October 2010

Once again as a public service, here is a press release from the ever fragile David Cunliffe. Very confusing…

Decline in business numbers a elling indicmen of Naional’s lack of an economic plan

David Cunliffe  |  Friday, Ocober 29, 2010 – 13:43

he firs decrease in he oal number of businesses in New Zealand for nine years is one of he mos powerful indicaors ye ha he economy has ground o a hal under Naional, says Labour’s Finance spokesperson David Cunliffe.

Saisics New Zealand said oday ha provisionally he oal number of businesses in New Zealand a February 2010 was 470,000, down 1.7 percen from 2009. Saisics repored ha his is he firs decrease in he oal number of businesses recorded over he pas nine years, wih he larges drop — 2800 — in he consrucion indusry.

“I’s becoming harder and harder for John Key and Bill English o pu heir hands on heir hears and say wih a sraigh face ha hey are managing he economy well,” David Cunliffe said. “he opposie is rue. Ausralia and China are growing srongly. Under Naional, New Zealand is in decline.”

David Cunliffe said ha when Labour Leader Phil Goff me Ausralian Prime Miniser Julia Gillard and oher senior Ausralian poliical figures his week, he learned firs-hand he main elemens in Ausralia’s srong economic performance compared o New Zealand’s failing economy.

“John Key and Bill English said hey would close he gap bu he gap is growing. Naional’s ax cus for he rich have failed miserably – while he Ausralian ax relief package for low and middle income earners has paid off handsomely. he Ausralians are also coninuing o inves in appreniceships, skills raining and research and developmen.”

David Cunliffe said oday’s Saisics repor also noed ha he oal number of paid employees, while no an official employmen saisic, was 1.89 million, a 1.9 percen decrease from February 2009, wih he bigges decreases in manufacuring and consrucion.

“he Ausralian Governmen has creaed 400,000 new jobs, while more han 50,000 have disappeared in New Zealand,” David Cunliffe said.

“Jus as ellingly, Saisics also repors ha here has been a significan reducion in he number of business sar-ups. Jus 44,000 sared up over he year ended February 2010, down 20.4 percen from he previous year, while he number of business closures over he year was 55,000, up 6 percen on he previous year.

“Naional has jus presided over he firs year since 2001 in which business closures have exceeded business sar-ups. Naional’s rebalancing he economy is all abou ipping i over he edge ino double dip recession. I has no idea wha o do nex.”

from the tipline:

7.10pm this evening driving into Takapuna on Hurstmere Rd. Spotted cop with flashing blue lights stopped interviewing driver facing going to Milford about Minihaha Rd. On closer view it was the Clown being stopped. Dropped off my passenger at Spencer Hotel and on way back, now two cops interviewing the clown. Seems a more senior one was called in.  Couldn’t get a pic while driving unfortunately…

The Whales deep sources on the North Shore inform him that the incident actually began at 7:05pm.

Today is the last business day of the North Shore City and it would seem that Andrew Williams is up to his old tricks. Worse still he was stopped in the council provided car, his now infamous black Nissan Maxima.

Questions that need asking and answering:

• Why was ex-Mayor Andrew Williams pulled over by Police?
• Why were additional resources dispatched to the incident?
• Why does he still have his council provided car?
• Were the mayoral chains on the back seat or the passenger seat beside him?
• Are they his “precious”?

The Mad ex-Mayor of North Shore, Andrew Williams

The other day when I went to Wellington I spent a bit of time talking to Lockwood Smith in the Koru Club.

I asked him if he wanted to be known as a great Speaker. The discussion then centred around how the low the bar had been set before him taking the position. But the point I was trying to make was that he should be looking at making Parliamentary Services more open and the way to do that would be to extend the OIA in the interests of transparency.

He utterly refused and at the same time pointed out that he released travel details. His reasoning was that what MPs do in their private time was of no interest for anyone and nor should it. I pointed out that it was never private time at the office, that all the resources that they use is paid for by the taxpayer and as such is not private. He disagreed strongly and we parted with me commenting that I guess he was never going to be a great Speaker.

It is with some interest now that I see the very thing he was patting himself on the back over, MPs travel expenses, he has now deemed to be “private” even though we the taxpayer foot the bills.

Parliament’s Speaker has introduced new rules preventing public disclosure of individual MPs’ spending on tax-payer funded overseas jaunts.

The change mean trips like those taken by Rodney Hide and his partner to Hawaii and through Europe last year are now secret.

