national/act government

Categories under national/act government

Campbell on the nine day fortnight

Written By: - Date published: 3:48 pm, March 13th, 2009 - 33 comments

Gordon Campbell’s pretty scathing of Key’s nine day fortnight scheme in his latest article at Scoop, describing the announcement as a sign workers will have to bear the brunt of the recession. Plainly, workers are going to be the first people over the side of the lifeboat during this recession. The main policy idea to […]

Doubleplusungood II

Written By: - Date published: 2:59 pm, March 13th, 2009 - 8 comments

A leak reveals more words banned by National/ACT : strategy blueprint engagement socialisation collaboration co-ordination We’re destroying words – scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone.

Friday quiz

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, March 13th, 2009 - 5 comments

Question 1. Which of these are ‘front-line’ staff and which are ‘back office’? a) the extra staff members for National and Maori Party MPs that the government has just found money for? b) the fines collections officers the Ministry of Justice is firing because the government can’t find the money to keep them? c) the […]

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 […]

Daily show vs CNBC

Written By: - Date published: 3:32 pm, March 12th, 2009 - 17 comments

Last week, Jon Stewart poked fun at the media who cheer-led the housing and stockmarket bubbles and are now blaming the people who took on subprime mortgages for the financial crisis. They bit back with hilarious results. Jon is interviewing Cramer today, it will screen Friday night here on C4.

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 […]

Bennett’s lame excuse

Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, March 12th, 2009 - 15 comments

Morning Report asked Paula Bennett why the public sector had been cut out of the 9 day fortnight scheme this morning and her answer was that it was for businesses that have been hit by the effects of the recession and the public service doesn’t fall into that category. That’s not true. Crown owned company […]

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]

Doubleplusungood

Written By: - Date published: 3:51 pm, March 10th, 2009 - 9 comments

Sources tell us that National/ACT government (Nactgov) has ordered more words to be removed from official documents. We already knew they had banned social justice, public health, social change, organised efforts of society, advocacy, and inequality. Now, we have more to add to the list. – stakeholders – framework – sustainablity It’s the new PC, […]

Environment Ministry cut

Written By: - Date published: 3:17 pm, March 10th, 2009 - 21 comments

The National/ACT Government’s axe has fallen on the Environment Ministry today, with staff being flown to Wellington to discover a raft of environmental programmes introduced by the last government will be scrapped. With them will go at least 18 jobs, making a mockery of the Government’s election pledge to merely “cap” rather than cut the […]

Fail

Written By: - Date published: 5:10 pm, March 9th, 2009 - 32 comments

So, ‘Crusher’ Collins has failed in her high profile campaign to have Barry Matthews sacked. How embarrassing, what with her staking her entire political reputation on it and all. I doubt John Key will be particularly happy about being dragged into this whole sorry affair either. Less than two weeks ago the Herald reported: The […]

Stop McCully’s cull of NZAID

Written By: - Date published: 5:02 am, March 9th, 2009 - 13 comments

The Standard hasn’t commented on what’s happening with NZAID yet, and people can be forgiven for not knowing what’s going on. But chances are, by the time you get your head around it, NZAID will be history. Foreign Minister Murray McCully has instigated two reviews into NZAID, the semi-autonomous government department which oversees how development […]

Gordon Campbell states the obvious

Written By: - Date published: 2:21 pm, March 8th, 2009 - 26 comments

Gordon Campbell has been having fun pointing the finger at Treasury in “How Treasury put us on the hook to finance companies“. Essentially the treasury and therefore Bill English appear to have been somewhat idiotic. If a firm stopped taking deposits last September, and was heavily exposed in the current economic climate to a major […]

Reminder: Pay Equity Faxathon

Written By: - Date published: 1:52 pm, March 6th, 2009 - 10 comments

Quick reminder – today’s Pay Equity Faxathon Day, your chance to have a go at State Services Minister Tony Ryall for his decision to cancel two enquiries into pay equity for women. According to Ryall, getting rid of gender discrmination would “generate an additional form of remuneration pressure that is unaffordable in the current economic […]

665 jobs lost since Jobs Summit

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, March 6th, 2009 - 28 comments

If you believe the Government’s spin, protecting jobs in this recession is their number one priority. They even held a big fancy Jobs Summit to convince us they had it under control. But while that’s all very nice, I’m more interested in concrete actions that keep people in jobs. And right now I’m not seeing […]

The Jobs Summit as propaganda

Written By: - Date published: 6:35 am, March 5th, 2009 - 6 comments

So, the ideas suck but the jobs summit was never meant to produce recession-busting ideas. The fact is this was a propaganda stunt. A $65,000 propaganda stunt paid for with our tax dollars. And it worked brilliantly because, in a trademark move of Key’s PR team, it communicated different messages for different audiences. The message […]

Worrying about the big stuff

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, March 4th, 2009 - 12 comments

