Search Results

  1. Climate change: Our $1.2 billion a year credibility gap

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 1:30 pm, April 20th, 2011 -  14 comments
    Categories: climate change, ETS, International, national
    Tags: ,

    The United Nations joins those voices pointing out that Nationals”policy” on reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a complete sham.  Reposted from No Right Turn.

  2. Hughes stood down

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 8:02 pm, March 24th, 2011 -  114 comments
    Categories: labour, police
    Tags: , ,

    Darren Hughes has been suspended from his shadow portfolios due to the continuing police investigation.  Goff probably should have done this earlier, despite the understandable wariness of a leader can’t punish an MP on the strength of a complaint alone. As Key did with Wong and Worth, Goff has waited until the media issue became too big.

  3. Doin’ nothin’: Foreign policy

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 11:30 am, November 6th, 2010 -  21 comments
    Categories: International
    Tags:

    Over at Dimpost, Danyl makes a pertinent observation: “Reiteration that we are ‘very good friends’. Zero development on trade or defense issues. I’m not even sure why she’s here.” There was nothing solid. The ‘Wellington Declaration is, in John Armstrong’s words, featherlight – a big name for less substance than a normal visit. More style over substance.

  4. 100% PURE…going…going…gone…

    Written By:  James Henderson -  Date published: 12:00 pm, October 12th, 2010 -  25 comments
    Categories: Environment, farming
    Tags: ,

    When the 2009 ‘streamlining and simplifying’ amendment to the RMA was rushed through parliament last year, many concerns were raised about new abilities for the Minister for the Environment to use National Environmental Standards (NES) to override local government regulations. Now an NES on forestry is being pushed through. It’s scary stuff.

  5. Key’s culture of impunity

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 7:15 am, October 11th, 2010 -  18 comments
    Categories: accountability, john key, national/act government
    Tags:

    Despite a slew of scandals, Key has not enforced any ethical or professional standards on his ministers (apart from Worth, for whatever he did). Ministers know that Key will keep his personal brand clean but won’t do anything to pull them into line. This has created a culture of impunity in the government, which has started to spread wider.

  6. Roads of National Party Significance Continue…

    Written By:  Bunji -  Date published: 3:14 pm, September 22nd, 2010 -  52 comments
    Categories: transport
    Tags: ,

    Transmission Gully: A road that makes no economic sense, that will now be forced through extra fast, with reduced consultation.

  7. Our Water Our Vote

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 6:47 am, June 14th, 2010 -  31 comments
    Categories: democracy under attack, Environment, national
    Tags: ,

    Sunday saw another big protest against the government. An estimated 3000 people turned out in Christchurch for the “Our Water Our Vote” rally to protest National’s attacks on Canterbury’s democracy and environment.

  8. Govt’s instances of abuse

    Written By:  Campbell -  Date published: 11:53 pm, June 8th, 2010 -  26 comments
    Categories: accountability, corruption, Politics
    Tags:

    Over the weekend, I read the right wing blogs with interest and their frequent references to left-wing politicians troughing at the taxpayers expense and other such instances of abuse. I then lent my mind to the National-led Government and how they have fared in this regard over the last 18 months.

    This is what I came up with:

  9. Understanding and trust

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 9:50 am, May 2nd, 2010 -  10 comments
    Categories: Deep stuff, Left
    Tags:

    Nat MP Michael Woodhouse was speaking on the amendment bill weakening workers’ rights to a break and said “I was heard it said that political discourse requites two things: trust and understanding. And it’s certainly true here. Labour don’t trust us and we sure as hell don’t understand them”. I think it’s very enlightening that he chose to put it that way.

  10. Nats plan to subsidise greenhouse polluters

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 9:07 am, April 29th, 2010 -  21 comments
    Categories: business, capitalism, climate change, ETS, flip-flop, national
    Tags: ,

    National is predictably planning to put the cost of polluters’ actions on to the rest of us by canning the major parts of the ETS. This stupid game of pass the buck is played out all over the world – polluters refuse to accept their responsibilities, governments refuse to act – as more greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere, locking us in to economic and ecological devastation.

