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6:00 am, March 30th, 2016 - 47 comments
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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‘The government has no plans to sell New Zealand Post despite the company continuing to struggle with fewer postal deliveries, Finance Minister Bill English says.’
Yeah, right.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/300139/struggling-nz-post-won't-be-sold-english
No, NZ post won’t be sold – the postal services are not worth anything. Kiwibank will be split and that will be sold. English could make no comment on Kiwibank being split off from NZ Post. The only reason to split would be to sell off the profitable part (Kiwibank)
Here we go ! Definitive suggestion the govt will sell Kiwibank.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?id=466&objectid=11614062dann
Business editor of the NZ Herald Liam Dann: Time to sell Kiwibank and NZ Post
4:17 PM Wednesday Mar 30, 2016
Hooton bathes in his own celebrity. Hmm let me guess who his main client is these days?
Probably deals in milk powder, swamp kauri and bottled water. Just happens to have a wife who is a power hungry Minister who is not adverse to knocking over rivals.
Little is not that much of an idiot Matthew to call you out. Tickets please…tickets please…clipping tickets for a price!
“Some of which are highly paid PR consultants I might add.”
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11613354
It is a disgrace that RNZ give this spin merchant a platform to dissemble each week.
They also give someone from the left the same opportunity. At least Mr Hooton criticisms his own side (often very vigorously). The current representative from the left seems to just be an apologist for everything Labour does.
Wonder why a pseudo-left winger like Pagani didn’t get the spot
“They also give someone from the left the same opportunity. At least Mr Hooton criticisms his own side (often very vigorously). The current representative from the left seems to just be an apologist for everything Labour does.”
Poor Gosman. He can’t tell the difference between a coherent argument that can be debated and a line of PR that is designed to manipulate the listener towards a certain bias. Or maybe he can 😉
Some would say Hooton works to keep Collins at the top of the peaking order of Natcorp. It is in her best interests to crack Key every now and then. Bennett is Key’s pet so trimming her up also serves Collins.
Clean green New Zealand.
Yeah, right.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/300174/'it's-just-destroyed-our-entire-summer‘
The big question there is: Why did the sluice gates break?
I suspect that the answer is lack of maintenance.
Same reason the Napier to Gisborne railway line has been mothballed. Lack of maintenance which caused a culvert washout during a storm.
And we’re seeing this lack of maintenance around the world. US engineers estimate that the US infrastructure needs trillions of dollars spent on it. Political response? Cut taxes on the rich and cut social spending including spending on infrastructure.
Makes me wonder just how bad NZs infrastructure is because we’ve been doing exactly the same for the last 30 years.
What’s missing?
http://www.labour.org.nz/
http://www.labour.org.nz/diary_spy_160324
Just listened to Andrew Little being interviewed on Morning Report regarding his views on politicians being attacked on social media. It was so bad I felt sorry for him. Why did he try and make a political point on this topic?
A barking dog and passing cars comes to mind.
Just read Gosman shitstirring on The Standard this morning regarding his feelings about politicians being political. It was so pathetic I felt sorry for him. Why did he try and make an astroturfing point out of this topic?
Is there a website where we can see copies of all the flags submitted for consideration? Failing that, the shortlisted flags before the “expert kiwis” rejected them. Also, we know how the politicians voted but has anyone asked the “panel” how they voted? Wonder if any of them still preferred the original.
Here are all 172 pages of submissions, the pencil & crayon drawn ones have the most charm for me. There’s a link on to the longlist of 40.
https://www.govt.nz/browse/engaging-with-government/the-nz-flag-your-chance-to-decide/gallery/?sort=random
there are a few really good designs amongst them.
But frankly i hope to never ever have to see a design from that Lockwood dude. He had way to many entries. Maybe they should have just limited it to one entry per person, and we would have gotten a bit more choice.
In saying that….Hypno Flag and Laser Kiwi….t’would have been a hard choice.
All five of the Lockwood designs in the top 40 were the same thing in different colours (one of them had previously won a Devonport design a flag competition, but couldn’t say which). The peculiar thing is just how based around the fern they were, considering that he can’t draw a fern for sour apples. Sven Baker also had four different designs in the longlist, but at least they were all different (5 different kinds of repulsive). Any future flag design panel should have a one finalist per designer rule (some designers and vexillogists would help too).
