national/act government

Categories under national/act government

honeymoon (4)

So, where’s the plan?

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 12:42 pm, December 7th, 2009 - 34 comments

The Brash Report was supposed to tell us how to catch up to Aussie, as per Key’s promise. It was just the same old ideas. No real analysis. A radical plan with no evidence it would work. It became, perhaps as always intended, just a PR exercise for National: ‘Look what crazy old Brash wants […]

Govt tries to silence dissent

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:32 am, December 5th, 2009 - 32 comments

The Government, stung by criticism of its inept education policies, is trying to silence teachers. Their plan is to make teachers, principals, and Board of Trustee members subject to the public service code of conduct. The, which currently applies only to people in the core public service (the ones the Right calls bureaucrats) bars people […]

Key is going. Now who pays?

Written By: lprent - Date published: 9:10 am, December 4th, 2009 - 19 comments

So John Key has finally dropped his veils* and is going to Copenhagen. Well, Rob Emmerson correctly predicted how the ineffectual Emissions Trading Scheme amendments by NACT did wind up. Taxpayers pay almost all of the cost, our kids pay even more, and polluters have no incentive to reduce emissions. Now imagine what happens when […]

Need an exemption from the law? Just ask a corrupt Nat

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 7:32 pm, December 2nd, 2009 - 57 comments

Doug Schmuck owns and runs a boatyard in Opua in the Bay of Islands. The boatyard borders a public reserve. Schmuck wants to use that land as a slipway and other uses related to his business. In fact, he is already using the land and has already constructed at least one building that partially sites on the reserve […]

Undoing the trouser button

Written By: r0b - Date published: 12:28 pm, December 1st, 2009 - 9 comments

Recall that last week Speaker Lockwood Smith tried to heavy the press, demanding that they stop doing stories on MP’s expenses or he would do away with the Press Gallery. I suspected at the time that this was a tactical blunder, any hack worth their salt should take that as fighting talk! And it may […]

No more jobs for Nats’ old mates

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:00 am, December 1st, 2009 - 49 comments

Apart from keeping Don Brash well stocked with corned beef in his dotage, what exactly are we getting out of the Government’s half million dollar 2025 Taskforce? The Brash Report is a joke. It reads like nothing so much as a collective ramblings of half a dozen geriatics who haven’t had a new idea in 20 […]

Public rage at govt policies and lies

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:43 pm, November 30th, 2009 - 21 comments

On Nightline just now there was coverage of a meeting held by Nick Smith in St Heliers. Two interesting things: 1) there was an astounding level of anger, even vitriol, against him and the government over the ETS (from both sides of that argument), over the shabby backhander for selected iwi to buy Maori Party […]

Digging for nuggets

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 3:17 pm, November 30th, 2009 - 78 comments

As we predicted, the main recommendations of the Brash report have been rejected out of hand by John Key. They are, as intended, mere headline grabbers – outlandish, silly ideas like flat tax funded by slashing government spending by 20% (that’s $17 billion). Forget relatively minor measures like cutting free early childhood education and putting […]

Shifting the centre

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 8:05 am, November 30th, 2009 - 51 comments

Well the productivity task force is reporting back today and some of their ideas have been forward released. As we expected they are a grab-bag of unpalatable, short-sighted and frankly mad measures from the loony right including putting interest back on student loans, flat tax and means testing free childcare. As the official announcement comes […]

Nats’ backers tire of do-nothing Key

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:31 pm, November 28th, 2009 - 44 comments

Reading Fran O’Sullivan is always interesting because she provides an insight into the thinking of the business elite who fund National, and who expect it to govern for them. A lot of her article today is devoted to calling for radical reforms that obviously aren’t politically viable for Key to do, but one paragraph in particular stood […]

Lockwood threatens the press

Written By: r0b - Date published: 10:03 am, November 28th, 2009 - 19 comments

Lockwood Smith seems to be losing the plot. He’s now issuing open threats to the Press Gallery of all things: Parliament’s Speaker, Lockwood Smith, has warned the media that the coverage of MPs’ expenses borders on lobbying, and if it continues he will treat journalists as lobbyists. … If the newspapers do want to have […]

Why was Worth fired?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 6:33 pm, November 27th, 2009 - 37 comments

The Police have announced they will not be laying any charges against Richard Worth over the incident involving him and a Korean woman in a hotel room. That’s not an exoneration from wrongdoing, of course, but it puts to rest the criminal case. Now, it’s time for John Key to tell us why he […]

Shame on you

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 12:30 pm, November 26th, 2009 - 77 comments

Never in the history of New Zealand politics has so much taxpayers’ money been hurled into the chasm with such contempt for the poor citizens who will pay billions out of their own dwindling pockets forever while rich polluters wreck the earth with impunity and bask in the profits. Never in the history of NZ […]

Brash report tipped to be toxic

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:19 am, November 26th, 2009 - 35 comments

Jenni McManus reports in The Independent [offline]: The first report from the 2025 Taskforce is due on Monday and the word is its recommendations are likely to be toxic to the Government. Taskforce chairman Don Brash this week refused to reveal what it contains but The Independent understands its recommendations are light years away from […]

Rolling maul of disasters

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:47 am, November 26th, 2009 - 28 comments

In case you’re just waking up to it, this government is a disaster zone. If it’s not one or the other of the support parties falling apart, it’s a corrupt minister. If it’s not either of those, it’s a minister behaving bizarrely or a shambolic attempt to pass an awful law over the head of […]

Armstrong on Calamity Nick

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:59 am, November 25th, 2009 - 10 comments

