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Trevor probably thinks it's a waste of time to hold an enquiry into a "leak" that occurred two days before the information was going to be made public.

And he'd be right. I can't believe that this "story" continues to be reported, when there is far more important, genuine news, occurring in nationally and internationally..

The National MP responsible just needs to front up, resign and then we can all get on with it.

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38 minutes ago, Uriah Heap said:

Trevor probably thinks it's a waste of time to hold an enquiry into a "leak" that occurred two days before the information was going to be made public.

And he'd be right. I can't believe that this "story" continues to be reported, when there is far more important, genuine news, occurring in nationally and internationally..

The National MP responsible just needs to front up, resign and then we can all get on with it.

A leak is a leak and its gotta be plugged.

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21 hours ago, Uriah Heap said:

Is there someone in the National Party caucus with a serious mental health problem?:rcf-rich-1:

Probably. The Police know who it is, as does that supercilious Tova O'Brien but neither will tell Bridges. The whole health thing seems like a smokescreen anyway, they clearly knew what they were doing when they leaked the information, so it's a bit rich to then turn around and claim health issues ( "I'm really a nutter and don't know what I'm doing.") just to avoid being outed and possible further action.

If they are part of the Caucus, then Bridges does have problems. :rolleyes:

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2 minutes ago, Ohokaman said:

Probably. The Police know who it is, as does that supercilious Tova O'Brien but neither will tell Bridges. The whole health thing seems like a smokescreen anyway, they clearly knew what they were doing when they leaked the information, so it's a bit rich to then turn around and claim health issues ( "I'm really a nutter and don't know what I'm doing.") just to avoid being outed and possible further action.

If they are part of the Caucus, then Bridges does have problems. :rolleyes:

.... and we the tax payers , are paying these clowns . Where`s the accountability!

 

Bring back Hone ... At least you get your monies worth!

 

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Here we go again another committee ,  oops sorry Council , The Business Advisory Council has been formed to tell Jacinda how to run businesses , the problem with this lot is they are all reps from big business , you know the types comrade Cindy  and her followers secretly hate . If you need proof that this lot know nothing about running an economy this is it , it's a confession .

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Jacinda tries to reassure the business sector

by Christie 
 

Jacinda-2.jpg?w=620&ssl=1

Jacinda decided on her first day back from maternity leave that she was going to tackle the ‘elephant in the room’ of a significant drop in business confidence. As far as she was concerned, there was no problem. It is just that business hates Labour governments, and they just have to get over it.

Business owners simply take it in their stride of course, when a whole industry is cut down, or when significant labour reforms (that will take us back to the 1970s) are signalled, but this is just business hating Labour governments. Nothing to see here.

Yesterday was the day for her to have her significant ‘conversation’ with business leaders.

I thought it was most appropriate that they presented her with a toy.

But, as Stuff reports, she is handling the crisis in true Jacinda fashion.

 

She is setting up an advisory group. Another one. quote:

The head of a new business advisory council says the exercise will not be a “talkfest”.

A new Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council is to be formed as Jacinda Ardern battles to get business on side.

The council, chaired by Air New Zealand chief executive Christopher Luxon, aims to build closer relationships between government and business. end quote.

I am uncomfortable with Christopher Luxon being involved in this. As the head of one of our largest listed companies, and our airline, I do not believe he should be showing political bias. quote:

Ardern said it would provide her “high-level free and frank advice” on key economic issues and harness expertise from the private sector to develop the Government’s economic policies. end quote.

Advice that she is not going to listen to unless it fits with her agenda. quote:

Luxon said it would not simply be a talkfest. “CEOs don’t join talking shops.” end quote.

But politicians do nothing else, so I’m not sure how you are going to change that. quote:

He said many international prime ministers and presidents had a similar council. “It’s a really good idea and an exciting move and it does give us a conduit between government and business.”

The council would choose five big topics to inform its agenda, he said.

“The council will provide a forum for business leaders to advise me and the Government and to join us in taking the lead on some of the important areas of reform the Government is undertaking,” Ardern said. end quote.

Exciting… quote.

Ardern said it appeared that business confidence was not so much impacted by economic indicators but the need for certainty.

“I understand the desire for certainty in order to make decisions big and small, ranging from the risk of taking on an extra hire through to multi-million dollar investment decisions.” end quote.