Personally, I liked Frizell’s black&green Manawa design, but the black jack was good too:
https://www.govt.nz/browse/engaging-with-government/the-nz-flag-your-chance-to-decide/gallery/
lets not speak about this….erosion of benefits – no not the bludger benefits like unemployment benefits or single parent benefits – they obviously need to be as low as possible to get people to ‘choose’ work instead of ‘live on the dole’, no the other good benefits like Accom Supplement ( i was told by a WINZ drone it is not a ‘benefit), Student Allowances, WFF, Legal Aid………
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/78333951/some-government-benefits-are-quietly-being-eroded-at-the-expense-of-families
“EROSION OF SUPPORT FOR STUDENTS
Student allowance is a fairness mechanism there to help the children of poorer families get a tertiary education.
Whether a student gets it or not depends on their income, and those of their parents.
The parental income levels have been frozen since April 2012, and will not be inflation-adjusted from their current levels until March 2019.
The number of people getting the allowance has fallen from nearly 70,000 in 2011 to about 54,000 in 2015.
The amount paid dropped from $78.8 million to $58.7m. A similar decline happened for student accommodation allowance.”
Raped by the state
https://youtu.be/Eaxvhq029oo?t=53s
We need an NZ version of this. Read the whole piece for best effect.
An Open Letter To All Supporters Of The TPP
http://www.opednews.com/articles/An-Open-Letter-To-All-Supp-by-Terry-Sneller-Tpp-Trans-pacific-Partnership-160328-458.html
+1 Tautoko Mangō Mata
This is a few days old now, but new to me. Even if someone has already linked to it, it does deserve viewing:
“…changes in this space”
“what space?”
“the space where the news used to be”
shit, he’s frighteningly incisive…and funny
John Gascoigne is good in the Herald today. In particular:
“New Zealanders are told they have a “rock-star economy” and are doing well. But they also experience low wages, almost 6 per cent unemployment, job insecurity, housing unaffordability, crippling student and national debt, homelessness, a metastasising underclass, grotesque inequality, desolate communities and so on. But we are doing well, apparently.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11613468
Gosh there is a lot of right wing Troll activity on the blogs at the moment as well as attacks on Little.
I think the polls might be looking shaky for the Natz.
Agreed saveNZ. I wonder if there is a strategy here directed by Joyce/Crosby Textor to drown out the debate on genuine policies. Some quiet words at BBQ’s and cocktail parties-nothing in writing of course;”keep up the trolling pressure chaps”.
IMO the only way to fight fire is with fire-attack Key at every opportunity. Knock the rapidly disintegrating gloss of his image.
or articulate an attractive alternative vision.
ubi, cleaned up waterways, a diversified economy, chase up the foreign fat cats and make them pay their fair share…
and leave the tories to their unattractive sniping.
remember when you wrestle with a pig, you both get dirty. only the pig enjoys it.
@ gsays
Yeah maybe you are right. Trying to drag Key into the mud never seems to work-Dirty Politics being the best example.
The people will work out he is a duplicitous liar working mostly for his 1% mates….eventually.
My only solace is that his reign will be looked back at negatively by most people, probably even his own side, in the future. He just doesn’t have the vision thing. At all.
Dam you are on to us! Just last week the Crosby Textor drones were out in force delivering instructions to thousands of BBQ’s gatherings all over NZ. Some inside info…just like on mission impossible after the instructions have been read by all it self destructs to stop any vital Intel falling into the hands of left wing spies!!
Seriously guys your comments are surely tongue in check?
Smearing and firing up the DP machine is all they have as the facts, shonky deals, corruption and chooks of their ecomonic incompetance come home to roost.
Interesting read on D. Trump Presnit to be and his foreign policy. Go read it, you know you want to 🙂
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/us/politics/donald-trump-transcript.html?_r=0
Only read part of it Sabine, but Trump dissembles like Key does when speaking unscripted. Transcripts show that there are lots of words but little of substance.
Worker Cooperatives Are More Productive Than Normal Companies
http://www.thenation.com/article/worker-cooperatives-are-more-productive-than-normal-companies/
hi weka,
during the weekend i rewatched ‘the four horsemen of the apocalypse’ (great film).
it touched on how the workplaces (factories and other places of production) were worker owned.
seems absolutely logical.
also an article, highlighted on the standard, about a ubi run in a town in canada.
the findings included how productivity took a lift during this time.
watch the tories diss this as they know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
Kaipara District Council claim settled
http://oag.govt.nz/media/2016/kaipara-settlement
Hope it works, I know people involved on both sides of this story and nobody is looking too flash. I feel sorry for ratepayers in places like Ruawai and Dargaville who will no doubt end up paying for it in the long run.