  11. Help a brother out

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 1:21 pm, April 20th, 2010 -  19 comments
    Categories: Conservation, corruption, local government
    Tags: ,

    Nick Smith’s brother, Tim Smith, was up on 21 charges from Environment Canterbury at the same time as Smith was ramming through the abolishment of the democratically-elected council. Smith should have told us of this apparent conflict of interest. I guess when you’re part of a government that’s hiding the fact its 3 strikes law will encourage murders, this seemed like a small thing.

  12. ‘Dig & hope’ – Nats’ great plan

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 10:30 am, March 25th, 2010 -  43 comments
    Categories: Conservation, Economy, Mining, national, spin
    Tags: , ,

    National’s mining policy is ‘dig and hope’. That’s the only conclusion one can draw after Gerry Brownlee and Nick Smith admitted National has no idea of the value of the minerals supposedly under the protected lands they want to dig up. Remember, this is National’s lynch-pin economic policy. They are we have dig up these protected lands for the sake of the economy but have no idea of what’s there.

  13. Who were the Nat leakers?

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 2:09 pm, March 9th, 2010 -  40 comments
    Categories: bill english, john key, national
    Tags: , , , , ,

    Michael is dead right. The most important thing about the Hollow Men is not how Nicky Hager got the information but what the information is. It reveals National’s modern politics in all its unprincipled ugliness. Nonetheless, which Nats gave Hager the information is a subject of legitimate interest. I have some theories.

  14. Public rage at govt policies and lies

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 11:43 pm, November 30th, 2009 -  21 comments
    Categories: national/act government
    Tags:

    On Nightline just now there was coverage of a meeting held by Nick Smith in St Heliers. Two interesting things: 1) there was an astounding level of anger, even vitriol, against him and the government over the ETS (from both sides of that argument), over the shabby backhander for selected iwi to buy Maori Party […]

  15. CCDs. Worms perhaps?

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 2:15 pm, November 24th, 2009 -  73 comments
    Categories: climate change, Satire, scoundrels
    Tags:

    It has been fascinating over the last few days watching the CCDs (Climate Change Deniers) make an another attempt to scale the bastion of scientific thinking and language. In this case someone hacked a copy of decade of e-mails at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at a insecure University of East Anglia webmail server. There […]

  16. Harawira and Katene to cross the floor?

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 8:15 am, November 24th, 2009 -  14 comments
    Categories: climate change, maori party, national/act government
    Tags:

    National wants to get its shambolic ETS through the House this week. It’s not quite clear what the hurry is; there’s no actual reason why it should be passed before the Copenhagen meeting in December, it’s just an artificial deadline that National have set themselves.   We already know the ETS will cost taxpayers hundreds […]

  17. Lunch time quiz

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 12:37 pm, November 23rd, 2009 -  23 comments
    Categories: climate change, national/act government
    Tags:

    1) What the hell is John Key trying to say here? “Maori are not getting special preference, if you go back to those pre-1990 forests Maori are significant owners in that area, so is Ngai Tahu, those forests are all affected by the emissions trading scheme unless we can get a change at Copenhagen and […]

  18. Government of Fantasyland

    Written By:  John A -  Date published: 3:38 pm, November 18th, 2009 -  16 comments
    Categories: uncategorized
    Tags:

    This is Nick Smith in Parliament yesterday, replying to a question on Treasury’s re-calibrated $50 billion costs of Nationals ETS Bill: Hon Dr NICK SMITH: That number is a fantasyland number. Let me tell the member why. The member opposite wants to give great credence to what might occur in 2050. It is not rocket […]

  19. Bikoi

    Written By:  Zetetic -  Date published: 2:16 pm, November 17th, 2009 -  44 comments
    Categories: ACC, activism, national/act government
    Tags:

    Just got away from the bikoi at Parliament. What a sight. At least 6,000 people they reckon. The lawn and half the forecourt covered. Tui flying overhead joining in the fun. The bikers know are they being treated unfairly and National is using their levy money to pay for false propaganda for levy increases. They […]

  20. Key’s $155b subsidy to polluters

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 1:27 pm, November 16th, 2009 -  38 comments
    Categories: climate change, economy, Environment
    Tags:

    A month ago, I wrote that National’s moves to gut the Emissions Trading Scheme would increase government debt by $73 billion by 2050. A Treasury report said that National’s ETS changes to subsidise polluters would see government debt 6-8% of GDP higher than it otherwise would be. GDP in 2050 is modelled at $914 billion, so 8% […]

  21. 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 […]

  22. Give the snip snap to the zip zap plastic fantastic? Yeah right!

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 9:15 am, November 12th, 2009 -  23 comments
    Categories: economy
    Tags: ,

    Brian Fallow has a great post over at Granny Herald this morning. “Emitters on bludger’s end of deal” deals with the way that the NACT government has been loading costs onto future voters and taxpayers. On superannuation: By siphoning off and investing around another 1 per cent of GDP while the babyboomers are still in […]

  23. It’s called politics, Colin

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 4:11 am, October 16th, 2009 -  30 comments
    Categories: ACC, Media
    Tags:

    Colin, I think we need to discuss your work: the conspiracy theory peddled by Labour and the EPMU (i.e. Labour) that somehow this is all just a VRWC to derail the ACC, lower public confidence in it, and then sell it to the highest (or any) bidder just doesn’t ring true for me. Don’t you […]

  24. Oldest trick in the book

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 5:49 am, October 14th, 2009 -  7 comments
    Categories: ACC, election funding
    Tags:

    How do you get someone to change their mind about something they like? Simple, find one negative element to it (nothing is perfect) and blow it into a major issue. Nick Smith knows how to do this, he’s built a career on it. Now, he’s trying to make compensation payments to criminals the issue in […]

  25. Labour drops the ball

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 4:28 pm, October 13th, 2009 -  79 comments
    Categories: labour
    Tags: , , , ,

    Labour’s pathetic response to Treasury’s flat tax proposal has come in for some well deserved criticism over at No Right Turn, and I have to agree it’s a pretty basic failure on Labour’s part. Faced with a reactionary and regressive proposal that amounts to a full-frontal attack on their founding values and the people they […]

  26. First, manufacture a crisis…

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 9:00 am, October 12th, 2009 -  49 comments
    Categories: ACC, privatisation
    Tags:

    The first thing you need to understand is ACC is not spending more money than it is taking in through levies. It is not going bust. It is not ‘making a loss’ despite what Nick Smith writes and the media faithfully repeats, but, then, they got taken in by this same trick six months ago. […]

  27. “Blow out” more like Blowup

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 1:29 pm, October 10th, 2009 -  11 comments
    Categories: ACC
    Tags:

    Readers of a certain age will remember an Antonioni film called Blowup. The title conceit involves a photographer who finds what appears to be a dead body in one of his photographs but when he blows the photo up to find out more all that happens is the resolution degrades. The more closely he looks […]

  28. 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 […]

  29. Double standards for Double Dipton?

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 6:30 am, September 23rd, 2009 -  39 comments
    Categories: bill english, corruption, john key, national/act government
    Tags:

    Our readers pointed out some interesting quotes in yesterday’s thread on Bill English’s attempt to bully journalists into silence over his housing allowance rort. Key on why he fired Richard Worth: “The test of whether someone enjoys my confidence is not a legal test and I have never argued that Dr Worth broke any legal test.’ […]

  30. John Key ‘may’ be able to understand it?

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 11:00 am, August 6th, 2009 -  11 comments
    Categories: climate change, humour, john key, national/act government, video, youtube
    Tags: , ,

    John Key has recently acted like a jerk to a young mother worried about what climate change is going to mean for her future and that of her child. Essentially he said that she should stick to what she knew. Bearing in mind the complete lack of understanding that both John Key and his NACT […]

  31. Privileges complaints laid

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 10:56 am, July 8th, 2009 -  12 comments
    Categories: corruption, Parliament
    Tags:

    A number of poor performing ministers like Paula Bennett, Kate Wilkinson, Anne Tolley, Pita Sharples, Tariana Turia, Rodney Hide, Pansy Wong, and Key himself, have tried to extradite themselves from sticky situations in the House by lying. It was only a matter of time until one of them lied so blatantly that a privileges complaint was […]

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