Posts Tagged ‘don brash’

Goff: Scrap the 2025 Taskforce

Written By: - Date published: 5:26 pm, December 3rd, 2009 - 25 comments

We all know the 2025 Taskforce is a farce and a waste of taxpayers’ money. The Government has disowned it, the critics have panned it. Even Garth George has come out calling for its first report to be recycled into toilet paper. It genuinely appears to serve no function but to subsidise the wacky right-wing […]

Words of wisdom from the 19th century

Written By: - Date published: 12:05 pm, December 3rd, 2009 - 5 comments

One of the most amusing things in the granny today is Garth George, our iconoclast from Rotorua ripping another hole into the credibility of the Brash Taskforce 2025. Absurdities abound, the first of which was the appointment of people like Dr Brash and Mr Caygill who, along with their soulmate, Act Party seat-warmer Roger Douglas, […]

Oram on the Brash Report

Written By: - Date published: 10:16 am, December 3rd, 2009 - 12 comments

Always worth listening to, Rod Oram rips the Brash Report on Nine to Noon, not just on the findings but on the quality of the work, that we’re paying half a million dollars for. Here are some of the choice quotes: “At every point it has unbelievably facile analysis and, in fact, substitutes rather generic […]

Systemic failure of the media

Written By: - Date published: 1:52 pm, December 2nd, 2009 - 32 comments

felix in comments points out in his usual sarcastic style about the media response on Don Brash’s 2025 Taskforce report. For example, consider this online poll (tvnz): What do you think of Don Brash’s 2025 Taskforce financial report? It’s too radical It’s about right It doesn’t go far enough All the questions imply some degree […]

Remember this?

Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, December 1st, 2009 - 23 comments

Pascal’s Bookie dug up this classic in the comments: Congratulations…. You always knew that politics would be exciting, but I guess that neither of us thought that it would get quite this exciting quite so soon. Don, I wish you all the very best I am confident of your capacity to lead National and ultimately […]

Digging for nuggets

Written By: - Date published: 3:17 pm, November 30th, 2009 - 78 comments

As we predicted, the main recommendations of the Brash report have been rejected out of hand by John Key. They are, as intended, mere headline grabbers – outlandish, silly ideas like flat tax funded by slashing government spending by 20% (that’s $17 billion). Forget relatively minor measures like cutting free early childhood education and putting […]

Someone Else’s Country

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, November 30th, 2009 - 11 comments

As the same old faces of the Right roll out the same old failed neoliberal ideas in new packaging, it’s a useful time to rewatch Alister Barry’s fantastic documentaries on what happened the last time round. In many cases even the faces haven’t changed. Someone Else’s Country examines the devastating effects of the neoliberal revolution […]

Shifting the centre

Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, November 30th, 2009 - 51 comments

Well the productivity task force is reporting back today and some of their ideas have been forward released. As we expected they are a grab-bag of unpalatable, short-sighted and frankly mad measures from the loony right including putting interest back on student loans, flat tax and means testing free childcare. As the official announcement comes […]

Brash report tipped to be toxic

Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, November 26th, 2009 - 35 comments

Jenni McManus reports in The Independent [offline]: The first report from the 2025 Taskforce is due on Monday and the word is its recommendations are likely to be toxic to the Government. Taskforce chairman Don Brash this week refused to reveal what it contains but The Independent understands its recommendations are light years away from […]

Brash’s mea culpa

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, November 2nd, 2009 - 17 comments

Strange mea culpa from Don Brash on the foreshore and seabed in today’s Dom. He doesn’t go as far as to apologise for National’s cynical and deliberate attempt to ignite racial conflict in the leadup to the 2005 election, but he does admit that National “got it wrong” on the foreshore and seabed. Wonder what […]

Brash and Banks try to profit off vulnerable

Written By: - Date published: 2:13 pm, September 10th, 2009 - 31 comments

Former National Party leader Dr Don Brash and Auckland Mayor John Banks love making the big bucks. And what better way to do it than hitting the most vulnerable in society. Today the National Party stalwarts are after mental patients. The Herald notes: KiwiSaver targets mental patient An Auckland woman is dismayed her 25-year-old son […]

Brash speech confirms National’s secret agenda

Written By: - Date published: 5:04 pm, July 30th, 2009 - 79 comments

This is simply stunning. Don Brash, our new productivity tsar, has just released a speech where he proves he hasn’t changed a bit from the nasty, bigoted far right radical of the Douglas-Richardson era. It’s a typically long and long-winded speech, but in the first two paragraphs he shows how unsuited he is to fill […]

