Posts Tagged ‘lies’

Charter schools shoot themselves in both feet

Written By: - Date published: 2:03 pm, October 23rd, 2012 - 16 comments

Evidence of the supposed success of charter schools in New York is doing the rounds. Unfortunately for the right-wing ideologues, charter schools shoot themselves in both feet when they use “relaxed” assessment standards and other methods of artificially “boosting” their results.

Not even trying any more

Written By: - Date published: 7:43 am, October 18th, 2012 - 35 comments

Key’s just straight up lying to the media now on easily verifiable facts. A 3news poll shows 57% said Parliament got it wrong keeping the drinking age at 18%. Key says: “That’s one of the reasons I voted for it to go to 20 – in line with what the public thought – but Parliament didn’t vote that one.” In reality, he voted split age and, then, to keep it 18.

A trip down faulty memory lane

Written By: - Date published: 8:45 pm, October 17th, 2012 - 69 comments

One of the fishy elements of the GCSB-Dotcom-Key saga is Key’s suddenly very faulty memory. It’s unbelievable what he’s forgotten about such a major issue. Here’s a partial list of things Key can’t recall, isn’t sure about, or doesn’t know – just from his answers in the House and just the last 3 days of questions. Update: got to tip my hat to Te Reo Putake’s name for the PM: ‘DunnoKeyo’

None so blind

Written By: - Date published: 10:42 am, October 17th, 2012 - 43 comments

Yesterday, John Key told Parliament in endless detail exactly what the GCSB did trying to check if there is any video of him talking about Dotcom. He knew all of that front to back. But, when it came to a simple question: ‘when did the GCSB realise they had broken the law in spying on Dotcom’. He had no idea. It’s incredible that he hasn’t bothered to learn such a basic fact.

Banks suppressed Police statement

Written By: - Date published: 7:40 am, October 17th, 2012 - 48 comments

Remember how Banks’ Police report came out and the statement he gave to the Police was blanked out? And remember how Banks said it was the Police’s choice, not his? Yeah, well that was a lie. Even on the most generous reading of Banks’ words, he was trying to mislead the media. What’s Key’s rule? “A Minister who lies or misleads about his actions would lose his confidence”

Lies, damn lies, and rigged polling questions

Written By: - Date published: 1:05 pm, October 15th, 2012 - 30 comments

In 2010 the largest protest for a generation in NZ marched down Queen St to oppose mining. But by squinting sideways at some rigged polling questions, industry advocates (aided and abetted by dumb headline writers) would have you believe that we the people support mining…

Shearer, Key, credibility

Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, October 13th, 2012 - 157 comments

The strange case of what was or was not said on February 29th by Key to GCSB staff regarding Kim Dotcom. In the Shearer Key face-off I know who I think the public will believe – surprise surprise it’s David Shearer. Here’s why…

The incredibly incurious and forgetful Mr Key

Written By: - Date published: 9:21 pm, October 11th, 2012 - 144 comments

“So what?” says Key as allegations emerge from within GCSB that Key cracked jokes about the spooks’ (illegal) involvement in the Dotcom raid when he was briefed by them on February 29th. It either means you realised their spying and are incompetent for not questioning its legality or that you knew all about the illegal spying and didn’t care – that’s what.

Watch Campbell Live at 7pm

Written By: - Date published: 6:39 pm, October 11th, 2012 - 103 comments

Apparently there’s a tape of Key mentioning Dotcom on February 29th. Another bit of Key’s story collapses? Watch Campbell Live at 7 for more…

Key’s growing Dotcom problem

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, October 10th, 2012 - 29 comments

People don’t just vote for politicians because they like their policies. Just as important are trust and perceived competence. Key’s policies were never popular. He won on the other two – particularly trust. That’s why the Dotcom saga is so ruining for him. As more details of what Key knew or should have known come out day by day, perceptions of Key’s competence and trust in him plummet.

