Gerry Brownlee

Categories under Gerry Brownlee

  • No categories

National’s war on Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 12:57 pm, March 14th, 2013 - 49 comments

motorway madness

Phil Twyford is the Labour MP for Te Atatu, and Labour’s spokesperson on Housing and Auckland Issues. He is also asking the same questions that many Aucklanders keep asking as they watch a succession of government ministers trying to valiantly advance backwards into Auckland’s past with no obvious purpose.

ImperatorFish: John Key’s Reshuffle Analysed

Written By: - Date published: 1:41 pm, January 23rd, 2013 - 7 comments

The biggest winner is Dr Nick Smith. He returns to Cabinet after his fall from grace last year, and is appointed as Minister for Creating a Perception of Crisis in Order to Justify Savage Cutbacks in Entitlements.
The biggest losers are Kate Wilkinson and Phil Heatley, who have been dropped from Cabinet altogether. Both have failed to perform, and their inability to communicate with the smoothness of someone like Hekia Parata will have counted against them.

Stick to the Day Job

Written By: - Date published: 9:23 pm, December 1st, 2012 - 7 comments

So Brownlee tried a Simpsons joke in the House and it completely failed. At least Gerry didn’t insult Finland with his ‘joke’ this time. Really I’d just like them to concentrate on running the country though.  Once they’ve given us a Brighter Future, then they can start the comedy…

NRT: More dictatorship from Brownlee

Written By: - Date published: 11:06 am, November 23rd, 2012 - 11 comments

No Right Turn on the Nats’ contemplating yet another way to trample on democracy in Christchurch.

The rhythms of life

Written By: - Date published: 9:10 am, October 28th, 2012 - 18 comments

On Planet Key natural body processes are ignored, and nature has been tamed into a golf course. It’s a place where mothers don’t lactate or have a heightened sensitivity to their babies’ cries; a place disconnected from the chaotic consequences of climate change.

Where are the resignations?

Written By: - Date published: 10:12 am, September 30th, 2012 - 87 comments

John Key refuses to accept any responsibility for what his spies get up to. The only point of democratic responsibility for our spies doesn’t monitor them and won’t take the blame for failing to do so. He won’t fire a corrupt, lying minister, either. The rot is spreading to the public service. There has been not one resignation, not a single one, due to the Dotcom debacle.

On the trailing edge: Brownlee on Rena

Written By: - Date published: 1:41 pm, September 28th, 2012 - 11 comments

I was reading an article looking at the aftermath of the Rena shipwreck in the Herald. In it I read some ridiculous statements by Gerry Brownlee that seemed (like so much from him) to come from the early part of the last century. It appears that he (and his minons in the M0T) haven’t quite caught up on rapid progress of the digital age in nautical circles. Hasn’t he heard about AIS? Or computers?

Red zone ride

Written By: - Date published: 5:50 pm, September 17th, 2012 - 34 comments

Guest poster Andy-Roo reflects on a ride through the Christchurch Red Zone, the social contract, and Gerry Brownlee…

Christchurch carpers and moaners

Written By: - Date published: 1:17 pm, September 12th, 2012 - 37 comments

Gerry Brownlee calls Christchurch residents “carpers and moaners” who “buggerise on Facebook all day”.

Asset Sales to pay for nearly 1.5 years of roads

Written By: - Date published: 4:06 pm, August 29th, 2012 - 8 comments

Gerry Brownlee has announced $12.3 billion of road spending over the next 3 years. Asset sales will pay for less than half of it. Does it really make sense to lose control of our strategic assets – with all the income they bring in – for just over 1 year’s worth of roads?

Brownlee makes tectonic plates look like speed demons

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, July 27th, 2012 - 23 comments

After 18 months of doing nothing to fix the insurance crisis that every man and his dog has been saying is crippling the Christchurch rebuild, Overlord Brownlee has finally acted. He’s come out with …. wait for it ….. a big whinge at insurance companies. Oh bravo, Generalissimo Gerry. That’ll get the rebuild started. Well done, oh King of Christchurch. Your belated rant has saved us all.

King Brownlee outside the law

Written By: - Date published: 1:26 pm, July 25th, 2012 - 26 comments

When the Nats created CERA – the Gerry Brownlee Enabling Act – they tried to make it so no-one could challenge his decisions under the Act in court. The Courts hate such ‘ouster clauses’ and react by allowing cases on whether a decision was made under the Act or was so wrong it wasn’t an exercise of the powers granted. Brownlee’s just found that it ain’t easy to make yourself dictator in a free society.

NRT: Privileged!

Written By: - Date published: 12:12 pm, July 19th, 2012 - 7 comments

I/S at No Right Turn on yet another example of misleading Parliament – but it doesn’t matter because “the current Speaker has ruled that a Member can only mislead the House in ‘a statement of some formality'”.

The Nation runs Nat smear

Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, July 7th, 2012 - 39 comments

Gerry Brownlee is in court as some property owners challenge his decision to open up some blocks of land for new sections post-earthquake and not others. One of those property owners is Independent Seafoods. They would also have been one of a hundred to have benefited from a 2009 private members’ bill by Clayton Cosgrove. One of Cosgrove’s donors was IS. Brownlee’s shopped a smear based on that, and The Nation ran it.

