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Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:50 am, March 12th, 2010 - 10 comments
British American Tabacco’s Graeme Amey has the brazen lie down pat.
The guy quit smoking himself but wants Kiwis to keep smoking and dying to make his company profits. When asked why he quit he said “it was just a personal choice”. But why? “It was just a personal choice”. Yeah. Was that personal choice not …
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:29 am, March 12th, 2010 - 6 comments
Cuts to prisoner rehabilitation, night classes, and the Super Gold Card aren’t about saving money. The government is only too happy to sign blank cheques for stupid projects like Transmission Gully and the Holiday Highway on the vaguest cost estimates. No, these successful policies are having the financial life bled out of them because they contradict National’s ideology.
Written By: Eddie - Date published: 4:30 pm, March 11th, 2010 - 19 comments
Have a listen to Education Minister Anne Tolley on Morning Report today trying to explain the $25 million cut to the education budget.
It really was a shocker, even for her.
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:12 am, March 11th, 2010 - 20 comments
While other countries have used their strong public sectors to steady the private sector and keep unemployment down during the economic downturn, our government is compounding unemployment by cutting the public sector, throwing people out of jobs and feeding worker insecurity.
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:49 am, March 10th, 2010 - 24 comments
“Tolley finds ally in school mum” screams the headline of Audrey Young’s piece today.
When National runs a bus tour the Herald is desperate in its attempts to drum up support, when it’s Labour all they want to talk about is how much the bus is costing the taxpayer.
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:09 pm, March 9th, 2010 - 39 comments
Michael is dead right. The most important thing about the Hollow Men is not how Nicky Hager got the information but what the information is. It reveals National’s modern politics in all its unprincipled ugliness. Nonetheless, which Nats gave Hager the information is a subject of legitimate interest. I have some theories.
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:16 am, March 9th, 2010 - 18 comments
Remember how a couple of months back National set up NationalMPs? It was meant to be their answer to Red Alert, Labour’s frequently raucous, unstagemanaged blog where Labour’s MPs write what they want. But the Nats’ attempt is deadly dull. Either the leadership is gagging them or the Nat MPs are dreadful bores.
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 2:28 pm, March 4th, 2010 - 99 comments
Colin Espiner reports that Rodney Hide has gone into his shell as outrage over David Garrett’s appalling sterilisation comments builds. Since Irish broke the story of Garrett’s comments yesterday, it has spread like wildfire through the blogosphere and the msm. And nowhere will you find a reaction from anyone in ACT or from their coalition partners.
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: The Standard - Date published: 8:55 am, March 2nd, 2010 - 13 comments
Over at Pundit Claire Browning points out that the National government is trying to get away with a huge con. They promised not to privatise state assets (in their first term), but now they are effectively privatising the biggest asset of them all…
Written By: r0b - Date published: 8:45 am, March 1st, 2010 - 5 comments
When it comes to listening to the public, National promise “jam tomorrow”. Wait for the select committee. Wait for the third reading. But the record shows that these are empty promises. The Human Rights Commission has criticised National over their latest mockery of a consultation process on Auckland…
Written By: IrishBill - 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.
Written By: r0b - Date published: 3:30 pm, February 23rd, 2010 - 21 comments
The National / ACT “three strikes” policy on violent crime sentencing is the worst kind of law.
It has been thoroughly condemned by the Justice Ministry, who were blocked from giving advice to select committee.
Written By: the sprout - Date published: 10:59 am, February 20th, 2010 - 14 comments
Former National Party President Michelle Boag has been told to remove herself from the consultancy charged with selecting executive staff for the Auckland Supershity, because of her conflict of interest as an advisor to John Banks’ campaign
Written By: r0b - Date published: 3:01 pm, February 19th, 2010 - 40 comments
The letter warning school boards not to speak out over national standards is an outrage, but John Key and his National Party have a long and dishonourable record of trying to shut down those who speak out to oppose them.
Written By: Eddie - Date published: 5:34 pm, February 18th, 2010 - 80 comments
The backlash to National’s attack on Radio NZ is beginning, and it looks like Jonathan Coleman may have bitten off more than he can chew.
Take the Save Radio New Zealand group on Facebook. In less than 24 hours it has 1700 2800 3500 supporters, with 10 more joining every minute.
Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:23 pm, February 17th, 2010 - 10 comments
It’s hard to decide which is worst: Do Nothing John Key flouncing around the country while thousands of Kiwis lose their jobs, the Joyce cabal pushing their hard-right economic agenda, or the rest of them who don’t have two brain cells to rub together.
Written By: Michael Foxglove - Date published: 2:54 pm, February 17th, 2010 - 24 comments
According to The Press Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee is denying he trimmed a South Island conservation park after being lobbied by mining company L&M. However, documents posted on The Standard and No Right Turn show he was lying.
Written By: the sprout - Date published: 3:00 pm, February 15th, 2010 - 5 comments
Julie Fairey at The Hand Mirror has posted a follow-up on the curious tale of how National’s Dr Jackie Blue “had told the Herald that Nathan’s job ended because of an office merger with new National MP Sam Lotu-Iiga, when actually they both still have separate offices, in different suburbs.”
Joan Nathan you will recall, is …
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:00 pm, February 15th, 2010 - 30 comments
Whanau Ora is a terrible idea. It is the beginning of the privatisation of social services, wrapped in a cloak of Maori-centred solutions for Maori.
The Maori Party and the National Party can’t agree over (among many things) whether Whanau Ora will be open to all or just for Maori but the reality is that it …
Written By: Eddie - Date published: 7:00 am, February 15th, 2010 - 37 comments
The Standard has been sent copies of documents (1,2,3,4) released under the Official Information Act which show that one of National’s first acts in government was to trim a Conservation Park at the request of a mining company, ignoring local concerns and official advice, to let the company dig up the land for coal.
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:00 am, February 12th, 2010 - 24 comments
It turns out that the silly ‘no-one owns it’ option for the foreshore and seabed is John Key’s ‘elegant solution’. Here he is defending the proposal:
“It is a concept where you don’t get into the emotional debate of ownership. Now it sounds a bit foreign when you think about it, but no-one owns the air, no …
Written By: r0b - Date published: 1:30 pm, February 8th, 2010 - 29 comments
I don’t recall the date or anything, but I remember the exact moment I decided to get politically active. Rob Muldoon was called by some brave journalist on the fact that National seemed to be ignoring all its election manifesto promises. Muldoon just grunted, and said that manifesto promises were dreamed up by …
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 7:07 am, February 8th, 2010 - 30 comments
In yesterday’s Herald Jackie Blue told us she’d sacked the mother of young Aroha because she had to merge offices with Sam Lotu-Iiga. But some investigative work at The Hand Mirror suggests otherwise…
Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 12:17 pm, February 7th, 2010 - 49 comments
As surely an endorphin high fades, Cameron Slater was going to do something to get his name back in the media.
He’s been trying to test the boundaries for a few weeks. He’s been ignored. So, stepped it up a few gears.
He’s named another person on name suppression. He doesn’t care that the name suppression is …
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: Marty G - Date published: 9:24 am, February 4th, 2010 - 11 comments
Telecom is threatening to throw up to 1,500 workers out of their jobs so it can increase profits by offshoring.
A good government in this situation is talks to the company, uses the bully pulpit. Telecom should be reminded that it is hoping to make a bomb off the government’s broadband fund. They should be reminded that the one competitive …
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:26 am, February 3rd, 2010 - 27 comments
Remember how John Key said he “would love to see wages drop“. You might remember the big corporate media refused to run it, and the head of APN held an emergency meeting with Key then pressured the journalist who had reported the comments to retract them, which he would not do, and then APN published …
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:36 am, February 2nd, 2010 - 38 comments
Oh, sure, the Nats will lock a person up longer after they commit a crime, if they get caught. But what they won’t do is prevent them commiting the crime in the first place. National will spend a fortune on counter-productive vengence after you’ve become a victim of crime but not a fraction of that on saving the crime from happening in …
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:04 am, February 2nd, 2010 - 19 comments
TVNZ reports: “Associate Education Minister Pita Sharples has labelled the National Standards policy as damaging to Maori but later refused to comment after being shut down by the Prime Minister.”
Well, Pita, points for having your heart in the right place but how much longer will you put up with the indignity of being gagged whenever you …
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