MSD MIA

Funny how our new and wonderful Minister of Social Development was not present at the economic summit/meeting/talk-fest of Ministers yesterday. Her ministry is going be taking on massive numbers of new 'clients' in 2009 and MSD programs should be an essential component of any poverty alleviation and economic stimulus measures.
Instead Mactional's 'plan' so far seems to be to funnel taxpayer money through business and cutting public spending in a repeat of the failed trickle-down policies of the past.

New minister pulls plug on costly summit

An emergency jobs "summit" due to be held by the Prime Minister in February has been axed after Social Development Minister Paula Bennett declared it a waste of money.

Ms Bennett said she was surprised the PM had continued with plans for the conference after his repeated warnings that he wanted careful spending of public money.

"As you can imagine, sipping my tea at 11 o'clock at night reading that made my face turn blue," she said.

"I then suggested quite strongly to the PM that he might like to revisit that in the current economic times. I told him I didn't think the New Zealand public would see this as a good spend."

Change we can believe in

11/7/96 The Press

New law will ban inefficient appliances

The Government will pull the plug on the sale of some energy-inefficient appliances and electrical equipment.

Energy Minister Doug Kidd yesterday announced new energy-efficiency legislation would be developed that would effectively ban the sale of some categories of electrical products that did not meet new energy efficiency standards.

Standards would initially apply to domestic hot-water cylinders, fluorescent lamps, and fluorescent ballasts for office lighting, but could also be extended to electric motors and domestic refrigerators and freezers after more analysis.

The legislation, which is expected to go before Parliament next year, will not apply to existing installations of appliances and equipment.

Mr Kidd said the new measures would benefit consumers through lower energy costs, benefit the economy through savings to businesses and reduced pressure to construct new energy generation plants, and benefit the environment through reduced carbon dioxide emissions.

Officials have estimated the net national economic benefit of the standards could be as high as $70 million over 15 years. Total carbon dioxide emissions are also expected to be cut by more than one million tonnes over the same period.

Mr Kidd said consumers would still enjoy a wide choice of models from each product type, but the least energy efficient and most obsolete technologies would be ``knocked out of the market''.

Standards would be developed in consultation with manufacturers and suppliers would be given time to dispose of stocks of non-complying products before the new legislation took effect, he said.

2/12/08 NZ Herald

Eco bulbs unlikely to be compulsory - Key

A proposal to phase out incandescent lightbulbs is extremely unlikely to go ahead under the new National Government.

Prime Minister John Key stood by National's policy in opposition against the Labour Government's plan to implement a new standard for lightbulbs, which would see old incandescent lightbulbs phased out by the end of next year.

"We have real concerns about telling people that they have to move to energy efficient light bulbs by decree," he said.

"We want to encourage people to do that, we think there may be benefits for them to do it, but it should be a choice they make as consumers."

Global Peace and Justice are Mossad Agents

Seriously, that's the only logical explanation I can think of for the way the nutcase left is behaving over the Israeli Government's ongoing war crime in Gaza.
It's an obvious outrage that is dominating news coverage right now. People are angry and have every right to protest, but why do it in such a self defeating fashion? Why smear 'blood' on a memorial to Yitzhak Rabin who was murdered by one of his own people because he sought peace? What is the point of standing outside a tennis tournament demanding penance from a 22 year old tennis player?

The IDF bombed a school in Gaza that was flying the UN flag killing upwards of 40 children, the death toll is now approaching 700. Yet these misguided trivial actions distract focus from the story of what is going on in Gaza and allows those who defend and/or endorse the war crimes to shift the conversation away from the atrocities.

The New Boss

The Board of Directors have spoken and the new guy is in charge.
An emerging national identity has been put aside to refocus on becoming the best performing subsidiary of Worldwide inc. This new NZ era of managerialism will be fronted by a man from Christchurch who combines the bravado, thick accent and MBA management of pre-9/11 George W Bush with Steve Carrell's character from the US version of The Office.