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same old national (1,637)

What should Labour and the Greens do in Ilam?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:32 am, March 11th, 2017 - 48 comments

Christchurch Councillor Raf Manji has announced that he will be standing as an independent against Gerry Brownlee for the Ilam seat in Christchurch.

Community groups abandon Smith’s water forum

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 8:37 am, March 11th, 2017 - 14 comments

Will Nick Smith get the message and set in place a realistic consultation process and safe standards, or will he persist with a plan so bad that no one wants to be associated with it?

Nick legged it

Written By: Natwatch - Date published: 1:18 pm, March 10th, 2017 - 19 comments

Remember how the move of Nick Leggett to National was supposed to be some big disaster for Labour?

Roads not health

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 9:38 am, March 9th, 2017 - 98 comments

A new coalition protests health under-funding, while the cost of the holiday highway blows out. Our government has its priorities all screwed up.

Will Collins make a move?

Written By: Natwatch - Date published: 9:52 am, March 7th, 2017 - 40 comments

The crisis around English’s amateur-hour handling of the super announcement is an opportunity for Judith Collins.

National accuses John Key of shying away from the hard issues

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:35 am, March 6th, 2017 - 61 comments

Shambolic scenes as Bill English’s twitter account tweets criticism of John Key not taking the hard decisions regarding superannuation eligibility, then the tweet gets deleted. And Bill did not know the tweet had been sent out.

Swimmable standards that aren’t for all of our rivers except most of them

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 8:10 am, March 5th, 2017 - 21 comments

Swimmable standards that aren’t, for all of our rivers except most of them, sometime maybe not now. Nat policy at its finest.

Who would have thunk that Government’s approach to housing is inadequate

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:46 am, March 2nd, 2017 - 34 comments

Radio New Zealand has reported on a review of the Government’s housing policy which described it as fragmented and lacking a robust plan but it took intervention by the Ombudsman to have the review released.

National bolster their moribund blue-greens

Written By: lprent - Date published: 8:28 am, February 28th, 2017 - 74 comments

I read this morning in Politik that Vernon Tava has left the Greens and appears to be leaning towards National. It doesn’t seem to me to much of a problem to lose a conservationist to National. It just means that the Greens can concentrate more effectively on the work of getting everyone trying to build a cleaner sustainable future.

Homeless crisis hidden in plain sight

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 8:11 am, February 28th, 2017 - 10 comments

Bill blames the blowout in emergency housing grants on the “hidden homeless”. Hidden only from those who will not see. Hidden only from a government that deliberately chooses for political reasons not to collect the relevant data.

Housing crisis what housing crisis

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:02 am, February 27th, 2017 - 52 comments

The Government’s estimate of the extent of the housing crisis has recently been shown to be totally out of touch and to add further pathos it is counting kiwi families urgently housed in motels in tourism statistics.

Two big policy fails

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 10:24 am, February 24th, 2017 - 10 comments

This is what you get with a hasty, reactive, “top down” policy process.

Nick Smith becomes Minister of Government Information

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:05 am, February 24th, 2017 - 62 comments

The Government intends to change the definitions of various indicators in an effort to solve some of the country’s most serious problems.

Forest and Bird takes it the Government in the Supreme Court

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:10 am, February 24th, 2017 - 25 comments

The Crown is seeking to overturn the Court of Appeal decision obtained by Forest and Bird which is preventing Conservation land in the Hawkes Bay from being used for the controversial Ruataniwha dam.

Nick Smith screws up again

Written By: Natwatch - Date published: 9:21 am, February 22nd, 2017 - 20 comments

We should probably just schedule this as a monthly post.

John Key – Mr 2%

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:00 am, February 20th, 2017 - 43 comments

John Key’s support as preferred Prime Minister has plunged in the latest Colmar Brunton poll. And he has been seen playing sponsored golf for a Japanese businessman with unusual characteristics.

National’s one-trick election pony – the eternal mirage of tax cuts

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 7:04 am, February 20th, 2017 - 46 comments

As Finance Minister Bill English effectively ruled out tax cuts, but it’s election year, and so of course the Nats can’t help but trot out their one-trick election pony again.

Bungling Brownlee under fire

Written By: Natwatch - Date published: 8:23 am, February 18th, 2017 - 34 comments

Gerry Brownlee is a walking disaster. Such is the depth of National’s talent pool that he is ranked number 4 in their lineup.

Kia Kaha Canterbury

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:00 am, February 16th, 2017 - 35 comments

It seems almost inevitable that the recent fires in Canterbury and the Hawkes Bay are the result of climate change and the harbingers of things to come.

Marama Fox vs Bill English – who will blink?

Written By: Natwatch - Date published: 6:49 am, February 16th, 2017 - 167 comments

Marama Fox and Bill English have painted themselves into a bit of a corner, and Fox is threatening to “walk away from the Government”. Key would have handled this better.

English “will be taken down by housing”

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 2:40 pm, February 14th, 2017 - 67 comments

In the middle of a housing crisis “Housing New Zealand documents obtained under the Official Information Act show that there are nearly 2,500 empty state houses, more than 500 of which have been empty for over a year.”

Government will not support victims of domestic violence

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:33 am, February 14th, 2017 - 19 comments

The Government is refusing to support Jan Logie’s bill aimed at helping the victims of domestic violence despite the bill receiving support from the ANZ and Business New Zealand supporting the bill going at least to select committee.

Is this the impossibility turning point?

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:11 am, February 14th, 2017 - 49 comments

There’s a wonderful fiction still propelling the world that the 21st century will bring an ever-expanding arc of freedom and prosperity to the vast majority of humanity but the reality seems to be anything but.

Watch Bill English lying through his teeth on housing

Written By: Natwatch - Date published: 2:03 pm, February 13th, 2017 - 36 comments

English is a less convincing liar than Key.

Bloomberg warns world of New Zealand’s toxic trusts

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:56 am, February 12th, 2017 - 21 comments

Bloomberg magazine has highlighted how foreign trusts are damaging New Zealand’s reputation and are being used for criminal activity.

Key gives up on us, keeps International Democratic Union.

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 9:00 am, February 10th, 2017 - 33 comments

The Herald informs us that Key is going on the speaking circuit and will go back into finance (not that he ever left). Like John Howard before him, he also intends to carry on chairing the International Democratic Union of right-wing parties. Not a surprise.