Foot in mouth award – Bill English, for his recent “Flat Earth” comment in Parliament
It appears that Finance Minister, Bill English did not get the memo from Dear Leader Key’s office: “Dont get arrogant!”
Setting the Agenda
Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
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Should the Financial Veto be Allowed?
For the record, my Bill would have cost just 0.7% of the NEW spending for Budget 2016 and 3.6% of the NEW spending planned by National for 2017. At full implementation it would cost 0.03% of the $3b worth of tax cuts John Key wants. Is that more than minor? I don’t think so.
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Immigration policies designed to keep workers down not out
Workers in this country and around the globe need our own policy on immigration. Ultimately we can never stop workers seeking a better life. That is true for New Zealanders going to Australia or workers coming to New Zealand. We should support every step that equalises the status of workers here, whether they were born here or not. As a first step, that means that no worker on a temporary visa should be tied to one employer.
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Lies, Damned lies and Statistical Lies
This government has done what few other Western democracies have achieved; a state of Orwellianism that Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, and other dictatorships required unrelenting brute force to achieve.
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Smoking and Budget 2016
Budget 2016 saw the Māori Party score another set of annual excise tax hikes, seeing efforts to further decrease the number of smokers continue to 2020, and the cost of smoking to rise by up to $30 in the same period.
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The British Labour debate is really about policy
Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader represented a big shift to the left in the British Labour Party. But from day one the mostly right-wing Labour MPs have been plotting to get rid of him.
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Brexit result shows democratic rejection of neoliberalism
Brexit has shone daylight on a crisis that’s been brewing for several decades. The utopian proclamation by Francis Fukuyama about the ‘end of history’, in the heyday of globalisation, has succumbed to the reality that paradigms come and go.
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“Kathryn’s Story” highlights the need for major welfare overhaul
In August 2015 I sat through a whole day of hearing in the High Court on this sad case. What a convoluted sets of arguments were expounded to justify the punitive approach taken by the Crown. That was the latest court event in a 15 year saga in which an unwell beneficiary is being pursued for the repayment of $20 a week.
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From Top To Bottom: Some Thought’s On Britain’s Brexit Nightmare
THE MAGNITUDE OF THE CRISIS now overtaking Britain is difficult to exaggerate. A society obsessed with class has somehow to deal with the impossible fact that those on the bottom have over-ruled those at the top.
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A tax haven or a haven for refugees?
Why is it such a struggle for New Zealand to provide a safe haven to refugees in need yet we have to fight to clean up our tax haven laws? These two issues offer an insight into the values (or lack thereof) of John Key’s Government.