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What’s up with Matt Doocey, Mike King & the $24mn of taxpayers money?

Written By: - Date published: 1:55 pm, November 1st, 2024 - 15 comments

Mike King calls alcohol a solution to mental health anguish. But evidence shows alcohol is linked to a 94% increase in suicide and has links to family violence. So what is happening with King and the $24m this government handed him in a highly “irregular” contract process?

Simon Bridges twitter game

Written By: - Date published: 2:40 pm, February 11th, 2019 - 27 comments

Simon Bridges’ twitter account has been tweeting about unusual subjects lately.

Roastbusters redux

Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, January 27th, 2019 - 92 comments

One of the Roastbusters this week has talked publicly about what happened in an apparent attempt to start a music career. And John Tamihere has started his Mayoral campaign having to answer questions about his attitude to what happened.

Drug testing at music festivals

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, January 7th, 2019 - 18 comments

Police Minister Stuart Nash has said publicly that he wants to see all New Zealand music festivals to have drug testing kits by next summer.

For a Better New Zealand?

Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, October 15th, 2018 - 44 comments

A new political party has emerged with what could be loosely described as a stunning website.

Kiwi values

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, October 1st, 2018 - 106 comments

New Zealand First at its conference on the weekend passed a remit to calling for immigrants and refugees to “respect New Zealand values” which are founded on Christianity.

Russell McVeagh

Written By: - Date published: 8:11 am, July 6th, 2018 - 31 comments

Dame Margaret Beazley has concluded in her report into Russell McVeagh, New Zealand’s Goldman Sachs, that it has serious problems including instances of excessive drinking and in some instances crude, drunken, and sexually inappropriate behaviour, a failure of governance and pockets of bullying.

Corporate media: Blame it on the alcohol

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, March 15th, 2018 - 87 comments

A row of at least fourteen beer cans, stacked two-high

Do we have a sexual assault problem in New Zealand, or an alcohol problem? The media has decided for you. (Content warning: Sexual assault, rape culture, discussion of problematic news coverage thereof)

NZ: Home of Rugby, Raping and Beer

Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, September 8th, 2016 - 103 comments

The whitewash of the rugby players who assaulted a woman at a post season piss up has been released. A mightily relieved rugby boss Steve Tew can now go into the rest of the season knowing that the All Black squad will not be affected by the loss of any players to suspension. The only person to have lost their job over the incident is the victim. How cool is that?

The great big list of John Key’s big fat lies (UPDATED)

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, January 27th, 2016 - 79 comments

How many more lies will John Key tell today in his so-called State of the Nation address? Virtual chocolate fish to whomever guesses the closest number.

Judith Collins: fudging evidence

Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, April 26th, 2014 - 32 comments

Judith Colllins & the PM are probably toasting Shane Jones (and Murray McCully) right now: the heat around the Oravida controversy has been pushed off the front pages.  Information and marginalised news don’t easily disappear off the web – or Wikipedia.  Collins quietly slipped out a press release on the delay of her decision on alcohol pricing – media shy suddenly?

In the UK…

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 pm, November 29th, 2012 - 12 comments

The big story for the day is the likely change in press regulation as the Leveson Report on questionable media ethics is about to released. But the next couple of stories are also interesting with similar (unresolved) stories here this year: Minimum Price for Alcohol, and Caps on Payday Loans

No, why would I?

Written By: - Date published: 10:21 am, October 26th, 2012 - 140 comments

In a dinnamic environment it’s hard to be precise

Written By: - Date published: 8:03 am, October 19th, 2012 - 32 comments

So apparently John Key failed to be “precise enough” when he said he voted for the drinking age to be 20, and actually voted for it to be 18. But then this is all the fault of opposition MPs being ‘pedantic’ with the fact that true doesn’t equal false.

Not even trying any more

Written By: - Date published: 7:43 am, October 18th, 2012 - 35 comments

Key’s just straight up lying to the media now on easily verifiable facts. A 3news poll shows 57% said Parliament got it wrong keeping the drinking age at 18%. Key says: “That’s one of the reasons I voted for it to go to 20 – in line with what the public thought – but Parliament didn’t vote that one.” In reality, he voted split age and, then, to keep it 18.

The conservative’s nightmare

Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, August 31st, 2012 - 51 comments

Soon, a 18-year old gay man will be able to get married and, then, celebrate by having a drink. If Jacinda Ardern’s Bill passes, he’ll be able to adopt his husband’s child. And, if David Clark’s Bill passes – he can then earn $15 an hour at his minimum wage job! It really is the conservative’s nightmare at the moment. I’m loving it.

The drinking age

Written By: - Date published: 12:20 pm, August 30th, 2012 - 107 comments

The alcohol reforms miss the real issues and focuses on wowserism over teens drinking, instead. The Hospitality Association will be rubbing its hands at the split age suggestion. But there ins’t a growing problem with booze. Alcohol consumption is falling. 25 years ago, we consumed 140 litres of alcoholic beverages per person (including children!) per year. Today, that number is 105 litres.

