Search Results

  1. Imperator Fish: Let’s shut down the internet

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 1:40 pm, May 22nd, 2014 -  18 comments
    Categories: humour, internet, Satire, twitter
    Tags: , ,

    There appears to have been a hiatus in the flood of posts today. Perhaps it is because of the wise words of Imperator Fish pausing the world as they consider his wise words… And those of Speaker Carter (who appears to have a problem with most current culture).

  2. “Banks vs Mud”

    Written By:  karol -  Date published: 11:26 am, May 19th, 2014 -  134 comments
    Categories: accountability, act, activism, democratic participation, news, the praiseworthy and the pitiful
    Tags:

    John Banks murky past, including his metaphorical mud throwing at other politicians, came back to haunt him today: this as he headed into court to stand trial, accused of filing false electoral returns in an Auckland Mayoral campaign. Update: TVNZ report; Update #2: In court today

  3. NRT: MBIE doesn’t care about conservation

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 2:37 pm, May 18th, 2014 -  4 comments
    Categories: Conservation, Economy, Environment, Mining, sustainability
    Tags: , , ,

    No Right Turn turns his attention back to the hapless ministerial fool , Simon Bridges. It turns out that when he approved oil exploration in our biggest forest park without realising that he had, it was also what his advice had been. MoBIE simply didn’t consider if the oil exploration and presumably the eventual exploitation would conflict with something as economically vital as tourism. In fact, they appear to have ignored all other claims and uses of the land.

  4. The desperation of the National’s sockpuppets

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 6:51 pm, May 14th, 2014 -  77 comments
    Categories: blogs, david cunliffe, dpf, john key, making shit up, Minister for Photo-ops, social media lolz, spin, you couldn't make this shit up
    Tags: , ,

    National Party pollster David Farrar must be seeing some numbers he really doesn’t like because he is claiming that David Cunliffe photoshopped himself into a rally that he was really at!  Yeah right – a doyen of the local net governing body failed to use google before making a complete dick of himself on the net. I expect we will see a lot more of National’s paid for bloggers acting like fools heading into this election because National only being good at putting us heavily into debt (again!) rather limits the good news they can write.

  5. NRT: Climate change: Point of no return

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 1:18 pm, May 14th, 2014 -  26 comments
    Categories: climate change, science
    Tags: , , ,

    As has been long anticipated under current conditions, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet *will* melt with a more than average 3 metre rise in world sea levels. The only remaining question is how long it will take to melt. No Right Turn explains points out the slowly unfolding disaster…

  6. John Key challenged!

    Written By:  Bunji -  Date published: 4:57 pm, May 13th, 2014 -  24 comments
    Categories: john key, Media
    Tags:

    Nah, just kidding, here’s a few more examples of journalists just printing what he says…

  7. Green Party pre-budget policy launch

    Written By:  karol -  Date published: 9:14 am, May 13th, 2014 -  10 comments
    Categories: Economy, election 2014, greens, jobs, Metiria Turei, poverty, russel norman, sustainability, wages
    Tags:

    The Green Party will do a pre-budget economic policy launch: livestream here 11am 11.30am-12.30pm.They are pretty adept at interacting with Kiwis via social media, and on TV. They are grounded in grassroots activities, that link to their policies aimed at making life better for low-to-middle income Kiwis. [Updated#1: got start time wrong: #2 policy here – Green Investment Bank; news reports]

  8. NRT: “A wish, a target, and a dream”

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 6:47 pm, May 12th, 2014 -  58 comments
    Categories: accountability, bill english, david cunliffe, Economy, employment, helen clark, john key, labour, national, Politics, same old national, unemployment
    Tags:

    No Right Turn shows that John Key has no real understanding of the economic and political history of this country. Probably because the last time another economic illiterate from National said that the prospect of reducing unemployment in NZ to below 6% was “a hoax”, John Key wasn’t here. He probably heard it from that illiterate, who once again is our minister of finance. Unemployment under Labour was as low as 3.3%

  9. Sausagegate

    Written By:  mickysavage -  Date published: 12:27 pm, May 12th, 2014 -  76 comments
    Categories: john key, national, national/act government, same old national, Satire
    Tags:

    It just goes to show how National’s luck is running. John Key has arguably committed the offence of treating by handing out free sausages and has sabotaged the fundraising attempts of a couple of Queenstown kids. Now imagine if Cameron Slater had his hands on this story …

  10. The selective empathy of Key’s callous government

    Written By:  karol -  Date published: 9:54 am, May 12th, 2014 -  21 comments
    Categories: class war, greens, housing, labour, mana-party, same old national
    Tags:

    John Key’s government is cutting back on state housing, uprooting families from their homes. Large numbers of state houses are empty, while many are left to move from caravan park to sleeping in cars or outdoors. Weasel words from Paula Bennett and Nick Smith.

  11. Labour’s response plan for Christchurch flooding

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 6:57 pm, May 10th, 2014 -  22 comments
    Categories: disaster
    Tags:

    Labour has reached across the political divide and offered the government a host of actions to help those in Christchurch who have been victims of ongoing flooding since the quake.

