Search Results

  1. Banks gets bitten

    Written By:  Sam Cash -  Date published: 7:05 pm, February 2nd, 2010 -  31 comments
    Categories: auckland supercity, local body elections
    Tags: , , ,

    In a sure sign that the political phone is off the hook for John ‘Mayor for Remuera’ Banks, the deputy mayor of Rodney John Kirikiri has a scathing letter in yesterday’s Herald criticising the super-mayoral candidate’s cynical electioneering. After a couple of high-profile high-cost staff hires (he has ex 3 News political reporter Scott Campbell […]

  2. Werewolf on the Defence White Paper

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 3:59 pm, February 2nd, 2010 -  24 comments
    Categories: military
    Tags:

    Gordon Campbell has written in Werewolf an excellent pre-review about the Defense White Paper due for release in March. Needless to say whatever it returns with will be controversial because it helps to define the direction of the next few decades of expenditure and focus for our military.

    Then we will not have some of the remarkably stupid ‘debate’ by the ossified that happened in the early 2000’s as the Labour government implemented the Quigley review of the armed forces. This pushed the army to the fore, and relegated the other two services to a support role.

    It was clear that many in that debate never bothered to read the Quigley report.

  3. That made my Auckland anniversary day

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 9:45 am, February 1st, 2010 -  21 comments
    Categories: greens, united future
    Tags: ,

    Peter Dunne on his record against Jeanette Fitzsimmons is really an exercise in ego instead of substance

  4. Turei pushing me back to RAM

    Written By:  Zetetic -  Date published: 10:23 am, January 29th, 2010 -  62 comments
    Categories: greens, labour, minimum wage
    Tags: , ,

    Check out this exchange between Trevor Mallard and Metiria Turei on his Facebook page (great how the new media allows these spur of the moment debates): Trevor Mallard: 25c/hour. $10 week for 40 hours then minus tax, extra acc, ets charges. Not fair John Key. It should be $15 Metiria Turei: Trevor, with genuine respect, […]

  5. Colin, I missed you

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 11:17 am, January 28th, 2010 -  44 comments
    Categories: business, education, Media, tax
    Tags:

    Colin Espiner’s back with his first blog of the year. It’s so much fun having him back. In his first outing, he comes up with four suggestions for government action in the year ahead. Since the government doesn’t seem to have any other ideas, let’s look at two of them: End interest-free student loans Yeah, […]

  6. Subsidising Pandora’s box-office

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 11:46 am, January 25th, 2010 -  43 comments
    Categories: business, Media
    Tags:

     Gerry Brownlee is defending the $45 million tax break the Government gave the makers of Avatar to do most of their special effects work here. “Attracting large budget film productions here offers wider benefits to the economy, including increased opportunities for New Zealanders as well as tourism benefits from having New Zealand locations shown to […]

  7. Warning: Beware what you say on the net. Humourless bastards are after you.

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 1:42 pm, January 21st, 2010 -  23 comments
    Categories: humour, police, scoundrels, Spying
    Tags:

    No Right Turn has a post about the weirdness of the police forces in Britain at present. Elements of our own police force have been acting just as weirdly about ‘terrorism’ over the past years bringing a new era of police stupidity and police doing actions that are subsequently found to be illegal1. Joking about […]

  8. Cameron Slater’s shame: his latest moneymaker

    Written By:  Zetetic -  Date published: 9:12 am, January 19th, 2010 -  100 comments
    Categories: crime
    Tags: ,

    Cameron ‘Whaleoil’ Slater has launched ‘SHAME’. It’s supposedly a lobby group to get suppression laws changed. Really, it looks like a money making scheme for the workshy Slater. SHAME seems to have no members apart from Slater. He says “We are fortunate to be supported by Michael Laws and John Banks, plus many others.” Note: […]

  9. Bully Brownlee forces SOE CEO to withdraw critical blog

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 11:26 am, January 12th, 2010 -  55 comments
    Categories: national/act government
    Tags: , ,

    Powershop is a subsidiary of Meridian Energy, an SOE. It is the most highly rated power retailer by its customers, with 92% satisfaction. On the Powershop website, there’s a blog. On this blog, the CEO of Powershop, Ari Sargent, wrote a post on the Government’s proposed electricity sector reforms. It’s insightful, adroit, politically neutral, and scathing […]

  10. John Key, Minister for Overseas Holidays

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 5:41 am, January 11th, 2010 -  85 comments
    Categories: john key, Minister for Overseas Holidays
    Tags:

    Happy new year! If you’re lucky enough to be on a bit of a break overseas say ‘Hi’ to Prime Minister John Key for me, since it’s out of the country where he’s likely to be. It’s no surprise Rodney Hide thinks John Key doesn’t do anything.  Key has been out of the country for almost […]

