Search Results

  1. Key’s Midas touch

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 5:08 pm, June 11th, 2011 -  17 comments
    Categories: john key, leadership
    Tags: ,

    John Armstrong reckons Key has the “Midas touch”.    Ahh, no.  Or at least, not in the sense that John meant…

  2. English – sell dams to buy prisons

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 6:37 am, June 9th, 2011 -  54 comments
    Categories: bill english, david cunliffe, prisons, privatisation
    Tags:

    So, that’s National’s great big plan: get rid of our electricity assets and use the cash to build more prisons. Not much of a brighter future there. National still hasn’t come up with a convincing reason why we would sell highly profitable monopolistic companies. Instead, we’ve seen a series of weak excuses. Now, English has revealed the truth.

  3. A simple tertiary education budget

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 10:53 am, June 3rd, 2011 -  11 comments
    Categories: budget 2011, education
    Tags:

    TEU President Sandra Grey writes: When all the unders and overs are calculated, the maths for tertiary education is a lot simpler than all the commentary from the government would have us believe. For the next four years, the minister, Steven Joyce, will be putting less money into tertiary education. That is a political choice.

  4. On the crotch-clutcher Bob Clarkson

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 4:26 pm, June 1st, 2011 -  33 comments
    Categories: act, political parties, politicans, Satire
    Tags: ,

    Bob Clarkson is back into public politics. This time generously helping the Act Party. Long may this continue!

  5. Politics in the media – a Sideshow?

    Written By:  Mike Smith -  Date published: 6:21 pm, May 31st, 2011 -  8 comments
    Categories: democratic participation, Media, Politics
    Tags:

    Lindsay Tanner’s book “Sideshow” is described as laying “bare the relentless decline of political reporting and political behaviour that occurred during his career. Part memoir, part analysis, and part critique, Sideshow is a unique book that tackles the rot which has set in at the heart of Australian public life.” I found it disappointing. In my opinion politicians should not waste time complaining about the media, just concentrate on the best way to get their message across in a way that people will respond positively to.

  6. R&D: Our future

    Written By:  Ben Clark -  Date published: 6:27 am, May 25th, 2011 -  86 comments
    Categories: business, labour
    Tags: , , ,

    National are bleating about Labour’s Research & Development tax credit – largely because as they have no economic plan of their own, so they can only talk about other parties’. But Labour’s R&D tax credit is in fact part of what’s desperately needed to get our economy moving in the right direction.

  7. Key clueless on Chch rebuild

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 11:36 am, May 23rd, 2011 -  11 comments
    Categories: disaster, jobs
    Tags:

    John Key thinks he can smile and wave his way through the worst natural disaster this country has faced. He acts like all he has to do is cheer-lead and the city will rebuild itself. It’s a stunning dereliction of duty. The contrast with the vision and leadership the Left is showing is marked.

  8. The treading water budget

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 7:46 am, May 18th, 2011 -  24 comments
    Categories: budget 2011
    Tags:

    Bryan Gould writes: “The fact that this week’s Budget will do no more than mark time should come as no surprise. We now have getting on for three years’ experience of a government whose idea of managing the economy is simply to wait and see what turns up.” True that.

  9. Maori Party’s prognosis ‘grim’

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 10:52 am, May 17th, 2011 -  14 comments
    Categories: mana-party, maori party
    Tags: ,

    Morgan Godfrey’s blog Maui Street is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand Maori politics. His latest post provides a fascinating insight into the decline of the Maori Party.

    His prognosis? “Grim”.

  10. Jackel’s week that was

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 8:11 pm, May 14th, 2011 -  2 comments
    Categories: blogs
    Tags:

    This week in The Jackel’s week that was: deepsea oil protests continue, Prince Charles against business as usual, child poverty, Libya, bees, onshore oil protests, US flooding, Nats prepare for cuts as we pay for their mistakes, ACC’s hardline savings come at a price, Wikileaks, and more!

  11. The Dear John Letter

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 2:02 pm, May 13th, 2011 -  36 comments
    Categories: class war, don brash, john key
    Tags: ,

    This letter is getting more media attention than it deserves, because its basically Brash regurgitating his 2025 task force stuff.  Key and the Nats have, quite rightly, ignored it once, and they’ll ignore it this time too.