From cock-up to cover-up

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, October 6th, 2012 - 49 comments

The narrative that the Government has tried to sell, and which has been largely accepted to date, is that the GCSB’s illegal spying on Dotcom was a cock-up. They claimed that Key wasn’t briefed, when he was. The Nats also claimed only a change in immigration law in 2009 protected Dotcom. Now, we know that’s rubbish. Cover-up it is.

Brain fade: an incomplete history of Key’s selective forgetfulness

Written By: - Date published: 11:18 am, October 5th, 2012 - 57 comments

Frankly Speaking has a nice compilation of some of John Key’s “brain fades” in the last couple of years. Funnily enough, it tends to be that the things he forgets are his direct linkages to government embarrassments – Dotcom, SkyCity, the new BMWs, the Mediaworks bailout, the credit downgrade. To Frank’s list, you can add the Tranzrail shares and probably many more.

A red herring?

Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, October 4th, 2012 - 23 comments

Call me cynical but I just don’t think it’s credible that it took over two weeks after Key supposedly learned of the GCSB’s involvement in the Dotcom raid before they realised he given a presentation featuring Dotcom by GCSB a month after the raid. They’re amateur, they’re not that amateur. No, I think the ‘presentation on a laptop screen’ is a red herring.

Key fails to guard the guardians

Written By: - Date published: 8:41 pm, September 27th, 2012 - 87 comments

Our government’s spies are overseen by two people – the Prime Minister and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. The former asked the latter to investigate he found out the GCSB had been illegally spying on two Kiwis. And, guess what, the report blamed underlings. It didn’t even investigate the question of oversight.

Prophylactic ignorance

Written By: - Date published: 7:23 am, September 19th, 2012 - 60 comments

Notice how the only people who “believe” John Banks are the ones who haven’t (and won’t) read the police report? What do we call it, when someone deliberately avoids the reality that everyone knows exists?

NRT: Dunne on alcohol pricing

Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, August 7th, 2012 - 48 comments

Last month, Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne told us “I don’t support a minimum pricing regime … a lot of the material that I’ve seen from other jurisdictions raises more doubts than support for the issue of minimum alcohol pricing“. Now, an OIA reveals the actual advice to Dunne was that the international evidence shows minimum alcohol pricing works.

Banks lied while a minister

Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, July 27th, 2012 - 19 comments

Sure enough, this isn’t over for John Banks. He has now been caught out in a direct lie told while he was a minister. On April 27, when asked about Mr Dotcom’s donations, Mr Banks told the Herald: “I kept the finances of the campaign [at] arm’s length. Others were involved in collecting money and talking to people.” But the Police investigation shows that’s a lie.

True lies

Written By: - Date published: 7:42 am, July 23rd, 2012 - 207 comments

On Breakfast just now, Petra Bagust asked John Key what’s so great for the economy about listing our assets on the stockmarket. A good question. In his answer, Key tried to make out that floating these companies on the stockmarket would give them more cash to grow. But not a cent of the revenue will go to the companies and Key knows it.

NRT: Privileged!

Written By: - Date published: 12:12 pm, July 19th, 2012 - 7 comments

I/S at No Right Turn on yet another example of misleading Parliament – but it doesn’t matter because “the current Speaker has ruled that a Member can only mislead the House in ‘a statement of some formality'”.

John Key, the jobs fairy

Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, June 5th, 2012 - 46 comments

Remember when John Key promised 4,000 new jobs from the cycleway and, in fact, a few hundred, short-term, part-time positions were created? Remember when John Key promised 170,000 new jobs and unemployment went up instead? Looks like Key’s being making it up on the pokies-for-convention centre deal too, which would create only a fraction of the jobs promised.

