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Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:30 am, March 18th, 2010 - 20 comments
There’s a danger in being a government that does nothing except pay of its rich mates, and that’s losing faith with the conservative base. Garth George is the slightly mad, always irritable voice of this demographic, so it’s worth watching as his initial love for John Key wears off to be replaced by despair (and rising anger) at Key’s failure to deliver the brighter future he promised.
Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 10:54 am, March 17th, 2010 - 32 comments
People like to talk about how great Steven Joyce is. But he’s not got a single run on the board.
Am I missing something or is just talking about how good you are all that’s needed nowadays?
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: IrishBill - Date published: 5:46 pm, March 10th, 2010 - 115 comments
The latest Roy Morgan poll is out and Labour isn’t moving. And while only a political noob would expect them to be making major gains this early in the first term of a new government they’re still not laying the groundwork they should be. So what should they be doing?
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:27 pm, February 28th, 2010 - 51 comments
You have to double-check every ‘fact’ the Nats tell you. Bill English, for example, has been caught out lying on Labour’s growth record.
For the last couple of weeks, John Key has been claiming that when Labour increased GST from 10% to 12.5% in 1989 there was no compensation for taxpayers. That too is a lie.
Written By: Marty G - 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
Written By: Marty G - 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?
Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:59 am, February 12th, 2010 - 15 comments
The other day I wrote:
I reckon we probably will see a passing reference to the ‘underclass’ for appearance’s sake [in John Key's statement to Parliament] but I’m just as sure that his government will continue to fail the most vulnerable members of our society.
Well whatdaya know? There it is:
I have said it before, and I’ll …
Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:00 am, February 12th, 2010 - 12 comments
In chronological order:
John Key: “[I never promised I wouldn't raise GST]. I said I would not raise GST to cover deficits, and we are not doing so.”
Guyon Espiner: “he would have been better of just saying ‘look, times have changed and GST is now back on the agenda’”
Duncan Garner: “The Prime Minister could have taken …
Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:00 am, February 8th, 2010 - 9 comments
I was thinking the other day about John Key’s underclass speech. It was always pure gimmickry, as was the whole exploitation of Aroha. But how long would he keep up the facade once the PR value had worn off?
Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 12:56 pm, February 6th, 2010 - 2 comments
The usual suspects are bleating on about John Key’s big speech on Tuesday.
As I’ve pointed out again and again this sort of thing is treated by Key as a PR event in which the talk is big and the action minimal. Just like John’s plan to save the whales.
What we’ll see on Tuesday will be …
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 12:53 pm, February 6th, 2010 - 2 comments
Paula Bennett and John Key have been, once again, prematurely popping the bottle of champagne to celebrate the end of rising unemployment.
In the face of the shocking 7.3% unemployment rate announced on Thursday, the pair responded by saying ‘ah, but that was December quarter things are better now.’ They pointed to the number of people …
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:00 am, January 20th, 2010 - 24 comments
The Key Government’s anti-beneficiary campaign continues. The latest is a beat-up on long-term beneficiaries. Apparently, 9 people have been on the dole for longer than 20 years, 14 for 15-20 years, and 181 for 10-15 years.
‘Bludgers!’ we’re meant to cry ‘Bludgers!’
But let’s actually think with our brains rather than our jerking knees.
This is just 204 …
Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:17 pm, January 17th, 2010 - 28 comments
Deborah Coddington, former ACT MP and author of the filthy racist article “Asian Angst: Is it time to send some back?” that killed North & South’s reputation, waffles on about ’snitches’ in her Herald on Sunday article.
Coddington says snitching – informing the public or the authorities when someone is doing something bad or illegal in secret - is …
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 5:38 pm, January 16th, 2010 - 69 comments
Phil Goff has picked up on the point I made yesterday: while unemployment is falling in Australia due to the $42 billion stimulus package implemented by the Rudd Government, in New Zealand unemployment is still rising while this do nothing government sits on its arse, and unemployment here is now higher than in Aussie for …
Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:01 am, January 14th, 2010 - 47 comments
Govt drafts deal to end whaling in Antarctica – Herald
Key plan to end Southern Ocean whaling – Stuff
That sounds like a real break-through, I thought. What could this deal/plan be? I watched the full press conference here:
“New Zealand has been working very hard to try and find [please, people, the phrase is “try to find”] …
Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 4:50 pm, January 13th, 2010 - 27 comments
Back in July of 2009 I wrote a post about John Key’s promises of a plan to stop job losses. At the time I pointed out his trail of empty and unfulfilled promises and predicted that the big plan to stop job losses would be one of them.
