Search Results

  1. Armstrong on Nats’ elitist agenda

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 10:47 am, April 16th, 2011 -  7 comments
    Categories: class war, national
    Tags: ,

    National has pillaged the poor to benefit the rich. That can be seen in the tax cuts, the GST hike, the subsidies for climate polluters, even the cuts to public transport to fund holiday highways. But sometimes it’s the smaller stories that best expose the underlying theme of a government, as John Armstrong shows in his piece today.

  2. English: gap with Aussie good

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 11:41 am, April 9th, 2011 -  56 comments
    Categories: bill english, Economy, wages
    Tags: , ,

    Bill English has given up any pretense of closing the gap with Australia by 2025. Now, he is claiming the wage gap is a good thing and admitting higher productivity isn’t the cause of the wage gap. Meanwhile, Fran O’Sullivan slams Key and English’s ‘fingers crossed’ approach to handling financial crises.

  3. Whatever happened to “we’re all in this together”?

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 7:44 am, April 5th, 2011 -  63 comments
    Categories: class war
    Tags:

    Displaced Christchurch residents are being told they need to pay at least $190 a week to stay in emergency campervan housing.

    Meanwhile picking up the tab for wealthy SFC investors just got another third of a billion more expensive.

  4. O’Sullivan gets it right & wrong

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 8:00 am, March 27th, 2011 -  66 comments
    Categories: john key
    Tags: , , ,

    Fran O’Sullivan makes some pertinent remarks about John Key’s recent performance. The fact is, he wanted to be the Party PM, head clown presiding over good times, but times aren’t good and his heart just isn’t in tackling the hard issues. However, while saying these issues matter more than the Hughes affair, O’Sullivan makes one big mistake.

  5. Sleeper issue

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 12:00 pm, February 21st, 2011 -  9 comments
    Categories: wages, workers' rights
    Tags:

    Overnight carers have won the right to be paid at least the minimum wage for time when they are not working and free to sleep, as well as when they need to provide care to their charges in the middle of the night. In reaction, National appears set to legislate away the basic right that when you’re at work you get minimum wage.

  6. Compare and contrast

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 7:40 am, February 19th, 2011 -  54 comments
    Categories: class war, law, national, wages
    Tags: ,

    Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn compares the bailout of SCF investors with the Nats’ threat to change the law to deny some workers the minimum wage.

  7. Tax cuts for rich at heart of debt problem

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 6:19 am, December 14th, 2010 -  52 comments
    Categories: tax
    Tags: , ,

    Two years ago we had one of the best government balance sheets in the world. Key said we didn’t have a debt problem. Two years of him as PM, and we sure have one now. When we learn exactly how dire things are later today, remember that National brought this on us by borrowing $3 billion a year for tax cuts that no-one noticed.

  8. Nats’ war on education: cutting wages

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 10:00 am, October 19th, 2010 -  87 comments
    Categories: education, national, wages
    Tags: ,

    For some reason, the Nats hate public education. Even an elitist fool should be able to see that a well-educated workforce is valuable and public education is the cheapest way to achieve it. Yet National is attacking education at every level. The latest ‘offer’ to the secondary teachers would see them take 2 years of after-inflation pay cuts.

  9. Time for an OIA

    Written By:  Bunji -  Date published: 1:59 pm, September 8th, 2010 -  19 comments
    Categories: accountability
    Tags:

    I’m hoping that someone (a fellow Standard author perhaps?) puts in an OIA over the South Canterbury Finance bailout.  And here’s what I’d like them to ask: – How many cabinet ministers excused themselves from the bailout decision due to a conflict of interest? – How many ministers and/or their extended families had investments in […]

  10. Mystery rant

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 9:50 am, September 8th, 2010 -  32 comments
    Categories: capitalism, Media
    Tags: , ,

    Here’s an interesting rant.  I’m not going to link to it, because I want you to spend a moment trying to work out who (which raving leftie blogger?) is the author.  So read it, and make your guess, then Google for the answer…

  11. Wage subsidy a half-hearted gesture

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 8:12 am, September 8th, 2010 -  60 comments
    Categories: business, jobs, spin, wages
    Tags: ,

    The unions, business, and Phil Goff have all gritted their teeth and called the Nats’ $15 million wage subsidy scheme for small quaked-affected businesses ‘a start’. The problem is, it’s likely to be the end. This scheme will leave workers and employers severely out of pocket, killing businesses and jobs.

  12. It’s outrageous

    Written By:  Tammy Gordon -  Date published: 3:39 pm, September 3rd, 2010 -  45 comments
    Categories: Economy, national/act government, public services
    Tags:

    Whatever flimsy and tattered remains of Labour-lite which National used to disguise itself at the 2008 election has well and truly disappeared. Thank goodness we can now call a spade a spade. National is making its priorities crystal clear to the public. On a week when up to 500 elderly or disabled people in the […]

  13. Cutting through the bullshit

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 11:12 pm, September 2nd, 2010 -  24 comments
    Categories: Economy, spin
    Tags:

    Over the next few weeks the nats and other vested interests will try to muddy the waters over the SCF bailout.

    This sophistry is designed to distract from the massive transfer of wealth from the many to the few.

    And why shouldn’t they try this tactic? It worked for asset sales two and a half decades ago.

  14. The many bail out the few

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 7:30 pm, August 31st, 2010 -  52 comments
    Categories: class war
    Tags:

    Funny how quickly John Key and Bill English found that spare $1.7bn for wealthy investors after all that talk about how we should be tightening our belts.

    It’s shows exactly where their priorities are.

