Daily Review 23/01/2017
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5:30 pm, January 23rd, 2017 - 10 comments
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Returning to the model that was failing for most polytechnics and Institutes of Technology is not the answer. ...2 days ago
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It’s been revealed that National has cancelled 60 percent of its housing projects planned before mid-2025 amidst housing woes. ...3 days ago
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The Government is quietly undertaking consultation on the dangerous Regulatory Standards Bill over the Christmas period to avoid too much attention. ...3 days ago
- Release: Why not both? Luxon shuns Waitangi celebrations
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is running away from problems of his own creation, with his decision not to go to Waitangi. ...3 days ago
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The Government’s planned changes to the freedom of speech obligations of universities is little more than a front for stoking the political fires of disinformation and fear, placing teachers and students in the crosshairs. ...3 days ago - Release: Nicola Willis spirals country deeper into recession
The economy shrank 1% this quarter and New Zealand has tumbled into the depths of a recession of Nicola Willis’ making. ...4 days ago
- Release: Hikes for company directors but not ordinary Kiwis
Working people are going backwards while company directors are being given huge pay hikes. ...4 days ago
- ECE no place to cut corners
The Ministry of Regulation’s report into Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Aotearoa raises serious concerns about the possibility of lowering qualification requirements, undermining quality and risking worse outcomes for tamariki, whānau, and kaiako. ...5 days ago
- Release: Strengthening Justice Services for New Zealanders
A Bill to modernise the role of Justices of the Peace (JP), ensuring they remain active in their communities and connected with other JPs, has been put into the ballot. ...5 days ago
- Release: Labour will continue fight against destructive projects
Labour will continue to fight unsustainable and destructive projects that are able to leap-frog environment protection under National’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. ...5 days ago
- Green Government will revoke dodgy fast-track projects
The Green Party has warned that a Green Government will revoke the consents of companies who override environmental protections as part of Fast-Track legislation being passed today. ...5 days ago
- Government for the wealthy keeps pushing austerity
The Green Party says the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update shows how the Government is failing to address the massive social and infrastructure deficits our country faces. ...5 days ago
- Release: Visa changes let migrant workers be paid less
The Government’s latest move to reduce the earnings of migrant workers will not only hurt migrants but it will drive down the wages of Kiwi workers. ...5 days ago
- Release: Nightmare before Christmas for Nicola Willis
With more debt and a larger deficit, Nicola Willis’ reputation is in tatters after her failure to return the Government’s books to surplus. ...5 days ago
- Warning to Fast-Track Applicants – ‘Exploit the Whenua, Face the Consequences’
Te Pāti Māori has this morning issued a stern warning to Fast-Track applicants with interests in mining, pledging to hold them accountable through retrospective liability and to immediately revoke Fast-Track consents under a future Te Pāti Māori government. This warning comes ahead of today’s third reading of the Fast-Track Approvals ...5 days ago
- Release: Govt cuts wages for lowest paid NZers… again
For the second year running, the government has effectively cut wages for the lowest paid workers in New Zealand. ...6 days ago
- Govt’s miserly 1.5% minimum wage will take workers backwards
The Government’s announcement today of a 1.5 per cent increase to minimum wage is another blow for workers, with inflation projected to exceed the increase, meaning it’s a real terms pay reduction for many. ...6 days ago
- Release: Govt shirking responsibility for rate hikes
All the Government has achieved from its announcement today is to continue to push responsibility back on councils for its own lack of action to help bring down skyrocketing rates. ...6 days ago
- Luxon’s ‘localism’ strikes again
The Government has used its final post-Cabinet press conference of the year to punch down on local government without offering any credible solutions to the issues our councils are facing. ...6 days ago
- Release: Govt breaks promise on EV chargers
The Government has failed to keep its promise to ‘super charge’ the EV network, delivering just 292 chargers - less than half of the 670 chargers needed to meet its target. ...6 days ago
- Greens call for end to subsidies for Methanex
The Green Party is calling for the Government to stop subsidising the largest user of the country’s gas supplies, Methanex, following a report highlighting the multi-national’s disproportionate influence on energy prices in Aotearoa. ...7 days ago
- Govt child poverty targets allow for increase in poverty
The Green Party is appalled with the Government’s new child poverty targets that are based on a new ‘persistent poverty’ measure that could be met even with an increase in child poverty. ...1 week ago
- Release: Four weeks annual leave under threat
The Government’s attack on workers continues with news it is scrapping work on the Holidays Act. ...1 week ago
- Govt’s emissions plan for measly 1% reduction
New independent analysis has revealed that the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) will reduce emissions by a measly 1 per cent by 2030, failing to set us up for the future and meeting upcoming targets. ...1 week ago
- Greens stand in solidarity with Whakaata Māori on sad day
The loss of 27 kaimahi at Whakaata Māori and the end of its daily news bulletin is a sad day for Māori media and another step backwards for Te Tiriti o Waitangi justice. ...1 week ago
