Archive for December, 2011
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
Anyone looking for a textbook case of the apparent politicisation of the public service need look no further than the case of former Northland kura principal Debroah Anne Mutu, who became a potential embarrassment for then-Education Minister Anne Tolley, six weeks out from the election.
The initial RNZ report had ...
Posted in Articles | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
Years ago and while still a cub reporter, I had to accompany Muhammad Ali, Bundini Brown and rest of the Ali retinue on a week long tour of speaking engagements and exhibition fights in New Zealand. It was only on the last day of the tour that I finally figured ...
Posted in Articles | No Comments »
Monday, December 19th, 2011
Later this afternoon, we’ll find out just how the new Labour leader David Shearer has managed the difficult task of rewarding his faction while bringing some of his opponents back into the tent. Since David Parker is almost certain to get the new shadow Finance portfolio opposite Finance Minister Bill ...
Posted in Articles | 18 Comments »
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
As the late Roger Kerr pointed out in 2005, Peter Dunne went into the election that year advocating the 40% selldown of the government’s stake in most SOEs. So Dunne can hardly be accused of not being a consistent advocate of the partial privatisation model – he could more accurately ...
Posted in Articles | 15 Comments »
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011
So it is to be David Shearer as leader, and Grant Robertson as deputy. With David Cunliffe, there were always two concerns. One, whether the wider public would warm to Cunliffe’s combatively intellectual style, and secondly whether his caucus would support him loyally in the battle against the Key government. ...
Posted in Articles | 21 Comments »
Monday, December 12th, 2011
Now that the three deals done to maintain the National-led coalition are all on the table, its pretty clear how shabby these arrangements really are. United Future for instance has won the promise to “investigate free annual health checks for over 65s when fiscal circumstances allow” – which probably means ...
Posted in Articles | 3 Comments »
Friday, December 9th, 2011
At first glance, the news earlier this week that Peter Jackson has just completed a documentary on the West Memphis Three case might seem somewhat odd. After all, the three Paradise Lost documentaries made by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky on the WM3 case have already been one of the ...
Posted in Articles | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, December 7th, 2011
The OECD report this week that has found New Zealand to have one of the fastest growing income gaps in the entire OECD will come as no surprise.
Since the 1980s, successive governments have been complicit in a wealth transfer of massive proportions, as tax revenues collected by increasingly regressive means ...
Posted in Articles | 56 Comments »
Tuesday, December 6th, 2011
Since its inception. Act has been the party of American Crackpot Theories, so we should probably be thankful that the coalition agreement between Act Party leader John Banks and the Key government didn’t include a constitutional right to bear arms.
However, the trial of charter schools that is being proposed (within ...
Posted in Articles | 16 Comments »
Monday, December 5th, 2011
Newness is in the air, in every sight and every sound. Both candidates seeking to become Labour’s next leader have been citing the need for change, and claiming they’re the right broom for the job – whether it require a change of direction, a revamp of the Labour Brand, the ...
Posted in Articles | 5 Comments »
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