Search Results

  1. Climate change, passing the pain.

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 10:15 am, July 6th, 2009 -  22 comments
    Categories: climate change, International
    Tags:

    The US has finally managed to pass a bill through the house of representatives dealing with climate change (sort of). It is laden with pork-barrel initiatives because the congress members realised that they could treat carbon credits as a type of free-money boondoggle. It still has to pass the senate and get approval from Obama, […]

  2. National’s successes

    Written By:  the sprout -  Date published: 3:30 pm, June 27th, 2009 -  72 comments
    Categories: john key, national/act government, the praiseworthy and the pitiful
    Tags: ,

    National’s 2008 election victory was undoubtedly a great success for the Party. Just two terms after humiliating defeat under the leadership of Bill English, National rose from the ashes to claim a convincing win. Forming a broad coalition that brought the Maori Party into the fold, thus simultaneously broadening National’s coalition options and lessening the necessity to […]

  3. Asleep at the wheel

    Written By:  Zetetic -  Date published: 1:14 am, June 24th, 2009 -  25 comments
    Categories: economy, employment, workers' rights
    Tags:

    Yesterday, Goff asked Key for some evidence that his government is doing something to save jobs. Key squirmed and squirmed. Goff: What have the three main ideas that emerged from the Job Summit, and that he promised would save or create thousands of jobs, delivered in actual job numbers? Key: I would say that the […]

  4. How to write a submission on election finances

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 12:30 pm, June 15th, 2009 -  25 comments
    Categories: election funding
    Tags:

    The National-led government repealed much of Labour’s Electoral Finance Act and is now asking the public what should be in a new law on election finances. Please take some time to write a submission backing greater fairness and openness in financing of election campaigns. All you need to do is: head up an e-mail or […]

  5. Turei new greens leader

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 4:15 pm, May 30th, 2009 -  40 comments
    Categories: greens
    Tags:

    Metiria Turei has been elected at the Green Party National conference to replace Jeanette Fitzsimons are female co-leader. Her election is no real surprise. Turei brings youth and a lack of baggage. Youth is important for a party whose MPs’ average age is 55, apparently the oldest average (apart from Jim Anderton). Sue Bradford, who […]

  6. Budget previews: the good, the bad, and the ugly

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 2:47 pm, May 27th, 2009 -  27 comments
    Categories: budget 2009
    Tags:

    As well as the usual pre-Budget announcements there have been a number of leaks. A quick review: Good Home insulation package: this is the Greens’ baby and could well be a highlight of the Budget in a sea of negatives. It would have been better if they had put in something about forcing landlords to […]

  7. ‘Punch in the face’ dad guilty

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 8:25 am, May 20th, 2009 -  90 comments
    Categories: child discipline
    Tags:

    What’s wrong with The Herald? Their articles Jimmy Mason on the father who punched his child in the face – and pulled him by the ear, and picked him and his brother up on their bikes and slammed them down – has described him as the ‘ear-flick’ father. The headline today is ‘Ear flick father […]

  8. Why so afraid?

    Written By:  Zetetic -  Date published: 11:21 pm, May 13th, 2009 -  30 comments
    Categories: auckland supercity, national
    Tags:

    Labour asked for an urgent debate in the House today on the Waterview announcement. Smith denied it because the announcement hadn’t then taken place. A minute later Joyce made the announcement. Labour then asked leave of the House for an urgent question to Joyce, Brownlee denied leave. What are they so afraid of? When did […]

  9. Garrote them for shagging sheep

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 9:41 am, May 10th, 2009 -  39 comments
    Categories: act
    Tags: , , ,

    The strange Sensible Sentencing Trust three-strikes bill put up by ACT’s David Garrett aka ‘Garrote‘ has some strange implications. Scott at Imperator Fish points out this one. Even if lawmakers could accept the principle that after three serious offences you’re a goner, getting them to agree on what those offences should be would be next […]

  10. The RTF tries another RUC rort

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 1:59 pm, May 1st, 2009 -  21 comments
    Categories: transport
    Tags:

    Tony Friedlander of the trucking lobby and architect of the famous ‘truck strike’ (remember that? man that was weird when you think about it) was on the TV last week arguing that we should get rid of road user charges and replace them with a diesel tax the same as petrol tax. In typical Friedlander […]

  11. The brand cult of Air New Zealand

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 7:00 pm, April 22nd, 2009 -  43 comments
    Categories: employment
    Tags:

    As someone personally involved at the Air New Zealand cabin crew dispute I can tell you it’s been pretty nasty for everyone involved. But what it’s really brought home for everyone has been the seamless (and slightly creepy) way the airline has used its internal communications to reinforce the brand cult of Air New Zealand. […]

  12. Elizabeth Warren on the bailouts

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 7:51 am, April 19th, 2009 -  14 comments
    Categories: economy
    Tags:

    The best news source in America, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, interviews the woman responsible for making sure their bailout money is being spent well. Illuminating and a little scary. In the second part she puts this whole financial crisis in a historic and principled context. The crowd goes wild – they’ve never had the […]

  13. Worth mired in corruption again

    Written By:  John A -  Date published: 7:34 pm, April 16th, 2009 -  36 comments
    Categories: corruption, john key
    Tags: ,

    (click the picture for the video) Why would Worth visit the Sandhu family to whom he was a stranger and who had nothing to do with his portfolio? What did he say to them? Why would he introduce himself as the Minister of Internal Affairs to the family? And why would he lie about that to the media? […]

  14. National’s cargo cult mentality

    Written By:  Tane -  Date published: 11:49 am, March 18th, 2009 -  32 comments
    Categories: economy, national/act government
    Tags: , ,

    Over the weekend I pointed out that National’s plans to review the Overseas Investment Act would lead to even more foreign control of New Zealand and, ultimately, even more of our national wealth sucked offshore to pay the dividends of overseas shareholders. Murray Horton from the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa weighs in today, […]

  15. Democracy and the BOFH, Jonkey, and S92A preparations

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 5:59 pm, March 4th, 2009 -  53 comments
    Categories: admin, democratic participation, flip-flop, humour, scoundrels
    Tags:

    Reply is a feature that accidentally got turned on last week when I had a adware/malware outbreak through a security hole (those buggers are smart and fast). I did complete reinstall with updated software. Somewhere during the upgrade, the reply feature was turned on. Now I’ve been occupied by moving house for the first time […]

  16. Beneath the headlines – complete sentences

    Written By:  Dancer -  Date published: 8:00 pm, March 3rd, 2009 -  34 comments
    Categories: articles, law and "order"
    Tags:

    The issue of parole has long been controversial. We’ve also seen one of the core underpinings of our justice system become a manipulated by its political opponents, regardless of what the policy arguments are. In this article from the Listener at the begining of the year we gain some insight into parole – and why […]

  17. Judith Collins – nascent Minister of Embarrassment?

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 4:15 pm, February 23rd, 2009 -  6 comments
    Categories: cartoons, humour, national/act government
    Tags: , ,

    Should have seen it coming Judith Collins has been vying politically with Rodney Hide to become the NACT’s Minister of Embarrassment (and Comedy). This is creatively portrayed in today’s Mike Moreu cartoon, as he ties her last weirdo play for the kneejerk vote to her current one. For a background on this current Judith Collins […]

  18. Rainbows tame Waitangi

    Written By:  the sprout -  Date published: 2:25 pm, February 7th, 2009 -  7 comments
    Categories: john key, maori party, Media, national
    Tags:

    Gosh what a difference a few years can make when it comes to symbols of national identity. Not so long ago National had a leader happy to springboard off dog-whistling race-divisive carping about the Treaty Grievance Industry in speeches and billboards. More recently National campaigned on abolition of the Maori seats, at least until it became […]

  19. A view from the coalface on RMA reforms

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 10:43 am, February 4th, 2009 -  13 comments
    Categories: economy, Environment
    Tags:

    Our guest RMA expert, offers an analysis of National’s proposed changes to our resource management framework: National’s phase one RMA review document looks good at a first glance, but after a detailed look fish hooks, and the right-wing agenda, are more and more evident. The phase one review is clearly set up to bulldoze through big development […]

  20. Nick Smith stays mum

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 10:08 am, February 2nd, 2009 -  6 comments
    Categories: Environment, national/act government
    Tags:

    The Sunday-Star Times has an article on National’s proposed RMA changes. Unfortunately, it’s just Nick Smith describing the changes. And, surprise, he doesn’t mention changing the definition of environment, the crucial change (we discuss the consequences of the change here). Fortunately, it’s all online here. You can read not only the changes that National wants to […]

  21. A pointless symbolic distraction. At best.

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 11:24 am, January 23rd, 2009 -  17 comments
    Categories: economy, national/act government, wages
    Tags:

    I’m the last person who’d criticise freezing the pay of our MPs but John Key’s cynical opportunism is at best a piece of pointless and time wasting PR and at worst a signal to attack Kiwi wages. Now before any of our regular right-wingers claim I’m reading too much into this it might pay to […]