PROTEST THE PRIVATISATION OF STATE HOUSING IN TAMAKI!
Seen this?
____________________________________________________________________________________
Please join us in protest outside the Tamaki Regeneration Company offices, 244 Apirana Ave Glen Innes this Thursday the 31st March, at 3pm.
This Thursday, the 31st of March, 2,800 state homes are to be transfered to the Tāmaki Housing Association. This affects 2,800 households that will be anticipating eviction, and subsequent demolitions of state housing in Tāmaki in favour of the government’s proposed ‘urban renewal’ promise to build more homes.
Mixed tenure communities is used as a way of socially cleansing low-income communities through a process of state-led gentrification.
The government says that demolishing state houses and building a mixture of private, affordable and social housing will lead to affordable housing.
This is a con, as land values in Glen Innes have increased by more than 100% since the redevelopment. The transfer of homes is not a new idea, it is a continuation of what the privatisation and gentrification of Tāmaki since 2011.
This is a further privatisation of state assets and gentrification of lower socioeconomic areas as in Pomarie, Tauranga and Invercargill.
This is happening all over Aotearoa and is similar to Thatcher’s regime, where council estates were transferred to housing associations which led to privatisation, displacement and homelessness.
This is the first major step in the National government’s privatisation of state housing, and we need to make a stand now or we stand to lose more than just a state asset.
Come and support the Tāmaki Housing Group, and all state housing tenants that are, or soon will be, directly affected by these reforms.
We live in a low wage economy where people are already struggling to pay rent, getting rid of state housing is not a solution to the housing crisis, it only leads to increasing unaffordability.
Everybody is affected by these reforms. Let us resist the state’s neoliberal agenda on a basic human right to for families to have a home to live in.
Please join us in protest outside the Tamaki Regeneration Company offices, 244 Apirana Ave Glen Innes this Thursday the 31st March, at 3pm.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1695882720676368/
Ngā mihi,
Tāmaki Housing Group
+100 Penny
Yawn, protest over load
Crosstalk discussion /debate:
https://www.rt.com/shows/crosstalk/337391-terror-attacks-nato-ukraine/
“Why can’t Europe protect itself from terror attacks – does Brussels have misplaced priorities?
Also, Russia as universal bogeyman – when the US and the EU stare failure in the face blaming Russia is the first excuse of convenience.
And is Trump on to something – should there be a serious re-think about the necessity of NATO?
And finally Ukraine again – Crimea’s democratic return to Russia two years on….
CrossTalking with Patrick Henningsen, Dmitry Babich and Xavier Moreau.
Bunnings back down on store defibrillators.
Obviously not caring if your staff or customers died on site was a bad look.
Now, hopefully, they’ll think twice about continuing their current dispute with the union over rosters. Too much shitty publicity so close together is a bad plan for anyone wanting to keep customers.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/78339440/council-belonging-to-developer-body-is-conflict-of-interest-lee-says
“Auckland Council’s membership of a property developer body is “crony capitalism” of the sort pushing Americans to vote for Donald Trump.
So says veteran local politician Mike Lee, who has called for councillors to vote on Thursday to end the association with the Property Council of New Zealand.
The Property Council lobbies central and local government on behalf of property developers. It was a glaring conflict of interest that Auckland Council was also a member, Lee said.
…..”
I agree with Auckland Councillor Mike Lee.
Again – I will be pushing that Auckland Council and all CCOs which are members of the NZ Property Council cease their membership forthwith, when I address the Auckland Council Governing Body (tomorrow) Thursday 31 March 2016, at 9.30am, Auckland Town Hall, in ‘Public Forum.’
If YOU are opposed to the ‘regulator’ / ‘referee’ effectively playing on the same side of one of the ‘teams’ – then come along?
Penny Bright
‘Anti-corruption Public Watchdog’
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
https://kiaoragaza.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/what-can-we-do-to-help-achieve-peace-justice-for-palestine/conference-on-palestine-poster-akl-02-ft/