew Hooton and Andrew Campbell about the failures of Key’s trip to NYC, English’s terminal status and contenders to replace him, and Green leadership. Hooton’s dispirited ‘defences’ of Key and English speak volumes. From yesterday but still relevant for a while yet.

Who would replace Bill?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:49 am, September 29th, 2009 - 35 comments

There’s a grim irony to Bill English’s career. Despite being regarded as competent and having a Cullen-like role as the heavy-lifter in this government, he has also been at the centre of the worst National screw-ups of the last decade. As Minister of Revenue, he was heavily involved in the sale of Wellington Airport, which […]

No remorse from English

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 8:43 am, September 29th, 2009 - 14 comments

Last night I posted on Bill English’s attempt to shift blame by claiming the system had failed him, and argued that he wasn’t at all sorry for rorting us, only that he got caught. Dude keeps digging in today’s Herald. Talking about the Colmar Brunton poll showing 2 to 1 public disapproval, English made it […]

English: ‘the system failed me’

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 5:23 pm, September 28th, 2009 - 20 comments

Just noticed this comment from Bill English on the topic of his housing allowance scam: “At all times my decisions have been driven by my desire to keep my family together and provide them with as much stability as possible. It’s now clear that the system has struggled to deal with my circumstances.” The arrogance […]

English admits he’s been rorting us

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:58 pm, September 28th, 2009 - 27 comments

Bill English has now paid back all the money he rorted from the taxpayer via the ministerial housing allowance during this term of Parliament. Of course, he continues to plead innocence but his actions amount to an admission of culpability and all the other facts tell us he purposely set out to rip us off. […]

Legal vs. Moral

Written By: r0b - Date published: 8:48 am, September 28th, 2009 - 66 comments

There’s an old lawyer joke: “When the facts are on your side, bang the facts. When the law’s on your side, bang the law. When you’ve got neither, bang the table”. National have a similar tactic, of banging on legal vs. moral tests as it suits them. When sacking Richard Worth, Key was at great […]

Pay freeze would cause long-term damage

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 5:38 am, September 28th, 2009 - 27 comments

While filling his own pockets with our money, Bill ‘Double Dipton’ English is threatening public sevants with a five-year pay freeze – with inflation, that’s a 10% pay cut. The government can afford to give its workers small cost of living adjustments – the cost is relatively trivial. Parliament workers recently rejected an offer that […]

‘If it happened in Zimbabwe, we would call it corruption’

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 5:30 pm, September 27th, 2009 - 19 comments

Trev on the money laundering bill. Has a go at a certain Bill who has been laundering a lot of our money. Very good:

Billalice in Wonderwelly

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 8:04 am, September 27th, 2009 - 4 comments

Things must be getting decidedly trippy for Deputy PM Bill English about now, and not in a good way. While his glorious leader is off overseas playing the Jester Statesman, back home Bill’s future is looking gloomier by the day. With the Auditor General looking into English‘s Krishna-like claims of being able to exist in […]

Armstrong takes on Double Dipton

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 2:19 pm, September 26th, 2009 - 5 comments

John Armstrong joins the list of commentators saying Bill English shouldn’t get a cent for his housing rort: The time has come for Bill “Double Dipton” English to end the charade. Now, being Armstrong, the reasons aren’t principled, it’s all about limiting the damage to National: The possibility of the watchdog of public spending investigating the Minister […]

Curiouser and curiouser

Written By: John A - Date published: 12:21 pm, September 25th, 2009 - 4 comments

It’s not just Bill English that’s twisting in the wind over the rearrangement of his affairs to provide a pecuniary benefit to his family. Here is a copy (PDF link) of the Parliamentary Services email tabled in the House by Pete Hodgson this week. It shows that: Parliamentary Services was requested to take a lease […]

Stupid hypocritical ACE cuts

Written By: r0b - Date published: 11:16 am, September 25th, 2009 - 8 comments

Night classes – Adult and Community Education (ACE). An incredibly cost effective and valuable part of the NZ education sector for decades. The ACE budget has been eviscerated by National, cut from $16m to $3m. Effectively a death blow, most of the infrastructure and expertise will go. Right from the start reaction has been strong […]

John and Bill cost us $7 million in two months

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 23rd, 2009 - 47 comments

You’ll remember that in the Budget National decided to suspend payments to the Cullen Fund, which is designed to help fund the future cost of superannuation. At the time, John Key and Bill English said we were losing money on the Fund and we couldn’t afford to borrow to put money into it. They compared […]

