Mrs MacDoctor and I have just had a relaxing week in Vanuatu, celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary. Internet access was painfully slow, so there has been no blogging for more than a week and not much news about New Zealand. I see that I have not missed much, just another unexciting budget from Bill English. [...]
The word charity was derived from the Latin word caritas (precious, costly), an attempt to translate the Greek word agape in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 13:13), a word that is hard to translate, but the phrase “extravagant selfless love” gets the flavour of it. It is a far cry from the simple alms-giving that [...]
No, not gay marriage (though that might). What will end in tears is Labour/the Greens NZ Power policy. I have already blogged how the policy itself is economic incompetence. And, despite Brian Rudman and Bryce Edwards waxing lyrical about the policy being similar to the Pharmac model, I have demonstrated that this is also a [...]
Labour and the Green’s odd electricity price control policy has clearly been designed with only one real purpose in mind – to disrupt the sale of Mighty River Power and reduce the amount realised on the sale, to the detriment of National. This type of “scorched earth” thinking from the left is hardly unusual; Cullen’s [...]
The media feeding frenzy that is whirling around regarding Mojo Mathers and her request for an electronic note-taker has to be the most meaningless of this weeks media beat ups. Here is the reality: Ms. Mathers will need the note-taker in order to function in parliament. It is the cheapest option I (the taxpayer) will [...]
I see that Ms Mojo Mathers has made it into parliament on the Green list. She is profoundly deaf since birth. I have nothing but admiration for people with a significant disability who get on with life and achieve some measure of success. I have also nothing but contempt for those who seem to think [...]
The MacDoctor has seen a plethora of reasons why people think Labour did so poorly in the elections. Arrogance, poor targeting of messages, same lineup as before, nasty to John Key, The thrill of Phil Goff etc. The MacDoctor think that most of this is baloney. Sure, Labour comes across as arrogant, distant and privileged. [...]
It seems that all the parties have produced mini budgets over the past couple of weeks, presumably to steal the thunder from National’s budget. Slim pickings there, then. As a service for those with little time for politics, the MacDoctor provides a brief summary of the various “budgets”: National: The “Nero” Budget Fiddle a bit [...]
Metiria Turei and David Cunliffe have both outdone themselves by complaining that the Prime Minister (you know, the leader of our country) commandeered a helicopter to get him to an appointment (as opposed to a rugby match or something). Apart from finding the churlish, petty comments quite nauseating, the first thought that ran through the [...]
This from the Herald website: It is clear from the headline that the editorial slant is towards a levy, rather than increased borrowing. Unfortunately for the Herald, their own online poll has exactly the opposite result. In all fairness, this is an online poll and will not be terribly reliable. In addition, there will likely [...]
