Search Results

  1. Confirmed: Brownlee made it up

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 3:43 pm, March 7th, 2011 -  18 comments
    Categories: accountability, democracy under attack, Gerry Brownlee, making shit up, Politics
    Tags: , , , ,

    More bad news for Gerry Brownlee today. No Right Turn has had confirmation that Gerry Brownlee makes his ‘policy’ up as he goes without seeking competent advice. This must be more than slightly terrifying to the people of Christchurch because Brownlee is currently their dictator by legislation in the rebuilding effort. His bulldozing ineptness is not just confined to buildings but is endemic to everything he does.

     

  2. You know you’re from Christchurch when…

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 1:36 pm, March 4th, 2011 -  67 comments
    Categories: disaster, humour
    Tags:

    Sometimes black humour is the only way to cope. These are doing the rounds…

  3. Big quake hits Christchurch

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 1:16 pm, February 22nd, 2011 -  106 comments
    Categories: disaster
    Tags:

    Christchurch has been hit by another serious earthquake. Reports are pretty thin on the ground but it seems to have been 6.3, 5km down and 10km SE of the city. A strong shallow earthquake in the middle of the day.

  4. Key out of touch on food & poverty

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 10:52 am, February 20th, 2011 -  67 comments
    Categories: brand key, class war, food, john key, poverty
    Tags:

    Hunger and malnutrition are stalking New Zealand families. Hundreds of thousands are just one shock – whether an illness, or a large bill – from not being able to afford basic food. This is not good enough in our land of plenty. Multi-millionaire John Key doesn’t empathise. To him poverty is a moral failing but he’s seriously out of touch.

  5. Actors’ Inequity

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 10:43 am, February 14th, 2011 -  31 comments
    Categories: Unions, workers' rights
    Tags: ,

    Another piece of union-bashing has been quietly implemented. Before, when bringing in foreign actors, the burden of proof lay on the production company to prove the talent they were importing was truly required. Now, no proof is required. This undermines Kiwi actors and their unions. It’s all about punishing Actors’ Equity for the Hobbit fiasco.

  6. The productivity lie

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 10:29 am, February 8th, 2011 -  24 comments
    Categories: wages
    Tags: ,

    The Nats have upped the minimum wage by 25 cents.  An increase of 1.9% that doesn’t even keep up with inflation of 4% and is thus a minimum wage cut.  On cue a tame economist opines that wage growth can only happen if we achieve productivity growth first.  The only problem with this excuse is that over the last several decades productivity has grown significantly, and wages haven’t followed…

  7. Waitangi up close

    Written By:  Bunji -  Date published: 1:07 am, February 7th, 2011 -  37 comments
    Categories: john key, Maori Issues
    Tags: ,

    A personal perspective on the Waitangi celebrations. Where John Key went wrong, how Hone was out and proud, and the left’s reception. Also: an enjoyment of Maori burgers over kai moana this year.

  8. Sunday Star’s top ten

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 4:42 pm, February 6th, 2011 -  23 comments
    Categories: Economy
    Tags: ,

    At a time when so much political journalism is focused on analysis of image management it’s nice to see a major Sunday paper throwing its weight behind a push for some real world issues.

    Anthony Hubbard’s piece in the Sunday Star Times today looks at 10 real issues the election should focus on:

  9. Hickey on the tax bludgers

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 9:00 am, February 6th, 2011 -  62 comments
    Categories: labour, phil goff, tax
    Tags:

    Bernard Hickey looks at the tax bludgers. Labour’s plans to introduce a higher new top tax rate would raise needed tax from those who can most afford it. But it would also foster more tax bludging by the rich. Rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater by abolishing the top rate, we need to eliminate the avenues for bludging.

  10. A few thoughts on the reshuffle

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 6:50 pm, February 3rd, 2011 -  31 comments
    Categories: Politics
    Tags:

    Labour had its reshuffle today.

    There’s some good, some bad and some business as usual.

  11. Friday Fun: raising your kid Objectivist

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 2:36 pm, January 28th, 2011 -  11 comments
    Categories: humour
    Tags: ,

    “…When little Aiden toddled up our daughter Johanna and asked to play with her Elmo ball, he was, admittedly, very sweet and polite. I think his exact words were, “Have a ball, peas [sic]?” And I’m sure you were very proud of him for using his manners. To be sure, I was equally proud when Johanna yelled, “No! Looter!” right in his looter face…”

  12. Minimum wage crunch time

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 11:37 pm, January 25th, 2011 -  56 comments
    Categories: john key, wages
    Tags:

    John Key says that he can’t increase the minimum wage by a decent amount. The excuse this time round is that a decent increase will destroy jobs. Well, let’s check that out a little bit. Is it really true that lifting the minimum wages destroys jobs? If it is, do the benefits outweigh the gains? And what about the cost of letting wages fall?