    There are some things that politics should be put aside for. Helping the people of Christchurch is definitely one of these things.

  12. NRT: A disease the world over

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 10:08 am, May 9th, 2014 -  30 comments
    Categories: australian politics, corruption, International, uk politics
    Tags:

    New Zealand isn’t the only place currently seeing a cash-for-access scandal. In Australia, the federal Treasurer has a similar arrangement to the National Party, selling access to a donors by membership of a “club”. And in the UK, the co-treasurer of the Conservative Party has said publicly that £250,000 gets you a private dinner with the Prime Minister.

  13. Polity: Key lies to Parliament: The proof

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 1:24 pm, May 8th, 2014 -  127 comments
    Categories: john key, Judith Collins, Parliament
    Tags: ,

    Yesterday, John Key lied to Parliament. He made a very specific claim about a set of official documents, and those same documents show clearly that the claim was false. If Key is anywhere near Wellington today, he simply has to come to the House to correct his answer. Deeply embarrassing that may be, but he cannot allow such blatant untruths to stand uncorrected.

  14. NRT: Still 42,000 out of work under National

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 12:32 pm, May 7th, 2014 -  41 comments
    Categories: benefits, Economy, employment, national, same old national
    Tags: ,

    No Right Turn points out that depressing fact that “Still 42,000 (more) out of work under National”. Tories don’t really care until they have to pay taxes for the debt. But hey they voted themselves a tax cut in 2008 – so they’re still happy as the government debt levels keep blowing out to Muldoon levels. National economic management = stupid debt.

  15. Handouts to make them go away

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 12:25 pm, May 7th, 2014 -  9 comments
    Categories: election 2014, Judith Collins, national, same old national
    Tags: , ,

    The announcement from National that they’d bribe unemployed beneficiaries to go to Christchurch was “An empty grab for headlines”. Perhaps they should have used their strategy for party renewal? Pay more from party funds awash from selling the time of Ministers time seems to work well.

  16. Polity: Even more new, damning evidence on Collins.

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 6:52 pm, May 5th, 2014 -  69 comments
    Categories: accountability, corruption, Judith Collins, Politics
    Tags:

    Looks like an interesting week of drawn out misery for someone. Rob Salmond at Polity again: “I do not want to talk about Judith Collins’ “private” dinner. There are plenty of people making astute points about her impropriety there already. Instead, I want to draw attention to another damning part of last week’s Friday afternoon OIA-dump.”

  17. Polity: Why Joyce is full of it on monetary policy

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 11:11 am, May 5th, 2014 -  33 comments
    Categories: don brash, Economy, monetary policy, national, same old national, Steven Joyce
    Tags: , , ,

    Rob Salmond at Polity just saved me from having to write something like this post explaining economic basics to Steven Joyce. Joyce demonstrated again why his tenure at MoBIE has been a failure for the overall economy. He fixates on one thing like the business selling milk powder to the exclusion of the overall picture. In part that is why we have neither expanding innovation or employment in our economy at present. He is a good tactical politician. But he is a fool on strategy.

  18. Collins is out of control

    Written By:  mickysavage -  Date published: 8:25 am, May 5th, 2014 -  232 comments
    Categories: john key, Judith Collins, Kelvin Davis, national, same old national
    Tags: ,

    Judith Collins’s startling attack on Katie Bradford on the weekend has created all sorts of problems for John Key. Relations with the Press Gallery must be at an all time low. Sacking her will cause all sorts of problems within National’s caucus, retaining her in Cabinet will risk further bad publicity. There is no upside.

  19. Right thinking: Just looking after the investor

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 10:31 am, May 2nd, 2014 -  10 comments
    Categories: accountability, corruption, humour, parody, Politics, Satire
    Tags:

    Imperator Fish nails the essential relationship of a National/Act caucus with donations. “Why should a good hard-working minister have to resign over such a minor thing? All he did was put a little pressure on the police. Where’s the harm in that? Isn’t that what we pay our MPs for? To look after our interests and help us when we get into bother?” “Mr Liu invested a lot of money with the National Party. Isn’t he entitled to see a return on his investment?”

  20. NRT: “No intention to interfere”

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 2:02 pm, May 1st, 2014 -  20 comments
    Categories: corruption, john key, police
    Tags: , ,

    When the Prime Minister found out that Maurice Williamson had contacted police over their investigation of a National Party donor on domestic violence charges, Williamson “assured [him] that he did not in any way intend to influence the Police investigation”. That is bullshit. But it gets worse. The police gave the Minister exactly what he asked for.

    Williamson’s head isn’t the only one that should be on a spike.

  21. NRT: Two obvious questions

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 1:29 pm, May 1st, 2014 -  70 comments
    Categories: corruption, john key, Judith Collins
    Tags: , ,

    Maurice Williamson was sacked within the space of 2 hours this morning after the Herald revealed he had attempted to interfere in a police investigation on behalf of a party donor. Its exactly what should happen when a Minister behaves corruptly and pisses on our constitutional norms like this. At the same time, it raises an obvious question: why hasn’t Judith Collins suffered the same fate? Or is corrupt behaviour only punished when it involves older Ministers the PM would like to dispose of?

