I confess I do not really understand the debate on national standards for education. This is a sad admission for an opinionated bloke like myself, but I really just don’t understand the teacher’s unions objections to them. I have tried to follow the debate but the union’s response makes no sense at all to me.
It seems [...]

No one has said that living on the minimum wage was fun or comfortable. The 25c per hour increase that the National Government has approved will not change that. It barely keeps pace with inflation. But that is not the point of the minimum wage. It is the minimum. It is not meant to be [...]

Moves are afoot in National’s “War on Drugs” to restrict the sale of codeine in all its forms, including the combinations with paracetamol (Panadeine, Codalgin et al.). The Herald reports:
Public access to a widely-used class of painkillers containing codeine is likely to be restricted within months because of what is said to be an increase [...]

Apparently that nice Mr. Key is less than enthusiastic about the economic recommendations for his former rival Don Brash.
Gasp! Shock. Horror.
Not.
Without even looking at Brash’s recommendations I could have told you that they will be rejected out of hand by Key. The entire taskforce was never designed to produce any viable suggestion. Regardless of the [...]

Brian Fallow writes a succinct summary of the past year in economic terms. Phil Twyford at Red Alert selectively quotes from Fallow’s article to make the point that National is apparently doing nothing much to help us out of the crisis. I don’t think that is the real import of Fallow’s article. Fallow’s point is [...]

I have noticed this past week that Labour, most of the media and, of course, the left wing blogs seem to be spending their time harping on about the unemployment rate. Invariably they use hard numbers like 1000/week and 45,000 on unemployment benefit, rather than percentages which are peculiarly unimpressive. John Armstrong points out that [...]

Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman is crowing about the latest immigration figures which show a substantial decrease in Kiwis leaving the country. There are 34% less New Zealanders leaving for Australia and 26% less leaving for the UK.
“Under the Labour government, with its high taxes and disincentives to getting ahead, thousands of our brightest and most [...]

I don’t agree fully with Bill Ralston’s take on the petty distractions played upon by the opposition. Ralston starts with:
When the Government came to power, the prevailing wisdom was Labour would, as usual after a defeat, implode into warring factions and its leadership would be in disarray. With the opposition MPs busy scrapping among themselves, [...]

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who finds Phil Goff’s shrieking about tax cuts being “gone forever” to be pretty nauseating hypocrisy. How can anyone forget nine years of Cullen syphoning off the Nation’s wealth without a single tax cut until he was forced into it as a gigantic election bribe last year? Who has [...]

Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article. (MacDoctor definition)
And the ever-sleazy Herald on Sunday obliges yet again. This time with a piece of prostitution spam.
Outrage over brothel at National MP’s house
A brothel that horrified neighbours in a leafy Mt Eden street was operating from a house [...]