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A smart speech from Goff

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:16 am, December 7th, 2010 - 87 comments

Goff has given several excellent policy speeches this year, and the last one was no exception. Squarely targeted at a middle New Zealand that saw little of National’s tax cuts and far more of their job losses and rising prices. Pointing out the obvious, that National has failed to deliver on the economy, and has no viable plan to do so. In short, a great platform for election year.

Cancun: No will to save ourselves

Written By: r0b - Date published: 8:25 am, November 27th, 2010 - 53 comments

On Monday the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference begins in Cancun, Mexico. This is the successor to last year’s spectacularly failed Copenhagen Summit. Nothing useful will be accomplished there. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that we lack the will to save ourselves.

Rod Donald memorial lecture

Written By: r0b - Date published: 11:55 am, November 20th, 2010 - 4 comments

Rod Donald died, so very young, five years ago this month. Tomorrow there is a memorial lecture in Christchurch. Jeanette Fitzsimons will speak on the topic “Democracy is New Zealand: Lost, Stolen or Just Misplaced?”. A timely topic indeed.

Maori seats for Auckland?

Written By: r0b - Date published: 3:10 pm, November 16th, 2010 - 8 comments

National’s handling of the Auckland SuperCity process was profoundly undemocratic in a multitude of ways. Thank goodness, and the common sense of Aucklanders, that a “Labour Mayor from South Auckland” was elected to sort out at least some of the resulting mess. Len Brown has pledged to hold talks on dedicated Maori seats on the Council. It’s great to see that Brown is open to correcting National’s injustice on this matter.

Hard core drunk drivers

Written By: r0b - Date published: 9:01 am, November 15th, 2010 - 32 comments

The Key government doesn’t want to act on advice that would reduce deaths due to drunk drivers. The latest tactic is an attempt to divert attention to the worst “hard core” offenders. This is “ambulance at the bottom of the cliff” foolishness. Why wait until we have problem drunk drivers and then try and pick up the pieces? Wouldn’t it be better to try and prevent people from becoming problem drivers in the first place?

Heroes: Aung San Suu Kyi

Written By: r0b - Date published: 9:01 am, November 14th, 2010 - 9 comments

Aung San Suu Kyi is a Burmese opposition politician. In 1990 her National League for Democracy won the general election, electing her Prime Minister. The results were “nullified”, and the military refused to hand over power. Despite being under house arrest for most of the subsequent years, Aung San Suu Kyi has remained a symbol and a leader for her people. She has just been released…

Housing occupation not a stunt

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:22 am, November 11th, 2010 - 116 comments

Matt McCarten and his team took over a vacant state house in Mana to install a young couple who were previously living in a garage. Four supporters were soon arrested. The media are calling this action a “stunt”. To do so is to diminish the significance of the issue to which it was drawing attention. Call it a protest. People are living in squalor while state houses sit empty. Why?

Neoliberal dominoes

Written By: r0b - Date published: 9:55 am, November 6th, 2010 - 51 comments

According to some, the very definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. In economic terms the world, and NZ, have been doing the same neoliberal economic agenda over and over for the last 30 years. It hasn’t worked. It’s time for a change…

At least Barbara Castle had some guts

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 9:07 pm, October 28th, 2010 - 11 comments

Wellington’s Embassy theatre hosted the New Zealand premiere of the Ring movies a few years ago. There’s another good movie showing there now. It comes from the producer of “Calendar Girls” and is called “Made in Dagenham”. It tells the story of women sewing machinists who went on strike for equal pay at England’s largest […]

Matt McCarten standing in Mana

Written By: r0b - Date published: 2:07 pm, October 27th, 2010 - 96 comments

Matt McCarten is chucking his hat into the ring for the Mana by election. This is a typically gutsy move by McCarten, but a third candidate on the left simply isn’t going to find the space for a win. My guess is that he will split the Green vote. But with Key quietly campaigning in Mana, Labour needs to stay on top of their game. Labour activists — with greetings and thanks to you all — get out there and give it all you have!…

Discontent within National

Written By: r0b - Date published: 1:14 pm, October 18th, 2010 - 25 comments

The Sunday Star Times had an interesting piece quoting a National MP on growing discontent within the party. Discontent at the public perception of National as a “one man band”, and the way that the party has been reduced to “The John Key Show”. With National’s failure on the economy growing ever more evident, is the power of brand Key enough to carry the Nats to a win in 2011?

Conference roundup

Written By: r0b - Date published: 8:32 am, October 18th, 2010 - 32 comments

Labour’s conference in the weekend seems to have gone well, and been well received by the media. Here’s a roundup of headlines and comment.

Child friendly

Written By: r0b - Date published: 8:17 am, October 17th, 2010 - 58 comments

The Labour conference this weekend is expected to release new “policy directions”. One of them is out already — and it’s good. What could make more sense than putting children first?

Republic now!

Written By: r0b - Date published: 11:31 am, October 16th, 2010 - 34 comments

Labour have pushed “the republic debate” firmly into the spotlight. This is smart thinking. It’s a clear, logical policy with broad popular appeal. It positions Labour as leaders, nation builders, on an issue where Key and the Nats have painted themselves into a conservative corner.

A PM but not a leader

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:17 am, October 13th, 2010 - 92 comments

New Zealand is small country, far from anywhere, always on the edge of irrelevance. To continue our proud heritage of principled and effective international contributions, to hold our heads up high on the world stage, New Zealand needs a leader. But all we have is a PM.