  12. Harawira vs Davis vs ?

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 10:36 am, May 11th, 2011 -  38 comments
    Categories: by-election, labour, mana-party, maori party
    Tags: , ,

    Labour has decided to stand Kelvin Davis in the Te Tai Tokerau by-election. I wish they hadn’t. First, Davis strikes me as quality and you don’t tarnish quality by making it lose in front of a national audience. Look what happened to Melissa Lee, former National rising star. And Davis will lose, let’s be honest.

  13. Gower on Chopper Key

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 11:45 am, May 9th, 2011 -  27 comments
    Categories: john key
    Tags: , , ,

    Patrick Gower has more on the helicopter flight that John Key took in 2009 after opening a walkway that Key says was necessary because of mystery meetings that were supposedly arranged that afternoon. The flight cost us $2,000 when Key learned the helicopter was owned by the Velas.

  14. Dog eat dog on the extreme Right

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 12:57 pm, May 8th, 2011 -  46 comments
    Categories: act, don brash, rodney hide
    Tags: ,

    There’s a strange story in the Sunday Star-Times today. The premise is rumours that Don Brash has a love child but that seems to be baseless. The real point of the story is the Brash-ists trying to kill off Rodney Hide now, rather than wait until the election. I wouldn’t be surprised they’re behind the love-child story.

  15. Monbiot on the left

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 8:53 am, May 8th, 2011 -  62 comments
    Categories: activism, capitalism, Deep stuff
    Tags: , ,

    George Monbiot on the psychology of political debate (and why we’re all screwed).

  16. Helen Clark calling the shots

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 9:14 am, May 4th, 2011 -  19 comments
    Categories: act, don brash, humour, national, national/act government, rodney hide
    Tags:

    After a turbulent fortnight in politics, Helen Clark’s new look Green Party is now in place.

  17. Money and happiness

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 7:50 am, May 1st, 2011 -  35 comments
    Categories: capitalism, class war, poverty
    Tags: , ,

    How do we improve a society’s happiness most effectively?  By lifting the poor out of poverty.  By increasing wealth where we get more happiness bang for our income buck, and reducing the disparity between rich and poor.  So why are we currently moving in the opposite direction?

  18. An open letter to all unionists & fighters for equality & social justice in Aotearoa

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 12:29 pm, April 29th, 2011 -  216 comments
    Categories: notices
    Tags: ,

    Via Socialist Aotearoa, an open letter from union activist Mike Treen on Hone Harawira’s Mana Party, which is due to be launched this Saturday in Auckland. The outline of Mana’s manifesto presented in the letter suggests it will be economically bold and not exclusively Maori nationalist. It should be very popular.

  19. Editing away idiocy

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 2:36 pm, April 28th, 2011 -  18 comments
    Categories: Parliament
    Tags: , ,

    An interesting post from Political Dumpground looks at how MPs are allowed to edit the Hansard record of what they say. Putting the transcript of what Katrina Shanks actually said during the recent debate on the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill beside the Hansard shows how MPs can amend the record to hide their stupidity.

  20. Brash new world

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 1:51 pm, April 28th, 2011 -  49 comments
    Categories: act, election 2011, leadership, rodney hide
    Tags: , ,

    So, just as Irish predicted, Calvert was the swinging voter, and Brash has now achieved his hostile takeover of ACT.  Goodbye Rodney, and good riddance. What does this do to the political landscape?  Here are some preliminary thoughts.

  21. Corporatism & Neo-Liberalism

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 12:58 pm, April 23rd, 2011 -  36 comments
    Categories: capitalism
    Tags:

    The cult of management holds that  individual shareholders, managers or directors are the main contributors to the success of a corporation, and thence the economy. And deserve the greatest share of the rewards. The jobs and income of all other employees and State servants is a generous charitable gift from these people. It’s a bunch of crap.