Mr Hide admitted at the time that he made a mistake, but Speaker Lockwood Smith today said the matter was private and should never have been made known to the public.

“It is taken out of members’ salaries and it is private,” Dr Smith said.

“It is not a public expense, it is a private matter.”

Well, Mr Speaker, you were doing so well and now you have gone and crapped all over your reputation. Not surprising though given that you have decided to become a scum List MP at the next election.

You are also a hypocrite, given our conversation on Thursday evening and for that you now make the Whale Oil Beef Hooked target list of MPs that need close attention. You are, as they say in Texas, “Big Hat, no Cattle”. Yes, yes I know you like your bulls but in this case you are full of bull by suggesting that things the taxpayer pays for are “private”.

Actually I hink you should be added to the Dead Wood page, MPs that should be chopped as being of no use to man or beast.

Wendyl Nissen has created a niche for herself and given herself the self aggrandizing title of “The Green Goddess”.

Every day on NewstalkZB and presumably on other radion station you get to listen to her utterly trite advert touting for Toyota Prius vehicles and Giltrap City Toyota.

Wendyl Nissen radio advert

It makes me want to spew that people like her tout such utter rubbish. It has finally motivated me enough to get angry about the lies she spouts.

Here are some facts that should make her hair stand on end.

Each electric Prius motor requires 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) of neodymium, and each battery uses 10 to 15 kg (22-33 lb) of lanthanum. That number will nearly double under Toyota’s plans to boost the car’s fuel economy

So lets look at just those two components, and lets ignore that you have to mine the raw material first up to even get to process it. We will also ignore the syntheic tyres, the composite plastics and every other chemical in these cars and focus on just two small components. I will highlight the non green parts of her “very green Toyota Prius”.

Neodymium is never found in nature as the free element; rather, it occurs in ores such as monazite and bastnäsite that contain small amounts of all the rare earth metals. The main mining areas are China, United States, Brazil, India, Sri Lanka and Australia; and reserves of neodymium are estimated at about 8 million tonnes

Neodymium metal dust is a combustion and explosion hazard. Neodymium compounds, as with all rare earth metals, are of low to moderate toxicity; however its toxicity has not been thoroughly investigated. Neodymium dust and salts are very irritating to the eyes and mucous membranes, and moderately irritating to skin. Breathing the dust can cause lung embolisms, and accumulated exposure damages the liver. Neodymium also acts as an anticoagulant…

Gee, nice stuff….certainly not a benign chemical…could even qualify as a “nasty chemical”. The second item is Lanthanum.

Lanthanum is most commonly obtained from monazite and bastnäsite. The mineral mixtures are crushed and ground. Monazite, because of its magnetic properties, can be separated by repeated electromagnetic separation. After separation, it is treated with hot concentrated sulfuric acid to produce water-soluble sulfates of rare earths. The acidic filtrates are partially neutralized with sodium hydroxide to pH 3-4. Thorium precipitates out of solution as hydroxide and is removed. After that, the solution is treated with ammonium oxalate to convert rare earths to their insoluble oxalates. The oxalates are converted to oxides by annealing. The oxides are dissolved in nitric acid that excludes one of the main components, cerium, whose oxide is insoluble in HNO3. Lanthanum is separated as a double salt with ammonium nitrate by crystallization. This salt is relatively less soluble than other rare earth double salts and therefore stays in the residue.

Gee…more “nasty chemicals”, used to manufacture a key component of the Toyota Prius. Her “very green” car is looking decidedly sick.

One by-product of the manufacturing process is Thorium,  a naturally occurring, slightly radioactivemetal. horium, as well as uranium and plutonium, can be used as fuel in a nuclear reactor. Cool, her “very green car” now produces a by-product for the nuclear industry.

A secondary by-product is also Cerium which:

like all rare-earth metals, is of low to moderate toxicity. Cerium is a strong reducing agent and ignites spontaneously in air at 65 to 80 °C. Fumes from cerium fires are toxic. Water should not be used to stop cerium fires, as cerium reacts with water to produce hydrogen gas. Workers exposed to cerium have experienced itching, sensitivity to heat, and skin lesions. Animals injected with large doses of cerium have died due to cardiovascular collapse. Cerium(IV) oxide is a powerful oxidizing agent at high temperatures and will react with combustible organic materials. While cerium is not radioactive, the impure commercial grade may contain traces of thorium, which is radioactive.

