Search Results

  1. Smith still lying with numbers

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 12:03 pm, October 19th, 2009 -  7 comments
    Categories: ACC, national/act government
    Tags:

    Last week, David Parker asked Nick Smith what the “whole-of-life cost to ACC of all new claims” for the last year were. Smith’s answer surprised everyone because it made no sense. He told us that claims made last year alone would cost $7 billion over their lifes. If that were really so, ACC’s liablities would […]

  2. The walking dead

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 2:45 pm, October 3rd, 2009 -  23 comments
    Categories: bill english, corruption, john key, national/act government
    Tags:

    Fran O’Sullivan has laid out the business elite’s preferred successors to Bill English: At this stage English is not mortally wounded. But his reputation as one of the Mr Cleans of New Zealand politics has been damaged. And – more importantly for the Deputy Prime Minister’s political future – some of the more ambitious among […]

  3. World Farm Animal Day – Oct 2nd

    Written By:  rocky -  Date published: 6:00 am, October 2nd, 2009 -  24 comments
    Categories: animal welfare, farming
    Tags:

    Following on from yesterdays guest post on World Vegetarian Day, today is World Farm Animal Day. At the end of last year, I was a little bit involved in a documentary created by Animal Liberation Aotearoa called “Who are you having for dinner? The reality of meat production in New Zealand“. On a trip up […]

  4. Who would replace Bill?

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 11:49 am, September 29th, 2009 -  35 comments
    Categories: bill english, national/act government, uncategorized
    Tags:

    There’s a grim irony to Bill English’s career. Despite being regarded as competent and having a Cullen-like role as the heavy-lifter in this government, he has also been at the centre of the worst National screw-ups of the last decade. As Minister of Revenue, he was heavily involved in the sale of Wellington Airport, which […]

  5. Power’s electoral finance reform proposals out

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 2:39 pm, September 28th, 2009 -  32 comments
    Categories: election funding, national/act government
    Tags:

    Justice Minister Simon Power has released the Government’s proposals for reform of electoral finance law. Remember, Labour’s reforms of electoral finance law were branded an assault on democracy and free speech by National and its affiliates like the Herald. There were protests in the streets (oddly, at the Wellington one, most of the several dozen […]

  6. Legal vs. Moral

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 8:48 am, September 28th, 2009 -  66 comments
    Categories: bill english, national
    Tags:

    There’s an old lawyer joke: “When the facts are on your side, bang the facts. When the law’s on your side, bang the law. When you’ve got neither, bang the table”. National have a similar tactic, of banging on legal vs. moral tests as it suits them. When sacking Richard Worth, Key was at great […]

  7. Nats to subsidise big polluters by $2 billion a year

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 3:29 pm, September 24th, 2009 -  19 comments
    Categories: climate change, national/act government
    Tags: ,

    Last night, non-government parties finally got a peak at the new emissions trading bill. Nick Smith still didn’t have it finished, it was in draft form, and by all accounts it’s a mess. As Jeanette Fitzsimons reports, however, the draft ETS did reveal something important. See, on Tuesday Smith tabled in Parliament a bizarre table […]

  8. Open Country now assaulting workers

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 3:00 pm, September 23rd, 2009 -  68 comments
    Categories: workers' rights
    Tags: , , ,

    The Talleys-owned Open Country Cheese dispute took a new turn today after it was revealed that a senior manager, not content with just bullying workers, has assaulted one of them. Here’s what Giovanni Moana, the worker concerned, had to say: “I was told to put my head through a window in the packing room at […]

  9. No, I’ll pay, I insist

    Written By:  Zetetic -  Date published: 1:08 pm, September 21st, 2009 -  18 comments
    Categories: capitalism
    Tags:

    So trucking companies are unwilling to pay for the extra damage that 53 tonne trucks will do. Companies trying to privatise the gains and socialise the losses? Gotta love those capitalists. And there’s Joyce telling us to harden up and cop it. Thank goodness we’ve got the Tories helping private business pocket gains at the taxpayers’ cost. […]

  10. Those pesky boundaries for Auckland

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 3:23 pm, September 12th, 2009 -  31 comments
    Categories: act, auckland supercity, local government, national/act government
    Tags:

    There are a couple of things that I hadn’t realised about the rather strange changes to the Auckland super-city boundaries. They are just weird and show a strange idea of what Auckland. About 50% of Auckland’s water comes from the Hunua’s. Surely the provision of fresh water is a “core service” of local bodies. Sure […]

