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Return to Planet Key

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 11:00 am, September 20th, 2012 - 17 comments

Does anyone have the number for John Key’s supplier? Because when he answered a question in the House yesterday about poverty and low pay by saying that in his paradise, Planet Key, there would be no toilets and no jobs, my first thought was ‘man, that guy is on some good drugs’. My second thought was he’s gone and made that Planet Key tease into a meme that’ll haunt him.

Banks and Dunne vote down minimum wage

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 9:49 am, September 20th, 2012 - 51 comments

David Clark’s private member’s Bill to increase the minimum wage was voted down 61 to 59 last night. Shame on John Banks and Peter Dunne.

Journey to Planet Key

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 6:40 am, September 19th, 2012 - 58 comments

In the House yesterday, Metiria Turei threw National’s ‘Planet Labour/Planet Green’ line back at Key, asking if ordinary people get to break the law too or if that privilege is reserved for ministers on Planet Key. Like all little bullies, Key couldn’t take it back. He lashed out and, like Romney’s fatal gaffe the same day, it exposed something of Key’s real world view.

Abdicating our global responsibility

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 6:43 am, September 17th, 2012 - 175 comments

With proposed ETS changes National is abdicating our responsibility on the world stage, and sending the bill to the taxpayers. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment calls it ‘a farce’. It’s cowardly, it’s weak, and it’s shafting the working Kiwi.

Here we go again at PoAL

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 2:17 pm, September 16th, 2012 - 42 comments

Things are going to get tough at the Ports of Auckland again.

Which means two things – the workers will win again, and they and the people of Auckland will pay the price.

In the meantime the has-been corporate warriors who are trashing the port will walk away with their bonuses.

Champions for Children

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 8:02 pm, September 11th, 2012 - 33 comments

The Greens have started a new programme – Champions for Children. We should all sign up. We need to make alleviating child poverty the election issue of 2014.

Nats in denial about education and poverty

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 8:06 am, September 11th, 2012 - 57 comments

Shearer’s speech on Sunday has sparked the discussions that this country needed to have about education, about poverty, and about the sad link between them. With every statement the Nats show how deeply in denial they are about these issues.

Clark on the minimum wage

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 8:55 am, September 5th, 2012 - 18 comments

David Clark’s opinion piece in The Herald – “The PM’s cleaner deserves more pay” – makes for welcome reading…

A quick question

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 11:02 am, August 29th, 2012 - 81 comments

Bennett (playing the distraction card) is pushing her drug testing policy again. I have a question for the supporters of this policy which remains unanswered…

Children’s Commissioner’s report due

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 10:00 am, August 28th, 2012 - 91 comments

A guest post from Carol on the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group (EAG) report, to be released today. We need a sustainable destination, not a life raft. Update: The report is out.

Living Wage event

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 11:27 am, August 27th, 2012 - 2 comments

The Living Wage campaign is holding an event in Wellington on Thursday.

Half of rich still cheating on tax

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 10:19 am, August 27th, 2012 - 75 comments

Remember how National’s excuse for cutting the top tax rate from 39% to align with the trust rate at 33% was that half of the rich were dodging the top tax rate – so, they should all get a tax cut. Tax cuts for tax cheats, it was called. And guess what? They’re still cheating. Only half of the ultra-rich are paying even that slashed 33% rate. When they cheat we pay with cut services, higher charges, and more government debt.

Sack PoAL management

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 8:48 am, August 27th, 2012 - 28 comments

Remember the Ports of Auckland lock-out? The bosses tried to starve out 300 worker to push through contracting out, and ‘save’ $6m a year. The workers won. Now, PoAL has reported a $12m loss caused by the $33m cost of the lockout. So, the bosses spent $33m trying to get a $6m a year ‘saving’. Time the councils sacks the managers who wasted that money.

National’s achievement: Highest ever inequality

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 12:55 pm, August 23rd, 2012 - 50 comments

The exodus to Australia is at record levels. Falling wages have seen social inequality rise to record levels. Good job National.