Alcohol distraction

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, August 30th, 2012 - 69 comments

Today MPs will have a conscience vote on the drinking age. But National won’t be moving on anything that will hurt the alcohol industry, even though action on price and advertising is what’s really needed to make a difference to New Zealand’s alcohol problem.

Update: And remain at 18 it is.

Conscience votes

Written By: - Date published: 7:06 am, August 28th, 2012 - 91 comments

Two high-profile conscience votes are coming up in Parliament over the next two days. It will be interesting to see the breakdown of who votes which way on the issues. But the level of malice expressed by some of those opposed to marriage equality is disturbing.

Collins crushed by booze lobby

Written By: - Date published: 10:14 pm, August 24th, 2012 - 40 comments

What a craven cave-in. Lobbied by big booze, Collins has given in. Alco-pops will be left to the industry to regulate. It’s not a good look. Key wants to give the pokie industry free rein, and Collins wants to give the booze industry free rein, which means more families suffer, and more hospitals are overrun. As leaders they both get a fail.

NRT: Dunne on alcohol pricing

Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, August 7th, 2012 - 48 comments

Last month, Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne told us “I don’t support a minimum pricing regime … a lot of the material that I’ve seen from other jurisdictions raises more doubts than support for the issue of minimum alcohol pricing“. Now, an OIA reveals the actual advice to Dunne was that the international evidence shows minimum alcohol pricing works.

Dunne clears the competition for his backers

Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, July 17th, 2012 - 54 comments

A cynic might ask if Peter Dunne is out to eliminate the competition of his mates and (it is widely thought) donors in the alcohol and cigarette industries by setting ever higher barriers for other legal highs. And I’m that cynic. I’m not against anyone selling something for human consumption having to prove its safety. […]

Alcohol to be banned

Written By: - Date published: 1:40 pm, July 15th, 2012 - 15 comments

The Government announced that it was withdrawing its Alcohol Reform Bill today and introducing prohibition after it realised that alcohol was used by the ‘Beast of Blenheim’ to stupefy young girls. “It’s what we’d do if it was any other drug, particularly as it’s associated with the ‘Beast of Blenheim’,” said Justice Minister Judith Collins.

Minimum pricing

Written By: - Date published: 10:16 am, July 3rd, 2012 - 136 comments

All the evidence (eg) shows that increasing the price of harmful substances is the best way to decrease their use and, particularly, their abuse. Minimum pricing is one effective measure to do that for alcohol. But John Key disagrees. Based on … nothing. He hasn’t even taken the time to understand what minimum pricing is.

Katherine Rich on the Health Promotion Board: The next outrageous piece of Nat cronyism

Written By: - Date published: 10:35 am, June 28th, 2012 - 50 comments

Putting the CEO of the leading lobbying agency and industry promotional group for companies promoting sales of sugar, fat and alcohol on the Board of the public health agency supposed to prevent harm to young NZers is an outrageous act of cronyism.

ImperatorFish: Booze-busting Banks Divides ACT

Written By: - Date published: 2:42 pm, April 24th, 2012 - 3 comments

Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here.
A bitter fight has erupted within the ACT Party over the decision by leader John Banks to vote against keeping the alcohol purchasing age at 18.

Not the Dunne thing…

Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, December 13th, 2011 - 46 comments

Peter Dunne has – according to Alcohol Action NZ spokesperson Professor Doug Sellman – “deliberately suppressed” the biggest and best survey on Kiwi attitudes to drink legislation this country has (not) seen.

John Key too drunk to drive

Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, November 5th, 2011 - 49 comments

hattip: tumeke

Votes before lives for Key

Written By: - Date published: 5:47 pm, January 2nd, 2011 - 33 comments

OIA papers show Key blocked lowering the drink-drive level fearing an anti-‘PC’ backlash. Officials warned “Drivers with a blood-alcohol content of [80mg], who are legally entitled to drive, are significantly impaired”. But Key’s office was worried about votes. So Joyce kicked for touch – commissioned 2 years of research. While we wait, more lives are lost.

The real target of DB Export campaign

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, December 20th, 2010 - 61 comments

There’s an ad campaign at the moment about how DB Export was supposedly created in reaction to the Black Budget. It’s full of lies and a lot of people see it as a slur on Arnold Nordmeyer and Labour in general. In fact, this odd campaign under the slogan ‘how to lose an election’ isn’t about Labour. It’s a warning to National.

Hard core drunk drivers

Written By: - Date published: 9:01 am, November 15th, 2010 - 32 comments

The Key government doesn’t want to act on advice that would reduce deaths due to drunk drivers.  The latest tactic is an attempt to divert attention to the worst “hard core” offenders.  This is “ambulance at the bottom of the cliff” foolishness.  Why wait until we have problem drunk drivers and then try and pick up the pieces? Wouldn’t it be better to try and prevent people from becoming problem drivers in the first place?