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Murdering statistics

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:36 am, July 12th, 2010 - 16 comments

Something that really boiled my blood a few weeks back, but which I haven’t had a chance to write about yet was this post by National Party pollster David Farrar on the topic of a recent lull in homicides in a single police district. It was the worst kind of politics – a person who knows his argument is false taking advantage of the suffering of people and the ignorance of his audience for petty party political points scoring.

Edwards: Goff totally loses the plot

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 7:51 am, June 24th, 2010 - 125 comments

A government whose raison d’etre is furthering corporate interests can be pretty damned incompetent and still do okay, because corporate msm do the PR for them. And in return for this government favouring corporate interests over all else we’ve seen countless examples of NACT committing howling errors of judgement, if not outright illegalities, only to […]

Labour concedes 2011 election

Written By: r0b - Date published: 10:00 am, June 13th, 2010 - 56 comments

In a short statement outside the Beehive today Labour leader Phil Goff conceded the 2011 election to National.

Rush to judge turns embarrassing

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:30 pm, June 2nd, 2010 - 18 comments

The Budget is turning into something of an embarrassment for the media. Even before it had been released, the journos in their lock-up had written pieces proclaiming it a hugely popular success. The evidence says they got it wrong. The people think they’ll be worse off. Journos need to stop deciding public opinion before it has had a chance to form, let alone be sampled.

Privatisation: The Myths

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 10:57 am, May 26th, 2010 - 66 comments

So Blinglish’s new and improved less-bitter poison is part-privatisation. In much the same way as marketing a filling as more fun than a full root-canal, he thinks that if he sells each of his mates one piece of the family silver (and keeps the spoons) instead of flogging off the whole set to one of his mates, we’ll be much happier.

No progress on Key memorial cycleway

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:30 am, May 24th, 2010 - 41 comments

I love that John Key is so desperate to show some progress on his memorial cycleway that he’s even going along to the opening of cycleways that aren’t funded with its money. On Sunday he showed up at the opening of a cycleway in Oamaru. The cycleway was funded by the council and NZTA. The recession has been over for a year – not a single job has been created, no cycleway built.

The borrowed bunny

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:56 am, May 22nd, 2010 - 41 comments

It’s interesting to see how Irish’s ‘rabbit from a hat’ metaphor has taken off for describing this Budget. Some, like Tracey Watkins, are even using it positively. She needs to have a bit more of a think about what the rabbit from a hat is. The rabbit itself is nothing special. In fact, in this case it’s a borrowed bunny, despite the media’s tendency to portray tax cut as costless.

Government Propaganda: Corrected

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 12:30 pm, May 21st, 2010 - 20 comments

There’s some useful scenarios to look at on the beehive’s tax site. They show how we all pay less tax, even after GST, and somehow the government also gets more tax. I love maths like that. But some of them seem to have something missing, so I thought I’d correct a couple of them…

Close the loophole by knocking down the wall

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:43 am, May 20th, 2010 - 23 comments

Giving the rich a bucket of your money, is about keeping valuable people (who must be rich, by definition) in this country, or closing loopholes (by make the cheat automatic), or was it about boosting growth through trickle down (which is like helping a dehydrated man by giving water to someone with an already full bladder and hoping they piss on him)? Whatever, just don’t be jealous, OK?

Excusing the ‘Don’t Be Jealous’ Budget

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:00 am, May 19th, 2010 - 15 comments

Tomorrow, National will give huge tax cuts to the wealthiest New Zealanders. $12,000 a year for a typical CEO or a Prime Minister on $350,000 a year. $290,000 a year for Paul Reynolds, the CEO of Telecom. The Right are trying a bunch of excuses for this unneeded gift to the richest people in the country, paid for by working Kiwis. Let’s debunk ’em.