In the age of the media politician, where catch-phrases are given more attention than laws and good politics is awarded more points by the commentariat than good government, it’s not fashionable to worry too much about the health of our constitutional arragnements and our institutions. But I do. Here’s some of the things that have […]

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 […]

Govt set to deny low-paid workers basic rights

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, March 4th, 2009 - 24 comments

The National government couldn’t hold off democracy forever, so today we are graced with the first members’ day of the new term. And if we had a pro-worker majority in the House, today would be day of celebration. Labour MP Darien Fenton’s Minimum Wage and Remuneration Bill is up, which would go towards ensuring all […]

Played like a fiddle

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, March 4th, 2009 - 93 comments

Yesterday, when the inquiry came back on whether the shortfall in ACC funding should have been disclosed in the PREFU, Bill English quickly tried to implicate Michael Cullen and Maryan Street as being in breach of the Public Finance Act and told media: “The previous government knew about the funding hole and effectively hid it. […]

What is to be done?

Written By: - Date published: 5:29 pm, March 3rd, 2009 - 40 comments

Kudos to the Maori Party’s Rahui Katene for using her position to highlight the situation at Sealord in Parliament today. But it’s Paula Bennett’s response that got me thinking: Rahui Katene: Is the Minister aware that the Māori shareholders of Sealord attended the Prime Minister’s Job Summit last Friday, and what plans does the Government […]

Key writes off Sealord jobs

Written By: - Date published: 10:52 am, March 3rd, 2009 - 50 comments

Despite making sound profits Sealord are laying off 180 workers in Nelson. They claim the move is part of restructuring and that there will be fifty new jobs aboard factory ships that will fully process fish. Remaining workers are also being asked to take a pay cut. I’m not sure I buy that. Even with […]

National’s real rolling maul

Written By: - Date published: 6:16 am, March 3rd, 2009 - 40 comments

You know what we haven’t heard Key talk about in a long time? Closing the wage gap with Australia. Now he’s in power, is he going to do anything about creating a high wage economy? Doesn’t look like it. The truth is Key’s National/ACT Government is undertaking a rolling maul of anti-worker policies that take away our work […]

What it’s about

Written By: - Date published: 12:40 pm, March 2nd, 2009 - 101 comments

One of the most disappointing things about the debate over National’s fire at will law is how little its supporters understand the basic issues. Take Farrar’s latest post, where he says: But I would warn the unions to be careful about assuming all, or even most, dismissals during the 90 day period are ‘exploitive’. That […]

You’ve got to know to understand (and be able to talk about it)

Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, March 1st, 2009 - 58 comments

In the greatest economic crisis in a lifetime, we remain the only country in the world whose government has done nothing to try to stimulate the economy. In fact, the net effect of National’s policies is de-stimulatory, taking money out of the economy when it most needs an injection of spending. And I blame the […]

It’s raining men

Written By: - Date published: 5:21 pm, February 27th, 2009 - 60 comments

A reader just sent us this one minute montage of photos from John Key’s jobs summit. Enjoy.

Airbrushing at will

Written By: - Date published: 7:17 pm, February 26th, 2009 - 25 comments

Via Farrar’s site I’ve come across this a lovely piece of Government spin. It’s a PDF document checking off everything National’s done in its first 100 days. It’s pretty comprehensive. Funny thing is, despite mentioning everything from bonding doctors to line by line spending reviews, they seem to have completely forgotten the unpopular 90 day […]

Judith Collins – nascent Minister of Embarrassment?

Written By: - Date published: 4:15 pm, February 23rd, 2009 - 6 comments

Should have seen it coming Judith Collins has been vying politically with Rodney Hide to become the NACT’s Minister of Embarrassment (and Comedy). This is creatively portrayed in today’s Mike Moreu cartoon, as he ties her last weirdo play for the kneejerk vote to her current one. For a background on this current Judith Collins […]

Standing up for landlordism

Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, February 19th, 2009 - 89 comments

So, National has decided to scrap a raft of tenant protections proposed by the last Labour Government and tilt the deck back in favour of landlords. Clearly the new Government thinks tenants have had it too good for too long, and in hard times like these it’s the 8% of New Zealanders who own investment […]

Tories bulldoze human rights, your rights

Written By: - Date published: 7:38 pm, February 18th, 2009 - 43 comments

The Attorney-General, National’s Chris Finalyson, has declared that the ‘3 strikes and you’re out’ Bill that National/ACT (and Finlayson himself) are about to vote for violates human rights. From Finlayson’s report: What does that mean? Finlayson is saying that giving a life sentence to a person who is on their third strike for an offence that […]

Nat Minister unhappy, leaks Key email

Written By: - Date published: 9:29 am, February 18th, 2009 - 53 comments

Well, that didn’t take long. In the first 100 days of the new National government we’ve seen a clamp-down on workers’ rights, tax cuts for the rich, and now tying everything up nicely in a big bow, we have the first leaked National Party email of the term. Another day, another leak in the National […]

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