RWC Tickets

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 pm, May 23rd, 2012 - 32 comments

So Key is ‘surprised’ that David Shearer, the local member for Eden Park, accepted tickets to a local game, and doesn’t feel beholden to corporate interests?  He can accept hospitality and still criticise a company is somehow shocking?  I think this tells us more about John, than it surprises the rest of us about David…

The wheel turns

Written By: - Date published: 6:33 am, May 18th, 2012 - 11 comments

Across the country, the number of party votes National received fell in 2011, except for in Christchurch. Given turn-out fell 10%, the fact more people voted National was a sobering moment for critics of how the rebuild is being handled. Or perhaps not. Now, 87% of Press readers think the government isn’t doing enough. National just got lucky with the timing of the election.

Roads to nowhere paved with your gold

Written By: - Date published: 8:08 am, May 10th, 2012 - 21 comments

You know how the government’s short of cash, eh? Well, the guy spending $14 billion on highways that don’t make sense on the government’s rosy numbers, isn’t even going to consider whether they’re still a good idea now the IMF says petrol is heading to $5 a litre. Nor is he concerned about the $6 billion shortfall because that’s in ‘the future’ – because he’ll be out of office by then (seriously)

Banks has got to go

Written By: - Date published: 6:52 am, April 29th, 2012 - 182 comments

Key should go because of his dirty deal with SkyCity. Joyce too. Collins should go over the ACC leaks. Brownlee for sheer incompetence. English for shit-eating grin every time he fails to meet his own growth forecasts and announces more cuts. Add Banks to the list. His position in now untenable. The accusations are serious and credible. His excuses and memory lapses implausible. He must at least be stood down.

Christchurch rental crisis

Written By: - Date published: 3:31 pm, April 18th, 2012 - 61 comments

According to Gerry Brownlee it isn’t happening.

Brownlee’s head in the sand, looking for cheap oil

Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, April 4th, 2012 - 64 comments

Rookie Green MP Julie Anne Genter, a transport planning expert before entering Parliament, gave Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee, whose qualification for the job is that he used to teach kids to make wooden toy cars, a sharp lesson in transport policy in the House yesterday. It’s rare for a newbie to show up an old tusker like that. With petrol prices at record levels, I hope someone in the government’s listening.

Will Brownlee apologise to Finland or resign?

Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, March 27th, 2012 - 113 comments

The lead story on Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s largest newspaper is about the “violent comments” of Gerry Brownlee. How would we react if a foreign politician told those kind of lies about NZ? We’d go off our self-righteous rockers. In some countries, like Finland, a minister would resign without hesitation if they brought their country into disrepute.

‘Finn angry

Written By: - Date published: 3:54 pm, March 26th, 2012 - 45 comments

The ever-diplomatic Gerry Brownlee has got New Zealand coverage in the European press. In an effort to try and score a point against David Shearer the former woodwork teacher called the country with the best education system in the world “uneducated,” and claimed that an economy with higher GDP per capita and faster growth than […]

NRT: More information thuggery

Written By: - Date published: 11:34 am, March 24th, 2012 - 18 comments

NRT with yet another example of the Nats’ intimidation tactics.

Roads to nowhere

Written By: - Date published: 3:34 pm, March 1st, 2012 - 22 comments

There never was a good business case for holiday highways. Now it’s even worse.

Billions down the drain on roads to nowhere

Written By: - Date published: 12:13 pm, February 15th, 2012 - 42 comments

Gerry Brownlee has weakly attempted to fob off the decline in benefit:cost ratio of highway projects under National. ‘Sure’ he says ‘we’ve been funding projects that barely break even while high BCR spending like early childhood education gets cut, but things will turn around’. Um, no. Look at the projects National has on the horizon, […]

Brownlee moves to kill Chch democracy

Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, December 21st, 2011 - 91 comments

How long until National usurps Christchurch Council? Brownlee’s doing the groundwork – creating a crisis, making the councillors to blame (for not automatically agreeing to whatever Parker wants), claiming public support. Reckon he’ll wait until rebuilding is just about to start. Then council gets blamed for the delays and he gets credit for the rebuilding.

InvisiNats: Gerry Brownlee

Written By: - Date published: 12:26 pm, November 15th, 2011 - 7 comments

Key is avoiding the hard questions, but his photo-op face is everywhere. The rest of the Nats are working hard at being invisible. Let’s bring a little sunlight into that darkness!

Today’s InvisiNat is Gerry Brownlee.

Our own oil spill

Written By: - Date published: 8:07 am, October 8th, 2011 - 15 comments

If we can’t deal with a small oil leak from a grounded ship, what are we doing planning deepsea drilling on a grand scale?

Resignation watch

Written By: - Date published: 11:43 am, September 12th, 2011 - 39 comments

Which minister(s) will John Key fire this week? Bill ‘Double Dipton’ English, is embroiled in yet another personal corruption scandal involving a job for his brother. Gerry ‘The VIIIth’ Brownlee’s Christchurch fiefdom is seeing a peasants’ revolt among redzoners. Murray ‘drowned rat’ McCully delivered Key a huge embarrassment on Friday at the RWC opening.

Happy anniversary Christchurch

Written By: - Date published: 6:49 am, September 5th, 2011 - 56 comments

“Happy” anniversary Christchurch.  And with it comes a broken promise, and an interesting legal decision.

Don’t penny pinch on Chch rebuild

Written By: - Date published: 12:24 pm, August 12th, 2011 - 23 comments

Anyone else feel their heart freeze a little more when Brownlee labeled Christchurch’s rebuild plan “a pretty big wish list”? Here’s a once in generations chance to rebuild a city from the ground up. Going to cost tens of billions anyway. Why cheapskate by a few hundred million? Better to build a truly world-leading city designed for the future.