national/act government

Categories under national/act government

DPMC: The “Key” to increasing the PM’s power

Written By: - Date published: 9:28 am, February 3rd, 2010 - 14 comments

Last October I posted on National’s plan to fold the State Services Commission into the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Yesterday, Labour’s Grant Robertson revived the rumour. And since then Government pollster David Farrar has spent much of his energy reserves vigorously defending any transfer of power that may occur. But we should watch closely to […]

Year of the wolf?

Written By: - Date published: 3:55 pm, January 27th, 2010 - 115 comments

I really thought the rumour that the minimum wage would only rise by 25c had been put out by the government to make their eventual 50c or 75c decision look generous. But for a change they’ve surprised me. This is the first time in a decade the minimum wage has been cut in real terms. […]

Key admits mistake: Tolley and Groser shuffled out

Written By: - Date published: 6:51 pm, January 26th, 2010 - 44 comments

Today John Key admitted his mistake in two Ministerial portfolio appointments, as two long overdue changes were announced. 1) Chopper Tolley has rightfully been shuffled out of the Tertiary Education portfolio, which goes to Steven Joyce. Tolley’s record has been appalling, most infamously taking a chopper ride to get a “helicopter view” of the AUT […]

Campbell and Hooton on do nothing Key

Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, January 26th, 2010 - 23 comments

I can’t work out how to embed audio alone, so here’s a YouTube of Andrew Campbell and Matthew Hooton on the Key Government. Both agree that this government has done little and doesn’t appear to have a plan. Campbell sums up Key’s record: “The NDU yesterday issued a challenge to the Government to do a […]

250,000 jobless and counting

Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, January 25th, 2010 - 28 comments

Key committed to [insert your priority here]

Written By: - Date published: 1:57 pm, January 23rd, 2010 - 31 comments

Last week: “Prime Minister John Key said the Government’s major theme in 2010 would be improving New Zealand’s economy” Today: “He said his almost exclusive focus this year was to improve educational standards in the country” Next week: An unrelenting focus on whatever you want him to pretend to care about today I guess he can […]

Cowardly

Written By: - Date published: 1:05 pm, January 23rd, 2010 - 25 comments

This is how Health Minister Tony Ryall announced the Government would be appealing the court decision to try to get out of paying people for caring for disabled children:  – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Better support for family caregivers recommended Press […]

Tax reform: tax cuts for rich, paid for by poor

Written By: - Date published: 3:09 pm, January 20th, 2010 - 135 comments

The Tax Working Group has given its recommendations for tax reform to the Government. It predictably recommends: Dropping the tax income tax rates to 30% in line with the corporate tax rate. Dropping the corporate tax rate (and presumably the top income tax rate) further in the future. Paying for this with 15% GST, a land […]

Another benefit beat-up

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, January 20th, 2010 - 24 comments

The Key Government’s anti-beneficiary campaign continues. The latest is a beat-up on long-term beneficiaries. Apparently, 9 people have been on the dole for longer than 20 years, 14 for 15-20 years, and 181 for 10-15 years. ‘Bludgers!’ we’re meant to cry ‘Bludgers!’ But let’s actually think with our brains rather than our jerking knees. This […]

Minimum wage increase, what will it be?

Written By: - Date published: 8:21 am, January 19th, 2010 - 22 comments

John Key has ruled out a $2.50 an hour pay increase for New Zealand’s lowest paid workers but won’t give any indication of what increase he does think is right. He claims that an increase to $15 an hour would cost jobs. I would love to see the advice he got on that. Anyhow, Employers […]

Say what?

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, January 18th, 2010 - 12 comments

Statements made in Parliament last year, in chronological order: Hon BILL ENGLISH: They have been telling us that we should copy the Australian fiscal stimulus, when Australia’s unemployment rate is close to 6%—whereas our fiscal stimulus has kept our unemployment rate down to 5%. So which one is it: copy Australia’s plan and force the […]

NZ closes the gap with Aussie

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, January 15th, 2010 - 21 comments

Well, I didn’t think it could done but it has been. National has been promising to close the gap with Australia, and damned if it hasn’t happened already. The Nats’ target was 2025, it didn’t even take a year. In fact, we’re now above Australia and accelerating away while they fall. Unfortunately, it’s the wrong […]

Bye bye independent foreign policy

Written By: - Date published: 2:37 pm, January 13th, 2010 - 24 comments

Crime rises, Nats’ get tough policies have no effect

Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, January 13th, 2010 - 62 comments

You might recall that a bit over a year ago a salesman in a nice suit with a nice smile came and sold us a brighter future. We haven’t seen all that much of that salesman since then but we can remember what he promised to deliver in that ‘brighter future’. We even have the […]

Bully Brownlee forces SOE CEO to withdraw critical blog

Written By: - Date published: 11:26 am, January 12th, 2010 - 55 comments

Powershop is a subsidiary of Meridian Energy, an SOE. It is the most highly rated power retailer by its customers, with 92% satisfaction. On the Powershop website, there’s a blog. On this blog, the CEO of Powershop, Ari Sargent, wrote a post on the Government’s proposed electricity sector reforms. It’s insightful, adroit, politically neutral, and scathing […]

$400 mln xmas gift for banks

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, December 24th, 2009 - 21 comments

The banks, who tried to rip us off to the tune of $2.6 billion, have agreed to pay us $2.2 billion. I don’t get it. We’ve spent tens of millions so far on court cases to get our money. We’ve won every case. The judgments have been damning of the banks. So, why did the IRD agree […]

Climate Direct Action

Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, December 21st, 2009 - 90 comments

