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Written By: Guest post - Date published: 7:33 pm, March 22nd, 2010 - 2 comments
While the public has been focusing on the acquittal of the Waihopai Three, there’s been a quiet revolution in our intelligence community. The Prime Minister has got himself a private spy agency.
As well as looking at foreigners, it will also be “assessing”, and advising the government on, the beliefs, actions, and plans of New Zealanders.
The problem is compounded by the lack of oversight.
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 12:37 pm, March 16th, 2010 - 14 comments
Anne Tolley put out an odd media statement on Friday. She reckons Trevor Mallard, opposition spokesperson for Education, dominated two public meetings in Auckland on her Government’s unpopular national standards policy. Which begs the question, was she actually all there at either meeting?
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 8:24 am, March 16th, 2010 - 20 comments
The New Zealand economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s were largely a failure. This can be seen from the large negative divergence post 1984 in New Zealand’s real output per capita in comparison to Australia, our usual benchmark. New Zealand’s comparative position vis-à-vis unemployment also worsened. Poverty and social inequality increased.
Australia undertook various reforms, …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 11:56 pm, March 15th, 2010 - 15 comments
My Granddad grew up in Te Aroha near Tui Mine. The mining ruined a large swathe of the land and toxic tailings were left behind which polluted the river and turned a large patch of bush into a desert – it is a scar on the face of my Granddad’s mountain which looks over his grave. As I write this I can hear him reciting this poem:
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 12:22 pm, March 15th, 2010 - 19 comments
Lorraine Kerr, head of the NZ School Trustees Association is one of National’s few supporters on National Standards. She says a survey of boards of trustees gives her a mandate for this position, with only four boards opposing the Standards. Now, she has been forced to admit that only 14 schools were included in the survey result.
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 8:56 am, March 15th, 2010 - 6 comments
Much of the power in the new Super City will be held by council controlled organisations. These organisations will be responsible for approximately 75% of Auckland services and their unelected directors will have free rein to make important city decisions. The organisations will have no obligation to consult and no responsibility to the public if things go wrong.
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 11:54 pm, March 11th, 2010 - 56 comments
Let’s face facts. Anne Tolley is a dangerous minister. She is undermining the education system at every turn and the damage will last lifetime. But is National doing the responsible thing and removing her from the portfolio? No. In fact, a guest poster reports they’re so desperate to help her out that they’ve got plants in her audiences to ask patsy questions.
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 3:23 pm, March 3rd, 2010 - 52 comments
National’s latest proposals to strip away workers’ protections against unfair dismissal must surely put to bed any idea that this is a moderate, centrist government.
The proposals are a breach of National’s election promises and go further than even the ECA. They are a charter for employment without dignity.
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 12:54 pm, March 2nd, 2010 - 22 comments
A guest contributor reports that if you want your chance to quiz Anne Tolley and you live in West Auckland your chance is on Thursday but it sounds like the Nats would rather you didn’t come. Another guest contributor pans Tolley’s meeting last night.
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 7:03 am, February 27th, 2010 - 18 comments
We received this guest post about half an hour after John Key announced his cycleway. At the time, the very sensible criticisms it raises were ignored by an enamoured media.
How prescient it looks now, on the anniversary of the Prime Minister’s Jobs Summit.
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 8:18 am, February 23rd, 2010 - 29 comments
BLiP puts his distinctive view on why the police have been losing “the respect of the community” with one of his locally famous lists. He attributes it to ‘Crusher’ Collins and wonders why John Key is cluessly fronting PR wanting stronger sentences for disrespecting police.
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 12:11 pm, February 19th, 2010 - 33 comments
There’s no better illustration of why we need a properly funded Radio NZ than the way the debate over National’s funding cuts have played out on Radio NZ compared to its commercial counterparts.
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 10:27 am, February 17th, 2010 - 5 comments
Tongue in cheek, George notes: When asked in Parliament why he hadn’t paid closer attention to his share portfolio, Key replied: “small technical issue, I’ve been busy running the country”. That statement must come close to misleading Parliament.
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 9:27 am, February 6th, 2010 - 86 comments
School principal Pat Newman posted the following as a comment on Red Alert. It’s not a polished piece written with distribution in mind, but it’s from the heart, and well worth reproducing here (minor typos corrected). Pat added several further excellent comments, follow the link above.
