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Unacceptable

Written By: - Date published: 10:28 am, December 7th, 2024 - 29 comments

It appears that the Government’s intent to politicise youth offending by making an elite few dress up in army uniforms and march around in an effort to solve a lifetime of neglect is not working out so well.

Creative accounting

Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, December 5th, 2024 - 26 comments

It has emerged that Health NZ attempted to include hundreds of millions of dollars in redundancies and holiday pay remediation chargeable this year in last year’s Health accounts and this would have made the current deficit smaller but last year’s deficit larger.

Reti secretly wants to privatise Health

Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, November 30th, 2024 - 23 comments

Shane Reti has said publicly that privatising health is not his overt policy. Which suggests strongly that it is his covert policy, especially given that he wants to increase the relationship with and outsourcing to private operators.

National’s dodgy health announcements

Written By: - Date published: 4:09 pm, November 27th, 2024 - 18 comments

National yesterday made great fanfare about an extra $30 million being spent on doctors and nurses. But news today of 1,500 health job cuts in the pipeline clearly shows how the extra funds are to be sourced.

The Left Trumped?

Written By: - Date published: 9:42 am, November 21st, 2024 - 36 comments

We woke up last week to the post-mortem on the US election. How and why Trump won, and their implications for political alignments everywhere, are front and centre. A fundamental issue, explicitly identified when Trump won in 2016, is the presence of large sections of the working class vote into the Trump camp. So why has that happened – again?

The Treaty of Waitangi Principles Bill gets slammed

Written By: - Date published: 12:42 pm, November 8th, 2024 - 14 comments

The Treaty of Waitangi Principles Bill has now been released and it appears that the provisions take away more rights from Māori than originally proposed.

The Government’s cynical manipulation of the Treaty Principles Bill

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, November 6th, 2024 - 20 comments

In a cynical manipulation of Parliamentary Processes the Government is changing the date of introduction of the Treaty Principles Bill. And the Waitangi Tribunal has said that the bill is a deliberate attempt to destroy the treaty relationship.

Who is undermining the Government’s approach to reducing smoking rates?

Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, November 6th, 2024 - 11 comments

The Government’s offensive on public servants who express privately held strong views continues with Casey Costello attacking a public servant who alleged that her private research had come up with some papers that were “crap”.

The strange case of the I am Hope funding

Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, November 3rd, 2024 - 11 comments

National is scrambling to justify designated funding to the I am Hope charity after Mike King claimed alcohol was good for mental health and preventing suicide.

When a right becomes a wrong

Written By: - Date published: 1:26 pm, October 31st, 2024 - 66 comments

The Free Speech Union is wanting an extremist right wing shock jock who the Christchurch Killer described as the person who most influenced him the privilege of visiting New Zealand to host a fundraising event.

Labour day

Written By: - Date published: 2:20 pm, October 28th, 2024 - 21 comments

Enjoying your weekend? Thank a unionist!

Will This Be a One-Term Government?

Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, October 20th, 2024 - 24 comments

Elliot Crossan at System Change Aotearoa reviews the past year. Despite the tepid public support for this government’s problematic actions, he warns that ‘The Right Is United By Power — Don’t Underestimate Them’

Where’s The Opposition?

Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, October 13th, 2024 - 61 comments

Labour, Green Party and Te Pati Māori have been relatively quiet as the Coalition government move at breakneck speed to roll back laws and transfer wealth. Is it a matter of resources, media coverage, or will?

The best Government that money can buy

Written By: - Date published: 9:31 am, October 11th, 2024 - 35 comments

Radio New Zealand has reported that $500,000 in donations to National, Act and NZ First were made by entities associated to those who had their projects included in the recently released schedule to the Fast Track Projects Bill.

Submit as if your grandkids’ lives depend on it

Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, September 30th, 2024 - 19 comments

The Government plans to smash through the reintroduction of off shore oil and gas drilling under some urgency and has given the people of New Zealand only five days to submit.

New Zealand treats the wealthy better than comparable nations

Written By: - Date published: 10:51 am, September 19th, 2024 - 26 comments

A recently Tax Justice Aotearoa study suggests that the country could impse a capital gains tax or wealth tax and the wealthy would still be better off than they would be in similar countries.