All of this makes Wendyl Nissen a class A hypocrite, or an idiot.

For me, I don’t care what goes into a care or what is dug out of the ground and subjected to extremely toxic chemical processes to make one thing or another. But then again, I am not preaching about how green I am or how I hate “toxic chemicals” all the time touting for a car made from extremely toxic substances.

The best part though is this;

The chemical compound ammonium nitrate, the nitrate of ammonia with the chemical formula NH₄NO₃, is a white crystalline solid at room temperature and standard pressure. It is commonly used in agriculture as a high-nitrogen fertilizer, and it has also been used as an oxidizing agent in explosives, including improvised explosive devices. It is the main component of ANFO, a very popular explosive.

The Green Goddess, who likes “everything, and I mean everything” natural and organic is using a car that uses substantial quantities of a fertilser that she herself , being an organic gardener, would never put on her garden and is also a key component in a very popular commercial explosive, not to mention the explosive used to bring down the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma, killing 168 peopl including 19 children. Green Goddess?…more like supporter of terrorist weapons of mass desrtuction.

I guess hypocrisy for Greens doesn’t matter, still its better than catching your husband gobbling cock I suppose.

The MSM continues to flout name suppression.

A real estate agent advertised a property as being much larger than it was, eliciting a complaint to a state authority.

Instead of 3.7 acres she advertised 4.9 acres, the Real Estate Agents Authority found, censuring her and saying she engaged in unsatisfactory conduct, “albeit at a low level”.

The authority suppressed her name, the name of her agency and her geographic location.

I wonder if the accompanying photo is a breach, if not, and I was Eastons, I would be mad as hell.

Just helping spread the message from the wee fragile one.

Reserve Bank decision confirms economy salled

David Cunliffe |  hursday, Ocober 28, 2010 – 09:59

he Reserve Bank’s decision oday o leave he Official Cash Rae (OCR) unchanged a 3 percen is furher confirmaion he New Zealand economy has salled, says Labour Finance spokesperson David Cunliffe.

“While srong economic growh is coninuing in Ausralia, China and emerging pars of Asia, in New Zealand he economy remains mued, many firms have become more pessimisic abou he fuure, and he Governmen has revised downwards is revenue forecass,” David Cunliffe said.

“he economy is salling because of a failure by he Naional Governmen o lead New Zealand ou of recession, despie Ausralia and China coninuing o grow and near-record dairy prices. Naional has failed o deliver he recovery and growh i promised New Zealand.

“Business urnover is down. Businesses are no hiring. Businesses are no invesing. Any hope for sraegic developmen of key secors in regions is disappearing

“Because here is no plan for growh, New Zealand’s economic woes have deepened,” David Cunliffe said. “Lack of confidence is feeding on iself.

“All around New Zealand regions are going backward and unemploymen is subbornly high — 160,000 Kiwis are paying he price. John Key and Bill English are fiddling while he ‘recovery’ burns.”

Peter Dunne must be feeling a bit left out of all the Hobbit fuss. When I heard Dunne’s halfwitted comments about take a kid fishing in Zealandia I  couldn’t believe how out of touch he was.

He fails to understand that wild trout, which the ones in Zealandia are, are incredibly hard to catch. They are not fish in a trout pond that are fed pellets and have to compete with hundreds of other fish. There is no way a few weekends of fishing clubs and kids would eliminate the population of trout as wild trout are really tough to catch, especially if there are hordes of people spooking the crap out of them while trying to catch them.

Trout are an introduced species that have eliminated a number of native species, and have gone close to eliminating other species. It is entirely appropriate for Trout to be cleaned out of a mainland island like Zealandia, and recreational fishing won’t do this. So even if they do have fishermen try to eradicate the trout they will have to poison anyway, as it would only take one pair of fish to spawn and the trout would be back out competing the native species.

The whole point of a mainland island is to celebrate native species.

Peter Dunne is obviously not a fisherman or he would realise how stupid his take a kid fishing concept is. Either that or he was feeling irrelevant and needed a bit of PR.

Oh that National would put up a decent candidate and take the little hobbit of Ohariu out.

Once again I’m joining the growing club of modern gentlemen who believe in the virtues of fine moustachery, immaculate grooming and growing a moustache for Movember. I am looking for like-minded ladies and gentlemen to join my team to change the face of men’s health.

Movember is about raising funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and depression in men. Close to 3,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer in New Zealand each year and 1  in 10 men will experience depression in their lifetime. Many of these men do not seek help.

