Labour Party’s Tax Working Group stacked 8 to 2 with corporate representatives
Most of these people spend their working days earning fat salaries advising wealthy corporates and rich listers how to minimise their taxes.
New Zealand Politics
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Use of Nudge theory: The Winter Energy Payment
Behavioural economist Richard Thaler, the father of ‘nudge theory’ was awarded the Nobel economics prize in 2008. In New Zealand we see his influence in the auto-enrolment, opt-out design of KiwiSaver.
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Glitterboobs, tinned tomatoes, racist menus and golliwogs – have we started the year off angry?
The wounds that so many are speaking from can’t be argued with, they need to heal first before they can listen and I don’t think there is going to be a lot of listening in 2018.
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One of Maggie Barry’s tracks
DOC has great people doing a fantastic job but it’s had nasty, venal ministers like Nick Smith and Maggie Barry who have done their best to drive it into the ground.
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Enablers – Dr Liz Gordon
The late Jim Anderton and his movement was potentially an enabler. But the neo-liberal political project which he opposed has trundled on ever since and has outlived him, which is a shame. We could do with a new transformational spirit here to overcome inequalities and the rise of the super-rich and overpaid and the poor and underpaid. Any candidates?
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Idea Upgrades for 2018
One of the things dear to Jim’s heart was the idea that the State should use its power to make good outcomes and not leave it to the free market. In that vein, here are some upgrades for 2018 that we should push from a progressive Government.
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National’s road lust petition campaign gives insight as to how they plan to attack new Government
Vested commercial interests + pretence of democratic participation + culture war values = National in Opposition.
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Iran unrests: why I remain skeptical
Like me, many other Iranians participated in the 1979 revolution without fully understanding the endgame or the nature of the forces that propelled it forward. The result of that blind participation was that people’s dream of a secular democracy turned into an oppressive theological nightmare.
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Jim’s legacy – what can we learn from his vision now?
If we want to honour Jim, the new Government should immediately pass legislation to make dental care free for children and teenagers, if we want to see Jim’s vision survive, we must all demand the new Government lives up to its obligations and not subcontract them out to the free market.
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How sick that one of the best environmental scientists can be punished this way in NZ?
Here is one of this country’s best and bravest environmentalists admitting that his advocacy and the science behind his advocacy has been threatened…