Posts Tagged ‘phil heatley’

Clearing the decks

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, December 1st, 2016 - 127 comments

National is readying itself for the next election by getting rid of some MPs.  And Nick Leggett has finally disclosed his true political colours.

Careering to the right

Written By: - Date published: 2:23 pm, August 27th, 2014 - 65 comments

“Dirty Politics” and “The Hollow Men” have revealed the extent of the National party’s nasty internal war over the past decade. Cameron Slater is merely one of the noisier but dumber sock puppet weapons in use against National’s centre and moderates. Looking at the actions of Simon Lusk using his sock puppet is more revealing…

Like nats leaving a sinking ship …

Written By: - Date published: 8:49 am, November 8th, 2013 - 48 comments

So far seven National MPs have announced they will not stand in next year’s general election and more announcements are rumoured to be in the pipeline.  Is the writing on the wall for this Government and will it become the first two term National Government in history?

ImperatorFish: John Key’s Reshuffle Analysed

Written By: - Date published: 1:41 pm, January 23rd, 2013 - 7 comments

The biggest winner is Dr Nick Smith. He returns to Cabinet after his fall from grace last year, and is appointed as Minister for Creating a Perception of Crisis in Order to Justify Savage Cutbacks in Entitlements.
The biggest losers are Kate Wilkinson and Phil Heatley, who have been dropped from Cabinet altogether. Both have failed to perform, and their inability to communicate with the smoothness of someone like Hekia Parata will have counted against them.

Wilson vs Heatley

Written By: - Date published: 5:49 pm, December 4th, 2012 - 32 comments

“It’s as if you’re trying to make me cry”

Minister pleased with anemic economy

Written By: - Date published: 7:57 am, May 18th, 2012 - 38 comments

You have to take your hat off to National’s spin doctors, coming up with the plausible-sounding nonsense line that low interest rates mean affordable housing isn’t needed. But it led to this- Phil Heatley: “we’re pleased that we’re managing the economy such that interest rates are so low”. Ten minutes earlier, Tony Alexander: “lower interest rates reflect the weakness of the economic outlook”.

Heatley to resign (again) over eviction debacle?

Written By: - Date published: 10:04 am, September 2nd, 2011 - 17 comments

National promised to get tough ‘undeserving’ state house tenants. (always someone to get tough on when maintaining the privileges of the elite) The first targets were 3 women and their kids, judged guilty by association with their partners who were charged with burglary (the charges were dropped). 2 years and $1m wasted and the government has given up.

Wastewatch: Heatley spends $500K for nothing

Written By: - Date published: 8:54 am, December 10th, 2010 - 9 comments

The sum Phil Heatley has so far spent trying to get three women and their families evicted from their state houses, an effort to look tough, is the equivalent to the cost of building two new state houses. Over half a million spent on an ultimately pointless exercise – one that’s far from finished.

The State Housing review

Written By: - Date published: 10:35 am, October 26th, 2010 - 20 comments

It’s not surprising that the Housing Shareholders Advisory Group came to the conclusions it did. Despite its name, the group included no state house tenants. It was a group packed with private social housing providers, hand-picked to deliver the conclusion that these groups should be given control of state houses.

Heatley’s crocodile tears on state housing

Written By: - Date published: 1:51 pm, August 9th, 2010 - 17 comments

Phil Heatley says he fears for the future of state housing. I can’t help but agree, but the problem is that it is Heatley and his government that are making the future of state housing so dire. They have cancelled investment in new state houses and declared the existing stock for sale. Now, Heatley has to cheek to say the charitable sector will have to step in where his government is failing.

State housing decline will leave families out in the cold

Written By: - Date published: 6:41 pm, July 7th, 2010 - 11 comments

Stuff reports that under Minister Phil Heatley, Housing NZ will manage additions of only 275 houses for each of the next two years. Under the previous government 8000 state houses were added between 1999 and 2008. In a recession, with household budgets stretched, state provision of high quality, affordable housing is even more important for […]

Ririnui: Ministerial Services approved credit card use

Written By: - Date published: 6:53 pm, June 11th, 2010 - 25 comments

Mita Ririnui has gone on the record on RNZ’s Checkpoint tonight insisting Ministerial Services advised him personal spending on ministerial credit card was ok as long as it was reimbursed. Of course that doesn’t let people like Hide, English and Heatley off the hook, because they only paid back their personal misuses of ministerial allowances after they […]

Sack ’em all

Written By: - Date published: 11:55 pm, June 10th, 2010 - 100 comments

McCully and Groser put their drinking habits on the taxpayer bill. Jones charged his own, um, habit. Carter played far too loose. All broke the rules. Carter and Jones paid the money back eventually. Groser and McCully better soon.
I say we deserve better. And if one’s gotta go, they’ve all got to go. Goff, Key, which one of you is going to set the standard? Sack ’em all.

