Nanny State

PM opens election year with plan to cut house costs – Helen Clark will start Parliament's election-year debates today with a proposal to use Crown land to reduce the cost of housing by increasing the supply of homes.
She will also unveil measures to give non-Government organisations… [NZ Politics]

Oh fantastic, Labours grand election strategy is to tank house values by opening up crown land to increase the supply of housing.

I bet the neighbours of this newly opened up Crown land will be just joyful with anticipation of the massive drop in the values of their houses with massive "Crown" housing estates opening up next door.

So let's recap Labour's election strategy so far

• Gag the opposition with restrictive free speech laws
• Put in a tunnel and at the same time bowl 150 state houses in your electorate
• Implement toll roading to pay for the tunnel
• Tank house prices by massively increasing supply by freeing up Crown land
• Increase mortgage rates to keep a lid on ramantmpant inflation caused by profligate public spending
• Give the peon's tax cuts that will increase inflation that will increse mortgage rates on the rapidly decreasing valued houses

Yep, looks like a winning strategy…..for National.

Cullen tells emailer to join NZers in Aussie – Finance Minister Michael Cullen told a man who was worried about how many people were moving to Australia to "please join them".
The abrupt remark surprised Bay of Plenty businessman and National Party member John Middleton, who… [NZ Politics]

Oh dear, looks like there is another email disaster from a minister and this time it is none other than Michael Cullen gifting a PR disaster to National.

Honestly the arrogance of this guy knows no bounds. If Carter's email disaster to a young kid was bad this is worse because of its brevity and because of its arrogance.

There are rumours circulating that Cullen has lost his marbles, maybe this is the first outwards sign of it.

Time for Change.

Venezuela cuts zeroes from currency in hope of stalling inflation | Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee

Perhaps Cullen could try this little stunt to arrest inflation.
[quote]Venezuela launched a new currency with the new year, lopping off three zeros from denominations in a bid to simplify finances and boost confidence in a money that has been losing value due to high inflation.

President Hugo Chavez’s government says the new currency — dubbed the “strong bolivar” — will make daily transactions easier and cure some accounting headaches. Officials also say it is part of a broader effort to contain rising prices and strengthen the economy.

“We’re ending a historical cycle of … instability in prices,” Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas said Monday, adding that the change aims to “recover a bolivar that has significant buying capacity.”[/quote]

Hmmm…I wonder if Chavez has thought it might be him that is the problem. nope unlikely, strangely he seems to have the same problem as Cullen, he has pumped increased amounts into social programs, reinforcing his support among the poor and helping to drive economic growth.

Funny how increased social spending creates inflation in Venezuela but not in little ole NZ.

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Minister in firing line over pylons – Energy Minister David Parker is facing questions after claims he interfered in an independent regulatory body decision, after he said he did not, and is now likely to have to repeat his denials in court.
The issue has arisen in… [NZ Politics]

The Herald catches up with DPF and talks about the evidence before the High Court of Roy Hemmingway.

We may yet see at least one but possibly two ministerial scalps for lying.

[quote]The basis for that claim centres on meetings between Energy Minister David Parker and Electricity Commissioner Roy Hemingway, and separately, Finance Minister Michael Cullen and Hemingway. Both ministers are likely to be summonsed to testify in court over their actions.

A sworn affidavit by Hemingway, filed in court with the action, claims Parker gave "his view of how the [Electricity Commission] was to do its job", that the commission should stop mediating relationships in the Waikato and should "defer to Transpower on all technical matters".

Parker has denied intervening in the process, saying he told both parties the country needed an answer to Transpower's proposal. But the claim states that Parker or any other Government minister had no legal power to "direct or intervene" in the decision-making process that the Electricity Commission was carrying out.

The legal action targeting Parker also claims that Cullen met with Hemingway to tell him the Government "would not tolerate a stalemate" over the Waikato transmission line and if a decision was not made quickly, he would intervene.

Hemingway also stated that Cullen had said he would deny the meeting ever took place.

Cullen has said in Parliament that in "the interests of the country and the interests of Auckland… they had to find a solution and stop playing games with each other". Cullen also rejected in Parliament suggestions he would deny the meeting took place.[/quote]

So it seems that not one but two ministers have been interfereing in the process specifically against the legal proviions that they do NOT interfere. Looks like Labour Ministers just can't stop theire interfering.

What is it with Ministers that surnames start with "C" that they can't stop meddling? Carter and now Cunliffe and Cullen.