I think it’s time we did something about this.

The more people I can get on board, the more lives we can impact. I am asking you to join my team and either grow a moustache as a Mo Bro, or join as a Mo Sista to help recruit other gentlemen.

To join my Movember team go to http://nz.movember.com/register/105390 and follow the steps. Once registered you’ll be sent all the information you need to raise funds and start growing as part of my Movember team.

If you’re interested in learning more about the work that is being carried out as a result of Movember funds, feel free to read the details at http://nz.movemberfoundation.com/research-and-programs.

I hope you join me to change the face of men’s health.

“Pedro” Gower is right on the money. The additional bill for keeping The Hobbit in new Zealand should be sent to the CTU.

The union movement has cost the taxpayer $34 million. It’s that simple. That’s what the Government had to pay out to keep the Hobbit.

The unions have also given the Government room to ram through a law change that will seriously weaken their position – whoops!

The unions were so far off the mark they even caused what were essentially anti-union marches, on Labour Day of all days.

And the unions have written a script that says: “John Key saves the day for New Zealand from the nasty unions”. That seriously undermines their credibility – what a shocker. It also strengthens the hand of Key – who the unions have been targeting.

This all adds up to give a new meaning to the word “perverse outcome”.

The unions, mainly an obscure small union from Australia and the CTU have cost taxpayers $34 million. The bill should be sent to them to pay.

The fact that Labour, long silent on the issues surrounding The Hobbit are all aghast at the outcome should be a pointer to where their sympathies lay, sympathies they have desperately tried to keep quiet.

But the facts remain, as Pedro blogs;

There’s been a lot of talk about this Hobbit business.

It’s best to stick to the facts.

There was no problem with The Hobbit until the unions kicked off.

The facts are, that on August 17 the international actor’s union threatened to boycott the Hobbit on behalf of the New Zealand actors.

That’s huge.

And this makes the claims of the New Zealand actors that “we just wanted to get in the room” with Peter Jackson look totally disingenuous and misleading.

The letter shows they wanted far more than that – collective bargaining that would change the industry permanently – and that’s not Jackson’s role.

Once industrial relations get to the point of a threatened boycott, you can’t just sit down and have a chat. Every word, every action matters.

In Jackson’s words, the unions had a gun to his head.

And in a scene more reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino than Peter Jackson, Warner Bros turned up with an even bigger gun and put it to New Zealand’s head.

Warners said, take your gun away – and give us all your money.

So Warners got the employment change, and some – but not all – the money.

They came down-under for two days work and walked away with up to $34 million.

The Government will offset the marketing costs with $13.4 million. It will also give extra tax breaks of $10 million to each of the movies – another $20 million.

This comes on top of the $60 million the Government was already pumping in – so almost $100 million.

Small beer to keep the $670 million project in New Zealand of course, especially considering the strengthening New Zealand dollar against the Greenback cut profit margins of the film big-time.

The left wing paid lap-bloggers have tee’d off and so have Labour MPs. But the simple fact is that there was no grand conspiracy, except from the union movement to ham-string and blackmail a production.

But the conspiracy theory advanced by unions that Jackson and Warners set this all up to get some cash out of the government is just ridiculous.

There is just no way to engineer something like this.

And don’t forget the Greenback is strengthening all around the world. Warners would have currency hedging systems too.

But because of the union’s actions, they were able to get in the door of Premier House and get negotiating and get some of the losses back.

To use the actor’s phrase (correctly this time), they let Warner Bros “get in the room”. And once in the room, Warners did the business.

John Key, Gerry Brownlee and company have done a good job negotiating against Warners who sources have told me were ruthless in there.

Key and Brownlee would be as unhappy about having to pander to Warner Bros as the next Kiwi.

They just did what was needed to keep the movies here.

They’ve tacked on some good spin-offs for New Zealand on the tourism front.

And I don’t think any of them lost any sleep about getting to change employment law to benefit the boss. It would have been tempting to take that outside the film industry, but they’ve managed to resist that.

Yes and I don’t think they should resist it. As pay back for the unions costing the taxpayers $34 million the concessions to Warners in employment law should be rolled out across the country. Phil Goff, invisible and silent on the whole issue now buys into the conspiracy theory. He has to of course after selling his own soul to the unions.