- Sanctions regime to create more hardship for families
Yesterday the Government passed cruel legislation through first reading to establish a new beneficiary sanction regime that will ultimately mean more households cannot afford the basic essentials. ...1 week ago
- Govt gifts renters housing anxiety for Christmas
Today's passing of the Government's Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill–which allows landlords to end tenancies with no reason–ignores the voice of the people and leaves renters in limbo ahead of the festive season. ...1 week ago
- Release: National Party urged to support modern slavery legislation
Labour is urging the Prime Minister to walk the talk and support legislation combating modern slavery. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Labour has lost confidence in the Speaker
The Speaker of the New Zealand Parliament made an unprecedented decision on the government amendment to the Fast Track Approvals Bill last night. ...2 weeks ago
- One year on, still no progress on new ferries
Today’s announcement from the Government on its plan for new ferries throws more uncertainty on the future of the country’s rail network. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Nicola Willis’ smaller ferries will cost more
After wasting a year, Nicola Willis has delivered a worse deal for the Cook Strait ferries that will end up being more expensive and take longer to arrive. ...2 weeks ago
- Bill to sanction unlawful occupation of Palestine
Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has today launched a Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as the All Out For Gaza rally reaches Parliament. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Labour fully supports greyhound racing ban
The Government has done the right thing in moving to ban greyhound racing. ...2 weeks ago
- Greyhound racing industry ban marks new era for animal welfare
After years of advocacy, the Green Party is very happy to hear the Government has listened to our collective voices and announced the closure of the greyhound racing industry, by 1 August 2026. ...2 weeks ago
- Rangatahi voices must be centred in Government’s Relationship and Sexuality Education refresh
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- Govt introduces archaic anti-worker legislation
The Green Party is appalled at the Government introducing legislation that will make it easier to penalise workers fighting for better pay and conditions. ...2 weeks ago
- Winston Peters – Kinleith Mill Speech
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- Torture redress for survivors of the Lake Alice Unit
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- New appointments to the Charities Registration Board
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- New Zealand to assist Vanuatu on earthquake response
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Oh boy. When politics seemed simpler. Love/Hate Muldoon.
Yep at least with him you knew where you were. Not like current politics where there are facts and alternative facts …
Dunno micky, he certainly saw an alternative reality to a lot of people.
I remember a lengthy stunned silence when we heard he’d outlawed inflation with his wage and price freeze. The people in the bar were a broad cross section of a large rural town and looking back it was pretty obvious Muldoon had lost the plot and there’d be a change of government at the next election.
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/cartoon/25623/the-wage-and-price-freeze-1982-1984
Well one thing that I think we could all agree on …. he was a handsome man.
With an emphasis on the “was”.
I remember that. It was early on during his PM days at his Hatfied Bach just north of Orewa. I’ll give him this… it was a very unpretentious bach.
Unpretentious it was. And Hatfield’s was a fairly unpretentious place. Not like Omaha, and even less like Hawaii.
Mainly though, it was close to the Orewa Rotary club where Rob could pop over the hill to make his speech. He probably thought about the speech while mowing the lawn – which looks pretty rank and long so it would take a while. Although I loathed him at the time, I realise now there must have been something good about him if Bob Jones hated him so much he created the “New Zillun” party to oust him. Seems like Rob kept National’s radical neoliberal right at bay – but then Labour gave them an opening after ’84
I wrote a vitriolic and unpublished piece of doggerel in rhyming couplets about Rob holidaying at Hatfield’s and speaking at Orewa. I was having to read tedious Augustans like Pope and Dryden at the time. Mercifully it is all forgotten except for:
“Rotarians in dinner suits
staggering on piss-splashed boots”
which sort of captures a sense of the boozy, white male privilege one associates with such events.
Labour gave them an opening after ’84
Well actually no. It was Muldoon himself who gave them the opening. He did so by dragging the country to the edge of a fiscal precipice with his ‘Think Big’ policies. That gave Douglas and co. the excuse to drag the country towards radical policy changes on the pretext they were “saving NZ from bankruptcy”. Because nobody had heard of neo-liberalism etc. we didn’t know what they were letting us in for. By the time the penny dropped it was too late. We were knee deep in the market forces mantra and could no longer extract ourselves. At least up until now.
There will be a post up on this soon, but for twitter people there is a twitter storm happening tonight to raise attention with MPs and Media to Stop Niki’s Eviction tomorrow from her state house home of 21 years.
Details here,
https://www.facebook.com/THISHOMEISOCCUPIED/posts/737462696410397
https://twitter.com/defendGI/status/823297362810417152
https://www.facebook.com/THISHOMEISOCCUPIED/photos/pb.312832585540079.-2207520000.1485152924./737459699744030/?type=3&theater
#NikisEviction
https://twitter.com/hashtag/NikisEviction?src=tren&data_id=tweet%3A823421413419692033
Great lawnmowers those, with the old 2-stroke Iron Horse engine. I still use one I bought second hand in 1990.