  15. Mountain Tui: Crashing New Zealand’s health system is not the way to prosperity, Prime Minister

    Written By:  Mountain Tui -  Date published: 2:44 pm, July 16th, 2024 -  15 comments
    Categories: Christopher Luxon, david seymour, health, Shane Reti, uncategorized
    Tags: , ,

    The drumbeat of health warnings continues from hospitals, doctors and nurses. But is the Government prepared to listen?

  16. Fonterra’s Brand Sale Continues to Drag New Zealand Down

    Written By:  advantage -  Date published: 10:16 am, May 19th, 2024 -  26 comments
    Categories: Economy, farming, Free Trade, trade
    Tags:

    Fonterra is a complete construct of the New Zealand state, but it is pulling our entire country down.

  17. Understanding the New Zealand General Election 2023: Historical trends and perspectives.

    Written By:  nickkelly -  Date published: 6:01 am, September 20th, 2023 -  15 comments
    Categories: act, campaigning, chris hipkins, Christopher Luxon, economy, election 2023, elections, First Past the Post, greens, inequality, labour, leadership, Long Read, maori party, MMP, national, national/act government, nz first
    Tags: , , , , , , ,

    From the outside, the New Zealand 2023 General Election seems both lacklustre and slightly strange. The Labour Government, having won a huge majority in 2020 is now fighting for its political life. Yet National, the main centre-right opposition party is still on average polling significantly worse now than they were when it lost power in 2017.

  18. The bigotry of lemmings – the China scare

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 5:46 pm, November 28th, 2018 -  134 comments
    Categories: China, Economy, International, The Standard
    Tags: , , ,

    I can’t think of the number of countless times that I have seen scare stories about someone wanting to take over this society and/or the world. Sometimes they are even correct about intent, but usually they are not. Usually the difference between what is insinuated and whatever facts are known makes those making such insinuations just look like attention-seeking nuts.

     

  19. Litigation and equal pay – a history of the 1950’s equal pay campaign

    Written By:  nickkelly -  Date published: 7:26 am, August 28th, 2018 -  3 comments
    Categories: activism, australian politics, campaigning, discrimination, equality, feminism, gender, history, human rights, labour, national, patriarchy, Politics, public services, same old national, sexism, uk politics, Unions, wages
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

    Forward In 2016 I wrote the below dissertation as part of my History Honours degree at Victoria University.  This dissertation explores the 1950s equal pay campaign, and specifically looks at the Jean Parker Case. Jean Parker was a PSA member employed at IRD, who like Kristine Bartlett 60 years later, won a landmark equal pay legal […]

  20. So there was sewage leaking into Middlemore hospital’s walls

    Written By:  mickysavage -  Date published: 8:21 am, May 4th, 2018 -  87 comments
    Categories: David Farrar, dpf, making shit up, Media, national, same old national, spin, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, you couldn't make this shit up
    Tags: ,

    In further horror news about our health system the leaks of sewage into the walls of Middlemore Hospital has been confirmed and its discovery occurred in 2010. And in 2015 the chair of cash strapped Canterbury DHB signed a Ministry of Health drafted letter saying it did not need further funding despite an urgent need for further funds.

  21. The Overseas Investment Amendment Bill

    Written By:  advantage -  Date published: 10:55 am, March 9th, 2018 -  73 comments
    Categories: capitalism, Economy, Globalisation, International, overseas investment
    Tags:

    Ad argues that the merits of banning overseas ownership of local land is not as simple or as virtuous as we may think.

  22. New Zealand’s Neoliberal Drift

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 2:23 pm, May 20th, 2017 -  85 comments
    Categories: Economy
    Tags: , ,

    In New Zealand, neoliberal reforms have widened inequality and undermined the country’s self-image as an egalitarian paradise.

  23. Livestream – LIVE UPDATES From LINCOLN

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 8:02 am, June 4th, 2016 -  53 comments
    Categories: election 2017, greens, Media
    Tags: ,

    LIVE UPDATES from TS’s man in the Lincoln Event Centre, Te Reo Putake.

     

     

    change-the-government

  24. Grant Robertson’s pre-budget speech

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 2:59 pm, May 15th, 2015 -  59 comments
    Categories: budget 2015, grant robertson, labour
    Tags:

    Labour’s Finance spokesperson Grant Robertson gave his pre-budget speech this morning. “So, what would a responsible government be doing in the Budget next week?”…

  25. Labour’s Caucus Reshuffle

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 10:55 am, May 6th, 2014 -  61 comments
    Categories: david cunliffe, labour
    Tags:

    Labour has announced a reshuffle of its Caucus rankings and portfolios.

  26. David Cunliffe Speech to 2013 Labour Party Conference – Building a future for all

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 2:57 pm, November 2nd, 2013 -  142 comments
    Categories: david cunliffe, labour
    Tags:

    David Cunliffe’s speech notes for his speech to today’s Labour Party Conference

  27. Selling NZ – in the news

    Written By:  karol -  Date published: 8:05 am, December 29th, 2012 -  93 comments
    Categories: business, economy, Environment, farming, overseas investment, Privatisation
    Tags:

    There’s been a couple of stories in the news over the last 24 hours that could do with some scrutiny: Treasury warns of asset sales over-load; potential sale of Oceania Dairy to an overseas company to set up a milk factory in NZ.

  28. A Case of IHG?

    Written By:  Bill -  Date published: 11:30 pm, October 6th, 2010 -  31 comments
    Categories: economy, national/act government, workers' rights
    Tags: , , , ,

    Seems these days that when people get in to financial strife, the Government is all too happy to offer a helping hand loaded down with wadges of cash.  Sometimes…

    And then sometimes something altogether more short and sharp is offered. Depending…

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