National’s handling of this Richard Worth affair has been bad, both ethically and politically. Even worse for them, Labour leader Phil Goff has come out of it smelling like roses, ratcheting his profile up a few notches.
I assume Crosby/Textor are on holiday (celebrating a 2-point clarification from Nicky Hagar, perhaps?) because even John Key himself, who’s spin is usually water tight, is beginning to fall over.
For instance, this interview on RNZ Checkpoint last night is an absolute stunner. Key refuses to answer questions, attacks Goff, attacks the victim, defends Worth and gets caught out lying.
Hmmm, as much as Paul Henry gets my goat, the reality is that he grills John Key better than anyone else currently in the media, it’s always as if as a former National Party candidate that Paul has been personally offended by the Prime Minister’s lack of a red neck. –Bomber Bradbury
Also… Textses? Piggy in the Middle? Was also funny to hear him saying “I don’t sack ministers on unproved allegations”, when that was what he was calling Clark to do to Winston last year. What happened to 1-strike you’re out?
This is a pretty serious misuse of urgency. It also has the side effect of stifling debate on the matter by not allowing submissions from the public, but rather get rid of their unpopular policy at the start of the term so it’s forgotten by the next election.
It’s also highly hypocritical (surprised?). National, quite rightly, were very outspoken about the manner in which the Electoral Finance Act was passed, but even that went through Select Committee hearings and 6 months worth of public debate before it was finally signed into law.
This one, apparently, fingers Bill English professing that National would pursue their hard-right agenda, their Labour Plus strategy being a “Trojan Horse” and John Key’s days being numbered as leader – because of a growing faction of MPs dissatisfied about the concessions their party has made to come close to power.
Whether it’s true or not, we’ll see, but the Kiwiblog comments are strangely calm with a lot of crossed fingers not typing.
For those who like to get their news from National Party Press Releases, you may have heard about shower-gate.
This dishonest attack on the “nanny state”, National’s scrapping of the fund to insulate homes and the outpouring of foam from the opposition shows that this is all still a joke to these people! John Key himself attacked Clark during the debate saying that Kiwi’s powerbills had rocketed under Labour’s watch.
Make your decision, guys, either it’s a priority or it’s not.
Depending on who you hear it from, shower-gate is a rock hard regulation from Labour, or the Greens. They’ll have black-clad (with respirators) Green police that’ll come break down your door, rip your shower curtain and uninstall your high-flow shower head.
Nice, but don’t ignore the facts. It wasn’t a Green Party policy, or a Labour party policy. It was a standard policy proposal from a ministry. These sorts of things pop up all the time, but Nick Smith seized the opportunity to beat the nanny-state drum.
Evern worse, was the policy isn’t all that bad! Flow regulation would only apply for new houses over a certain size, using the least efficient water heading method! And the very best part is that over 70% of New Zealand homes already have a moderate-flow showerhead!
80% of all hot water used in homes goes for showers
Out of approximately 1.6 million homes in NZ, 460,000 have high pressure water systems.
This means that 71% of existing homes already have a low-flow shower! (And they are not complaining either.)
If just a third of the high pressure systems in NZ were to switch to a high efficiency shower head of between 6 and 9 litres/min, they would each save on average 1500 kWhs per year, or about $300. They would also collectively save enough power each year to run the entire city of Nelson for that same year. This is not small peanuts. And we don’t need to go to 6 litre/min shower heads to do it!
National recently announced some changes to Kiwisaver which will be used to find part of their tax package. It’s pretty much what we all expected. Nerf employee contributions and reduce tax breaks from the government etc… But it’s not all bad!
They plan to reduce the minimum employee contribution from 4% to 2%. I like this change. It will enable the people who couldn’t afford to take away 4% of their salary. They also want to change the minimum employer contribution to 2% as well. I’m not totally adverse to this change, but I think the employer contribution should mirror the employee contribution from 2% to 8%.
The other change they plan to make is allowing an employer to include their contributions in the employee’s salary package. This will enable employers to basically pay employees that enter KiwiSaver less. But, they’ve said that they won’t allow employers to reduce wages if an employee joins KiwiSaver. To me, that’s the same thing… Quick example:
John and James start at a company doing the same job. John joins KiwiSaver, James opts out. James gets paid more than John but the net cost to the employer is the same as James requires no KiwiSaver contribution. 6 months later, they both get a payrise and James decides to join KiwiSaver. James is now being paid more than John for the same job
Not fair. The only way to make it fair is to leave it out of the salary package. At 2% there is very little reason not to join KiwiSaver, so if you want the employer contribution you have to join. You can’t just pocket it.
This is the usual kind of stuff we’ve come to expect from the Nats, though. Putting the power back in the hands of the already powerful and helping those with the means to help themselves.
They’ve now taken it a step further with muck-raker Tony Ryall telling the Auckland DHB to shut up, unless they have something negative to say about the government’s achievements regarding health. Or else there’s going to be trouble for them when he becomes Minister.
That is absolutely disgusting political interference. Threatening a non-partisan state body for distributing facts? Do people not deserve to go into this election armed with the truth about the governments achievements and it’s failings?
Tony Ryall is famous for running his mouth about the status-quo and not offering any solutions in true National Party style. So although Labour doesn’t have a spotless record on Health, how about focusing on how National will do better?
Yesterday, Pharmac released the decision not to fund the breast cancer treatment drug, Herceptin.
Now I can’t say I was happy with the decision, but after conducting my own research it gave me a different look at things. Obviously, I’m not over the moon that Pharmac will only fund a 9-week course of the drug but I’m convinced that the right decision was made based on safe science and evidence, instead of emotion and hysteria.
National has announced they will fund a full 12-month course, with the usual “boo Labour” spin thrown in.
Ok, that’s fine, if 12 months of Herceptin is the magic cure Dr Jackie Blue says it is, do it.
But I hope it will be done by increasing the government funding that Pharmac is allowed to play with by more than the $30 million that Herceptin will cost. Pharmac spends ~$50 million a year on all cancer drugs, New Zealand can not afford to reassign $30 million from elsewhere in the health budget.
There is a lot of mis-information and emotion tied up in this issue. Some people blame sexism as the cause:
[Former Herceptin Heroine chair Anne] Hayden said she would be interested to see what would happen in New Zealand if a wonder drug came out for prostate cancer.
Some commenters even blame Pharmac “trying to protect their huge profits”. Right.
Update: If you want a laugh (or cry), KiwiBlog has a post up about it with another cheap shot at Labour (pretty sure the snails only have to be moved once)…
Some interesting comments… from rabid frothers wishing cancer on the “labour wimmin” to a quiet voice of reason from a few others.
Although, it seems, they’ll be able to sit this one out. John Key seems happy enough to carry on their legacy for a time to come. There’s only so many dead-rats you can swallow (whole, mind you) under the guise of “policy inoculation” before you’re actually selling out.
It’s obvious National will do anything to win.
Some of the most hotly debated policies and programs of the Labour Party have been promised to also exist under a National government, should you be so good to, you know, vote for them.
Interest free student loans? Check! Working for Families? Check! Kiwisaver? You betcha! Aside from the 90-day fire-and-forget bill, ACC and the promise to look at the public broadcasting charter, most of their policy appears to consist of keep, retain and continue.
Is it still a bribe if National adopt the policy (as they did with interest free student loans)?
If the main complaint is that “lower paid will end up subsidising the rich”, what do they call National’s plan to double the government funding towards private education institutes?
Web Developer by hobby, then by trade. I am currently rendering my services to the great Mighty Ape with one or two personal projects currently in early stages. Hopefully more on that later.
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