Fran O’Sullivan: Government’s incoherent approach to terrorism – 10 Nov 2007 – Political News – New Zealand Herald

“Right Wing Blogger” Fran O’Sullivan gets into the government over where the blame lies for the failure to the Terror Laws being applied to the foolls from the Urewera.
[quote]It is, to put it impolitely, a “bugger’s muddle”. Here we have the Solicitor-General in all seriousness asking us to believe that the failure to press terrorism charges is because the relevant act is “unnecessarily complex, incoherent, and as a result almost impossible to apply to the domestic circumstances observed by the police in this case.”[/quote]

So who is responsible for the “bugger muddle”. Well that would have to be Labour leadership hopeful Phil Goff along with Dear Leader. Fran O’Sullivan has some choice words for Dear Leader as well on her penchant for interfering in court cases.
[quote]But there’s another consideration. What Collins didn’t mention is the fact that the Prime Minister had also arguably contaminated the justice process by stating publicly that the arrested activists at the very least have illicitly used firearms, constructed Molotov cocktails and trained themselves how to use napalm.

She trod a very thin line indeed by making such allegations at a time when the Urewera 12 (already facing Arms Act charges) were still waiting to hear whether they would have to defend themselves against terrorism charges in a subsequent show trial.

Clark does not face a contempt of court charge for her insinuations and subsequent refusal to back away from such comments. But if Collins had cleared the way for terrorism charges it would not have been long before lawyers acted for the arrested argued the Prime Minister had already prejudiced a fair trial.

The Prime Minister’s malevolence towards the arrested may have been heightened by a belief that she was to be a target for a terrorism plot. This scenario which also nominated US President George W. Bush and National’s John Key as targets was leaked the same day 300 police made their anti-terrorist swoop and published widely.

But we still don’t, or may never, know whether a credible threat existed, or, whether it was purely hype.[/quote]

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Senior doctors fire parting shot at Hodgson – Senior doctors have fired a parting shot at outgoing health minister Peter Hodgson, accusing him of "mind-boggling" behaviour in reaction to sector concerns.
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) President Jeff Brown… [NZ Politics]

Senior Doctor flip the proverbial bird at Hodgson.

[quote]Mr Brown said problems in the sector had followed the pattern set by Mr Hodgson's leadership.

"His behaviour and inertia in response to advice and alarm from many groups of doctors is mind-boggling," Mr Brown said.

Colleges of medicine, the Medical Association and others had all made representations on issues.

"Only to hear him claim the opposite in the House, or consign them to the scrapheap of no response augmented by inaction. Is the disconnect deliberate, or dithering, or disdain?"[/quote]

Wow, you can't get much more critical than that except to use expletives. 

Goodbye Judith – I don’t need you, says Banks – 01 Nov 2007 – Political News – New Zealand Herald

Banksie has stuck it to Judith Tizard after she caused the dis-establishment of the Auckland Issues Minister through her distinct lack of interest in anything resembling work.

Clearly Judith has either solved all the issues or she was so completely inept that Labour has decided quietly to abandon Auckland after the complete thrashing that was dished out in the Local Body Elections. In fact you could almost say the dis-establishment of the position is step one in the revenge of labour against the city that refused to buckle under socialist dogma. If Judith’s threats are to be believed step two will be to give the World Cup final to Christchurch.

I think the Prime Minister used the wrong word when she described Judith as “tireless”, perhaps she meant tiresome?

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Parker attacks '2021 smear campaign' – Christchurch News – The Press

We warned you Tony, didn't we. But did you listen? Oh no and now it has has landed you right in the poop so to speak.

Gee, and to think it was me that preserved his appalling comments he tried so desperately to hide.

Bob Parker linked to that posting in his outing of Slippery Tony's falsehoods.

Try and lie and spin all you want Tony, you were caught well and truly with your britches down. Simply deleting the post on the orders of Fat Megan doesn't get you off the hook.

Oh and BTW Bob! Offensive to you though this blog maybe it has thousands of loyal readers for the exact reasons you so despise. This is a political blog that calls things how they are not "holding hands and singing with the teletubbies". Harden up and get a grip, pal!

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Opponents hail shelving of Therapeutics Bill – 16 Jul 2007 – Political News – New Zealand Herald

The government has been forced into an embarrassing backdown, having to shelve the Therapeutics Bill due to a lack of support.

The failure to get the numbers for its Therapeutics Products and Medicines Bill shows that the Labour Government is increasingly a lame duck government. Not even Rodney’s great leapfrog project could save them.

This is from memory the third bill that has been quietly shelved by Labour. One wonders how they manage to cobble the numbers together to pass supply bills.

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Sneaky Tony Milne has deleted the sentence in his post regarding "the persistent rumours about Bob Parker".

http://tonymilne.blogs.com/i_see_red/2007/07/mayoral-race-me.html

Unfortunately for Tony there is such a thing called the Google cache and it, conveniently for me and perhaps not so conveniently for Tony, exposes his little act of subterfuge. Click on the photo for a larger picture of Tony's little gaffe, underlined in red.

I see he's also added a comment that wasn't on the original post with a link to Megan Wood's burglary of her home. Fortunately for him the cache didn't have the original post. However the burglars will no doubt have used a pair of her enormous britches as a convenient swag bag. Apart from having to evict the small African village from their accomodation they could fit a DVD player, laptop, ipod and cradle, jewelry box and jellybean jar in there along with three spare tyres and a bumper pack of KFC.