I doubt if she really does understand it, but at least she acknowledges that uncertainty is a killer of business confidence. That is a move in the right direction. quote:

Luxon said he was looking forward to the challenge.

“I’m excited to chair this important initiative because I think building a better, more sustainable New Zealand is a cause well worth putting all our collective efforts and energy behind – business leaders working together with government.

“I believe all New Zealanders, regardless of our backgrounds, are united in wanting to see a more prosperous economy, a more cohesive society, and an enhanced environment. At the end of the day we will all get the country we deserve.” end quote.

There is just a teensy little problem with all this ‘excitement’. There are 150 or so working groups currently in operation, that must be coming up with a whole raft of new policies, some of which will affect the business sector. No one knows what they are going to propose. This is just yet another working group. How can there be an improved certainty when so much is up in the air?

If you are starting to feel even slightly optimistic that the government has listened to the leaders of business, there is another aspect to this that you may want to consider.

Andrew Kirton stepped down as the General Secretary of the Labour Party earlier this month to take up a position with Air New Zealand as Head of Government and Industry Affairs. At the time, it was seen as him being removed from Labour after the disastrous Young Labour sexual assault scandal.

Now he is a lobbyist for Air New Zealand, whose CEO, Christopher Luxon, has just been appointed to lead the new Business Advisory Group.

Jobs for the boys?

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Leighton Smith on Cindy’s business council

by CS
 

Saint-Jacinda.png?resize=630%2C352&ssl=1

Leighton Smith is unimpressed with Jacinda Ardern’s virtue-signalling and her business council talkfest: Quote: 

Jacinda Ardern announced yesterday, that she is setting up a Business Advisory Council to ensure the Government knows what businesses want.

Basically, she has given us another conversation. That’s it, we must have another conversation about that. And so she says, this is who is going to head it, and it’s going to be wonderful.

It won’t resolve anything, over any period of time.   

There will be a bunch of social justice warrior CEOs all lining up to do their bit for the country, except if they spent more time on their businesses instead of worrying about the country’s cultural direction things may be better off in the first place.

Seriously, it really gets under my skin that we have so many of them, 62 people signed up to this climate thing, what a bunch of tossers, every one of them.

Why? Answer the question yourself, what is their job? Your a banker, whats your job?

Is it to save the planet from so-called climate change? Half of them must know that nothing they do will have nothing to do with it.

Nothing they do will contribute to anything. They are there to be seen and be part of the group. It is basically a think group. End quote.

Worse, it is group think group. There is a video going around on social media in Australia that is as relevant to our politicians as it is for theirs.

 

 

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Fact checking Jacinda Ardern on business confidence

by CS
 

In her supposedly “big” speech on business confidence the other day our prime minster said this:

“When you line up business confidence with key economic performance measures over the last two governments there appears to be an inverse relationship between business confidence and the actual performance of the economy,”

Maybe I’m reading these charts from the ANZ Business Confidence Survey in July incorrectly? 

Screen-Shot-2018-08-30-at-9.54.40-AM.png

 

When you look at GDP versus confidence – as you can see there is a very strong correlation and also very strong confidence and GDP under the National party.

Screen-Shot-2018-08-30-at-9.54.53-AM.png

Those are key economic indicators and there is not an inverse relationship. There is a direct realtionship.

This is what happens when an idiot reads a speech written by another idiot who thinks that because you say something enough times fantasy will become reality.

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Mike Hosking: Labour's a shambles and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern haunted by weakness. 

Labour is in a mess.

This time last week Clare Curran was being dealt to for repeated offending.

The fallout from that has lasted most of the week, given the Prime Minister failed herself badly by not taking the sort of steps she should have - and that was sacking Curran properly.

High standards are the watchword of good leaders. And it was ironic that just before the second Labour Minister in a week to be stood down was announced, Helen Clark weighed in over the other major Labour cock-up.

That was the summer camp report and she said, in that way only Clark can, I would have done it differently. Which means properly. Heads would have rolled.

And say whatever you like about Clark, she was a tough, disciplined, and well respected leader who didn't take crap and it served her well.

Ardern's approach is different and already it is haunting her.

After Clark's observation, came the Meka Whaitiri bomb shell.
Although we don't know the fine detail, we do know there is violence involved, and her staff turnover is requiring a revolving door. She is clearly trouble.