Text from John Darroch a couple of minutes ago: hey just hanging ten stories up the mfat building in welly protesting against fonterror 🙂 regarding climate change Nice one John – according to NZPA you’re only four stories up. Hope you get your point across and make it down safely! Great to see some action […]

More jobs for the old “boys”

Written By: - Date published: 1:01 pm, December 19th, 2009 - 17 comments

Back at the start of the month Marty G pointed out that Brash’s useless 2025 Taskforce looked like nothing so much as a pension scheme for retired Tory old boys. Marty wrote: No more jobs for Nats’ old mates So far, we’ve paid $400,000 to employ some rightwing old boys for a crap report that […]

Government barely survives first year

Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, December 19th, 2009 - 39 comments

Audrey Young finally gets around to mentioning how close the government came to imploding last month: Rodney Hide survived moves to oust him as Act Party leader last month after Prime Minister John Key privately indicated National’s deal with Act would be off if the minister were dumped. And it is believed that at the […]

All skite, no substance

Written By: - Date published: 4:51 pm, December 17th, 2009 - 10 comments

A text from a mate: Bill English says “I never thought running a government in a recession would be so easy” Mate, it’s always easy to do f#ck all. Ain’t so easy for the poor at xmas. Can’t help notice that English is also claiming he, not Key, runs the government. Inasmuch as anyone does.

The stamp of democracy

Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, December 17th, 2009 - 120 comments

Another disgraceful Herald editorial recently: Teachers must learn to obey Govt’s orders Three years ago, when the National Party announced its plan to make all primary schools test pupils’ ability in reading, writing and mathematics, teachers were scornful. … The union, in league with the Principals Federation, says the standards are being rushed … Mrs […]

Nats offer Maori flags & baubles, not representation & jobs

Written By: - Date published: 11:13 pm, December 15th, 2009 - 12 comments

NZPA: The Maori Party has withdrawn its support for a government bill after its bid to have Maori members on polytechnic councils failed. The Maori Party put up an amendment which would have ensured that councils had at least three Maori members. The Government didn’t accept the amendment and it was defeated. The Maori Party […]

Nats’ ‘stimulus’: $200K per job

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, December 15th, 2009 - 12 comments

National claims it created 2,300 jobs with its stimulus spending. Of course, most of this supposed stimulus was smoke and mirrors – re-announcing existing spending – and 2,300 is bugger all when there are over quarter of a million Kiwis out of work. But I had a few more problems with this announcement. Firstly, I […]

Dual obligations

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, December 12th, 2009 - 19 comments

The more I ponder the scrapping of the TVNZ charter the dafter it seems. There are obvious downsides. What is the upside? What possible reason could there be to further weaken the already vestigial representation of our own culture on our main free to air TV channel? The only reason I’ve seen given is “dual […]

$100,000 for 10 hours work

Written By: - Date published: 6:28 pm, December 10th, 2009 - 40 comments

No, this post isn’t about the 2025 Taskforce, it’s about Rodney Hide’s round the world holiday with his girlfriend on your dime. Heavily censored official papers reveal that on this 12-day, $100,000 trip (not including the salaries of Hide and the two officials who went with him), Hide spent just 10 hours in meetings on […]

Kill your television

Written By: - Date published: 2:02 pm, December 10th, 2009 - 19 comments

So the Nats have decided to kill public service television broadcasting: TVNZ’s charter is to be repealed in a move commentators say will end its public broadcaster role and turn it into a “cash cow” for the Government. Broadcasting Minister Jonathan Coleman introduced a bill yesterday to repeal the charter, which was created by Labour […]

What is Whanau Ora?

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, December 10th, 2009 - 16 comments

Family Commissioner Jan Pryor says she can’t give a definition of Whanau Ora, Tariana Turia’s pet programme that Pryor’s Commission will be helping to run. What a bunch of utter crap. Saying that she can’t give a definition because she is “a middle class white woman” is totally unacceptable. This isn’t some academic activity, we’re […]

No spark in Nats’ power reforms

Written By: - Date published: 4:34 pm, December 9th, 2009 - 39 comments

A friend just texted: “Brownlee’s power reforms look relatively benign, what’s the catch?” It’s true, Brownlee’s reforms are just minor tinkering. The only thing of note is the needless little kick in the guts for environmentalists by making Meridian take on Whirinaki. And that tells us something. For all National’s bluster in opposition about power […]

Driven to corruption

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, December 9th, 2009 - 43 comments

It turns out I understated the latest National ministers’ rort. Not only were the rules changed to allow ministers to have their taxpayer-funded self-drive cars in Wellington while pretending their primary residence was elsewhere so they could claim the taxpayer-funded out of town accommodation allowance, they already had the cars in Wellington before the rule was changed. […]

Excellent question

Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, December 9th, 2009 - 9 comments

An excellent question from Labour yesterday, using some familiar numbers: Hon Annette King: When he was reusing ‘unreliable, highly volatile, and potentially misleading’ [Paula Bennett’s words] figures yesterday, was he aware that unemployment drops around this time every year and that this year we are experiencing a smaller than usual seasonal drop of just 2.6 percent, […]

Key aids English’s latest rort

Written By: - Date published: 4:42 pm, December 8th, 2009 - 18 comments

Ministers are given self-drive taxpayer-funded cars for official business in their electorates (in Wellington they have crown limos at their disposal for official business). Pretty logically, the cars were always based at the ministers’ primary place of residence because that’s where they would need it. But that presented a problem for Bill ‘Double Dipton’ English. […]

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