Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
TO ACCUSE POLITICIANS of being part of a “tax and spend” government is just another way of calling them social-democrats. By the same token, politicians who explicitly renounce the policies of tax and spend are signalling that they are anything but social-democrats.
Yesterday I wrote to Trade Minister David Parker asking him to intervene urgently over the sudden and bizarre de-registration of representatives of prominent NGOs who had been accredited to attend the World Trade Organization ministerial conference from 10 to 13 December in Buenos Aires, Argentina
IN POLITICS, as in war, the aggressor’s first strike is almost always directed against the defender’s weakest point. That being the case, the National Opposition has clearly identified the Ardern Government’s lacklustre political management skills as its primary target. Their secondary target, equally clearly, is the Greens
In summary, Golriz has never hidden her defence role in the Rwanda and former Yugoslavia Tribunals. She has spoken about those experiences many times, and put them on her LinkedIn CV. It has been good to see the legal experts such as Andrew Geddes and so many progressive people coming to her defence.
As suggested in The Daily Blog only a couple of days ago, Simcock’s continuing presence as the supposed ‘leader’ of one of the largest DHB’s ($1.4B annual turnover) was a major impediment to the organisation’s recovery from the excesses of rip-off merchant Nigel Murray, the former CEO outed, and ousted, six weeks ago, after blowing $218,000 of taxpayers’ money on wine, women and travel.
David Parker has promised to hold consultations after the TPPA-11 has been agreed and before it is signed. That could be at very short notice and in a very short window, unless people intensify the pressure on the government to follow Canada’s lead and go back to the table.
The claim of an $11.7 “fiscal hole” became a dominating irritant throughout the election campaign, even though in large part it failed simply because no one else (except Bill English) agreed that it existed. TV3’s “Newshub” even created this now-famous, handy, infograph to illustrate the fact that Joyce and English were effectively on their own;
The old adage: “Information is Power”; imposes a real moral burden on democratic socialist politicians. If democracy is all about giving power to the people, then withholding information from them is, objectively, an act of deliberate disempowerment.
Many will have heard mainstream or social media chatter in the last few months about the ripoffs and rorts perpetrated by the rather unsavoury Nigel Murray, now former CEO of the Waikato DHB.
Now here’s a curious thing … right now the National Party is going absolutely hammer-and-tong attempting to attack the Labour Party’s Tax Working Group – for, among other things, the fact it’s set to be chaired by former Labour Finance Minister Sir Michael Cullen.