And just for fun, to cap a fairly miserable week, the latest business confidence numbers are out. They're down again and the bank says the danger is real.

So all of that spade work Ardern put in on Tuesday resetting business ties has at least partially been undone, with not just more poor numbers but a stark warning.

So what do we have? We have a genuine indisputable mess, a mess from which once again advice will be offered to the Prime Minister.

She has to harden up and start actually being a proper leader.

The honeymoon is over. All that charm, smiles, and gushing that so transfixed the media into the opening months of "gooey could do no wrong" headlines are gone.

Charm takes you only so far, the rest is discipline, focus, and a backbone.

James Shaw and Winston Peters have every right to be asking questions. So far, despite all
the predictions, the coalition has held together well.

Policy differences have been smoothed over, calamity within the grouping has been avoided.

The weak link is Labour. They look ill-disciplined, sloppy, incoherent, and led by a woman who doesn't want to be tough.

What Curran did was sackable, full stop. If Whaitiri shoved staff, that's sackable.

It's a two-fold problem: One is the crime.

Two is the lack of decisive action to deal with the crime and as a result the ongoing fallout.

Labour can't run a summer camp, they can't control ministers, they've got a former leader barking advice and the economy is in trouble.

It's time to step up and get their act together.

 
 
 
 

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Brian Fallow: Why the long faces from business?

13 Apr, 2018 5:00am
 6 minutes to read
Downbeat businesspeople are surrounded by more optimistic consumers. Picture, 123RF
Downbeat businesspeople are surrounded by more optimistic consumers. Picture, 123RF
 

Consumers are pretty cheerful but businesses are pessimistic. What should we make of this contrast?

The monthly ANZ Roy Morgan survey of consumer confidence, released last week, was at a level the bank's chief economist Sharon Zollner called solid, and which has been bettered only rarely over the past 10 years.

"The strong labour market is supporting household incomes and various government policies are intended to provide a further boost, while at the same time strong commodity prices are boosting exporter incomes," she said.

The quarterly Westpac McDermott Miller survey of consumer confidence strengthened last month and is in line with its long-run average.

 
The strong labour market is supporting household incomes and various government policies are intended to provide a further boost

 

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By contrast, headline business sentiment — as monitored by both the ANZ's Business Outlook survey and the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research's quarterly survey of business opinion (QSBO) — plunged deep into negative territory after the general election returned a Labour-led Government to power.

But the same surveys have also reflected a stark contrast between firms' view of the economic outlook in general, and what they say about their own activity and prospects.

And it is the latter, which after all, they know more about, that is the reliable indicator of economic growth.

In this week's QSBO a net 9 per cent of firms, seasonally adjusted, expect the general business situation to deteriorate over the next six months but a net 15 per cent report an increase in their own trading activity over the past three months and a net 16 per cent expect it to improve over the next three months.

We have seen this pattern of gloom about the general situation but confidence about firms' own activity before, in the mid-2000s. It may not be a coincidence that Labour was also in power then. It was also a period of brisk economic growth.

That might suggest there is an element of tribal political sulking to the current gloom.

The more charitable view would be that business sentiment is reflecting some softening in economic growth in a cycle that is getting long in the tooth, and a degree of uncertainty or wariness about policy changes.

The consensus among forecasters is that economic growth slowed to 2.9 per cent over the past (March) year from an average 3.6 per cent over the preceding three years, and that it will wobble around 3 per cent for the next three years.

As for policy uncertainty, some reregulation of the labour market will inevitably be greeted without joy by employers.

The changes in the Employment Relations Amendment Bill now before Parliament look pretty modest. The detail of plans for fair pay agreements is still awaited. The declared intention of the latter, however, is only to combat a race to the bottom in working conditions.

The current labour market is marked by a record high employment rate (the proportion of the working age population employed) and a nine-year low in the unemployment rate, albeit that nearly one in four part-timers want to and could work more hours.

But wage growth has been sluggish despite what the QSBO finds are still acute shortages of skilled and unskilled labour.

The latest visa issuance data shows that in the year to June 2107, immigration was still doing very little to relieve labour shortages in the construction sector, so a KiwiBuild visa looks like a good idea.

