Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, July 4th, 2016 - 57 comments
National is now proposing to extinguish private property rights and seize land. Cue political and media outrage? Yeah right.
Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, July 3rd, 2016 - 112 comments
In an effort to be seen to be doing something about a housing crisis that they say doesn’t exist, the Nats have offered to lend councils $1 Billion that they can already borrow. Homeless families will also be offered a free deckchair on the Titanic to re-arrange as they please.
Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, July 2nd, 2016 - 66 comments
If you’re an average worker the actions of the National government have reduced the value of your KiwiSaver fund at retirement by about $100K.
Written By: - Date published: 7:56 am, July 2nd, 2016 - 38 comments
Interesting pieces recently on “post-truth” politics. They rightly tear strips off Key and a government that lies and denies reflexively and at all levels, and has been doing so for eight long years.
Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, July 1st, 2016 - 45 comments
— Deborah Russell
Written By: - Date published: 12:31 pm, June 30th, 2016 - 105 comments
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, June 30th, 2016 - 84 comments
Bill English didn’t know the cost of the parental leave bill that he vetoed on the grounds of cost, and he didn’t care enough about it to speak to the matter in Parliament last night.
Written By: - Date published: 9:42 am, June 29th, 2016 - 56 comments
Inequality in NZ is the worst it’s been in a decade. Key’s response is pathetic. We need to vote to end suck-up economics. We need to be a better country than this.
Written By: - Date published: 1:52 pm, June 27th, 2016 - 56 comments
Foster-Bell seems to be a cross between Aaron Gilmore (vanity), Todd Barclay (people skills) and Bill English (high on the hog). No surprises there then, Nat MP, ho hum. The more interesting question is – who is out to knife him? Two hits in two days?
Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, June 25th, 2016 - 45 comments
“Poverty NZ’s ‘new normal’ – report”. “Food bank pantries bare, emergency food grant dropping – report”. “NZ egalitarian? That’s a pretty little lie”. Hello – National supporters – where do you think this is going to end?
Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, June 23rd, 2016 - 38 comments
From the “Brighter Future”, four personal stories published recently are all well worth reading.
Written By: - Date published: 7:23 am, June 23rd, 2016 - 70 comments
Doubt has been cast on the utility of John Key’s claim that New Zealand is not a tax haven because there are disclosure treaties with the revelation that Mossack Fonseca’s primary New Zealand agent instructed clients to avoid investing in those countries.
Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, June 22nd, 2016 - 37 comments
When it is a variable network pricing mechanism …
Written By: - Date published: 7:04 am, June 22nd, 2016 - 149 comments
It’s basically flat-lining – only partially animated by immigration and a housing bubble.
Written By: - Date published: 12:56 pm, June 21st, 2016 - 41 comments
Is ECAN just another typical Nat party fuckup, or are they deliberately turning a blind eye?
Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, June 21st, 2016 - 39 comments
Not only has Compass being serving below quality food to hospital patients but it appears that they may not have paid some long term employees what they are entitled to.
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 pm, June 20th, 2016 - 138 comments
National support is down 2.5% to 43% in the latest Roy Morgan, just ahead of LAB/GR at 42.5% (up 1%).
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, June 18th, 2016 - 19 comments
“We request that you withdraw the financial veto certificate against the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave and Work Contact Hours) Amendment Bill.” You can sign the petition here.
Written By: - Date published: 7:22 am, June 18th, 2016 - 52 comments
For eight long years National have been telling us that the 90 day trial (fire at will) law was all about creating jobs. Yesterday a new Treasury report showed that it had failed to do so. RNZ: “The government now says its 90-day trial period was never about increasing the number of jobs in New Zealand”. Of course.
Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, June 17th, 2016 - 104 comments
Or not. More National ideology burned to the ground by facts.
Written By: - Date published: 3:54 pm, June 16th, 2016 - 102 comments
So – like Canterbury, like Auckland, the democratic process can get stuffed as far as National are concerned.
Written By: - Date published: 8:25 am, June 16th, 2016 - 64 comments
The government that will pay you $5000 to leave Auckland and $3000 to move to Auckland has been selling state houses so recklessly that it is now considering building temporary ones. Headless chickens make more sense.
Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, June 16th, 2016 - 107 comments
As Bryan Gould put it – “In any other country, and especially in those where such deals are commonplace, no one would be in any doubt as to what had really happened. In New Zealand, however, we are naively inclined to accept the blank-eyed, slack-mouthed assurances that it was all a coincidence and that nothing untoward had happened.”
Written By: - Date published: 12:42 pm, June 15th, 2016 - 24 comments
One of Giovanni Tiso’s clever “Erratum” series.
Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, June 15th, 2016 - 33 comments
The ham fisted attack on Hurimoana Dennis by Paula Bennett’s office must make National yearn for the heady days when Cameron Slater was in charge of their smears.
Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, June 13th, 2016 - 54 comments
Last year there were officially 22,000 unoccupied properties in Auckland. This year 33,000 are officially classified as empty. “Auckland’s 6.6 per cent vacancy rate is higher than either Sydney (5.2 per cent) or Melbourne (4.8 per cent), where there has been an uproar over “ghost houses” deliberately left empty by speculators trading on a soaring market”. This is madness.
Written By: - Date published: 12:59 pm, June 11th, 2016 - 100 comments
Good piece by Jo Moir on Stuff this morning, about National’s train-wreck week. Follow it up with Andrew Geddis on the legality of the Collins blurt.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, June 11th, 2016 - 120 comments
In the middle of a housing crisis the Minister of Social Housing Paula Bennett is nowhere to be seen.
Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, June 10th, 2016 - 52 comments
* according to Nick Smith and Paula Bennett.
Written By: - Date published: 6:29 am, June 10th, 2016 - 144 comments
Despite Key’s barnstorming 2007 speech on the housing affordability crisis, National these days prefer to deny that it exists. Apparently fed up with waiting for the government to take action, banks are moving to reduce their risk and limit foreign buyers.
Written By: - Date published: 10:05 am, June 9th, 2016 - 43 comments
The housing crisis is not going away, and National needs to offer something better than lies, damn lies, and statistics.
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