I speak as a principal of a Decile 2 …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 2:54 pm, February 4th, 2010 - 57 comments
Andrew Campbell
It should come as no surprise that unemployment hit 7.3% today. That’s what happens when a government does virtually nothing to support job creation when there is a recession. But instead of announcing a plan to address this massive economic and social issue the Minister for Unemployment, Paula Bennett, is …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 1:17 pm, February 2nd, 2010 - 87 comments
So, I’m at a cafe having lunch and there’s some fat middle-aged businessmen having lunch at the table beside me. One of them is talking about Blair’s appearance at the inquiry on the invasion of Iraq and says “all these namby-pambies say ‘oh we shouldn’t have invaded’ but they would have shut up if Saddam …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 2:45 pm, January 28th, 2010 - 37 comments
The John Key led National Ltd® government lands yet another axe blow on our 100% Pure brand by cancelling a scheme recognised internationally as a best practice model. This latest announcement caps off a busy year for National Ltd® on the environmental front. Its list of actions include spending millions on establishing the 100% Pure Brand as the “Master Brand” of Aotearoa while simultaneously it has:
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 1:16 pm, January 24th, 2010 - 113 comments
A reader, John, writes:
“I’m a member of Club Physical and I was disgusted to see that in their latest E-newsletter (below) sent out to all their members via email address, they are promoting an article from a fringe website that claims eating soy “makes kids gay”.
The mere idea that eating something “makes you gay” is complete …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 4:28 pm, December 30th, 2009 - 15 comments
With so much attention on climate change, and such a lack of concern, urgency and commitment to action from the current Tory government you would think it would be something labour would be working hard on, and be busy drafting detailed policy and vocally demanding action be taken. The Copenhagen climate summit was a cop …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 12:11 pm, December 28th, 2009 - 10 comments
Umm, some posts we get sent are a bit quirky. Enjoy.
_____________________________
OK. I’ll confess. I’m one of the ones who fell for Key. I switched my vote to National.
Why not? A brighter future, tax cuts, rainbows, nice smiles, ponys for all, being a loud [sic] to smack my lightbulb to my heart’s content.
Why just have ice …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 10:01 am, December 26th, 2009 - 2 comments
Actually, this guest post never got published because, before we could publish it, Richard Worth would be involved in some new scandal and then he was sacked, which adds a layer of irony to the post:
In a shocking week for the National government, Internal Affairs minister, Richard Worth, failed to cock anything up. He failed to …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 9:07 am, December 24th, 2009 - 41 comments
So John Key thinks I’m a Muppet.
“[when I'm in Hawaii on holiday] they’ll send me stuff … those Muppets in the background who send it all to me”*
Well f#ck you, John.
While you’re off in Hawaii with your DPS pouring you drinks, I’ll be working. The days I do get on ‘holiday’ I have to be …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 11:37 am, December 23rd, 2009 - 25 comments
While most Kiwis are getting ready for Christmas there are tens of thousands who will be having a hard time this holiday season because they were made unemployed this year. And most of these workers will have had no redundancy protection to tide them over.
That’s not good enough. It leaves workers and their families …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 3:05 pm, December 20th, 2009 - 151 comments
As a senior economist at a respected company, John Carran wrote some apallingly simplistic tripe in his article, “Exorcising the asset sale bogey“, Dominion Post, 19 Dec.
It is as if the programme of privatisation in the late 1980s and 1990s never happened, and we have learnt nothing from those experiences and subsequent socio-economic consequences.
Carran states, …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 11:30 am, December 9th, 2009 - 41 comments
By Andrew Campbell
Shame on the Labour caucus. If it’s true that they back Phil Goff’s Nationhood speech without reservations and therefore his strategy to use dog whistling racist tactics to win back the white male vote then they deserve the long period in opposition such an approach will bring.
The closing of the ranks to the …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 2:30 pm, December 8th, 2009 - 11 comments
The Green Party celebrated 10 years in the New Zealand Parliament yesterday. Happy birthday! It was especially fitting that the anniversary coincided with the beginning of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
In the past ten years climate change has evolved from a fringe topic into the most pressing issue of the global political …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 1:58 pm, November 28th, 2009 - 39 comments
Below Omar of Socialist Aotearoa gives his impressions of Phil Goff at Drinking Liberally in Auckland earlier this week.
On an unrelated note, isn’t it funny (in a non-’ha, ha’ way) how 4,000 pro-smackers gets lots of coverage but a blind eye is turned when the Left is out in bigger numbers? The protests yesterday by low-paid public servants (hospital …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 12:30 pm, November 26th, 2009 - 77 comments
Never in the history of New Zealand politics has so much taxpayers’ money been hurled into the chasm with such contempt for the poor citizens who will pay billions out of their own dwindling pockets forever while rich polluters wreck the earth with impunity and bask in the profits.
Never in the history of NZ has …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 12:30 pm, November 17th, 2009 - 9 comments
The continuing wave of lockouts continues to go unremarked by the government, the opposition and the media.
Over the past few months there has hardly been a week, when one, or even two, and sometimes even three lockouts have been going on around the country.
This week has been no different;
The continuing lockout of coal miners at …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 12:26 pm, November 14th, 2009 - 27 comments
Labour needs to stand up for its electorate, the worker. While National is gutting the infrastructure Labour set up in the last nine years it had in power, like KiwiSaver and the Cullen fund, Labour’s protests are little more than the weak cries of a lamb as it goes to slaughter.
Labour needs vision, a way for …
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