Retailers were the most pessimistic sector in the latest QSBO, despite reporting a decent pick-up in sales.

NZIER principal economist Christina Leung suggests that might reflect employment law changes, including a rise in the minimum wage and the abolition of the 90-day trial period, for firms with more than 20 employees.

But surely a lift in the minimum wage, along with any pick-up in wages growth in response to a tight labour market, ought to also increase the spending power of retailers' customers, should it not?

As this column argued last week, there is a tension between the declining share of national income going to labour rather than capital on the one hand, and the tax system's heavy reliance on taxing labour income, first when earned and then when spent, on the other.

The Government has promised, however, that any changes flowing from the Cullen tax review now under way will be put to voters at the next election, still two-and-a-half-years away.

Negative business confidence only really matters if it flows through to less hiring and investment.

 

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In the meantime, raising Working for Families tax credits, while pushing out the bright line test for property investors' capital gains and ring-fencing their tax losses, should at the margin transfer income from those with a lower to a higher propensity to spend it.

Negative business confidence only really matters if it flows through to less hiring and investment.

Hiring, both reported and expected, softened in this week's QSBO but remains in positive territory and above the long-run trend.

Intentions to invest in plant and machinery, which had dropped in the previous survey, rebounded to a net 17 per cent positive. But firms need to follow through on those intentions and there has been a tendency, Leung said, for surveyed intentions to promise more than the actual business investment recorded in the national accounts delivered.

The QSBO's inflation indicators look reasonably benign.

A net 21 per cent of firms say they intend to increase their selling prices. BNZ economist Craig Ebert says that level is consistent with an inflation rate around the centre of the Reserve Bank's 1 to 3 per cent target.

But among the financial services firms surveyed, a net 30 per cent now expect interest rates to rise over the next 12 months, up from 13 per cent in previous survey.

That may reflect the fact that we are in a strange world where the spread between New Zealand and United States wholesale interest rates has collapsed to zero. That's whether you look at the short end, where our official cash rate and the US Fed funds rate are both 1.75 per cent, or 10-year government bond yields, in both cases trading around 2.8 per cent. Normally, a substantial interest rate differential is needed to underpin the kiwi dollar and keep a lid on tradeables inflation.

The present combination of a firm kiwi and level-pegging interest rates does not look durable.

 

 
 
 Quick Read

 

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49 minutes ago, rdytdy said:

Mike Hosking: Labour's a shambles and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern haunted by weakness. 

Labour is in a mess............

 

Mike Hosking is now nothing more than a Right Wing "Shock Jock." He doesn't even pretend to have balance in his comments these days. He is so subjective, he is no longer a credible commentator.

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53 minutes ago, Uriah Heap said:

Mike Hosking is now nothing more than a Right Wing "Shock Jock." He doesn't even pretend to have balance in his comments these days. He is so subjective, he is no longer a credible commentator.

On what points is he incorrect though?   

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Gee Ted congratulations on making a  post that you have not cut and pasted.  But you are still desperate rolling out the prize wanker Hoskings and you still have the alarm set for 6am each morning to get your daily anti Jacinda dose from the wanker

Business confidence is all that you  go on about but  the listed companies results seem  good apart from Fletchers who shat in their own nest. 

ANZ have got themselves into a difficult situation as John Key is their Chairman who is still active in The National Party. So any coments from ANZ with political implications will just be taken with a grain of salt.

 

 

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How is your princess's performance as PM going Bloke?

As predicted the wheels are falling off as slogans and virtue signaling only takes you so far. Things are going so bad this week it's a wonder she hasn't rolled out baby Neve to make an appearance.

All hat and no cattle Bloke and truly out of her depth. It can only get worse!! 

As for the salt,  pass the tequila and lime to go with it.  :rolleyes: 

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The Tories had plenty out of their depth. One of the worst Nathan Clown Minister Of Racing.  Bill English took rental money that he was not entitled and channelled it through his family Trust. That was fraud and he ends up with a Knight Hood. The John Pullar Key embarrassed hinself so much he did the honourable thing and resigned,

 

What have got now Smple Simon.  Crusher( I crushed 3 cars)is eying his job. Poor  Nick Smith (there is no housing crisis) oh gee he has mental issues go easy on him

 

 

 

 

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Hosking on Ardern’s gutlessness

by CS
 

eight_col_7589884848_0Z9A7426.jpg?resize

Mike Hosking writes about just how hopelessly gutless Jacinda Ardern is as prime minister: Quote:

Labour is in a mess.