Billy and the Baroness

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:16 am, September 23rd, 2009 - 10 comments

In an extraordinary coincidence, the Attorney-General in the UK is about to lose her job for pretty much the same rort as Bill English has been pulling here: [Baroness Scotland] receives a £38,280-a-year “night subsistence allowance” widely understood to be for ministers whose primary home is outside London even though she owns a large house […]

Double standards for Double Dipton?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 6:30 am, September 23rd, 2009 - 39 comments

Our readers pointed out some interesting quotes in yesterday’s thread on Bill English’s attempt to bully journalists into silence over his housing allowance rort. Key on why he fired Richard Worth: “The test of whether someone enjoys my confidence is not a legal test and I have never argued that Dr Worth broke any legal test.’ […]

The story Bill English doesn’t want you to see

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:01 am, September 22nd, 2009 - 43 comments

On Wednesday last week, Labour released new information on Bill English’s housing allowance rort. Naturally, the media raised the issues with English. TVOne and TV3 ran stories that night. They weren’t particularly harsh stories. They didn’t really editorialise. They didn’t even say English should give the money back or resign. Later that night, in a fury […]

Bullying the media

Written By: r0b - Date published: 6:21 am, September 22nd, 2009 - 15 comments

National are up to their old tricks again – bullying the media to try and shut down critical comment. This time the culprit is Bill English, lashing out* at those who are covering the story of his ongoing hypocrisy and greed: Radio New Zealand’s political editor reports that Mr English rang journalists from TVNZ and […]

English owes us disclosure

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:27 am, September 21st, 2009 - 13 comments

I’ve posted before on “mainstream” media editorials, their variable quality and the paradox (in this world of blogging) of their anonymity. Every now and then it means that even The Herald can come up with a scorcher. And the Saturday Editorial on Bill English is certainly that. Usually I would try to “add value” (don’t […]

One of these things is not like the other VII

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 2:30 pm, September 20th, 2009 - 39 comments

One of these things is not the other, One of these things is not quite the same… Can you guess which one is not like the other, Can you tell me before I finish the game?

“What else can I do?”, asks Blinky Bill.

Written By: John A - Date published: 8:20 am, September 18th, 2009 - 13 comments

We told him here months ago – acknowledge what everybody knows: that he lives in Wellington with his family, and he should claim the out-of-town allowance when he visits Dipton. That would be the honest thing to do. Bill says there is a perception problem, and he’s right – but the problem is entirely his. […]

Breaking English

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:50 pm, September 17th, 2009 - 41 comments

Bill English is not holding up well to the persistent questions put to him in Parliament about shuffling around his financial appearance to rort the taxpayer by claiming $1000 a week in housing allowances. Today, Bill English was stuttering his way through questions put to him by Pete Hodgson. And English again refused to publicly […]

English’s story disintegrating

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 5:12 am, September 17th, 2009 - 29 comments

Pete Hodgson is continuing to chip away at English’s ministerial allowance story. English looks very uncomfortable as Brownlee and Key cover for him. To my mind, this is yesterday’s crucial exchange: Hon Pete Hodgson: If the Hon Bill English has no pecuniary interest in his ministerial residence, then how come the email I have here, dated […]

A rort is a rort is a rort

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:00 am, September 8th, 2009 - 48 comments

And by any other name it smells as bad. John Key has annouced a reform of the rules for ministerial accommodation allowance. A fixed, automatic allowance will now be paid to all out of Wellington ministers of $37,500 a year for their Wellington accomodation (or $30,000 if they own the house), slightly less than the highest spending ministers […]

Double bubble trouble

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:56 pm, August 13th, 2009 - 19 comments

It’s a rare day that I agree with Bill English but he’s right about the danger of another housing boom. The last bubble has not deflated yet we are already seeing prices start to grow again. There are now projections of 24% growth housing prices over the next three years, in a period when GDP […]

Unemployment back to English’s ‘realistic’ level

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 5:11 am, August 7th, 2009 - 33 comments

Who said this? “if we continue with National’s policies over the next three years we will be able to create another 115,000 jobs and bring unemployment under 6%. These are realistic targets…Labour’s claim that it can bring the unemployment rate down to 3% is also a hoax” It was Bill English in 1999. Of course, […]

What a coincidence

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 3:00 pm, August 6th, 2009 - 72 comments

So there I was, just a walking down the street, and $47,000 just fell out of the sky in tax free readies, bam, right in to my lap! Like I was Bill English or something! What – that never happened to you? Me neither. We have to work for our money. Actually I guess Bill […]