  11. Govt to waste $400 million on white elephant highway

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 11:24 am, January 7th, 2010 -  132 comments
    Categories: transport
    Tags: ,

    Steven Joyce has finally revealed the benefit/cost ratio for the billion dollar Transmission Gully project. A few weeks ago he was mocking Sue Kedgley for saying that the costs would outweigh the benefits and claiming that the BCR would be about 1.5 ($1.50 benefit for each $1 spent). It turns out Joyce was lying. There is just […]

  12. Barefoot and kiwi

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 12:29 pm, January 3rd, 2010 -  41 comments
    Categories: culture
    Tags:

    There is a weird article in the Sunday Star Times about a US lecturer missing out on a job because she objected to “the Kiwi habit of going barefoot”. This has been on my mind since summer started. At work the minority of kiwis, immediately shucked the shoes that we’d been wearing during winter and […]

  13. I wonder if he’ll ask for a name suppression order.

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 1:45 pm, December 24th, 2009 -  27 comments
    Categories: blogs, suppression orders
    Tags:

    No Right Turn has a post The blogosphere is not above the law. Since the beginning, there’s been a meme on the internet that the law doesn’t really apply here, and that we can get away with anything. But while there may be practical difficulties (particularly if people are smart and careful), it certainly does, […]

  14. Bennett disappointed by witch-hunt results

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 11:23 am, December 22nd, 2009 -  23 comments
    Categories: poverty, unemployment, welfare
    Tags:

    Earlier this year, Paula Bennett released the personal details of two women who get the DPB who had opposed her cancelling of a grant designed to get people off the benefit. As far as I’m aware, the Privacy Commissioner still hasn’t published her opinion on Bennett’s bully tactics but it looks like Bennett has got the […]

  15. Capital market taskforce pushes asset sales scam

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 1:00 pm, December 16th, 2009 -  47 comments
    Categories: privatisation
    Tags:

    Another government-appointed taskforce of rightwing, market ideologues (this time appointed by Labour, the fools) has reported and, surprise, surprise, their report is a rightwing prescription without any supporting argument that it would be good for the country. The headline recommendation of the Capital Market Development Taskforce is that the government sell shares in SOEs. The […]

  16. Participate in teh Golden Garth awards

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 12:25 pm, December 16th, 2009 -  25 comments
    Categories: Media
    Tags: , , ,

    James at Editing teh Herald has started the Golden Garth awards aimed at rewarding the recipients at the Granny. You should all get over there and suggest candidates. I’m puzzling on it myself because there are so many good candidates. I’m aware that some think that the Dom Post is worse than the Granny, but […]

  17. Goff attacks govt on wages

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 11:20 am, December 10th, 2009 -  39 comments
    Categories: leadership, phil goff, wages
    Tags:

    Check out Phil Goff’s general debate speech yesterday on In The House, a handy new site paid for by the Office of the Clerk (can’t work out how to embed from it yet). The speech is excellent and it focuses where Labour should be focusing: National’s complete unwillingness and inability to do anything for hardworking […]

  18. Key aids English’s latest rort

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 4:42 pm, December 8th, 2009 -  18 comments
    Categories: national/act government, parliamentary spending
    Tags: , ,

    Ministers are given self-drive taxpayer-funded cars for official business in their electorates (in Wellington they have crown limos at their disposal for official business). Pretty logically, the cars were always based at the ministers’ primary place of residence because that’s where they would need it. But that presented a problem for Bill ‘Double Dipton’ English. […]

  19. Jon Stewart’s Glenn Beck parody

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 4:33 pm, December 2nd, 2009 -  2 comments
    Categories: humour, Media
    Tags: , ,

    Caught this on The Nation. Brilliant. Jon Stewart has done it again, and this time he even brought out his acting chops. In what will probably become a historic Glenn Beck impression, Stewart uses Beck’s recent appendicitis operation to concoct a conspiracy theory of his own. Using a chalkboard, glasses, and a game of Operation […]

  20. Guaranteed minimum income + capital tax, the way forward?

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 9:19 am, December 2nd, 2009 -  49 comments
    Categories: capitalism, tax, welfare
    Tags:

    Occasionally something in politics really surprises you. Like when I turned over to Campbell Live last night (I’d seen the Family Guy episode too often) and there was Gareth Morgan proposing a guaranteed minimum income funded by a comprehensive capital tax. Guaranteed minimum income/negative income tax is hardly a new idea (I’ve been meaning to […]

  21. Fry on blogs

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 9:30 am, November 29th, 2009 -  14 comments
    Categories: blogs, Deep stuff
    Tags:

    The delectable Mr Stephen Fry doesn’t like the people who comment on blogs, and says so in his usual forthright, erudite and whimsical way: “I don’t know about you but whenever I read a blog I do not let my eye drop below half the screen in case I accidentally hit the bit where the […]

  22. Maori Party meltdown

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 9:39 am, November 26th, 2009 -  12 comments
    Categories: maori party
    Tags:

    How long can the Maori Party survive before it collapses under the weight of its own contradictions? The idea of a single party to represent all Maori has always been a fallacy. When the Maori Party first appeared, I wished it well as a left-wing fellow traveller but since then, because of its impossible goal […]

  23. A plague on both your houses

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 10:15 am, November 24th, 2009 -  35 comments
    Categories: climate change, Environment, maori party, national, scoundrels
    Tags: ,

    So, as far as National and Maori leaders are concerned, it’s a done deal: “Maori Party to support ETS – bill to become law in days”. Unless (as suggested by Eddie) some Maori Party MPs remember their principles and vote against it, National’s ETS will be forced through parliament under urgency. NRT weighs in with […]

  24. It’s the seasons, stupid

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 10:11 am, November 23rd, 2009 -  40 comments
    Categories: national/act government, unemployment
    Tags:

    Over the last week or so, I’ve heard John Key, Bill English, and Paula Bennett all make self-congratulatory references to the number of people receiving the unemployment benefit decreasing in October. That sounded weird to me. No-one seriously thinks unemployment has stopped increasing. MSD doesn’t regularly release the month by month data but I eventually managed […]

  25. Bludging farmers

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 3:51 pm, November 19th, 2009 -  55 comments
    Categories: benefits, farming
    Tags: , ,

    The Fed Farmers have used Goff’s speech on monetary policy to have another whinge about beneficiaries, who they reckon are somehow to blame for the high dollar that’s crippling our exporters. Weird, I know, but then that’s the Feds for you. The dogwhistle term they’re using is ‘government spending’, but thanks to a recent admission […]

  26. Faux pro-smacking march fun

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 8:08 am, November 17th, 2009 -  41 comments
    Categories: activism, humour
    Tags:

    With all his usual wit, James of Editing the Herald proposes a spike of the so-called ‘March for Democracy’ in Auckland this week. The full post is well worth reading but here’s the meat: Democracy’s greatest heroes, from Thomas Jefferson to Tony Blair, appeared to me in a dream and showed me a glorious vision: a […]

  27. The resistance

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 10:41 am, November 12th, 2009 -  5 comments
    Categories: ACC, national/act government, spin
    Tags:

    A very well-produced youtube vid on National’s distortions over ACC The clever thing National has done is set up ACC as the agent of its own demise. With Business Roundtable member John Judge in charge ACC has become a propaganda wing for National’s anti-ACC rubbish. Judge and Nick Smith have created a false air of […]

  28. Brownlee: Not an ardent follower of fashion. Merely obsolete.

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 2:35 pm, November 11th, 2009 -  15 comments
    Categories: energy, greens, national
    Tags: , ,

    One of the things that has surprised me about the government and Brownlee’s energy policy is that it is so mundane and 20th century. In every other area of their political electoral strategy we saw a pithy slogan, often pinched from overseas, substituting for policy and dumbed it down to the level of the dittoheads […]

  29. Climate Change: Looney Tunes from Lord Monckton

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 1:15 pm, November 6th, 2009 -  121 comments
    Categories: climate change
    Tags:

    Rob Salmond In attempting to cover for DPF’s embarrassing disaster of a post on climate change, in his comments section some prominent right wingers (most notably John Ansell) pointed to a recent presentation by Lord Monckton. The presentation got a lot of publicity this month, including thinly veiled advertising from Fox News’ Glenn Beck, for arguing […]

  30. NZ’s capitalists dream of absolute power

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 6:49 am, November 5th, 2009 -  20 comments
    Categories: capitalism
    Tags:

    From Stuff: “Richlister Alan Gibbs will host former National Party leader Don Brash and ACT founder Sir Roger Douglas to discuss what they would do as “New Zealand’s dictator for a year” That New Zealand’s rich and powerful have invited their political hirelings from ACT and National to fantasise about eliminating any last shreds of democracy that […]

  31. On Cameron Slater and mental illness

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 2:00 pm, October 29th, 2009 -  53 comments
    Categories: blogs
    Tags:

    A few months ago, a couple of us worked out that Cameron Slater, following his little spin in the media where he gloated about receiving income insurance for depression, had been kicked off his payments by the insurance company. The angry post asking for a lawyer who hates insurance companies, and the switch to gotcha.co.nz […]

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