Wrapped in a bit of fluff, John Armstrong has some pretty damning things to say about Nick Smith today: He can be headstrong. He can be unpredictable. He can sometimes be the veritable bull in the china shop. He is prone to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. His cockiness can land him […]

Employers ripping off job ops money

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:02 am, November 25th, 2009 - 3 comments

National has only come up with one employment policy to counter the recession. No, not the cycleway – ‘job ops‘. It works like this: employers get given $5,000 for employing a young person in an entry-level role. To qualify, the must be new and would not exist if the Job Ops subsidy was not available, […]

Lunch time quiz

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 12:05 pm, November 24th, 2009 - 8 comments

1) National MP Paul Quinn is under investigation for breaching the State Services Act and the neutrality of the public service by holding a political meeting in conjunction with a WINZ seminar. John Key is: a) relaxed b) comfortable c) on holiday d) not Helen Clark, at least 2) Key is not going to Copenhagen […]

It’s not spin, the govt told me

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:18 am, November 24th, 2009 - Comments Off on It’s not spin, the govt told me

The Dompost reports: “The number of places available on a programme to get young people off the dole will be increased after the Government credited it with a drop in unemployment”. Sigh, it’s the seasons, stupid. There has been no drop in unemployment, that went up to 6.5% in the last stats. The number of […]

Harawira and Katene to cross the floor?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:15 am, November 24th, 2009 - 14 comments

National wants to get its shambolic ETS through the House this week. It’s not quite clear what the hurry is; there’s no actual reason why it should be passed before the Copenhagen meeting in December, it’s just an artificial deadline that National have set themselves. We already know the ETS will cost taxpayers hundreds […]

Lunch time quiz

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:37 pm, November 23rd, 2009 - 23 comments

1) What the hell is John Key trying to say here? “Maori are not getting special preference, if you go back to those pre-1990 forests Maori are significant owners in that area, so is Ngai Tahu, those forests are all affected by the emissions trading scheme unless we can get a change at Copenhagen and […]

It’s the seasons, stupid

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:11 am, November 23rd, 2009 - 40 comments

Over the last week or so, I’ve heard John Key, Bill English, and Paula Bennett all make self-congratulatory references to the number of people receiving the unemployment benefit decreasing in October. That sounded weird to me. No-one seriously thinks unemployment has stopped increasing. MSD doesn’t regularly release the month by month data but I eventually managed […]

A whole lotta nothing

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:00 pm, November 20th, 2009 - 14 comments

In a speech to National Party members yesterday John Key read out a list of everything the government has done in the last year. Talk about weak, when the public disgruntlement with this do-nothing govenment has reached a level where they’re resorting to ‘not even, we’ve done heaps’. Audrey Young reports the list ran to […]

NZ should follow Norway’s example on oil

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:00 pm, November 19th, 2009 - 25 comments

National has released its petroleum strategy. It appears they plan to further lower our already low royalties to encourage foreign oil companies to come here, dig up our finite our reserves as fast as they can and make off with huge profits. Just about the dumbest attitude you can have to irreplaceable natural resources like […]

Bikoi

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 2:16 pm, November 17th, 2009 - 44 comments

Just got away from the bikoi at Parliament. What a sight. At least 6,000 people they reckon. The lawn and half the forecourt covered. Tui flying overhead joining in the fun. The bikers know are they being treated unfairly and National is using their levy money to pay for false propaganda for levy increases. They […]

Urgent action needed on job creation

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:29 am, November 17th, 2009 - 9 comments

We’ve talked a lot about the negative effects of unemployment on the unemployed and their communities (depression, crime, family breakup, poor health, poor educational outcomes for children etc) but there’s another group that benefits from fewer people being on benefits – people with jobs. Check out the graph. At the end of the 1990s, there […]

Light at the end of the tunnel

Written By: r0b - Date published: 6:56 am, November 16th, 2009 - 21 comments

We’ve been in the tunnel of love too long. (You youngsters can go look it up.) The media’s affair with our personable but apparently useless PM has been a trying time for we lefties. But I think there are glimmers of light at the end of the tunnel. Those glimmers come in the form of several […]

Failures of leadership: English, Hide, and Harawira

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:57 pm, November 15th, 2009 - 66 comments

I know this point/counterpoint series of posts on Hone Harawira maybe getting a bit tiresome but I have to disagree with the assertion in a couple of recent ones that Harawira has been treated more harshly Bill English and Rodney Hide or, by implication, than a Pakeha in his situation would have. And I think that those […]

Greens greenwashing for anti-environment govt

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:46 am, November 14th, 2009 - 11 comments

The Greens have announced the collapse of the cornerstone of their Memorandum of Understanding with National. With Gerry Brownlee as Minister for Energy, National hasn’t only failed to make progress on energy efficiency and conservation, it is taking illogical, retrograde steps. So why are the Greens continuing to provide greenwash for this government? I’m thinking about […]

Stupid stupid stupid

Written By: r0b - Date published: 3:50 pm, November 12th, 2009 - 13 comments

Our government is stupid. Sorry, it’s the only conclusion I can draw. Our government is made up of confused, muddled thinkers incapable of planning further ahead than lunchtime. It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. National have decided to “scrap the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy and stop work on vehicle fuel efficiency […]

The resistance

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:41 am, November 12th, 2009 - 5 comments

A very well-produced youtube vid on National’s distortions over ACC The clever thing National has done is set up ACC as the agent of its own demise. With Business Roundtable member John Judge in charge ACC has become a propaganda wing for National’s anti-ACC rubbish. Judge and Nick Smith have created a false air of […]