  11. Why Supplementary Member sucks

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 7:08 pm, September 9th, 2009 -  64 comments
    Categories: MMP
    Tags: , ,

    National and the business elite led by former Telecom chairman Peter Shirtcliffe (who led the pro-FPP campaign back in the 1990s) want to replace MMP with a voting system called Supplementary Member. SM is kind of a halfway house between FPP and MMP. Rather than the total number of seats a party has in Parliament […]

  12. Owning Auckland

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 2:52 pm, September 8th, 2009 -  17 comments
    Categories: auckland supercity, local government
    Tags:

    Last Friday the report of the Select Committee on Auckland was tabled in Parliament. The lack of media attention is a measure of how almost irrelevant this committee was. It has been clear for a long time that the decisions are being made by a small group around Key and Hide. The indefatigable Phil Twyford […]

  13. The mire

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 5:10 am, September 7th, 2009 -  16 comments
    Categories: afghanistan
    Tags:

    Last month’s Time magazine has an article that starts “to understand why the United States is losing in Afghanistan…” It’s a bombshell phrase, all the more for the fact that the reporter makes the statement in passing, as accepted fact. The article goes on to detail how Western money is going to fund the Afghan […]

  14. Diffusion of responsibility

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 7:30 am, September 5th, 2009 -  54 comments
    Categories: climate change, Deep stuff
    Tags:

    Diffusion of responsibility means that the bigger the group the less chance that anyone in the group will take action. In a typical experiment people are left to wait in a room, which is rigged so that smoke starts coming in under a door. A person who is alone will usually leave the room and […]

  15. OECD child poverty report

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 10:19 am, September 4th, 2009 -  4 comments
    Categories: poverty
    Tags:

    I’ve been having a look at the OECD’s report on child poverty. A lot of the data is quite of of date and so doesn’t reflect the every important impact of Working for Families, rising minimum wage, falling unemployment, and bottom-end tax cuts have had on child poverty in the last six years.  We’re doing a lot better […]

  16. 10:10

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 8:25 am, September 4th, 2009 -  14 comments
    Categories: activism, climate change
    Tags:

    The scientists say we need to reduce our greenhouse emissions by 40% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 if we want to even have a 50:50 chance of not starting runaway climate change (where temperature rises trigger the release of frozen methane and other effects that will rapidly heat the world to disastrous levels). So, […]

  17. Let them drink… bottled water.

    Written By:  RedLogix -  Date published: 8:09 am, September 2nd, 2009 -  4 comments
    Categories: uncategorized
    Tags:

    Not surprised to see that the Government has confirmed the Drinking Water Subsidy Scheme is being put on hold and reviewed. The subsidy aims to improve drinking water supplies in small communities of under 5000 people, and improve life for the 9% of the population whose current supply is sub-standard. Those of us living in […]

  18. Who do you think you’re fooling, Kate?

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 7:46 am, August 28th, 2009 -  12 comments
    Categories: national/act government, spin, Unions
    Tags: ,

    “I’m not going to resign” – Kate Wilkinson It’s one of the truisms of politics that when you’re a minister and you say you’re not resigning, it’s only a matter of time until you are. Kate Wilkinson’s behaviour has been almost universally disgraceful- the Kiwisaver debacle, her vitriol during the Shawn Tan affair, refusing the let […]

  19. NDU catches govt lying

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 7:31 pm, August 26th, 2009 -  15 comments
    Categories: Unions
    Tags:

    This morning the National Distribution Union put out a statement saying the Minister of Labour, Kate Wilkinson, had refused to attend an executive meeting on the absurd grounds that Telecom lines engineers belonging to a different union, the EPMU, had recently been on strike. In Question Time today Sue Bradford asked whether the Minister’s refusal […]

  20. Keep it up, Chippie and co

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 8:40 am, August 20th, 2009 -  27 comments
    Categories: blogs, labour
    Tags: , ,

    Good on Chris Hipkins. The other day, he wrote: “National won the last election quite comfortably. Kiwis are fair minded people and will be willing to give them a fair go at the job before they pass judgment. I expect that will be reflected in the opinion polls for most of the current parliamentary term. […]

  21. Subsidizing polluting industries costs taxpayers directly

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 11:45 am, August 18th, 2009 -  34 comments
    Categories: climate change, national/act government
    Tags:

    An excellent post from Idiot Savant (reproduced with permission) on the cost to taxpayers of subsidizing polluting industries. I haven’t noticed the mainstream media reporting this critical aspect of the governments climate change proposals. Too hard for them to grasp perhaps? Climate change: An illustration How unfair is the government’s plan to cap the price […]

