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same old national (1,616)

Failing Charter School punished by increase in funding

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 1:33 pm, July 24th, 2015 - 33 comments

The Friday afternoon bad news dump is on with news that Education Minister was recommended to close a poorly performing charter school. She has elected not to do so and to instead give the school extra money.

Serco, Lotu-Iiga and the death of Nick Evans

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:36 am, July 23rd, 2015 - 69 comments

Nick Evans was alleged to have been dropped from a height while being supervised in a Serco run prison. He was transferred to another prison and shortly after this died from injuries apparently inflicted from the dropping. Yet there is no police investigation and Minister in charge Lotu-Iiga says the allegations are “unproven” without making the most basic of inquiries.

Saying one thing and doing the other

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 9:16 am, July 22nd, 2015 - 40 comments

Both Key and English now on record as being “concerned” about rising inequality. So why are they acting to increase it?

The Fighting Foreign Corporate Control Bill

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:16 am, July 22nd, 2015 - 49 comments

With support from Labour, the Greens and the Maori Party NZ First is promoting the Fighting Foreign Corporate Control Bill. The support of one more MP will be sufficient to sent the Bill to select committee for consideration.

Serco should be sacked

Written By: Natwatch - Date published: 4:50 pm, July 21st, 2015 - 46 comments

Video from the urgent debate today in Parliament concerning Serco and that company’s failure to abide by basic standards of imprisonment.

The great state house sell off – small groups need not apply

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 12:19 pm, July 21st, 2015 - 10 comments

Treasure has indicated that the sell off of State housing should occur in minimum lots of a hundred houses. Only large wealthy organisations need apply and claims that the sale was about the building of capacity amongst local social service providers cannot be reconciled with this.

National Debt cracks the ton

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 12:20 pm, July 20th, 2015 - 62 comments

The Crown has reached an unfortunate milestone and national debt now exceeds $100 billion.

National doesn’t know what it’s doing on foreign buyers

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 11:41 am, July 20th, 2015 - 158 comments

National on a foreign buyers register: Smith says no, English says yes, Collins says maybe, Key says – bad Labour!

TV One Colmar Brunton Poll

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 6:10 pm, July 19th, 2015 - 119 comments

The latest One News Colmar Brunton poll is out. National drop one to 47%, Labour gain that point to lift to 32% , the Greens rise to 13% and NZ First are steady on 7 %. Consumer confidence plummets 9% points to just 36%.

National’s leadership on home ownership

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 8:49 am, July 16th, 2015 - 55 comments

No need to worry about low levels of home ownership, National is here to lead. They understand the fundamental issues, and they have a plan…

Social mobility policies do not address poverty

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 12:20 pm, July 15th, 2015 - 27 comments

Excellent work by RNZ, following up on previously redacted documents to expose this sham.

One tough issue

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:37 am, July 15th, 2015 - 301 comments

Although the issue, the unfettered flow of overseas money into Auckland’s housing market, is important Labour’s current handling of this issue is not optimal and needs to be reconsidered.

Not the “end to zero hour contracts” you were looking for

Written By: Stephanie Rodgers - Date published: 3:00 pm, July 12th, 2015 - 30 comments

Who would have suspected that Michael Woodhouse would be completely ineffectual in cracking down on zero-hour contracts?

Fuck you Auckland!

Written By: Natwatch - Date published: 1:20 pm, July 11th, 2015 - 57 comments

That’s the Nats’ message to Auckland, who are getting a taste of some Canterbury style “democracy”.

Another #Keyfib about Kiwisaver

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:27 am, July 10th, 2015 - 42 comments

The treasury release of budget policy advice suggests that John Key’s claim that changes to Kiwisaver would not have any effect on participation numbers was, ahem, erroneous.

The Canterbury rebuild

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:58 am, July 9th, 2015 - 20 comments

The Canterbury Rebuild grinds on with news that CERA is to be replaced by a new entity dubbed Regenerate Canterbury. But is a name change all that is required?

NRT: No democracy for Canterbury

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 9:14 am, July 9th, 2015 - 8 comments

I/S at No Right Turn on the continued suspension of democracy in Canterbury, and the Nats’ dump of their proposed “transition plan” under cover of the ABvSamoa game yesterday.

Bill English’s groundhog decades

Written By: lprent - Date published: 9:14 am, July 6th, 2015 - 45 comments

Bill English is a strange denizen of National’s Wellington groundhog set. He keeps repeating the wet dreams that have been tried three times now and come up as failures each time. On Q&A yesterday he played with some silly numbers about dairy, ignoring the damage that it and National’s obsessive focus on the past has done on the resilience of our export economy.

School lunches – Key vs data

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 7:11 am, July 6th, 2015 - 29 comments

Key claimed that the number of hungry kids in schools was limited to “the odd one or two”. Everyone knew it was nonsense. Now a survey by the New Zealand Principals’ Federation indicates the true extent of the problem.

Sign the petition: no charging charities for police vetting

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 9:07 am, July 4th, 2015 - 2 comments

Labour MP Poto Williams is running an online petition urging the Government not to proceed with a proposal to charge charities for new compulsory police vetting.

Nick Smith; Thick as a Short Plank?

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 9:56 am, July 3rd, 2015 - 25 comments

National’s Nick Smith appears to have misled Parliament over the illegal export of Kauri logs. Thankfully for Smith, it’s nothing to do with the rumours swirling around who is responsible for the loss of our irreplaceable heritage timber, but more to do with the Minister’s inability to understand a clear and explicit piece of legislation.

Rio Tinto brinkmanship

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:38 am, July 2nd, 2015 - 58 comments

Rio Tinto has delayed the signing of an electricity supply agreement with Meridian Energy by a month giving rise to the possibility that more corporate welfare will be demanded from the Government.

Will New Zealand social housing soon subsidise Australian social housing?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 2:56 pm, June 29th, 2015 - 58 comments

John Key’s interview on Morning Report this morning suggests that National does not know what it is doing with its social housing policy. Are we approaching a situation where profits from New Zealand social housing is going to underwrite the cost of Australian social housing?

Youth rates and youth employment

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 12:00 pm, June 29th, 2015 - 43 comments

Remember how National’s youth rates were going to raise levels of youth employment? Turns out not so much.

Inequality – Treasury report

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 7:22 am, June 29th, 2015 - 22 comments

Last week Treasury came out with a detailed and interesting report, Inequality in New Zealand 1983/84 to 2013/14. It is no surprise to find that the last Labour government acted to reduce inequality, the current National government has acted to increase it.

Auckland Council and the latest rates rise

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 1:40 pm, June 28th, 2015 - 69 comments

Auckland Council’s budget which should have been passed on a pro forma vote succeeded this week by the narrowest of margins with a transport levy that Sky City pays the same amount as a Piha resident and where the share of rates that business pays continues to decrease. Time to rethink supercity?

Selling state houses to Australia

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 10:29 am, June 28th, 2015 - 20 comments

English needs to explain why the government can’t find NZ buyers for their “social housing” plans. The Nats to explain how selling state houses helps a single family in need.

Damn right I’m angry

Written By: Stephanie Rodgers - Date published: 9:00 am, June 27th, 2015 - 77 comments

The term “tone argument” refers to the regular pleas directed at feminists, anti-racism activists, etc to stop being so aggressive and ask nicely for fundamental human rights and dignity instead of shouting so much. It’s a derailment, a troll move, a way to undermine and ignore the actual arguments being made.