If National wins ...

[elZorro]

I've thrown a few bucks behind James Shaw for doing this. Good on him

http://bigsleepout.org.nz/page/jamesshaw

If one comes to this part of the world I'd do it ......even if to remember the nights I slept rough at the Basin Reserve when I was young ....because of the state I was in and lost my bearings. Was middle of summer though

Nights? you mean you didn't learn the lesson the first night?

Another way of getting somewhere with homeless people (not all of them of course) is to have more manufacturing-type jobs available, and better minimum pay standards. Plus more budget accommodation in cities. Requires govt policy changes though, not under National.

NZ farmer gloom prominent in this survey, the lowest result in a decade.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...y+24+June+2015

It probably doesn't help dairy farmers here, when they know that American dairy farmers will have a federal topup available for each pound of milkfat produced, if the normal return doesn't provide a profit over the average cost of production. They are guaranteed a profit on production, as long as they are at or below the set average production cost for USA.

[winner69]

Love Greenpeace action today .....and this response says it all

That Parliament place sure is a special place eh


David Seymour
@ dbseymour
Greenpeace show their arrogance and conceit, breaking into parliament to promote solar panels. pic.twitter.com/QIY2AzrUkX

[craic]

It wasn't the Greens - just a Labour party advance commando unit - trying to find a way into Parliment when the public were not looking.

[winner69]

It wasn't the Greens - just a Labour party advance commando unit - trying to find a way into Parliment when the public were not looking.

The direct approach didn't work when Arden tried to get into parliament by driving his tractor up the front steps

[winner69]

EZ, Annette sent me this to send to Key. I obliged

XXXXX, did you see One News last night? They reported that companies set to profit from the government’s privatisation of social services, like mental health services and truancy, are Australian banks. They even set up a “Dragon’s Den” style panel to help them pick the winners!
And it gets worse, XXXXX – it’s been revealed that the government’s own advisors warned the outcome of social bonds could include “poor quality” and “ineffective” services and the risk organisations could “cherry pick” the profitable cases at the expense of others in need.
The Government is using the most vulnerable New Zealanders as guinea pigs for their social bonds experiment.

But if enough of us sign the open letter against this proposal, the government will have to choose between listening to us, the people they’re elected to represent and their own officials, or listening to Australian banks looking for a profit from vital social services.


EZ, I sent it. But just sending emails to John is not the answer ...we are not REAL people anyway

What is labour actually doing, real. Stuff, to stop this sort of carry on.

Remember what I told what neoliberalism is Neo-liberalism is - "just a bunch of powerful people doing things in their own self interest.” Surely this is proof.

[elZorro]

EZ, Annette sent me this to send to Key. I obliged

XXXXX, did you see One News last night? They reported that companies set to profit from the government’s privatisation of social services, like mental health services and truancy, are Australian banks. They even set up a “Dragon’s Den” style panel to help them pick the winners!
And it gets worse, XXXXX – it’s been revealed that the government’s own advisors warned the outcome of social bonds could include “poor quality” and “ineffective” services and the risk organisations could “cherry pick” the profitable cases at the expense of others in need.
The Government is using the most vulnerable New Zealanders as guinea pigs for their social bonds experiment.

But if enough of us sign the open letter against this proposal, the government will have to choose between listening to us, the people they’re elected to represent and their own officials, or listening to Australian banks looking for a profit from vital social services.


EZ, I sent it. But just sending emails to John is not the answer ...we are not REAL people anyway

What is labour actually doing, real. Stuff, to stop this sort of carry on.

Remember what I told what neoliberalism is Neo-liberalism is - "just a bunch of powerful people doing things in their own self interest.” Surely this is proof.

W69, at least you are becoming more than a little outraged. This is not the NZ we want to live in, it looked a lot better when Labour held office.

Labour and the Greens tried to hold 'Murray McScurrillous' to account today, but he was saved by the National-MP chairman of the select committee and then didn't turn up to the house in the afternoon.

[westerly]

W69, at least you are becoming more than a little outraged. This is not the NZ we want to live in, it looked a lot better when Labour held office.

