I have been following the credit card “scandal” with great interest but little shock. My only comment is that I am surprised anyone is surprised by this. What we are witnessing is the natural behaviour of a human being granted access to somebody else’s money. Although some limits might be placed on the expenditure by [...]

The Media and the Left-wing blogs are getting all excited about John Key contracticting himself on GST. In 2008, he announced National would not be raising GST. He added: “If we do a half decent job as a Government growing our economy, I’m confident that’s not going to be happening and that’s not on our [...]

It is all so unpredictably zany… Today in the News Millions wasting their time trying to get fit, says study Apparently exercise is a complete waste of time for about 20% of the population. Of course, that means for 80% of New Zealanders it is every bit as good for you as doctors have been [...]

I have to say I am amused by the frenzied reaction to the story of the Chinese drug dealer who was drawing a sickness benefit and living in a state house. Does anyone actually think this is an abnormal situation? Judging by the reactions over on Kiwiblog, I would say the answer to that is [...]

There is a lot of buzz in the newspapers and the blogosphere about the minimum wage and the rather absurd proposal that it be elevated from $12.50 to $15.00 – a 20% increase. Essentially the minimum wage is a pay rise forced upon employers by government, rather than negotiated between employees and employers. As such, [...]

I saw this headline on Stuff and thought “about time”. Parents win disabled children care payment case Sadly, it turns out only that parents with adult disabled children have won the support of the Human Rights Tribunal, not the government itself. Currently only caregivers who are not related to the disabled adult receive payment from [...]

Two stories caught my eye today, both of them involving beneficiaries. The first is the story of a woman who has been battling with WINZ because she has investment properties that WINZ says count against her receiving an accommodation allowance. I note that she seems to have a fairly extensive rental property portfolio and seems [...]

Paula Bennett has turned her attention to invalid beneficiaries. In a carefully worded statement, she says: “This Government will support those that cannot work. “I just want to be clear that this is not a blanket 85,000 people having to walk through the doors of Work and Income in the first month or something,” Ms [...]

Under the urging of ACT, National is looking at reopening the workplace account of ACC to competition. This is unlikely to be a bad thing, despite the dark mutterings of Labour. It was Labour, you will recall, that reversed the previous opening of the workplace account due to an ideologically-based promise from their campaign. At [...]

Gordon Campbell waxes lyrical on the plan to cut ACC benefits to seasonal workers, dwelling on the evils of ideology (National’s, of course. Socialist ideology is not evil in Campbell’s book). My little amphibious friend at FrogBlog uses Campbell’s diatribe as the basis of one of his “Gutting ACC” posts. The only problem is that [...]