Written By: - Date published: 11:22 am, December 18th, 2016 - 85 comments
Stuff this morning: “Lord of the Rings actor says NZ tourists shocked by polluted ‘sewer’ Middle-earth”
Written By: - Date published: 8:44 am, August 12th, 2016 - 95 comments
Is it time for a referendum on marijuana? There is strong support for the use of medicinal marijuana. Should we just admit that Kiwis like smoking dope and simply legalise it?
Written By: - Date published: 12:11 am, May 20th, 2016 - 173 comments
What does it really mean to reduce NZ’s total fossil fuel use by 50% by 2030: a warm up discussion for an upcoming thought experiment.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, January 27th, 2016 - 79 comments
How many more lies will John Key tell today in his so-called State of the Nation address? Virtual chocolate fish to whomever guesses the closest number.
Written By: - Date published: 1:52 pm, January 17th, 2014 - 43 comments
Rob Salmond at Polity on the National Party’s use of public service videos for political ends.
Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, December 16th, 2013 - 77 comments
The NZ government changes to NZ’s screen industry incentives is a mixed bag. Some (not fully developed) support for a sustainable NZ industry. Selling out NZ workers; bowing to Hollywood corporate, neo-colonial values.
Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, October 24th, 2013 - 117 comments
The NZ screen industry is in a precarious state, unable to compete with incentives in other countries to attract the crums from Hollywood productions, impacted by the currency high dollar rate. Innovative ideas needed for an independent NZ industry, linked with public broadcasting TV & online viewing. [Updated: Maori TV & Barry Barclay]
Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, August 6th, 2013 - 103 comments
The world has become a very strange place when NZ is getting lectured by China. Problem is, they aren’t wrong.
Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, July 29th, 2013 - 14 comments
You know it by now, Key, English, and Joyce have said it often enough – National’s formula for the economy is more mining, selling assets, and convention centres. We’re actually making less money from mining now than 5 years ago. Asset sales have been a predictable failure. But we’ve got 3 new convention centres coming, that’ll bring in the international revenue, eh? Nah.
Written By: - Date published: 11:15 am, June 25th, 2013 - 45 comments
Back in 2008, a bright new thing called John Key said that, if he became Prime Minister, he would take the Tourism portfolio. He said “it’s an industry that’s particularly important in maintaining and boosting this country’s employment levels and growth prospects” and “we can do an awful lot better”. International tourism revenue has fallen 20% since 2008.
Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, April 25th, 2013 - 6 comments
A Jackson PR video promoting NZ scenery as a beautiful backdrop for the Hobbit & tourism; a Campbell Live video on a Dannevirke protest against Big Oil exploiting their area; an anti-fracking Canadian team filming in NZ.
Written By: - Date published: 12:14 pm, March 6th, 2013 - 27 comments
To a first approximation the protection of the environment in this country is managed by two distinct entities; inside the Conservation estate it falls to DoC and outside of that it falls onto the Regional Councils. Under this government both are being slowly dismantled. Over the last month I’ve had the opportunity to talk extensively with DoC […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, January 14th, 2013 - 55 comments
After four weeks holiday in Hawaii, John Key will briefly land in New Zealand this week before popping off on a junket to Antarctica. Now, you won’t hear a lot about this in the media – because half the press gallery is going with him and they’re just excited to go to Antarctica – but there’s all kinds of buzz coming out of the public service about how and why Key set up this trip.
Written By: - Date published: 8:10 am, January 13th, 2013 - 102 comments
Michael Field on Stuff, responds to a question he attributes to “Labour Party blog, The Standard” about our Minister of Tourism spending most of his holidays in Hawaii and fails to answer the question he cites. Field diverts to past PMs, ignores all Clark’s NZ holidays, and champions “Kiwi” Muldoon.
Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, January 9th, 2013 - 70 comments
Like here, Queensland’s tourism industry is hurting. Like ours, Queensland’s Tourism Minister thought it would be a good idea to holiday in a foreign tropical resort instead of supporting her local industry. But, there, the main newspaper responded with a devastating “where the bloody hell are you” attack that could sink her career. Here, not so much.
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, December 5th, 2012 - 15 comments
A rather secretive bid in Central Otago/Westland for what amounts to a toll road cutting through a National Park. As with the as-yet-undecided tunnel and monorail proposals, this raises the question of whether Zealand is moving in the direction of selling its most public and protected land to private developers, for their private profit-generating schemes. It will have meetings to brief as many “key stakeholders” with a “significant interest” but will include “no public meetings”.
Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, November 27th, 2012 - 103 comments
Today The Hobbit employment dispute is revived, exposing gaps between principle and practice. Jackson defends his role; some of Labour’s ABC club will attend the premier; John Key-speak weaves a contradictory path of populist nonsense, linking the movie, 100%Pure, 100% Middle-earth and Macdonald’s.
Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, November 26th, 2012 - 50 comments
Reprinted with permission from Local Bodies. See also the anonymous editorial in The Herald today – written no doubt by some genius who has never even looked at Dr Joy’s data, let alone understood its implications.
Written By: - Date published: 11:47 am, November 20th, 2012 - 57 comments
John Key is steaming ahead in selling NZ. He is Obama’s wing-man to extend the TPP into the Asia-Pacific region. Meanwhile, the “Hobbit Law” is taking a heavy toll on many NZ actors. And there are claims that the Hobbit production has been harming animals.
Written By: - Date published: 8:21 am, November 11th, 2012 - 56 comments
John Key’s selling out of NZ workers’ rights, tourism industry and identity to Hollywood, the TPP and US corporates, has reached a new low. OIA papers reveal the extent to which Warners is dictating the NZ government’s promotion of 100% Middle-earth.
Written By: - Date published: 9:14 am, November 3rd, 2012 - 173 comments
The UK’s biggest daily newspaper’s lead about Britain’s favourite son today:
Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, October 29th, 2012 - 22 comments
Gillard’s ‘Asian Century’ white paper, and negotiations of the ASEAN trade agreement (RCEP) are significant developments in US-China struggle for dominance in the region. Aussie wants to be a major player. How should NZ respond?
Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, October 11th, 2012 - 18 comments
Why is John Key backing the flagging tourist industry as a major export earner for NZ’s future? His trip to Hollywood was partly about using the Hobbit to promote NZ as a tourist destination. Why is the government so fixated on attracting more US tourists?
Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, October 7th, 2012 - 328 comments
40,000 manufacturing jobs gone in four years. Manufactured exports in free-fall. Tourism revenue collapsing. If that’s not a crisis, what is? Why is the government going to do? Nothing. Nothing. On Q+A, Russel Norman put forward a solid proposal: lower the OCR, new tools to stop housing booms, and quantitative easing to pay for Christchurch […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:59 pm, July 3rd, 2012 - 9 comments
Tim Groser in the NBR: “Our enemies who are internal, will find one cow in one stream and feed it back to environmental activists in the developed world to be used to try to exclude New Zealand’s products and services in the ludicrous belief this will somehow help New Zealand.” Paranoid, much? And don’t you think the polluters are the problem, not the people who fail to hush it up?
Written By: - Date published: 10:13 am, May 11th, 2012 - 45 comments
Minister of Labour Kate Wilkinson seems to be living in an alternative universe, with her comment on Checkpoint yesterday that tea ladies in the adventure tourism industry could be drug tested: “The boss might be tested, it could be his turn or it could be the tea lady.” We’ll take it as a given that Kate assumes the boss […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:25 am, April 19th, 2012 - 77 comments
Back before John Key’s political nous deserted him (circa mid-November 2011), he would have run a mile from the dirty pokies deal with SkyCity. Instead, he’s claiming the dirty deal as his own and SkyCity’s chairman bragging about his access to Nat ministers. All to build a useless convention centre that will demand ongoing subsidies. Not worth the political capital.
Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, January 31st, 2012 - 28 comments
Written By: - Date published: 10:42 am, August 22nd, 2011 - 75 comments
The Greens want to charge 10 cents per tonne of water used by farmers. Use the revenue to restore our rivers and lakes. Even Actoid types can support this: internalise externalities, use price mechanisms to encourage efficient use of resources. Naturally, the farmers don’t want to pay. Funny how ‘wealth creators’ never want to pay their fair share.
Written By: - Date published: 6:29 pm, August 1st, 2011 - 165 comments
Remember John Key’s awful Letterman appearance? Supposedly worth a fortune in tourism. We know that was complete crap. It was a stunt meant to impress us saps. Now we learn that we paid for it. PM’s office pleaded for months to get on Letterman. Try-hard even sent a demo tape. When that didn’t work, they paid a US PR agency $10K to seal the deal.
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