  22. NRT: All about distribution

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 1:54 pm, April 30th, 2014 -  29 comments
    Categories: Economy, equality, jobs, monetary policy, wages
    Tags:

    Distribution – who pays, who gets what – is one of (or perhaps the) key question in politics. It is the big problem with Labour’s new monetary policy. We’ve all seen how the theoretical ability to compensate the losers of policies which produce net gains tends to be forgotten in practice. Which means that the acceptability of the policy is going to depend crucially on whether Labour follows through on this promise.

  23. Fixing the reserve bank

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 1:14 pm, April 29th, 2014 -  32 comments
    Categories: act, don brash, Economy, labour
    Tags:

    The head of the reanimated corpse of Brash should now be spinning furiously along with those fools from ACT who are into simplicity (because they can’t handle the real world). However having the Reserve Bank looking the balance of payments is pretty good. It includes the exchange rate and the export economy. They’re effectively now concerned with the exterior economy with a enforced savings tool as well as the interest rates. The government becomes largely responsible for the structural rigidities we have built up in the internal economy. That is a pretty good mix. Might have to train the MPs a bit though.

  24. Labour announces ban on synthetic cannabis

    Written By:  mickysavage -  Date published: 5:04 pm, April 27th, 2014 -  215 comments
    Categories: david cunliffe, drugs, flip-flop, labour, national, peter dunne
    Tags:

    David Cunliffe has just announced that Labour will introduce legislation to remove synthetic cannabis and other psychoactive substances from sale. (updated)

  25. To Robert Reid, respect

    Written By:  mickysavage -  Date published: 2:24 pm, April 27th, 2014 -  135 comments
    Categories: election 2014, labour, national
    Tags: ,

    I may be damaging the prospects of him being invited back but I thought Robert Reid’s recent performance on Q&A was terrific and his example is one that all progressive MPs and activists should follow.

  26. Judith Collins: fudging evidence

    Written By:  karol -  Date published: 10:25 am, April 26th, 2014 -  32 comments
    Categories: accountability, alcohol, democracy under attack, john key, Judith Collins, same old national, slippery
    Tags: ,

    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?

  27. National’s cows coming home to roost

    Written By:  geoff -  Date published: 8:08 am, April 26th, 2014 -  79 comments
    Categories: capitalism, cost of living, debt / deficit, Economy, wages, workers' rights
    Tags:

    As interest rates crank up in debt-laden NZ, we’re about to reap the consequences of 5 years of do-nothing, anti-worker, National government.

  28. NRT: The Greens’ “internet bill of rights”

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 10:55 pm, April 23rd, 2014 -  2 comments
    Categories: greens, internet
    Tags:

    No Right Turn is critical of the implementation aspects of the Greens’ internet bill of rights. Looking at his points about its flaws, it does appear that it has few real teeth. “…if you want to outlaw ISPS shaping customer traffic for anti-competitive reasons” … “then amend the Telecommunications Act to outlaw it. It wouldn’t sound as great as an “internet bill of rights”, but it would do the job better, and with more certainty of the outcome. Trying to use a general law to do it, without checking the underlying policy details, doesn’t just risk failure – it also comes across as lazy.”

  29. NRT: “Shoulder-tapping” vs public service values

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 11:39 am, April 23rd, 2014 -  59 comments
    Categories: accountability, Politics, public services
    Tags:

    Another angle to the Shane Jones resignation: “Mr Jones said he would leave Parliament next month after he was shoulder tapped by Foreign Minister Murray McCully for a new role as a roving economic ambassador across the Pacific.”

    This is of course a total violation of public service values, and an unlawful exercise of Ministerial power.

  30. An Easter message: greed is not good

    Written By:  karol -  Date published: 9:15 am, April 21st, 2014 -  14 comments
    Categories: broadcasting, capitalism, class war, democratic participation, Economy, election 2014, news, poverty, sustainability, workers' rights
    Tags:

    Greed used to be regarded as a major sin.  Now it is often seen as either trivial, or, in Gordon Gekko’s words, “Greed is good”.  Greed has become a religion, focused on the sacred “economy” and its “market” of (allegedly) “invisible hands”. Greed fuels inequality and undermines democracy. Democracy needs a more critical public sphere and media.

  31. Polity: Boundary changes

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 5:16 pm, April 18th, 2014 -  20 comments
    Categories: election 2014, elections, First Past the Post, MMP
    Tags: , ,

    Rob Salmond’s take on the boundary changes announced last week. In a MMP election system the actual electoral boundaries usually only really matter to a few MPs. It isn’t likely to make much of a difference unless National manages to have a cup of tea with a party with enough electoral muscle to get more than a single MP into the house and an electorate’s voters think this matters. After the John Banks/Act debacle who’d be moronic enough to think that electorate seats in a list do matter? Apart from our silly first-past-the-post stand-in-man for David Farrar of course…

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