  22. Police spied on Unite Union too

    Written By:  Tane -  Date published: 3:09 pm, December 18th, 2008 -  42 comments
    Categories: national/act government, police, workers' rights
    Tags: , , ,

    Matt McCarten, head of the Unite Union, has just released emails showing police informant Rob Gilchrist gave the police spy unit details about activities being organised by the union as part of their push to abolish youth pay rates and increase the minimum wage. ‘These emails give lie to the police claim that only potential […]

  23. Somewhat suspicious

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 4:36 pm, December 17th, 2008 -  21 comments
    Categories: climate change, national/act government
    Tags: , ,

    Gerry ‘sexy coal’ Brownlee has spent today ripping apart more anti-climate change laws. Today, under urgency and without the opportunity for the public to contribute via the select committee process, National/ACT has repealed the Biofuels requirement and is now in the process of repealing the ‘ban’ on new baseload fossil fuel power plants. Disturbingly National/ACT’s […]

  24. Police Special Investigations – A fundamental lack of humanity

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 8:02 am, December 15th, 2008 -  46 comments
    Categories: activism, police
    Tags:

    Aside from all the democratic, political and moral issues raised by the Police’s behaviour, there is a fundamental lack of humanity in their actions. Yeah, perhaps the Police do have a role in preventing the graffiti of billboards (apparently they used their informant to try to track down a group that graffitied a red meat […]

  25. Valuing children

    Written By:  Dancer -  Date published: 12:32 pm, December 12th, 2008 -  21 comments
    Categories: families
    Tags:

    I know I won’t be alone in being disappointed in the results of the Unicef survey, which says that “New Zealand has an appalling child poverty rate, spends too little on early childhood services for which there is unequal access, and lags far behind other developed nations in parental leave provisions, according to a new […]

  26. Anatomy of a honeymoon piece

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 8:50 pm, November 30th, 2008 -  33 comments
    Categories: Media, national/act government
    Tags:

    Most of our political journalists are more than capable of producing informative, insightful pieces. For instance, Claire Trevett wrote an excellent series of pieces that confirmed John Key had stolen Coldplay’s ‘Clocks’ for his ‘Ambiguous for NZ’ DVD. She researched the legalities of the issue, consulted a musicologist on the tune, brought forward a confession […]

  27. Act lied and gets away with it

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 2:21 pm, November 30th, 2008 -  11 comments
    Categories: act, Media, spin
    Tags:

    At the Media Law Journal, Wellington based media lawyer Steven Price has been looking at the recent decisions of the Advertising Standards Complaint Board (a self-regulatory body) related to the election. There are a series of them and the decisions are weird. More importantly they are ineffectual in the great tradition of industry self-regulatory bodies. […]

  28. Undefeated

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 3:14 pm, November 17th, 2008 -  41 comments
    Categories: activism, greens, labour, maori party, Media, national/act government
    Tags:

    Paul Holmes wrote yesterday: “While Labour moves to the Opposition benches, it does so weirdly unmolested by the election defeat, weirdly undefeated” Damn right, the Left seems undefeated, and so it should. The Right has only won power by masquerading as the Left; Key’s mandate is only to maintain the legacy of the Fifth Labour […]

  29. Whose record is better?

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 11:19 am, October 31st, 2008 -  6 comments
    Categories: activism, election 2008, greens, labour, national, youtube
    Tags:

    I found it weird that National’s attack ad is a series of newspaper headlines. Everyone knows newspaper headlines are sensationalist and everyone knows that things were much worse under National in the 1990s, as this new youtube vid illustrates: Meanwhile, the upbeat jokers at 08wire have a positive reponse to the Nat attack ad:

  30. A clear choice on ACC

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 9:59 am, October 29th, 2008 -  48 comments
    Categories: ACC, act, election 2008, greens, health, labour, national, progressives, united future, workers' rights
    Tags:

    If you vote National, United Future, or ACT, you will be voting for the ACC system to be privatised. Consequences of this include: – $200 million in profits flowing offshore, according to John Key’s former employers Merril Lynch – higher levies on most workers, as private insurers cherry-pick the most profitable for themselves, leaving the […]

  31. It’s your choice

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 1:35 pm, October 20th, 2008 -  109 comments
    Categories: election 2008, labour, national
    Tags:

    Now that both Labour and National have all their major spending promises out, we can compare the options. Remember, whatever happens one of these two parties will lead the next government, so these are the basic choices we face: Labour: -Keep existing policies including important polices growing next term: -retaining Kiwibank -retaining Kiwisaver -tax cuts […]

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