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Brownlee determined that Christchurch should suffer too
Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, April 19th, 2017 - 25 comments
Christchurch rebuilt must suffer the same central traffic madness as Auckland. Thus decrees Gerry Brownlee, as short-sighted, bullying, and ignorant as ever.
National’s economic report card fail
Written By: - Date published: 2:52 pm, April 18th, 2017 - 18 comments
Though artificially boosted by high immigration and disaster rebuilds, the NZ economy is in the doldrums, and National are a failure even by their own goals and targets. I predict that National will soon abolish all targets, and that this will be “a sign of our success”.
Stay on the treadmill suckers!
Written By: - Date published: 10:53 am, April 12th, 2017 - 32 comments
That is the Nats’ advice to aspiring Auckland house buyers.
Motels are full of homeless so now what?
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, April 11th, 2017 - 83 comments
Ordinary people are priced out of home ownership and increasingly out of renting, the state-housing safety net has been deliberately run down, and now the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff is full. National leaps into action – by asking the Salvation Army for ideas…
MSD and our privacy
Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, April 7th, 2017 - 16 comments
National’s plans for our privacy and access to social services are a perfect cocktail of over-reach and incompetence.
Motels are not state houses
Written By: - Date published: 9:22 am, March 28th, 2017 - 39 comments
It’s almost as if deliberately running down state housing stock doesn’t make the need for homes magically go away – who could possibly have predicted that?
Clifton: Nat MPs getting nervous
Written By: - Date published: 6:42 pm, March 26th, 2017 - 79 comments
English is down 6% in the latest Colmar Brunton. Jane Clifton sees Nat MPs getting nervous. “For the Nats, having so long taken a fourth term as read, the possibility that their own leader may soon be less secure in his job than Labour’s will be a toughie.”
Jam tomorrow
Written By: - Date published: 2:20 pm, March 25th, 2017 - 85 comments
It’s too hard! We’ll do it later! Auckland airport rail is just the latest example.
“Dumbing down a generation”
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, March 21st, 2017 - 137 comments
An excellent piece by Simon Collins in the weekend Herald. NZ’s educational scores in international comparisons are locked in a downward spiral. National’s ideology has failed, while we ignore successful models.
Community groups abandon Smith’s water forum
Written By: - 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?
Roads not health
Written By: - 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.
English a shambles
Written By: - Date published: 7:52 am, March 7th, 2017 - 43 comments
English isn’t going to be very happy when he opens the papers this morning.
Bowron on English’s ‘useless druggies’ smear
Written By: - Date published: 11:54 am, March 6th, 2017 - 33 comments
Bowron: “Prime Minister Bill English’s reputation as a safe pair of blands taking the reins after the mysterious disappearance of John Key took a dive last week when he ruthlessly and cynically turned on Kiwi youth.”
Future state abuse victims
Written By: - Date published: 1:18 pm, March 5th, 2017 - 9 comments
What to do with the helpless anger generated by such a statement?
Swimmable standards that aren’t for all of our rivers except most of them
Written By: - 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.
English reckons the collapse of NZ’s housing is “a good problem to have”
Written By: - Date published: 7:18 am, March 3rd, 2017 - 36 comments
In every case a failure to plan, a failure to deliver, and a glib attempt to fob off the victims of his government’s failure.
English hammered on ‘druggies’ smear
Written By: - Date published: 6:37 am, March 1st, 2017 - 44 comments
English will be worried that he got hammered like this, when Key got away with all sorts of insults and lies. And if you think your fellow Kiwis are useless workers you’re doing it wrong.
Homeless crisis hidden in plain sight
Written By: - 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.
Bill’s bigoted drug reckons vs the evidence
Written By: - Date published: 6:50 am, February 28th, 2017 - 176 comments
Some folks Bill knows are telling him stuff and he’s basing immigration policy on it. The facts say otherwise. Bill English is full of shit and it’s time that more media called him on it.
You can’t afford a house because of – plants!
Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, February 27th, 2017 - 58 comments
I’m used to hearing some pretty pathetic excuses out of the National government. But this will really take some beating.
Two big policy fails
Written By: - 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 screws up again
Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, February 22nd, 2017 - 20 comments
We should probably just schedule this as a monthly post.
Bungling Brownlee under fire
Written By: - 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.
Fires are the new normal
Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, February 17th, 2017 - 65 comments
Hey Bill English, it’s not the case that “no one could have anticipated the large-scale fire on the Port Hills”. Just about every relevant organisation could and did predict it. Most of the other predictions relating to climate change will come true too.
English “will be taken down by housing”
Written By: - 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.”
Watch Bill English lying through his teeth on housing
Written By: - Date published: 2:03 pm, February 13th, 2017 - 36 comments
English is a less convincing liar than Key.
Bill’s big policy flop
Written By: - Date published: 4:38 pm, February 2nd, 2017 - 26 comments
Fair to say that Bill English’s “big” policy announcement today was a total flop.
English condemned
Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, February 1st, 2017 - 25 comments
Interim PM Bill English is getting a hammering for his “weak and indecisive” response to Trump’s Muslim ban.
A PM but not a leader
Written By: - Date published: 8:35 am, January 31st, 2017 - 35 comments
Bill English has failed his first test of real leadership. Compare and contrast, English and Little’s responses to the Muslim ban.
Update: The image is Emmerson’s take in The Herald.
The cost of education
Written By: - Date published: 12:23 pm, January 28th, 2017 - 14 comments
National needs to do something to address spiraling education costs in both the secondary and tertiary sectors.
Predator free NZ – how are we doing?
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, January 20th, 2017 - 30 comments
It has been 6 months since the announcement that New Zealand would be predator free by 2050. But is sounds like nothing concrete has happened yet.
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