same old national
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Get it in writing
Written By: - Date published: 11:05 pm, September 23rd, 2009 - 49 comments
Watching the Maori Party get done over by National is getting painful. The MP thought they had a good faith dialogue on the issue of Maori seats on the Auckland Council, but before the select committee process was even finished Key announced that there would be no seats. The MP abandoned all its environmental principles […]
A rort is a rort is a rort
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, September 8th, 2009 - 48 comments
And by any other name it smells as bad. John Key has annouced a reform of the rules for ministerial accommodation allowance. A fixed, automatic allowance will now be paid to all out of Wellington ministers of $37,500 a year for their Wellington accomodation (or $30,000 if they own the house), slightly less than the highest spending ministers […]
Snake oil
Written By: - Date published: 1:16 pm, August 25th, 2009 - 18 comments
I’m surprised that the Maori Party have rolled over so easily on the issue of Maori seats on the Auckland council. I will be even more surprised if the Maori people follow suit. Because they have every right to be angry. Remember what Key said of the Hikoi? The hikoi was sparked over the dumping […]
3News on National Ministers double-dipping
Written By: - Date published: 7:07 pm, August 4th, 2009 - 54 comments
3News covers the story of National Ministers double-dipping at the taxpayers’ expense. UPDATE: ‘BLiP’ has bestowed a new title on Bill English: “Sir Double Dipton”. Gold.
This is the secret agenda
Written By: - Date published: 10:13 pm, July 23rd, 2009 - 28 comments
Remember the mantra about John Key being a centrist? Doesn’t get much play nowadays does it? And it shouldn’t. Not with the government cutting spending while unemployment rises, dragging Brash and Rankin back from the grave, spending large on private schools, contracting out public services, tax cuts for the rich and the snouts-in-troughs sham that […]
It’s Brash
Written By: - Date published: 1:44 pm, July 21st, 2009 - 38 comments
The government has just confirmed Don Brash will head the “productivity” group. Expect a lot of talk about “labour market flexibility” and the like. We’ve been here once and it was shit. Now we’re going back for more.
National still hate women
Written By: - Date published: 7:34 pm, June 17th, 2009 - 65 comments
Despite women being 51% of the population, and it being women who won National the last election, they are still showing their contempt for us. State Services Minister Tony Ryall decided that pay equity isn’t important, dropping a study into why female public servants are still paid less than their male counterparts in the same […]
Key’s female trouble
Written By: - Date published: 10:03 pm, June 16th, 2009 - 51 comments
Key is obviously lying about having an unavoidable commitment in Taupo keeping him from Melissa Lee’s election night do. He would tell us what it was if it were true. He would have told journos at the start that he wouldn’t be there if there really had been some long-standing commitment. Truth is he abandoned […]
F*ck tha police…
Written By: - Date published: 9:31 am, June 16th, 2009 - 18 comments
…that seems to be National’s plan as it moves to cut 10% of the police vehicle fleet (why are so many of National’s cuts 10%?). Given the politicking National and its front-groups did on law and order last year you’d think that the last thing they’d do would be make it even harder for them […]
Here we go again
Written By: - Date published: 4:18 pm, May 28th, 2009 - 18 comments
In the 1990’s the National government of the day dealt with recession by cutting spending. The tragic result was to suck cash out of an already stalling economy and lengthen the recession. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of New Zealanders suffered unnecessarily. Today the National government met the current recession by cutting spending. So […]
History repeats for Mark Thomas
Written By: - Date published: 1:40 pm, May 27th, 2009 - 19 comments
The irony is that Melissa Lee’s campaign manager, Mark Thomas, is no stranger to campaigns that start off with a hiss and a roar only to collapse when abandoned by National’s leadership. Thomas was National’s candidate for Wellington Central in 1996, the first MMP election, in a three way contest with Act’s Richard Prebble and […]
Higher education
Written By: - Date published: 4:40 pm, April 7th, 2009 - 32 comments
Turns out Richard Worth’s not the only one with a passion for flying. Tertiary Education Minister Anne Tolley has been joyriding in helicopters at the taxpayers’ expense.
Who’s zooming who?
Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, April 5th, 2009 - 27 comments
The Herald reports: Last week John Key used poor United States sales of the new BMW 7-series – 10 were sold in February, compared with more than 1500 in the same 2008 month – as an example of how much other countries were hurting in the economic crisis. But New Zealand… sales of the top-of-the-line […]
Mayday Mayday, Worth’s bought it and I’m losing altitude – Groser out
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 1st, 2009 - 36 comments
Richard Worth, OBE, is now in very serious trouble having been snared in what looks like untruths about using his Ministerial portfolio to further the interests of a company he had a private commercial interest in. It’s pretty blatant and really Key won’t be able to get away with keeping him on for much longer. […]
Stink line
Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, March 26th, 2009 - 10 comments
Now “PC gone mad” has been used to the point where even people who think mimicking Tui’s “yeah right” slogan is cutting edge irony wouldn’t be seen dead using the phrase, National has needed to come up with something else to do the job. Because let’s face it, you need to keep creating the impression […]
Clawback
Written By: - Date published: 6:44 pm, March 23rd, 2009 - 39 comments
That’s John Key speaking about Labour’s new fourth week of leave legislation back when the Nats thought they were going to win in 2005. His plan was to take your fourth week off you before it started happening in 2007 because that way you wouldn’t miss it. Now they’re trying plan “b” – put your […]
Redistributing the wealth
Written By: - Date published: 3:27 pm, March 20th, 2009 - 104 comments
In a speech to the International Fiscal Association Conference today, Revenue Minister Peter Dunne said the Government’s goal over the next 18 months is to start moving towards a top personal tax rate of 30%. This would be a whopping 9% cut from the current top tax rate, almost exclusively going to the rich, and […]
90 axed at TVNZ
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, March 16th, 2009 - 56 comments
In what’s turning out to be the gift that just keeps on giving for National, the Recession Bogeyman is now being blamed for a need to axe 90 staff from TVNZ. The Minister for Broadcasting reckons the cuts are necessary to make sure TVNZ keeps returing a fat dividend, even in these extraordinary times, even […]
A bunch of clowns
Written By: - Date published: 3:29 pm, March 15th, 2009 - 17 comments
Poor old Nick Smith. Not only is he stuck peddling long-disproved lies about ACC but now it seems he can’t even get a simple procedure like sacking Ross Wilson right. According to the Sunday Star Times Smith hadn’t managed to properly sack Wilson by midday Friday and may not even have managed it so far: […]
National to increase foreign ownership
Written By: - Date published: 12:55 pm, March 14th, 2009 - 39 comments
Newstalk ZB reports: The Prime Minister is keen to open the door to foreign investors. In a speech to the Act Party conference today, John Key said a review of the Overseas Investment Act will be announced by Finance Minister Bill English next week. The review aims to create an overseas investment screening regime that […]
See no evil
Written By: - Date published: 12:33 pm, March 14th, 2009 - 2 comments
I’ve been meaning to write something about the private prisons bill for a couple of days as it’s a recipe for barbarity. But I’ve decided there’s no way I could do a better job of it than I/S has at No Right Turn, so I’m just going to repeat his whole post here. (hopefully he […]
Espiner nails it
Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, March 11th, 2009 - 15 comments
In his blog today Colin Espiner points out how National has quickly moved a lot further to the right than they portrayed themselves as pre-election: After following the script for the First 100 Days to the letter, National is now branching out into things that, um, weren’t in the script. Labour Lite? Not any more. […]
The Wall Street Journal gets it
Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, March 9th, 2009 - 55 comments
Despite all the claims of “centrist” and “centre-right” none other than the the Wall Street Journal has pointed out that John Key’s government is very much a hard-right neo-liberal outfit: Mr. Key is returning the country to a formula for prosperity that’s worked in the past. As in Britain, the U.S. and Australia in the […]
No free trade deal
Written By: - Date published: 10:39 pm, March 8th, 2009 - 33 comments
The Obama administration has halted free trade talks with New Zealand. On one hand free trade is simply increased freedom of capital and without equivalent freedom of labour lends itself toward increased disparity between rich and poor. On the other hand Douglas and his neo-liberal thugs left us with no protections at all in the […]
Flashback from way back
Written By: - Date published: 3:16 pm, February 23rd, 2009 - 23 comments
Anyone else read Audrey Young’s interview of Bill English in the New Zealand Herald and get a massive feeling of deja vu? Here’s a typical outtake: Rather than the Treasury working out where to cut spending, he wants the departments to change the way they think. “We will get them doing it. They are going […]
So what’s the plan again?
Written By: - Date published: 5:15 pm, February 1st, 2009 - 15 comments
Labour got a fair amount of mileage during the election campaign out of harassing National about its lack of distinct policy. I guess that’s kind of forgivable of National in some ways, for reasons we won’t go in to again. But now National are in Government I still can’t help thinking their policy direction is […]
A topic for the NACT talk-fest. Needs a slogan for success.
Written By: - Date published: 7:43 am, January 15th, 2009 - 13 comments
My favourite indicator for a deep recession is showing up. The applications and enrollments for colleges and graduate programs appears to be significantly up in the east, west, and south of the US and Canada. Probably something similar is happening here but we are unlikely to know until later this month. The reason that this […]
Look! Over there!
Written By: - Date published: 7:53 pm, November 4th, 2008 - 40 comments
The latest secret tape has come out and it’s a classic example of the face of the National Party that John Key doesn’t want you to see. Pro-war and anti-Obama. National’s response? The classic “dirty tricks” misdirection. This is all about Labour apparently. Not that there’s any proof however. And not that it’s even likely […]
Hypocrite
Written By: - Date published: 9:45 pm, November 3rd, 2008 - 47 comments
Watching Key tour Progressive Enterprises today was bad enough but watching him claim to support those workers in the leaders debate was sickening considering his party’s stance in 2006 when those same workers were locked out of their employment for daring to ask for a decent pay rise. At the time National’s employment spokesperson (who […]
National’s ‘redneck element’
Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, October 23rd, 2008 - 117 comments
In the heat of the Lockwood Smith controversy yesterday, some of our right-wing readers had a go at John A for posting a link to National’s racist 1975 election ad with the comment that “underneath they haven’t changed”. In light of this, I thought the comments in the Herald today from National’s first Pacific Island […]
Nats on Pacific workers in the 70s
Written By: - Date published: 12:17 pm, October 22nd, 2008 - 32 comments
Galumalemana Alfred Hunkin says Lockwood Smith’s statements about Pacific workers are an example of the sorts of comments made in the 70s. Here’s a National Party TV ad from the 1975 election about Pacific workers. Underneath they haven’t changed.
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