This time last week Clare Curran was being dealt to for repeated offending.

The fallout from that has lasted most of the week, given the Prime Minister failed herself badly by not taking the sort of steps she should have – and that was sacking Curran properly.

High standards are the watchword of good leaders. And it was ironic that just before the second Labour Minister in a week to be stood down was announced, Helen Clark weighed in over the other major Labour cock-up.

That was the summer camp report and she said, in that way only Clark can, I would have done it differently. Which means properly. Heads would have rolled.

And say whatever you like about Clark, she was a tough, disciplined, and well respected leader who didn’t take crap and it served her well. End quote.

While Helen Clark is manky because her “godchild” hasn’t yet delivered up any jobs, her criticisms are valid. Quote:

Ardern’s approach is different and already it is haunting her.

After Clark’s observation, came the Meka Whaitiri bomb shell

Although we don’t know the fine detail, we do know there is violence involved, and her staff turnover is requiring a revolving door. She is clearly trouble.

And just for fun, to cap a fairly miserable week, the latest business confidence numbers are out. They’re down again and the bank says the danger is real.

So all of that spade work Ardern put in on Tuesday resetting business ties has at least partially been undone, with not just more poor numbers but a stark warning.

So what do we have? We have a genuine indisputable mess, a mess from which once again advice will be offered to the Prime Minister.

She has to harden up and start actually being a proper leader.

The honeymoon is over. All that charm, smiles, and gushing that so transfixed the media into the opening months of “gooey could do no wrong” headlines are gone.

Charm takes you only so far, the rest is discipline, focus, and a backbone.

James Shaw and Winston Peters have every right to be asking questions. So far, despite all  the predictions, the coalition has held together well.

Policy differences have been smoothed over, calamity within the grouping has been avoided.

The weak link is Labour. They look ill-disciplined, sloppy, incoherent, and led by a woman who doesn’t want to be tough.

What Curran did was sackable, full stop. If Whaitiri shoved staff, that’s sackable.

It’s a two-fold problem: One is the crime.

Two is the lack of decisive action to deal with the crime and as a result the ongoing fallout.

Labour can’t run a summer camp, they can’t control ministers, they’ve got a former leader barking advice and the economy is in trouble. 

It’s time to step up and get their act together. End quote.

Winston can’t be happy that Labour are proving to be inept. Almost all their ministers would be out of their depth in a carpark puddle. Most would actually drown in one. There are a few exceptions but they are exceptions in the true sense of the word.

Jacinda Ardern is New Zealand’s personification of the Peter Principle. That is of course ironic, because even thought it is named after Laurence J Peter, it was Winston Peters who enabled Jacinda Ardern to be promoted beyond her ‘level of incompetence’.

She’s never had a real world job, unless you count wrapping fish and chips as a competency. Some wags at Kiwiblog commented on this: Quote:

Dealing with fish and chips is really challenging.

Sometimes people order the family pack and ask you to substitute jam wraps for the hot dogs – bloody complicated! End quote.

and; Quote:

The problem for her was when people deviated from the set menu and ordered a mixture of items that needed adding up, then of course, if they handed her a $50 note she was befuddled when it came to handing out the change. End quote.

Jacinda Ardern is now consumed with hubris. This literally is the best job she is ever going to have. Let’s hope she doesn’t decide that spinning around in the big chair is so easy that she decides to pop another kid out before the next election.

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Ted has been waiting all week end. The Alarm  goes off at 6.00am. He awakes screamimg Jacinda, Jacinda!  and then reaches for his medication. The radio is on,  Its the prize wanker Hoskings spewing out Jacinda hate. Ted loves it, it gives him a boost. All is now great in the World for Ted. 

 

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35 minutes ago, bloke said:

Ted has been waiting all week end. The Alarm  goes off at 6.00am. He awakes screamimg Jacinda, Jacinda!  and then reaches for his medication. The radio is on,  Its the prize wanker Hoskings spewing out Jacinda hate. Ted loves it, it gives him a boost. All is now great in the World for Ted. 