10 Jacks are as good as their master

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 6:43 am, August 21st, 2012 - 128 comments

Compare the latest figures on CEO pay to the median income of New Zealanders and to the minimum wage. The average CEO gets 10 times the pay of a full-time minimum wage worker or the income of the typical Kiwi. The gap is growing. The CEO pay increase was 26 times the median income increase, 56 times what a full-time minimum wage earner got. Does anyone think this is a recipe for a happy and successful New Zealand?

Nats lied – power prices to rise

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 9:08 am, August 15th, 2012 - 36 comments

Minister after Minister denied it, but it turns out that common sense is right. Private power companies charge more. Privatisation surely means that prices will rise. Is it even news when this government lies these days?

Libor and the rotten heart of capitalism

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 11:09 am, August 8th, 2012 - 30 comments

The Libor banking scandal has grown into a full fledged international crisis. Just another example of the rot at the heart of capitalism.

Postcards from the “brighter” future

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 9:36 am, August 6th, 2012 - 11 comments

Hey John – where’s our “Brighter Future”? Hey National voters – was this what you voted for?

Education and poverty

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 11:32 am, August 5th, 2012 - 45 comments

No one can fix the tail of educational underachievement without fixing poverty.

The Political Scientist: Underneath the ‘underclass’

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 1:13 pm, July 31st, 2012 - 7 comments

Many of those who participate in the comments here at The Standard also run their own excellent blogs. We regularly feature No Right Turn and Imperator Fish Today we’re reposting (with permission) pieces from two other blogs that attracted some attention in Open mike recently. Here’s the second one, from The Political Scientist…

Frankly Speaking: Identifying a hypocrite in three easy steps

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 11:13 am, July 31st, 2012 - 103 comments

The rich get richer

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:14 am, July 30th, 2012 - 30 comments

The pay of CEOs in our largest listed companies increased at more than four times the rate of the pay of workers last year. And workers’ pay actually went backwards after inflation. Meanwhile, the average CEO has pocketed more than $1,500 a week of tax cuts from National. Meanwhile, the 150 richest New Zealanders saw their wealth increase by 18% in the past year.

Rorts

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 2:14 pm, July 23rd, 2012 - 59 comments

One law for the rich, another for the poor.

$444m for road consultants, $128m out of poor kids’ mouths

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 7:33 pm, July 18th, 2012 - 69 comments

Never let the Nats tell you that they’re making responsible cuts in tough times. When the Greens tried to amend the social welfare bill currently before Parliament to ensure no kids would “unduly suffer”, National vetoed it saying that would eliminate $128m of the savings National’s planning to make. Get that? National’s welfare reforms take $128m from poor kids.

Don’t it make you sick?

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:16 am, July 15th, 2012 - 27 comments

Old rich man, Don Brash, arch-advocate of private property rights, arguing against the property rights of iwi because they’re Maori. He says we shouldn’t have race-based ownership. No-one’s arguing for that. Iwi are arguing for the contract they signed with the Crown to be honoured. You would think a rightwinger would be the first to support that.

Australia’s sweatshop

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 10:29 am, July 7th, 2012 - 69 comments

The Nats have given up on catching up with Australia, and are content for us to become their low wage sweatshop instead. Their cheerleaders think it’s a great idea.

I beg to differ.

What is “progress”?

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 12:06 pm, July 5th, 2012 - 22 comments

If “two-income families are increasingly worse off than single-income families were a generation ago”, then something is seriously wrong with our definition of “progress”.

Property rights should not trump human welfare

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 10:18 am, July 2nd, 2012 - 9 comments

I/S at No Right Turn on Pita Sharples’ suggestion that Christchurch’s homeless squat in abandoned red-zone properties rather than sleeping in their cars.

Heroes of capitalism

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 10:18 am, June 30th, 2012 - 24 comments

Banks engaged in market fixing. What a surprise. No doubt someone will be held to account…

What’s Bill smoking?

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 9:45 am, June 29th, 2012 - 40 comments

We’re getting used to the Nats running bash the beneficiary /poor /Maori /unemployed /criminal /etc distractions but it’s getting pretty bad when Bill English gets in on the act. Weirdly his idea of drug-testing beneficiaries seems to have been picked up from a Daily Show piece on how it failed in Florida – costing money, not saving it, and proving beneficiaries use drugs less than the rest of the population.