Who says tax swap boosts growth?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:35 am, May 17th, 2010 - 33 comments

There are several myths about the coming tax swap that have a surprising amount of currency. The biggest is that this tax swap will boost growth. It won’t and the Tax Working Group never said it would. What it will do is increase inequality with massive tax cuts for the elite funded by higher GST and rents for working Kiwis. That’s not by accident or inevitable – it’s by design.

Backlash over media favouritism

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:10 am, May 4th, 2010 - 52 comments

Tracey Watkins is less than chuffed over the way the media were used on John Key’s ‘secret’ Afghanistan trip:…Equally troubling was the control exerted by the Prime Minister’s Office over access – Key refused to make room for journalists from the country’s two biggest media companies, Fairfax and APN. Even state broadcaster Radio New Zealand was left in the cold.

Key under attack from Left & Right

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:25 pm, May 2nd, 2010 - 48 comments

50,000 New Zealanders march against the mining plans of this government. For many, the mining agenda is yet another black mark against this government that has done nothing positive about the issues that matter – jobs, wages, health, education, the environment. But the capitalist elite who so desperately wanted their party in power are getting pretty pissed off too.

Asking your members’ opinions? Outrageous!

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:26 pm, April 21st, 2010 - 27 comments

TVNZ: “Labour has been rumbled secretly polling its own members”. Jesus, can’t Labour can’t even poll its own members without the media playing silly buggers? They’re asking their members about the party’s branding (not its values, its branding). That’s a good thing. It’s the members’ party after all. Good stuff, Labour. You don’t see National asking for its members’ opinions.

If smiles equaled FTAs Key wouldn’t be a do nothing PM

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 12:20 pm, April 18th, 2010 - 7 comments

Journos. Obama didn’t meet Key before dinner on a big stage in front of the media because it was just practical. The leaders didn’t stand with awkward grins for the group photo because it was a crucial step in the diplomatic process. This is being done for you. Only you. It is meaningless apart from the fact they know the media will lap it up. They think you’re saps. And you keep proving them right.

Nat-onomics: $30 million up in flames

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:15 pm, April 17th, 2010 - 11 comments

Vernon Small calculates that if the Cullen Fund had continued getting its monthly contributions, rather than just the one-off $250 million the government gave in July, we would be $30 million better off by now. Predictably, the financially illiterate Key apologists are having a cry about being shown to have stuffed this one up so badly.

Restart Cullen Fund payments

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 7:17 am, April 16th, 2010 - 24 comments

It’s time for the Nats to reverse what Vernon Small (with 20/20 hindsight) has labeled the “dumb, short-sighted decision” to can contributions to the Cullen Fund. We’ve already lost $25 million and Treasury says we’ll lose billions more. If we don’t make this investment now, superannuation will become unsustainable sometime after 2030. Perhaps that’s the Nats’ aim.

Espiner on the right-wing smear machine

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:30 am, March 31st, 2010 - 16 comments

The Nats run orchestrated smear campaigns coordinated with ministers’ offices, bloggers, and tame journos. National doesn’t want to and can’t engage in real political debate on the issues. So it is reduced to mud throwing. Some brave journo needs to shine a light on what is going on here. It is not good enough for the government to get away with using its proxies to wage secret smear campaigns.

‘Dig & hope’ – Nats’ great plan

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:30 am, March 25th, 2010 - 43 comments

National’s mining policy is ‘dig and hope’. That’s the only conclusion one can draw after Gerry Brownlee and Nick Smith admitted National has no idea of the value of the minerals supposedly under the protected lands they want to dig up. Remember, this is National’s lynch-pin economic policy. They are we have dig up these protected lands for the sake of the economy but have no idea of what’s there.

About time for another Key photo op

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:02 am, March 25th, 2010 - 29 comments

That time of the cycle again. Unpopular policy. Crappy week in the House. Nats gotta switch the mood. Photo op. Something stupid for the papers to run. Something for the journos to say ‘your ministers are a bunch of incompetents, lairs, and thieves. All your important promises have been broken. And you keep lying to us. But damn you’re cute’. What will it be? I’ve got an inside hint. You can have a look. But don’t tell anyone.

