privatisation
Categories under privatisation
I don’t think so
Written By: - Date published: 12:52 pm, August 2nd, 2009 - 8 comments
National and Act getting ready to sell our assets. Don McGlashan, joining Phil Twyfords ‘Not Yours To Sell’ campaign, says ‘I don’t think so’. Incidentally, Phil’s campaign is hosted on issues.co.nz, a new website for groups of all political websites to run campaigns on. SAFE, the SPCA, and the Pork Industry Board all have campaigns […]
Productive editorial
Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, July 27th, 2009 - 29 comments
Interesting editorial on National’s new Productivity Taskforce in Saturday’s Herald. Australia’s Productivity Commission (independent, highly successful, and enjoying cross-party support) could have served as a good model, but: That possibility was ditched with the appointment of Dr Brash, whose excellent credentials as a former Reserve Bank Governor are compromised by his political partisanship. This will […]
Dark visions
Written By: - Date published: 9:53 am, July 26th, 2009 - 29 comments
I still get the chills some times remembering how close the Left came to losing the 2005 election. If it hadn’t been for Brash being caught out in his lies over links with the Exclusive Brethren’s smear campaign, National might just have squeaked the win. The Hollow Men would have been in charge. Wholesale privatisation, […]
Coated in privatisation pixie dust
Written By: - Date published: 5:13 pm, July 25th, 2009 - 29 comments
I like Colin Espiner’s writing. He’s got he best of the journo blogs. He’s focussed on issues rather than politicking. But does he ever drop some clangers – saying the Chief Justice could be fired, confusing numbers on the dole with the number who are unemployed, saying the Prime Minister can’t affect wages, and this: […]
Back to the future: electricity privatisation
Written By: - Date published: 2:12 pm, July 25th, 2009 - 89 comments
Bill English says he doesn’t much care whether monopolies or businesses with monopolistic power are owned by private companies or the Government does. He doesn’t care whether power companies are publicly or privately owned because he thinks he can make the electricity sector competitive. He’s dreaming like he was in the 1990s. Monopolies are a fact of life […]
This is the secret agenda
Written By: - Date published: 10:13 pm, July 23rd, 2009 - 28 comments
Remember the mantra about John Key being a centrist? Doesn’t get much play nowadays does it? And it shouldn’t. Not with the government cutting spending while unemployment rises, dragging Brash and Rankin back from the grave, spending large on private schools, contracting out public services, tax cuts for the rich and the snouts-in-troughs sham that […]
Says it all really
Written By: - Date published: 3:21 pm, July 22nd, 2009 - 37 comments
You pricks decided what you were going to do and you’re not listening to me or anybody else. . . You people are not even interested in the people who are going to be living within the environment of a privatised prison. I actually hold you in f. . .king contempt From the select committee […]
Wee gripes: private=efficient
Written By: - Date published: 10:01 am, July 21st, 2009 - 54 comments
Can Treasury Secretary John Whitehead explain how paying profit-making companies to do what is already being done by non-profit-making departments will save money? Of course not. If there are efficiencies to be made by all means make them. Doesn’t need some company sucking off profit to do that. We know what happens when you get […]
Gordon Campbell on PPPs
Written By: - Date published: 5:40 pm, July 15th, 2009 - 15 comments
Gordon Campbell has a great piece up at Scoop on the pitfalls of Public Private Partnerships, something we’re going to be hearing a lot more about in the near future if National and its business mates get their way. Go have a read.
Not Yours To Sell
Written By: - Date published: 8:11 pm, July 11th, 2009 - 26 comments
Labour MP Phil Twyford is launching a campaign around his bill to protect Auckland’s community assets. www.notyourstosell.co.nz Phil Twyford’s private members bill, the Local Government (Protection of Auckland Assets) Amendment Bill, was pulled from the ballot last week. It will force a referendum before any of Auckland’s public assets are sold off. Criticism from the […]
Privatising the high country
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, July 8th, 2009 - 29 comments
According to Forest and Bird, John Key’s government has found a nice quiet way of hocking off New Zealand’s most prized assets to wealthy private interests. National has indicated radical changes to tenure review – that’s the process South Island high country leaseholders can use to privatise parts of the farm in exchange for returning […]
Rodneytactics, Rogernomics and dog-whistle DonKey
Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, May 18th, 2009 - 26 comments
The tactics used by Rodney Hide to ram through the Auckland SuperCity legislation without reference to a select committee or referendum should not surprise anyone. Rodney’s just a puppet – the master is the man who sits behind him in Parliament and beside him in the ACT caucus – the Honourable Sir Roger Douglas. Douglas […]
Submit!
Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, April 2nd, 2009 - 1 comment
From No Right Turn. The Law and Order Committee has called for submissions on the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Bill. Two copies, by Friday, 22 May 2009, to: Law and Order Committee Secretariat Parliament Buildings Wellington The bill would allow prisons to be privately managed. In the process, it would remove private prisons […]
Jonathan Coleman on TVNZ
Written By: - Date published: 1:20 pm, March 17th, 2009 - 42 comments
Jonathan Coleman on TVNZ. Parliament, 10 May 2007. Dr Jonathan Coleman When the Minister says that the Government is committed to the core objective of building national identity and will do so through television, does he not realise that New Zealanders do not want to be told by the Government what their identity is, and […]
90 axed at TVNZ
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, March 16th, 2009 - 56 comments
In what’s turning out to be the gift that just keeps on giving for National, the Recession Bogeyman is now being blamed for a need to axe 90 staff from TVNZ. The Minister for Broadcasting reckons the cuts are necessary to make sure TVNZ keeps returing a fat dividend, even in these extraordinary times, even […]
See no evil
Written By: - Date published: 12:33 pm, March 14th, 2009 - 2 comments
I’ve been meaning to write something about the private prisons bill for a couple of days as it’s a recipe for barbarity. But I’ve decided there’s no way I could do a better job of it than I/S has at No Right Turn, so I’m just going to repeat his whole post here. (hopefully he […]
Cutting through the spin on ACC
Written By: - Date published: 6:30 am, March 13th, 2009 - 37 comments
We’ve heard a lot of panicky comments in the last few weeks about a ‘cost blowout’ at ACC. We’re told there is $22 billion in liabilities with $12 billion unfunded. That sounds bad, but what does it actually mean and what’s really happened? ACC used to be a ‘pay-as-you-go’ scheme. No money was put aside […]
Experts: National lying over ACC
Written By: - Date published: 11:27 am, March 12th, 2009 - 46 comments
The wheels are starting to come off National’s PR campaign to undermine ACC as more and more people notice the gap between their spin and the reality. This morning’s Dom Post has an interesting article [offline*] where the managing director of actuaries Eriksen & Associates refutes Nick Smith’s lies about the “cost blowout” and the […]
Sensible Sentencing Trust and GEO Group, a deafening silence
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, March 11th, 2009 - 33 comments
Yesterday Tane did an excellent post speculating on links between the Sensible Sentencing Trust and GEO Group. GEO Group derived from the notorious Wackenhut Corrections and it now wants to run privately run and publically funded prisons in NZ. In the US, the GEO Group supports organizations preaching almost exactly the messages as the SST […]
Shafted
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, March 11th, 2009 - 17 comments
This is good. Here’s what ACC’s ads might look like once National’s had its way with it: [Hat tip: Clarke in the comments]
What they’re hiding
Written By: - Date published: 6:24 am, March 11th, 2009 - 41 comments
Interesting to see that the new ACC board chairman, John Judge, is an alumnus/affiliate member of the Business Roundtable. That’s the same Business Roundtable that has consistently said that: “the introduction of a state monopoly, no-fault accident compensation scheme in New Zealand had been a huge mistake” and argued “for the introduction of choice and […]
Private prisons and the ‘tough on crime’ lobby
Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, March 10th, 2009 - 31 comments
One of the features of a privatised prison system is the potential for corruption of the political process by the commercial interests of private prison operators. Thanks to Tom in the comments it’s come to light that GEO Group, the company formerly known as Wackenhut and main contendor for National’s privatised prisons, has funded ‘tough […]
Centrist? Bullshit.
Written By: - Date published: 7:39 am, March 9th, 2009 - 90 comments
The Herald has the scoop that National is looking to privatise New Zealand’s prison system. Add David Garrett’s savage three strikes law and you’ve got a real money spinner. But what lucky firm will get to cash in on it? Turns out it’s Geo Group. You might not be familiar with the name but that’s […]
NRT on National’s ACC antics
Written By: - Date published: 4:30 pm, March 4th, 2009 - 15 comments
I’ve been meaning to write something about National’s attempts to beat up ACC’s costs in order to soften the ground for privatisation (see Farrar’s latest post here as an example), but No Right Turn captures it perfectly: During the election campaign, National attempted to minimise concerns that it would privatise ACC, saying merely that it […]
Sold out
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, February 16th, 2009 - 26 comments
According to the Dom Post Judith Collins is preparing legislation to reintroduce private prisons into New Zealand’s corrections system. The arguments against privatisation are manifold and many of them have been covered at The Standard before. Bottom line for me is that the right to take an individual citzen’s liberty comes from a compact between […]
Left to the market
Written By: - Date published: 2:10 pm, February 12th, 2009 - 34 comments
Two Pennsylvania Judges have been accused of taking bribes from private prison operators to ensure a reliable stream of prisoners. To quote Associated Press: In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately […]
Merry Christmas from National
Written By: - Date published: 3:17 pm, December 17th, 2008 - 28 comments
National’s decides to hit workers in the pocket: ACC Minister Nick Smith yesterday said levies would increase from $1.40 to $1.70 for every $100 earned from next April. The employer and self-employed levy would rise from $1.26 to $1.31. Recommendations by officials to increase motor vehicles levies and lift registration fees by $50 would not […]
Laying the foundations
Written By: - Date published: 4:33 pm, December 3rd, 2008 - 46 comments
Let’s not fool ourselves that what we’ve seen from National over the last 24 hours on to the shortfall in the ACC non-earners account hasn’t been carefully managed in a way to lay the foundation for their arguments in favour of privatising the scheme. I won’t go into a lot of detail around their motives, […]
A smoke-screen for the privatisation brigade
Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, December 3rd, 2008 - 21 comments
Now that didn’t take long. Well rehearsed from the 1990s, National has already started using the privileged position of government to conjure up bogeymen to get their unpopular privatisation agenda past the public. John Key called an urgent press conference yesterday to beat-up a $1b shortfall in ACC funding. ‘OMG, this ACC thing is out […]
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