  22. Now for the spin

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 8:17 pm, August 10th, 2009 -  47 comments
    Categories: climate change
    Tags:

    It’s interesting to see how National’s spin doctors are trying to frame the Government’s pathetic and shameful emissions reduction target of 10-20% by 2020. Stuff has ‘Ambitious’ emissions target announced The NZ Herald has New emissions target ‘big ask for NZ’ – Key And 3 News has Sia Aston quoting long-discredited figures supplied to her by […]

  23. The house built on sand

    Written By:  Zetetic -  Date published: 8:48 am, August 6th, 2009 -  26 comments
    Categories: bill english, corruption, national
    Tags:

    English, now known by the moniker Double Dipton, has decided to give back half the amount to has rorted so far from the taxpayer. Rather than claim the full ministers’ allowance, he’ll pocket ‘only’ $24,000 a year for living in his own family home, thank you very much. His claim that he didn’t know he could charge […]

  24. Chilling effect

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 11:41 am, July 31st, 2009 -  8 comments
    Categories: democratic participation, Media
    Tags:

    I’m frankly a little surprised at the way the media and The Herald especially has jumped on the attack the victim bandwagon in the Bennett scandal. If there’s one golden rule of journalism it’s don’t be seen to be fucking over your sources, and that’s what the Herald is doing. I guess they feel some […]

  25. Wee gripes: doublethink

    Written By:  Zetetic -  Date published: 11:32 pm, July 30th, 2009 -  31 comments
    Categories: corruption, crime
    Tags:

    If you read Kiwiblog or listen to talkback radio (basically the same thing – smart guy baiting reactionaries for his political ends) then you’ll have noticed the latest line on Bennett. It boils down to ‘remember how Labour did similar things to Bennett? Like Dalziel and that Sri Lankan girl. They were bad and evil […]

  26. Bully State

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 3:23 pm, July 29th, 2009 -  42 comments
    Categories: act, prisons
    Tags: , , ,

    NZPA reports: An MP from government confidence and supply party ACT today told prison officers who spoke out against private prisons that they had hurt their future job prospects. David Garrett’s remark came hot on the heals of accusations yesterday that the Government attempted to intimidate and silence people. Those claims were sparked by Social […]

  27. Govt opts for weak climate change target

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 6:21 am, July 27th, 2009 -  44 comments
    Categories: climate change
    Tags:

    As expected, the Key Government has decided not to listen to the scientists on climate change. Rather than the 40% reduction in emissions by 2020 that the scientists are saying the the minimum developed nations need to achieve to start greenhouse gas levels heading back to safe levels, they’ll be setting a weaker target instead, […]

  28. Sunday reading: Life in sub-prime America

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 1:29 pm, July 26th, 2009 -  7 comments
    Categories: blogs, economy, housing, International
    Tags:

    Exiled Online, a US site, has excellent coverage of the recession and the sub-prime crisis from a ground-level view. Yasha Levine moved to Victorville an ‘exurb’ of LA (100 miles from LA centre) to experience the crisis first-hand. His reports are a must read – well written, well researched, hard hitting (hope you’re not too […]

  29. The Salesman

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 2:20 pm, July 20th, 2009 -  12 comments
    Categories: economy, national/act government
    Tags:

    One of the stories from John Key’s days as a currency trader is that he was always more of a salesman than an analyst. He wasn’t good at picking markets and investments; he was good at getting people to trust him with their money. He got New Zealanders to put their trust in him too […]

  30. Oil company backs Greenpeace

    Written By:  Demeter -  Date published: 2:07 pm, July 14th, 2009 -  6 comments
    Categories: climate change
    Tags:

    Who’d have thought? An oil company coming out on the side of New Zealand’s biggest environmental organisation over emission reduction targets. Gull says let the science dictate how much New Zealand cuts its greenhouse gases by, and that the cost of inaction will far outweigh the cost of urgent cuts. Curious times call for curious […]

  31. The productivity shell-game

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 10:57 am, July 7th, 2009 -  24 comments
    Categories: public services, wages, workers' rights
    Tags:

    Is he named for the great economist John Maynard Keynes or Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan? Either way, he speaks a lot of sense: There was an attack on the ‘bureaucracy’ during the 2008 election, and the front line was held to be sacrosanct. The rest were bonfire candidates. Now we get an attack on the […]

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