national

No faith in Nats’ economic ‘plan’

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:53 am, March 15th, 2011 - 125 comments

So, how are you enjoying your brighter future? Not too flash, eh? GST up. Wages down. No jobs. More crime. Earthquakes. Oil and food shocks. No bloody cycleway. Discretionary income (after tax, housing, food, transport) is down about 15%. No wonder Kiwis don’t believe Key and National can deliver on their promises.

Auckland: a sprawling car future?

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 7:17 am, March 12th, 2011 - 77 comments

National will reject Auckland Council and Aucklanders’ view on what their future city should look like. Instead they propose One ever more sprawling city, with ever more sprawling motorways, ever more cars clogging its veins, ever less community, and ever less government money.

National continues ECE assault

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 6:35 am, March 10th, 2011 - 49 comments

National are to allow battery farming style early childhood education.  From July the government will allow 75 stressed under-2 year-olds in one room, unable to form a relationship with any one teacher.

Quake used as foreshore cover

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:14 am, March 8th, 2011 - 9 comments

Today Parliament sits in full for the first time since the second earthquake. There’s lots to attend to: the government is required to explain the state of national emergency, change the census law, create a one-off provincial holiday, and alter the law on school zoning. But it looks like the Nats are more concerned with slipping through their foreshore and seabed bill.

Embarrassing result for Nats in Botany

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:22 pm, March 5th, 2011 - 78 comments

So another corrupt Nat minister has gone and Jami-Lee Ross has taken her seat in Botany. What an embarrassing resulting. The majority reduced by 7,000 and Michael Wood reduced the gap from 36% to 28%. Nat strategists will be crapping themselves over the New Citizens’ Party’s result. Considering that Wood had acknowledged from the start […]

Powerless

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 1:56 pm, March 2nd, 2011 - 61 comments

The man tipped to be National’s next leader, Simon Power, has announced he will not be standing at the next election. The reasons are obvious. As a decent man and an old fashioned caring Tory, Power has no heart for the direction National want to take New Zealand. His resignation is a sign that within the party, the dry right have finally taken total control the idealogical reigns and there is no longer a place for liberal wets like Power.

Bashing benes no solution to joblessness

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:30 am, February 22nd, 2011 - 26 comments

National’s grand plan for the economy in the age of peak, peak food, and climate change: give tax cuts to the rich and take from the poor. It’s classic Nat class war. They want to force 100,000 people off the benefit in the ludicrously long time-frame of 10 years. But they won’t be creating any jobs so other workers will be displaced and wages will be forced down.

What do you think Righty – a perfect score?

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 1:30 pm, February 17th, 2011 - 50 comments

Even the most optimistic lefty can’t deny that National are continuing to dominate the opinion polls. That must be quite a source of pride and confidence for the Right. But I wonder, is there anything that rightwing voters believe this National-led Government has done wrong? A couple of years ago I asked what rightwing voters thought […]

You can’t mix oil and water

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:14 pm, February 8th, 2011 - 46 comments

Every new party faces an inevitable conflict between the ‘realos’ and the ‘fundis’ over how much principle can be compromised to make some gains through coalitions. The Maori Party made it far worse by supporting a party that is anathema to everything it stands for. That big mistake is at the root of collapse we’re now witnessing.

Nats drop 6% on privatisation announcement

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:56 pm, February 5th, 2011 - 65 comments

OK, that title is pure spin. National has dropped from 55% to 49% in the latest Roy Morgan, and Labour’s up from 29% to 34.5%. But that just shows the last poll was a rogue. Now, normal transmission, and National’s decline, has resumed. When you look at the Nat/ACT and Lab/Green/New Zealand First potential coalitions – the race is tight and closing fast.

Time for the Goffice to step up to the plate

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:36 am, January 29th, 2011 - 137 comments

We face a stark choice this year: a Labour-led government, which will create fairer tax and invest in jobs and innovation, or National-led government, which will govern for the kleptocracy, giving them tax cuts, then selling our assets and slashing our public services to pay for them. So why is the Goffice doing such a bad job making the case?

National’s Impending Swingeing Cuts

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 2:42 pm, January 26th, 2011 - 31 comments

Whilst John Key’s raising of privatisation is the first focus of his State of the Nation speech, perhaps equally as important is his intention for swingeing cuts to public services. Health and Education will have to pay higher wages from the same budget, but the likes of Police, Justice, Conservation and Social Services can expect cuts of more than 10%.

Why are Turia & Sharples cuddling up to Key?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:53 am, January 25th, 2011 - 22 comments

At this stage in the electoral cycle, government support parties are usually looking to try to differentiate themselves from the main governing party. They need to do this to show they still hold true to their own values and have a separate identity that is worth voting for. The Maori Party is doing to opposite.

Privatising Infrastructure by Stealth

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 3:07 pm, January 20th, 2011 - 16 comments

Government IT projects are easy to take aim at, but this isn’t a hit at their lack of thinking or actions on UFB.

This is about them privatising their entire computing systems, preferably without being noticed; paying the least they can to a corporation to take care of your most personal data.