Unfortunately I was right. There was no plan …
Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:48 am, December 24th, 2009 - 13 comments
a) Paula Bennett gives a story to Colin Espiner about beneficiary and, apparently, scoundrel Darryl Harris. The release of the information is a clear breach of the Privacy Act. Espiner is clearly being used as a tool for softening the public for beneficiary bashing. Espiner runs the story, without challenging or even remarking upon the leak or the …
Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 3:59 pm, December 22nd, 2009 - 79 comments
There’s a Youtube clip on Stuff of Key talking on The Edge. Presumably filmed by one of Key’s people. It’s run as headline news.
Yup. You got that right. It’s now news when Key appears for a soft interview on other media. Not the first time. A month or so ago Stuff ran his video diary …
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:18 am, November 24th, 2009 - Comments Off
The Dompost reports: “The number of places available on a programme to get young people off the dole will be increased after the Government credited it with a drop in unemployment”. Sigh, it’s the seasons, stupid.
There has been no drop in unemployment, that went up to 6.5% in the last stats. The number of people …
Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:33 pm, November 21st, 2009 - 15 comments
What a strange little editorial in the Herald today. It’s a typical spin piece that tries to frame John Key’s shoddy behaviour in not meeting the Dalai Lama, despite his promise that he would, as a good thing. The title shows just how willing, desperate even, some are to interpret everything Key does positively – “At …
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:41 am, November 12th, 2009 - 5 comments
A very well-produced youtube vid on National’s distortions over ACC
The clever thing National has done is set up ACC as the agent of its own demise. With Business Roundtable member John Judge in charge ACC has become a propaganda wing for National’s anti-ACC rubbish.
Judge and Nick Smith have created a false air of crisis. They …
Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:15 pm, November 11th, 2009 - 4 comments
Frogblog has another example of the continuing politicisation of the public service under National. I meant to post on this a while back, but you may have seen these ads in your local paper recently:
Not only is the ACC’s message in this ad contrary to the Woodhouse principles it was founded on, but there’s …
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:33 pm, November 10th, 2009 - 12 comments
Looks like Nicky Wagner’s having the same trouble* as Jackie Blue:
…the National-led Government is committed to helping more children take part in organised sport at school, after school, and during the holidays. We want all Kiwi kids to have the opportunity to play sport.
We know too many schools in [insert region here] struggle to find coaches, …
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:50 am, November 10th, 2009 - 25 comments
An alert reader who, for reasons one can only wonder about, was on Jackie Blue’s website spotted this:
Tuesday, November 3. 2009
Launch of National Standards
Reading, writing and maths are the basic building blocks all children need to learn to get the best start in life.
Currently one in five students leave school without the skills they need …
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 3:22 pm, November 6th, 2009 - 38 comments
Documents that the government was forced to release under the Official Information Act reveal that Bill English exercised extensive control and sign-off over each stage of his million dollar political propaganda ad, funded by publicly-owned broadcaster TVNZ.
The documents (which, unfortunately, the media organisations have not seen fit to release to the public in full) show …
Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:17 am, November 4th, 2009 - 7 comments
I see the BNZ’s got itself a new PR campaign:
On 4 November, most BNZ people will be working on projects around New Zealand to help our communities be better off – we’re calling it Closed for Good.
Um, thanks all the same, but why don’t you just pay your f*cking tax bill instead?
Update: Hilarity ensues over …
Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 12:39 pm, November 3rd, 2009 - 23 comments
The Herald’s creepy lovefest with the National Party continues today with Simon Collins’ profile of Paula Bennett, who is apparently “one of us”*
Unlike Danyl over at the Dim Post who seems to have finally realised that *gasp* the Herald might be a little pro-National, I’ve not really been troubled by this “first year of the …
Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:07 am, October 30th, 2009 - 19 comments
National’s favourite public servant (who got himself a nice pay rise), John Whitehead, has been offering dire warnings of the future. $2 trillion in debt by 2050! Something must be done!
Naturally, the Treasury has an extreme right-wing solution – cut everything: cut health – yeah, a less healthy workforce that’ll be great for the …
Written By: Guest post - Date published: 9:32 am, September 3rd, 2009 - 22 comments
This 2007 quote from John Key is doing the rounds among angry “No” voters:
Labour shows contempt for New Zealanders
The Labour Government has shown utter contempt for New Zealanders and the democratic process with its plan to railroad the anti-smacking bill through Parliament, says National Party Leader John Key. “The Labour-led Government knows the measure is …
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