  13. Ministers put public land in private hands

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 9:28 am, January 24th, 2011 -  28 comments
    Categories: Conservation, corruption, farming, privatisation
    Tags: , ,

    You’ll remember the disgraceful Schmuck scandal when Minister John Carter had clauses inserted into legislation specifically to legalise Doug Schmuck’s annexation of a public reserve. John Key took no action. Now, Kate Wilkinson and David Carter got in on the act – forcing DoC to sign over more public land for private use.

  14. Granny sez: f**k the kids

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 7:23 am, January 21st, 2011 -  151 comments
    Categories: election 2011, labour, workers' rights
    Tags: , ,

    It’s always so wonderful to load up Granny Herald and see some wealthy late middle-aged grump (I’m picking this one is John Roughan) taking a swipe at the poor in the editorial. Today, Granny says we can’t afford to give mums more paid leave or more Working for Families for young kids. Hmm. But we can still afford those tax cuts for the rich?

  15. Newtering the rhetoric on crime

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 1:33 pm, January 11th, 2011 -  37 comments
    Categories: crime, politicans, prisons, us politics
    Tags:

    As has been amply demonstrated by comments on The Standard in recent days, there are many who believe that the answer to an ineffective deterrent is more deterrent; that leaving in place the likelihood that fleeing from a police car will result in your death is somehow discouraging an unknown number of drivers from fleeing. Increasingly, though, people who respond with their critical faculties as opposed to their knees are realising that the present model of law enforcement and incarceration is a failure.

  16. Race for 2011 wide open

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 6:48 am, January 10th, 2011 -  68 comments
    Categories: election 2011, polls
    Tags:

    Campbell has a good post on the problem of voters’ emotional reactions to Key and Goff as exemplified by the Sunday-Star Times Horizon poll (the striking thing is how little emotional response they elicit). I’ll look at the party numbers. Horizon tries to include which way the undecideds will fall – the results have National worried.

  17. Richer without air combat wing

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 7:10 pm, January 8th, 2011 -  46 comments
    Categories: defence
    Tags: ,

    Why New Zealand’s lack of a fast jet military capability is suddenly an issue? We been fine without it for nine years. Renowned defence expert David Farrar weighs calls the decision to mothball the Skyhawks and Aermacchis ‘terrible’, citing the $34 million spent keeping them saleable, but how’s that compare to the cost of keeping them flying?

  18. Dunedin Council peak oil report

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 10:00 am, January 5th, 2011 -  11 comments
    Categories: Economy, sustainability, transport
    Tags:

    In December, Dunedin City Council released its Peak Oil Vulnerability Analysis. We’re going to weather the peak oil age largely reliant on the built environment we already have in place – we can’t tear it all down and start again in time – but, the report shows there’s a lot we can do with the infrastructure we have to make it less oil-dependent.

  19. Visiting the City that Rocks

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 4:44 pm, December 31st, 2010 -  9 comments
    Categories: uncategorized
    Tags:

    The slow round of extended family xmas locations has this year located Lyn and I in Christchurch. Which has made for an interesting boxing day with a certain amount of rocking that is not attributable to the results of the gorging the day before. I’ve been in earthquakes before. But never in quite the series […]

  20. The politics of hysteria

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 11:44 am, December 27th, 2010 -  39 comments
    Categories: democratic participation, making shit up, Politics, spin
    Tags:

    Reading the Maps recently posted this analysis that takes swings at the extremes in the political debate.

    In the twenty-first century we are continually being urged to register and express our emotions. The days of the stiff upper lip and suffering in silence have well and truly gone, as unctuous TV talk show hosts and ‘self-help’ books scream at us to ‘grow emotionally’ by blubbering our deepest secrets and confessing our most recalcitrant feelings to our partners, to our friends, and to perfect strangers.

  21. Discrete solar technology

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 4:29 pm, December 26th, 2010 -  20 comments
    Categories: climate change, Economy, energy, sustainability, telecommunications
    Tags:

    Chinese manufacturing and state support is transforming the cost structure of solar technology. This in turn is helping to put in power support for the emerging use of wireless technologies in the developing world. This helps to ensure that less dirty carbon emitting technologies are not used in the developing world.It is hard to see a downside to this state initiative because it  makes solar tech cheaper and more available earlier rather than later.