Free School lunches have a profound beneficial effect on learning

Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, September 13th, 2024 - 23 comments

This is what David Seymour was told. But he and the Government still chose to push through significant cuts to the scheme.

Let’s Talk About Tax

Written By: - Date published: 4:08 pm, September 2nd, 2024 - 44 comments

Yes, Labour can restore its woeful tax position.

About David Parker’s and Labour’s debate about taxation

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, August 31st, 2024 - 69 comments

Guest post by Nigel Haworth discussing recent publicity given to the Labour Party’s debate around tax reform.

Is a Transformational Left-Wing Leadership of the NZ Labour Party Possible?

Written By: - Date published: 4:57 pm, August 17th, 2024 - 79 comments

It is a painful experience, to have fought long and hard for something you knew was inadequate and to have even that taken away. The Labour Party has long urged activists to be ‘realistic’. Elliot Crossan argues that it will not return to be a socialist party of the working class.

Chhour needs to go

Written By: - Date published: 10:52 am, August 16th, 2024 - 24 comments

It is a shame that Ipredict is not still around. Otherwise I would be putting money on Chhour being the first to go.

Mountain Tui: Luxon’s $1000 A Week Is His “Entitlement”. Just Not Yours.

Written By: - Date published: 1:06 pm, August 14th, 2024 - 32 comments

When Luxon claimed $1000 a week of tax-free, taxpayers money for accommodation, because he didn’t want the 2 free properties he was offered, he said he was entitled to it. But according to the government, all beneficiaries now require harsher rules or risk having their entitlements stripped. Yet only ~5% aren’t compliant and last quarter, 1500 were cut off. What do the numbers say?

Mountain Tui: Beneficiary sanctions & targets don’t add up

Written By: - Date published: 1:23 pm, August 13th, 2024 - 9 comments

The jobseeker beneficiary sanctions and targets are not adding up. It also inflicts a lack of dignity and shame on recipients at a time when austerity is actively increasing unemployment.

Calculated cruelty

Written By: - Date published: 12:44 pm, August 13th, 2024 - 36 comments

National has engaged in more performative and calculated cruelty designed to make some poor people’s lives worse and all so that the Government can feed its base.

Maritime Union v Willis

Written By: - Date published: 12:16 pm, August 7th, 2024 - 49 comments

National’s decision to cancel the replacement Cook Strait ferry project is developing into a full blown political crisis for the Government with estimates that it could cost the Crown up to a billion dollars and with further costs to come.

Don’t give me culture, I’m not hearing you Chris

Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, August 7th, 2024 - 18 comments

“Don’t give me culture, I’m not hearing you Rob. I can buzz around like a Beehive boy, but I’d like to see you do my job”

About Karen Chhour’s future

Written By: - Date published: 11:06 am, August 3rd, 2024 - 27 comments

Act minister Karen Chhour has recently adopted the mantle of victimhood and claimed that she has been under attack and feels unsafe in Parliament. But the attacks are not personal and are motivated by the damage her party is causing to Oranga Tamariki as well as to the country’s race relations.

Act plays the race card and the victim card

Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, August 1st, 2024 - 27 comments

Yesterday in Parliament was pretty weird. Act MPs staged a show down event and expressed increasing dissatisfaction with their Government’s speaker Gerry Brownlee.

Woefully misinformed or intentionally mangling the truth?

Written By: - Date published: 9:24 am, July 30th, 2024 - 26 comments

Senior medical figures have questioned the accuracy of what the Government is saying about the health crisis in Northland. And in an example of unbelievably bad timing it has been revealed that the Goverment put aside $216 million to fund a exise duty reduction for Phillip Morris.

A nation reinvented: 40 years on from its 1984 victory, the Fourth Labour Government still defines NZ

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, July 17th, 2024 - 9 comments

“After nine years of economic nationalism and social conservatism under National prime minister Robert Muldoon, David Lange’s new broom left no corner unswept. In the space of a few short years, fuelled by a high-octane blend of neoliberal theory and neoclassical state minimalism, it reinvented the nation.”

Mountain Tui: Crashing New Zealand’s health system is not the way to prosperity, Prime Minister

Written By: - Date published: 2:44 pm, July 16th, 2024 - 15 comments

The drumbeat of health warnings continues from hospitals, doctors and nurses. But is the Government prepared to listen?