  22. Operation 8: Deep in the Forest

    Written By:  rocky -  Date published: 8:46 pm, April 19th, 2011 -  15 comments
    Categories: activism, books, film, human rights, law, law and "order", Maori Issues, Media, police, racism, Spying, suppression orders
    Tags: ,

    Last night walking into the film screening in Auckland I was a bit apprehensive about how it would all be put together. Fortunately my fears were unfounded and the film did justice to the complex issues involved.

  23. Pagani dead wrong

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 9:00 am, April 19th, 2011 -  67 comments
    Categories: election 2011, inoculation, labour
    Tags:

    Former senior Labour party strategist John Pagani has written an extraordinary blog post where he says Labour ought to cuddle up to National because its policies are so popular and then, somehow, convince people to vote Labour for some reason. If this has been Labour’s strategy for the past few years, it explains a lot.

  24. Skinheads in Suits

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 2:03 pm, April 14th, 2011 -  53 comments
    Categories: economy, making shit up, Media, Politics, radio
    Tags: , , ,

    ChrisH has been goaded to write this post by a couple of Jim Mora panels last week, which created a stronger than usual temptation to throw the radio out the window. Here he writes a scholarly polemic castigating the implied or explicit assumptions of the people involved in these panels.

  25. You’re an internet pirate

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 9:25 am, April 14th, 2011 -  37 comments
    Categories: business, copyright, national
    Tags: , , ,

    Last night the Nats were ramming their new copyright bill through under urgency.  Like the much reviled Labour bill that preceded it, it contains the assumption of guilt by accusation.  There are already calls for repeats of the 2009 blackout protest…

  26. No ambition for New Zealand

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 10:30 am, April 11th, 2011 -  105 comments
    Categories: bill english, privatisation, wages
    Tags:

    National came to power promising to close the wage gap with Australia. Not only have they failed to fulfill that promise but Bill English now portrays it as a good thing. His appearance on Q+A yesterday only confirms how out of touch National is: determined to sell our assets for no good reason, against our will, and happy with our low wages.

  27. English vs. Key on rebuilding costs

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 7:13 am, March 24th, 2011 -  49 comments
    Categories: bill english, disaster, john key, leadership
    Tags: ,

    The PM and the Minister of Finance are at odds on how the cost of rebuilding Christchurch will be met.  Bill English thinks that the costs are too high to be met by cuts, and significant borrowing will be required.  John Key wants to avoid borrowing and cover the costs with budget cuts.  This disagreement is indicative of the Nats shambolic preparation for the road ahead.

  28. Shrieking harpies to abort Labour’s election chances

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 12:31 pm, March 20th, 2011 -  604 comments
    Categories: Politics
    Tags: ,

    Queen of Thorns says..

    Believe it or not, audience-made-up-of-a-shitload-of-privileged-dudes, New Zealand’s abortion laws are shite, they are outdated, they do fuck up women’s lives, and it is time for a fucking change.

  29. No faith in Nats’ economic ‘plan’

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 8:53 am, March 15th, 2011 -  125 comments
    Categories: Economy, election 2011, greens, labour, national
    Tags:

    So, how are you enjoying your brighter future? Not too flash, eh? GST up. Wages down. No jobs. More crime. Earthquakes. Oil and food shocks. No bloody cycleway. Discretionary income (after tax, housing, food, transport) is down about 15%. No wonder Kiwis don’t believe Key and National can deliver on their promises.

  30. Christchurch Earthquake Bulletin #2

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 12:10 pm, March 11th, 2011 -  14 comments
    Categories: labour
    Tags:

    Apparently Christchurch Labour MPs will be putting out their bulletin daily. Here’s the second update from Clayton Cosgrove (Waimakariri), Ruth Dyson (Port Hills), Lianne Dalziel (Christchurch East) and Brendon Burns (Christchurch Central).  In future you can get to them here.

  31. How to put half a billion into working families’ pockets

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 6:18 am, March 9th, 2011 -  58 comments
    Categories: wages
    Tags: ,

    I/S at No Right Turn has done more excellent work. He’s revealed the official advice Kate Wilkinson was given on the minimum wage. The advice says there is a trade-off between jobs and the minimum wage, but even a rise to $15 an hour would cause an increase wages for low-income earners well above the cost in jobs.

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