Labour and the Greens tried to hold 'Murray McScurrillous' to account today, but he was saved by the National-MP chairman of the select committee and then didn't turn up to the house in the afternoon.

Liam Hehir advised the Labour Party to refrain from using the phrase "neo liberalisim"
What you would expect from a National Party activist.
John Key must have a smile on his face as the Conservative party self distructs allowing the neo liberal policies of his Govt. to proceed while media attention is all over Colin Craig.
From housing to social bonds, from screwing down hospital board expenditure to reducing taxation,to reducing Govt. services, the National govt. continues on it's way.
Australia,Singapore,Canada have all acted to prevent. Chinese money pushing up house prices,
New Zealand cannot upset the Chinese and does nothing . Maybe it's the free trade agreement.?
Al Labour needs to do to win the next election is to get back to it's roots and start looking after the ordinary working family. Forget about low taxation ,hit the greedy, and that includes superannuates with incomes in the 6 figure brackets.

westerly

[winner69]

EZ (and maybe westerly), you'll enjoy this from Robert Reich. He is talking my language.

Reich was Labour Secretary under Clinton. Since before the GFC he really anti banks and big money. Some of his solutions these days are bit weird but generally he talking my language. If wanting something to read his books are worthwhile

Any way this from his blog -
http://robertreich.org/

MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: GET BIG MONEY OUT OF POLITICS

Over the past two months, the videos I’ve done with MoveOn.org have detailed several ways to make the economy work for the many, not the few: raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, making public higher education free, busting up the big banks, expanding Social Security, making polluters pay, raising the estate tax, strengthening unions, ending corporate welfare, helping families succeed economically, and letting all Americans buy into Medicare.

But none of these is possible if we don’t get big money out of politics.

In fact, nothing we need to do as a nation is possible unless we limit the political power of the moneyed interests.

EZ, sure you have empathy with most of this, esp the last part of his post not above saying what needs to be done about funding politics. Would Labour be brave enough to be this strong ....or are they really an insider as well with self interests of prime importance.

[elZorro]

EZ (and maybe westerly), you'll enjoy this from Robert Reich. He is talking my language.

Reich was Labour Secretary under Clinton. Since before the GFC he really anti banks and big money. Some of his solutions these days are bit weird but generally he talking my language. If wanting something to read his books are worthwhile

Any way this from his blog -
http://robertreich.org/

MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: GET BIG MONEY OUT OF POLITICS

Over the past two months, the videos I’ve done with MoveOn.org have detailed several ways to make the economy work for the many, not the few: raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, making public higher education free, busting up the big banks, expanding Social Security, making polluters pay, raising the estate tax, strengthening unions, ending corporate welfare, helping families succeed economically, and letting all Americans buy into Medicare.

But none of these is possible if we don’t get big money out of politics.

In fact, nothing we need to do as a nation is possible unless we limit the political power of the moneyed interests.

EZ, sure you have empathy with most of this, esp the last part of his post not above saying what needs to be done about funding politics. Would Labour be brave enough to be this strong ....or are they really an insider as well with self interests of prime importance.

I would like to see Labour being funded by small amounts from a whole lot of people, and so not needing to go to large corporates at all for campaign funds. That just gets awkward. But they do need to compete for marketing of their message with National's big boys, and it's a different message. Policies like KiwiBuild tell you that.

[Sgt Pepper]

I was watching the news tonight regarding Murray McCully approving the purchase of an $ 11million apartment for the NZ Ambassador to the UN. One of the rationales was its proximity to the UN and that it was to be a working area as well. I went on to google, identified the location of the New Zealand Consulate General (Maddison Avenue NYC) and the NZ Legation to the UN( Third Avenue NYC. I ran their address on a taxifare calculator for New York City. The cost of a cab from the Madison Avenue address to the UN was US $18.00 distance was 3.2 miles and traveling time 13 minutes, from the Third Avenue legation was US 15.00, 2.7 miles and 10 minutes travelling time.
So perhaps Murray should have pushed back and not approved this gross waste of our money?