 

Give it a rest Bloke. Pay attention to the "message" and stop attacking the "messenger". I don't believe Ted has ever lauded the dismal performance of Nathan Guy et al. And I personally never voted for, nor supported "money-launderer" Key or his tricky mate Turnbull.

 

 

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3 hours ago, bloke said:

Ted has been waiting all week end. The Alarm  goes off at 6.00am. He awakes screamimg Jacinda, Jacinda!  and then reaches for his medication. The radio is on,  Its the prize wanker Hoskings spewing out Jacinda hate. Ted loves it, it gives him a boost. All is now great in the World for Ted. 

 

And you just can't wait to read what I place here.  :rcf-laughing-2:  You will enjoy this Bloke:  Come on give this government a score on performance to date out of ten. 

 

Garner: ‘from charm offensive to utterly useless’

by CS
 

Jacinda-1.jpg?w=620&ssl=1

In the space of 72 hours Labour went from running a charm offensive to looking utterly useless says Duncan Garner: Quote:

This wasn’t how the charm offensive was meant to end. No way.

The script had been written for the prime minister: Smile, wave to the trainspotters who need a selfie to prove they were there, then remind everyone in business of the real economic stats that show things are largely tracking OK despite the slump in confidence from the guys driving the latest fancy cars.

So far so good.

The PM’s detail would then serve up the smoked salmon between the whining and endless wish lists from business while the PM was reminding herself NOT to mention the evil little tax working group if asked.

That group is likely to target money or success, whichever come first. Please don’t tell business of their intentions as it may actually affect confidence levels again. Oh, too late, it’s slumped again.

Why? I’ll come to that shortly but prepare yourselves to blame Labour. What a debacle of their own making. End quote.

Big noting and calling yourself New Zealand’s biggest employer when your only previous experience in managing anything was the newspaper supply with which to wrap the fish and chips. Quote:

The aim of this week was to effectively arrest the narrative back into the positive, to draw a line under, through, around, whichever way works, this winter of concern if not discontent.

How did that go? Disastrous. What a bloody mess.  By the end of the week, Labour was further behind than when they’d started out. End quote.

Utter ineptness. Jacinda Ardern is going to have to get nasty, a side of her she has desperately tried to hide. Quote:

I put this down to a few crucial things.

Labour’s ministers are struggling. Not all of them. They have a handful who get it. The rest are pretenders and threaten the stability of the Government itself. 

They are not match-fit and simply lack the experience or smarts to be players in the big dance. 

Meka Whaitiri’s career is in tatters. What minister even in their worst moment thinks it might be OK  to allegedly shove a staff member when all is not well. We haven’t heard the last of what happened either, remembering these are only allegations at this stage.

Jacinda Ardern acted swiftly to stand Whaitiri down, she had no choice. But her lax treatment of Clare Curran was weak and makes her look like a prime minister who is afraid to be too tough on her own. 

Helen Clark was never afraid to bare her teeth especially if it meant eating alive one of her own. Ardern is far less hungry and confident on that front.

Curran is lucky to still be a minister, albeit outside Cabinet.

Her sneaky approach to being the Minister of Open Government reeks of entitlement and arrogance. She should be on the backbench. She has failed the transparency test and kept information from the public, Parliament and the prime minister. How on earth can she be trusted or believed as broadcasting minister? End quote.

Sneaky and furtive as well as inept. Meka Whaitiri is just a usual run of mill Labour functionary and bully who has never had a real job. Before entering parliament she was an average sports person and a civil servant. Quote:

Almost a year into this Government I don’t see a plan, I see pockets of progress and hordes of committees.

The Pike River re-entry is a model in how to respect the dead and treat their families with dignity.

On the flip side, leaving gravely ill Abby Hartley in Bali to battle her insurer to get home looks cold and callous, not compassionate and caring. When did the dollar trump common sense and concern for people so ill.

Ardern needs to give her team the talk of their life. Again. And she needs to use her powerful warrant. If one of her people must be sacrificed, so be it. Off with their head.

All this is such a distraction to the real progress. Did you know the first KiwiBuild home hits the market this weekend? Only 99,999 to go. End quote.

Wait until the news of the walls and floors being ripped up in some Kiwibuild houses due for release comes out. The predicted 18 is going to go in reverse shortly.