Resignationwatch: Oopsie

Written By: - Date published: 9:27 pm, May 2nd, 2012 - 121 comments

ACT Party President Chris Simmons – who opposed the Brash coup that lead to John Banks being ACT’s sole MP – ‘accidentally’ dropped Banks right in it on Radio New Zealand’s Checkpoint. He said “[Banks] made the suggestion to Dotcom” to split his donation into two $25,000 pieces and implied the purpose was to have a number of identically-sized donations he could claim were anonymous.

Will Brownlee apologise to Finland or resign?

Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, March 27th, 2012 - 113 comments

The lead story on Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s largest newspaper is about the “violent comments” of Gerry Brownlee. How would we react if a foreign politician told those kind of lies about NZ? We’d go off our self-righteous rockers. In some countries, like Finland, a minister would resign without hesitation if they brought their country into disrepute.

Smith makes a mess of local government reforms

Written By: - Date published: 12:07 pm, March 21st, 2012 - 18 comments

Part of Nick Smith’s problem is that he doesn’t understand how to build public support for change before trying to implement it. Instead, he pulls out some dodgy numbers and tries to trick the public. This backfired in the debacle over ACC levy changes when he provoked one of the first big protests against the National government. Now, it’s happening with local government.

Key’s laundry list of broken promises

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 pm, March 14th, 2012 - 57 comments

He must resign. Surely. Here is Key, speaking to the PSA in 2008, making very specific promises about public service jobs, tax cuts, and asset sales that helped him get elected. Promises he has since broken. There’s no excuse. He wasn’t blind-sided by events. He made these promises never intending to keep them. Key is refusing to comment but if the man has any ethics he’ll resign.

NRT: Foss lied to Parliament

Written By: - Date published: 7:58 am, March 1st, 2012 - 48 comments

2 weeks ago, Labour’s Clare Curran asked Broadcasting Minister Craig Foss whether he had received any advice or reports about Stephen McElrea’s potential conflict of interest between his role as John Key’s electorate chair and his role as a board member of New Zealand on Air. Foss replied with a single word: “None”. Yesterday, we found out that that was incorrect.

“Conservation” Minister

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, December 3rd, 2011 - 103 comments

Quite apart from the broken promise, isn’t it the job of a “Conservation” Minister to, you know, conserve?  Instead of leading the mining charge?

Key’s lies on Police training

Written By: - Date published: 9:40 am, November 25th, 2011 - 8 comments

Key and Collins say police training next year hasn’t been cancelled. They say fewer new cops are needed because fewer are leaving. All lies. The attrition rate is rising, not falling. There is 1 training wing booked next year, not 4. Cause is cuts. 5% nominal to the training college, 15% nominal to Police HQ. Meanwhile, Key is wasting Police time over the tea tapes.

Only chumps tick Tory

Written By: - Date published: 11:43 am, November 24th, 2011 - 128 comments

The old timers say never trust a Tory. Can see why. Exclusive Brethren. Hollow Men. Tranzrail shares. Secret agenda tapes. Teapot tapes. Suppressed asset sales advice. Climate change ‘hocus pocus’. Police hiring freeze. We keep on discovering their secret agendas. If you care about integrity, if you’ve got enough pride not to put up with being lied to, you won’t be voting National. Only chumps tick Tory.

An election under a cloud

Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, November 24th, 2011 - 45 comments

I don’t think I can recall an election in NZ conducted under such a cloud of extraordinary and dubious circumstances as this one.  Media raids, suppressed information, lies, and apparently even discussing the weather could get you in to trouble.

How we got where we are

Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, November 24th, 2011 - 39 comments

Last election we had a choice between competent economic management and a bunch of hollow promises. We made a poor choice then, and the record shows that we have wasted three years as a result.  Coming up to this election we don’t need more tired Nat excuses, we need solutions. Bring back Labour!

Nat asset sales lies

Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, November 23rd, 2011 - 53 comments

Last night TV1 revealed National’s lies on the explosive topic of asset sales.  The Nats have no official advice to back up their asset sales claims, and information is being withheld from the public.  Not good enough – vote them out.

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