Paying MPs’ court costs

Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, April 7th, 2010 - 22 comments

I don’t have a problem with MPs being able to get public funding for court cases arising from their professional activities. You wouldn’t expect private sector employees who are taken to court over their actions in their job to be forced to pay their own way. But what a sense of entitlement Gerry Brownlee has.

Heatley: Not a crook, an idiot

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, March 31st, 2010 - 26 comments

The Auditor-General has found that Phil Heatley wrongly bought $1,402 worth of private goods and services on his ministerial and MP tabs. That’s OK according to the PM because Heatley didn’t intend to break the rules. Well, I guess that’s OK then. Of course, you have to assume that Heatley is a total idiot in that case.

GST hike boon for tax cheats

Written By: - Date published: 10:42 pm, March 2nd, 2010 - 34 comments

Some contractors and small business owners record private costs as business expenses and claim back the GST. The cheats who claim enough GST back get payments from IRD. Hiking GST puts more of our money in the pockets of these tax cheats.

Heatley’s redherring cover for Brownlee

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, February 27th, 2010 - 20 comments

Fran O’Sullivan agrees with my theory on the real reason for Phil Heatley’s resignation and the reason why an excuse was invented. The real reason was what amounts to Heatley’s theft of taxpayer money by using his ministerial credit card, and the receipt excuse was invented to protect Gerry Brownlee who had also misused his credit card

Heatley story full of holes

Written By: - Date published: 7:10 am, February 26th, 2010 - 84 comments

Ministers don’t resign for describing a trivial expense in a perfectly legitimate way. I’m thinking Phil Heatley really had a crisis of conscience over the credit card ‘misuse’ and wanted to resign but that would have put Gerry Brownlee in the gun too. So they invented the receipt excuse. What’s your theory?

I don’t buy it for one second

Written By: - Date published: 11:51 am, February 25th, 2010 - 111 comments

Has Phil Heatley really resigned his ministerial portfolios over a bottle of wine?

Or is there more to this story than meets the eye?

Heatley resigns both portfolios

Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, February 25th, 2010 - 75 comments

According to Stuff Housing Minister Phil Heatley has resigned and the PM has rushed back to Wellington to hold a press conference. Apparently MP spending records for the last three months of last year were released this morning. Coincidence? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Updated.

Nats’ sense of entitlement behind credit card abuse

Written By: - Date published: 6:42 am, February 24th, 2010 - 40 comments

Yesterday the Dominion Post caught out National Party Ministers using their taxpayer funded credit cards for personal use. This was a gross betrayal of public trust. Housing Minister Phil Heatley knew what he was doing, but did it anyway. John Key should sack Heatley for turning his nose up at the Kiwi taxpayer.

John Key discovers new word. Country celebrates.

Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, February 23rd, 2010 - 17 comments

This morning the DomPost ran an article by Tracy Watkins about several ministers misusing their ministerial credit cards for personal entertainment. They obtained the information by doing OIAs (Official Information Act requests). Now I’ve come to expect that NACT ministers will do (in John Keys words) “stupid” things in office. But what I found significant was that John Key appears to have discovered the use of a new word “disappointment”. This is a major advance for the NACT political vocabulary.

More snouts in the trough

Written By: - Date published: 9:18 am, August 4th, 2009 - 78 comments

More Nats have been exposed rorting the out of town allowance for ministers. Bludger Bill is claiming the allowance for living in his own house. The others are claiming because they felt like fancier digs. McCully, Groser, Heatley, and David Carter all own homes in Wellington but have moved out of them into more expensive […]

Standing up for landlordism

Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, February 19th, 2009 - 89 comments

So, National has decided to scrap a raft of tenant protections proposed by the last Labour Government and tilt the deck back in favour of landlords. Clearly the new Government thinks tenants have had it too good for too long, and in hard times like these it’s the 8% of New Zealanders who own investment […]