The Labour party from top to bottom has become an omnishambles:

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It's not getting any better is it , shambles really and Winston just shafted many small players in the racing industry .

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has defended her plan to travel to the Pacific Islands Forum separately from the rest of her contingent, saying it wouldn't add much cost. Barry Soper estimated on Monday morning the extra fuel costs would be about $50,000. .The prime minister could not go for the longer period as her 11-week-old daughter, Neve, is too young to be given the appropriate vaccinations for the trip and , thus, could not travel with her.

Well baby's do cost money but usually the parents pay .

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$80,000 is fuel alone TA:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has defended having an Air Force Boeing 757 fly back from Nauru after dropping off Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters to collect her and deliver her to the Pacific Islands Forum on the island for one day.

The round trip comes at a cost of $80,000 on fuel alone.

While Peters and a contingent today flew to Nauru, about five-and-a-half hours from New Zealand, Ardern will go on Wednesday for the leaders' retreat.

The Prime Minister is still breastfeeding her 11-week-old daughter Neve, who does not have immunity to visit an environment such as that on Nauru.

 
 

"I spent quite a lot of time deliberating over whether or not I would attend the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru. I analysed all of my options," Ardern told reporters today.

Ardern made a decision that she would fly to Nauru early on Wednesday, necessitating the return of the 757 to New Zealand to pick her up instead of flying one hour on to the Marshall Islands to await the return flight on Wednesday.

There is no room on the island of Nauru for all the planes that will be bringing Pacific ministers and leaders together for the three-day forum so the planes go on to the Marshall Islands to wait.

Asked whether she thought the cost was a good use of taxpayer money, Ardern said she asked officials and was told the 757 had to leave Nauru, and that it needed to clock up a certain number of flying hours anyway.

"I never had anything that suggested to me that it was such a significant spend that that was of concern."

In 2011 Labour was critical of a decision by then Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully after he used Air Force aircraft to fly to Vanuatu and back, collecting other government ministers in Samoa, at a cost of $61,000.

"Being flown around in your own aircraft is a 'nice to have' but in these tough times the cost to taxpayers is vastly more than a commercial flight," Labour MP David Shearer said at the time. 

 

 

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58 minutes ago, rdytdy said:

 

$80,000 is fuel alone TA:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has defended having an Air Force Boeing 757 fly back from Nauru after dropping off Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters to collect her and deliver her to the Pacific Islands Forum on the island for one day.

The round trip comes at a cost of $80,000 on fuel alone.

While Peters and a contingent today flew to Nauru, about five-and-a-half hours from New Zealand, Ardern will go on Wednesday for the leaders' retreat.

The Prime Minister is still breastfeeding her 11-week-old daughter Neve, who does not have immunity to visit an environment such as that on Nauru.

 
 

"I spent quite a lot of time deliberating over whether or not I would attend the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru. I analysed all of my options," Ardern told reporters today.

Ardern made a decision that she would fly to Nauru early on Wednesday, necessitating the return of the 757 to New Zealand to pick her up instead of flying one hour on to the Marshall Islands to await the return flight on Wednesday.

There is no room on the island of Nauru for all the planes that will be bringing Pacific ministers and leaders together for the three-day forum so the planes go on to the Marshall Islands to wait.

Asked whether she thought the cost was a good use of taxpayer money, Ardern said she asked officials and was told the 757 had to leave Nauru, and that it needed to clock up a certain number of flying hours anyway.

"I never had anything that suggested to me that it was such a significant spend that that was of concern."

In 2011 Labour was critical of a decision by then Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully after he used Air Force aircraft to fly to Vanuatu and back, collecting other government ministers in Samoa, at a cost of $61,000.

"Being flown around in your own aircraft is a 'nice to have' but in these tough times the cost to taxpayers is vastly more than a commercial flight," Labour MP David Shearer said at the time. 

 

 

She "analysed all of her options" eh..? Must have been tough. Stay ? Or Go ?....:rolleyes:

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1 hour ago, Ohokaman said:

She "analysed all of her options" eh..? Must have been tough. Stay ? Or Go ?....:rolleyes:

Who leaked this?? :rcf-silent:  It's an outrage - there should be an inquiry. Some vindictive, back stabbing so and so in the Cabinet.............with mental health issues no doubt.

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