  22. The family problem

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 10:07 am, December 25th, 2010 -  37 comments
    Categories: Economy, unemployment
    Tags:

    Kiwis frequently like leading the world in the many ways that outmatch our ‘weight’. I wish we weren’t leading the world in this one.

    We have one of the worst youth unemployment rates in the world as The Economist shows.

  23. Farrar joins call for SOE reform

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 7:00 am, December 24th, 2010 -  95 comments
    Categories: assets, business, dpf
    Tags: , ,

    Say you run a large company. Say the manager of a division in your company chose do a deal that improves the division’s own profitability instead of one that would have made the division less profitable but the company as a whole more profitable. You would be angry. So why are the people who run our SOEs required to act like that?

  24. Phil Twyford for Te Atatu candidate

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 6:01 pm, December 18th, 2010 -  25 comments
    Categories: election 2011, labour
    Tags:

    Phil Twyford is selected as the new Labour candidate for Te Atatu from a strong field.

    Phil Twyford is a formidable campaigner, as I know from past experience. I almost pity whatever sacrificial lamb that National put up in that electorate.

  25. Is free trade worth it?

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 12:00 pm, December 18th, 2010 -  24 comments
    Categories: Economy, exports
    Tags:

    Over at No Right Turn, I/S has picked up on some Aussie research that shows Free Trade Agreements aren’t the huge money spinners they’re sold as. Because FTAs create different rules for different trading partners, exporters have to meet complicated ‘rules of origin’ to prove they quality for the lower tariffs. The cost can eat up the supposed benefits.

  26. New uses for iPads

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 10:54 am, December 18th, 2010 -  12 comments
    Categories: interweb, music, youtube
    Tags:

    Ok this is seriously weird, too cool, and as bad as the elevator music is. But at least it is not John Key mangling songs with syncophantic radio announcers declaring it to be music.

    The band running on iPad’s and iPhone – North Point’s iBand

  27. Exploiting disaster

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 11:47 pm, December 16th, 2010 -  33 comments
    Categories: farming, jobs, Mining, poverty
    Tags: , , ,

    It’s a tough Christmas for far too many Kiwis. Poverty is up, wages are down. 350,000 Kiwis are jobless or underemployed. The job losses are still coming. The rich got tax cuts, 70% got nothing. Drought is spreading. Thousands of Cantabrians face an uncertain future. Meanwhile, the Nats cynically exploit disaster to advance their agenda.

  28. Journos manufacturing the thousand year winter

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 9:49 pm, December 13th, 2010 -  32 comments
    Categories: climate change, humour, making shit up, Media, science, the praiseworthy and the pitiful
    Tags:

    How journalists make a hypothetical question based on a nutty claim and manufacture a sensational headline out of it. The really sensational headline is that western journos appear to have picked up the story from that world renowned nutter Anthony Watts raving about a fictional war between Russia and Poland. It looks like you can only rely on hard checked science news from some of the rational blogs, and a Chinese news agency…

  29. The perils of out-sourcing public services

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 9:00 am, December 8th, 2010 -  18 comments
    Categories: public services
    Tags:

    One of the features of the neoliberal revolution has been the outsourcing of public service delivery, usually to not-for-profits, sometimes to profit-making entities like private hospitals. Whanau Ora is an extension of this. Two recent stories have exemplified the risks of this model – corruption and cuts by stealth.

  30. Marianne Ny: Making an arse of Swedish law.

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 4:28 pm, December 4th, 2010 -  218 comments
    Categories: activism, International, us politics
    Tags: , , ,

    The Wikileaks release of US government diplomatic wires is less interesting to me than the behavior of the Sweden’s director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny. Her charges and actions against Julian Assange indicate that she is driven more by the politics than respect for the law. I fail to see why Interpol is involved for such a minor charge. Apparently the charge is question is something pretty weird called “sex by surprise”

  31. Re:Cunliffe re:me re:his speech

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 10:30 am, December 3rd, 2010 -  20 comments
    Categories: Economy, labour, privatisation
    Tags: , ,

    It was pretty cool that the next Finance Minister wrote a post about my post yesterday. Even if was to say I was dickishly misinterpreting him  😀 I’ve got a couple of points in reply but the biggest is why is Labour talking about (restrictive) privatisation and PPPs policies when there are much more important economic issues at hand?

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