Next time, could we have a PM that looks and sounds a bit more like a PM?

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 8:40 am, October 11th, 2010 - 37 comments

Here’s John Key this morning on Breakfast, talking about Paul Henry’s resignation. Naturally he’s eager to downplay the influence of Kiwi-Indian business and diplomatic interests, and to deny any government involvement in the decision. The most revealing part of the interview is when Key stammers: “I have not spoke [sic] to Paul Henry” Key says […]

The leadership vacuum

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:32 pm, October 5th, 2010 - 41 comments

Paul Henry has a racist rant to the Prime Minister and what does John Key do? He laughs along and tries to make a joke. A PM that is afraid to be a leader. A Leader of the Opposition who is afraid of ticking off racists. A Green Party that is afraid of making a claim for the Left vote when Labour fails. Come back, Helen, all is forgiven.

Caption Contest

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 10:58 am, September 30th, 2010 - 39 comments

“The Cabinet Manual clearly states that Ministers are responsible to me for their ethical behaviour, not for their judgment.” “Mr Hide has carried out his affairs in a personal and private capacity to a high ethical standard.” John Key, 22 Sep 2010

Caption Contest

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 11:48 am, September 23rd, 2010 - 31 comments

“All I can say is that in the 22 months that Mr Hide has been a minister in my Government he’s shown very good judgement and he has my full support.” John Key, 17 Sep 2010

Tashkoff: Hide lied to ACT Board about Garrett

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 4:08 pm, September 17th, 2010 - 83 comments

According to ACT’s Peter Tashkoff, Rodney Hide misled the ACT Party Board by hiding his knowledge of David Garrett’s passport dishonesty offence. So here we have a party leader who couldn’t see the problem with accepting someone who’d committed such a distasteful crime becoming not only an MP, but ACT’s Law and Order spokesman, and so […]

Caption Competition

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 6:28 pm, September 7th, 2010 - 41 comments

Yesterday Mr Key said he would leave for London to visit the Queen, only if he “could be confident Christchurch’s recovery was on track”, and appointed Big Jezza to oversee the Government’s Christchurch earthquake response. Today Key announced he won’t be leaving any time soon.

One of these things is not like the other XI

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 4:25 pm, August 18th, 2010 - 18 comments

One of these things is not like 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?

Up for the challenge

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 11:05 am, August 15th, 2010 - 57 comments

The Herald is carrying this piece by Phil Goff – I’m sure Phil won’t mind if we reproduce it here. If you have any constructive suggestions or comments for Phil, make them below. I’ll collate them and email them to him on our behalf.

Small-minded leadership hurts us all

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:56 am, August 11th, 2010 - 22 comments

So disappointing to see that the Auckland Regional Council didn’t even bother to respond to an offer by the designer of a personal rapid transport system to use his design to solve the woeful public transport from Auckland airport to the city. This kind of small mindedness is endemic throughout government, especially with the Nats in charge.

Who’d be an MP?

Written By: r0b - Date published: 7:14 am, July 13th, 2010 - 12 comments

Who’d be an MP? In many ways it’s a dog of a job, and the prospect of really “making a difference” seems remote. Politics seems to bring out the worst in people, and too many politicians have earned the low esteem in which they are held by the public. But despite all this, some people are drawn to politics for all the right reasons. Good on you all. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

Should’ve done it before, John

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 2:59 pm, July 9th, 2010 - 44 comments

It seems John Key is now belatedly wading in to look at whether it’s at last time to cut Andy Haden loose as a Rugby World Cup Ambassador. Apparently it was ok for Haden to talk about “darkie quotas” in the Crusaders and still remain a PR face of our nation, but now Haden has […]

The ETS is a price signal

Written By: r0b - Date published: 9:15 am, June 25th, 2010 - 44 comments

The point of an ETS isn’t to just blindly pay more, it is to change our behaviour so that we don’t have to. National don’t get it, so they have brought us the worst of all possible ETS schemes. Badly designed and devoid of vision. An ETS with all of the costs and none of the benefits.

Edwards: Goff totally loses the plot

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 7:51 am, June 24th, 2010 - 125 comments

A government whose raison d’etre is furthering corporate interests can be pretty damned incompetent and still do okay, because corporate msm do the PR for them. And in return for this government favouring corporate interests over all else we’ve seen countless examples of NACT committing howling errors of judgement, if not outright illegalities, only to […]

I’m not sorry

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 8:23 am, June 22nd, 2010 - 48 comments

I’m not sorry about Russel Norman standing up to Chinese imperialism, I’m proud that he did. While I don’t personally have a lot of time for Norman, I very much respect his willingness to behave like an actual representative of the New Zealand people and voice his opposition to the immoral Chinese occupation and subjugation of […]

One of these things is not like the other X

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 2:45 pm, May 31st, 2010 - 18 comments

One of these things is not like 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?

Haden stays, McCully seeking 7ft carpet

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 10:02 am, May 31st, 2010 - 25 comments

It seems former All Black Andy Haden will keep his job as Rugby World Cup Ambassador after having apologized and withdrawn his allegations that the Canterbury Crusaders have a limit on the number of Polynesian players they recruit. Fair enough, perhaps. But Murray McCully’s decision to not “shoot” Hayden on the grounds that if he […]