Productive editorial

Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, July 27th, 2009 - 29 comments

Interesting editorial on National’s new Productivity Taskforce in Saturday’s Herald. Australia’s Productivity Commission (independent, highly successful, and enjoying cross-party support) could have served as a good model, but: That possibility was ditched with the appointment of Dr Brash, whose excellent credentials as a former Reserve Bank Governor are compromised by his political partisanship. This will […]

Back to the future

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, July 23rd, 2009 - 36 comments

Those who don’t learn from history…

Written By: - Date published: 4:19 am, July 23rd, 2009 - 67 comments

Supposedly, we need Don Brash and a gang of his right-wing cohorts to tell us how to close the wealth gap with Australia. Brash and his merry gang are the same old faces from the neoliberal revolution of the late 80s and early 90s. Back then, they ruthlessly applied neoliberal economic theory to our economy […]

Same old failed ideas

Written By: - Date published: 2:50 pm, July 22nd, 2009 - 27 comments

The Government’s 2025 ‘productivity’ taskforce led by Don Brash will almost certainly come up with all the same old failed ideas that got us here in the first place. Expect a variation on the following themes: Scrap the minimum wage Privatise public assets Cut taxes for the rich Slash the public sector Deregulate, deregulate, deregulate […]

Gordon Campbell on Treasury and the resurrection of Brash

Written By: - Date published: 1:33 pm, July 22nd, 2009 - 12 comments

Gordon Campbell has a great piece over at Scoop about Treasury’s latest ideological outburst and the resurrection of Don Brash. He points out the futility of choosing a man who played a large role in creating our wage gap with Australia in the first place to head a commission designed to close it: Brash wants […]

Fran pumping Brash for productivity taskforce

Written By: - Date published: 11:34 am, July 8th, 2009 - 18 comments

A few weeks ago the NZPA reported that the Government had agreed to establish a taskforce to “work on ways to close the productivity gap between Australia and New Zealand”. The taskforce would be selected by ACT leader Rodney Hide and would be announced within the month. The story then sank without a trace. So […]

Cowardice, bigotry and saying whatever it takes

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, July 2nd, 2009 - 77 comments

I’ll be glad to see the back of the Foreshore & Seabed Act. For many on the Left, including myself, its been a monument to Labour’s failure of nerve in the face of a campaign by National to exploit the underlying racism of Pakeha New Zealand for electoral gain. Yes, there was a certain electoral […]

Smoke ’em out

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, May 24th, 2009 - 24 comments

Let’s give Brash his inquiry. The poor demented shell of a man thinks there’s some great conspiracy against him. He’s so deluded he even thinks the Police are biased against National. That’s why they couldn’t find who ‘stole’ his emails. I’ll tell you why no-one can find who ‘stole’ his emails. They weren’t stolen. Say what […]

What plan? Government incoherent

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, April 17th, 2009 - 39 comments

Peeking through the OECD policy brief there were some interesting issues when looking at the short-term economic issues over the next few years. As usual Granny Herald in their usual editorial policy of supporting NACT has it wrong. On their front page article they said… The economy is in for a long and deep recession, […]

Talleys: Corporate scum

Written By: - Date published: 2:14 pm, April 6th, 2009 - 41 comments

I’ve long been of the opinion that the Talley family, owners of the Talleys food empire, are a corrosive force in this country who have a complete contempt for their workforce, the public and our democratic institutions. Sure enough, they’re at it again. NZPA reports: The New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) plans to call […]

Regrets? I’ve had a few

Written By: - Date published: 11:57 am, June 3rd, 2008 - 24 comments

Is Don Brash trying to help or hinder John Key? A revealing couple of articles (a news story and a feature) in the Sunday Star Times in which the former leader – full of self pity and self loathing in equal measures by the sound of it – says his two biggest regrets were supporting […]

Shadbolt campaign funded by Hollow Men

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 pm, January 18th, 2008 - 96 comments

Remember how I asked who was funding Tim Shadbolt’s campaign to “bring down the government”? Turns out the Southland Times was interested too and they’ve found out his move to deliberately break electoral law is being propped up by the Talley brothers, who appear to have a bit of a history of that themselves. Now […]

One law for the National Party

Written By: - Date published: 1:29 pm, August 23rd, 2007 - Comments Off on One law for the National Party

John can’t seem to get his story straight (again). Since he claims to support the concept of ‘one law for all’ let’s start with that. Under the Electoral Act you can reside in one place only. Under the Companies Act you cannot make a statement that is knowingly false or misleading. In October 2002 Key […]

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