The Big thing this week that wasn’t widely covered was the 3rd anniversary of the first Christchurch earthquake. 3 years on, and John Key’s still mucking people around, and thousands still have unsettled major insurance claims. That’s thousands of lives on hold while the government is too busy trying to give steak knives away with our assets, or telling the media they don’t have a right to privacy.
Or too busy doing dodgy deals with Sky City. Lynn’s point about the TVNZ land sale covered part of it, along with David Clark’s noticing that the government might have to contribute with direct cash after all, as well as subsidies via TVNZ. He has a good blogpost on Red Alert covering the whole fiasco, from 8000 extra problem gamblers to the 18 new jobs it’ll create.
No wonder Kim Dotcom wants to start a new political party. Leaked by a whistleblower he tweeted… and in response to John Key’s blowing it off with a this is a publicity stunt, “he’s got good PR people” –
I don’t have PR people. I’m just good at being myself. Try that Mr. Key
There was an important discussion from Peter Gluckman on using science and evidence to design and test public policy. All too often this hasn’t been the case – this government’s record on Education is particularly galling. But all parties should support evidence-based policy, and an increase to research funding to find out if their policies actually work. Let’s see who’s game enough to risk being proved wrong though…
And finally, to make sure nobody missed them – last Sunday Rod Oram’s excellent cry for proper economic management from the government, and OnDemand on TV3 the excellent insight into Inequality Mind the Gap.
[I’d go into more depth on any of these, but my lunch-break’s only so long…]
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