Who is paying for Wellywood ads?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:00 am, March 23rd, 2010 - 4 comments

I wonder who is paying for this ad pleading for people to join the pro-Wellywood Facebook group. The pro-Wellywood group has the bland artificial feel of a piece of astro-turfing, probably from Prendergast or the airport judging by the content. And it stands to reason that the ad is paid for by the creators. Is ratepayer money being used to try to get people to join a Facebook group?

Rumblings in Nats’ base

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:30 am, March 18th, 2010 - 20 comments

There’s a danger in being a government that does nothing except pay of its rich mates, and that’s losing faith with the conservative base. Garth George is the slightly mad, always irritable voice of this demographic, so it’s worth watching as his initial love for John Key wears off to be replaced by despair (and rising anger) at Key’s failure to deliver the brighter future he promised.

Wee gripes: the Steven Joyce cult

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 10:54 am, March 17th, 2010 - 33 comments

People like to talk about how great Steven Joyce is. But he’s not got a single run on the board.

Am I missing something or is just talking about how good you are all that’s needed nowadays?

Nats resort to plants to help Tolley

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 11:54 pm, March 11th, 2010 - 57 comments

Let’s face facts. Anne Tolley is a dangerous minister. She is undermining the education system at every turn and the damage will last lifetime. But is National doing the responsible thing and removing her from the portfolio? No. In fact, a guest poster reports they’re so desperate to help her out that they’ve got plants in her audiences to ask patsy questions.

Some friendly advice for Labour

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 5:46 pm, March 10th, 2010 - 115 comments

The latest Roy Morgan poll is out and Labour isn’t moving. And while only a political noob would expect them to be making major gains this early in the first term of a new government they’re still not laying the groundwork they should be. So what should they be doing?

Another Nat lie on GST

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:27 pm, February 28th, 2010 - 51 comments

You have to double-check every ‘fact’ the Nats tell you. Bill English, for example, has been caught out lying on Labour’s growth record.
For the last couple of weeks, John Key has been claiming that when Labour increased GST from 10% to 12.5% in 1989 there was no compensation for taxpayers. That too is a lie.

Heatley’s redherring cover for Brownlee

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:45 am, February 27th, 2010 - 20 comments

Fran O’Sullivan agrees with my theory on the real reason for Phil Heatley’s resignation and the reason why an excuse was invented. The real reason was what amounts to Heatley’s theft of taxpayer money by using his ministerial credit card, and the receipt excuse was invented to protect Gerry Brownlee who had also misused his credit card

Heatley story full of holes

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 7:10 am, February 26th, 2010 - 84 comments

Ministers don’t resign for describing a trivial expense in a perfectly legitimate way. I’m thinking Phil Heatley really had a crisis of conscience over the credit card ‘misuse’ and wanted to resign but that would have put Gerry Brownlee in the gun too. So they invented the receipt excuse. What’s your theory?

John remembers his underclass, briefly

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:59 am, February 12th, 2010 - 15 comments

The other day I wrote: I reckon we probably will see a passing reference to the â€˜underclass’ for appearance’s sake [in John Key’s statement to Parliament] but I’m just as sure that his government will continue to fail the most vulnerable members of our society. Well whatdaya know? There it is: I have said it […]

Learning from example

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:00 am, February 12th, 2010 - 12 comments

In chronological order: John Key: “[I never promised I wouldn’t raise GST]. I said I would not raise GST to cover deficits, and we are not doing so.” Guyon Espiner: “he would have been better of just saying ‘look, times have changed and GST is now back on the agenda’” Duncan Garner: “The Prime Minister […]

When was the last time Key mentioned the ‘underclass’?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:00 am, February 8th, 2010 - 9 comments

I was thinking the other day about John Key’s underclass speech. It was always pure gimmickry, as was the whole exploitation of Aroha. But how long would he keep up the facade once the PR value had worn off?