Hardly anyone’s backing the unions here. Labour leader Phil Goff backed the conspiracy theory yesterday, saying they’d walked into a trap. He probably had no choice: the unions are Labour’s main income stream. Labour hasn’t laid a hit on National through this whole saga.

The Actor’s union boss Simon Whipp has now headed back to Australia.

He showed his true colours in my story on Tuesday night, when he told my colleague Amanda Gillies he didn’t care if the film was made in New Zealand.

Council of Trade Unions boss Helen Kelly got it wrong too. In my opinion, a good modern union leader could have seen where this was headed when she got involved, and thought about the wider work-force and New Zealand industry.

A good modern leader could have settled this down. But she poured petrol on the fire. The unions attacked Sir Peter Jackson – that was never going to work.

The unions have been wanting to rip into John Key. They’ve openly said that. They opened up at him at the National Party conference over the 90-day fire-at-will law.

But, as I noted at the time there were no workers there – just activists.

The 90-day bill issue hasn’t taken off much from there since – unions admit that.

It seems that Labour and the unions are still runningthe meme that John Key is inherently evil and that the electorate was simply mistaken ousting them from power. It is a meme that will lose them the next election and until they can rid themselves of their penchant for trying to dig up more conspiracies opr H-Fees or whatever scandal du jour their warped minds can conjure up they are destined to remain in opposition.

Meanwhile John Key continues to be our most popular PM ever, yes even more popular than the she-beast currently residing in New York. I’ve said before that John Key could walk into the street and shoot an old lady in the head in front of every network’s TV cameras and people would still say “Look at that nice Mr Key”. He could now walk in the street and put down cats with his bare hands while shooting the old lady and there would be no dent in his popularity.

Watch the next polls, the results wil be telling.

Last night the Clown of Campbells Bay had his last urgent council meeting, turning up wearing his gown and chains…and the the reason for the urgent meeting just days before North Shore City ceases to exist…a one hour Powerpoint presentation about Andrew Williams, complete with a Len Brown like break down and a river of tears to end it all.

Andrew Williams, the Clown of Campbells Bay crying a river of tears

Today Auckland supermayor-elect Len Brown unveils his new look council – last night outgoing North Shore mayor Andrew Williams broke down in tears as he bowed out.

Following a string of colourful headlines Williams was unsuccessful in being elected to the new Auckland super-city council, either as mayor or as a councillor, during the recent local body elections.

He secured less than 1 per cent of the mayoral vote.

Last night Williams, elected mayor in 2007, called a final North Shore City Council meeting.

Williams entered the council chamber adorned in his mayoral gown and chains. He gave a one hour slideshow presentation showing photographs of himself amongst a range of council-funded initiatives, including parks and roads.

To explain “why I actually became mayor” Williams began his presentation by showing a photograph taken in 1991 of him kneeling next to a “dangerous” childrens’ swing in Campbells Bay which he called on the then-council to remedy.

At the conclusion of Williams’ address he broke down in tears when trying to thank mayoress Jane Williams.

“Just in final closing I would like to thank Jane,” he began.

“I just ah, I just, I just would like to say that I couldn’t have done it without you,” Williams told his wife who was sitting with the couple’s children in the public gallery.

“What people often don’t realise is that a mayor does very much rely on his mayoress. She is my mentor, she talks things through with me, she gives me advice, what I shouldn’t be doing and I am often reprimanded by her for various things.

“It is a huge commitment and Jane has made a huge commitment in the last three years. So many events, so many functions. She has always been there.”

I note that he didn’t thank the owners of GPK and other Takapuna bars who enjoyed his extensive patronage, he didn’t thank his CEO and City Secretarty fro running interference in the face of extensive LGOIMA requests, he didn’t thanks Les Patterson the head of North Shore Police for running investigations against his political enemies, he dodn’t thank the council staff that would have had to clean up the smelly leavings of his night time wanderings, and lastly he didn’t thank me for helping him find a new job.

The meeting was really so Andrew Williams could be patted ont he back by all the A-Team, a team I might add that pretty much got smashed to pieces in the local body elections, none more so than the Clown himself. The fact that the previous Mayor George Wood was elected to the new council and Andrew Williams was elected to nothinq says it all.

Now why doesn’t he just fuck off to Taupo like he promised. But keep watching here because the word is that Andrew Williams is going to be back, this time in national politics after having a secured a deal along with three other ex-mayors to stand for NZ First. You heard it here first. If he stands I’ll smash him up there as well and will delight in doing it.