MMP may be responsible for a delay in deciding whether National or Labour gets to form the new government. With 120 seats in parliament, the winning party needs 61 to have a majority. After the last elections, Labour had 50 seats while National had 4...
New Zealand inflation is up by 5% for the year ending September 30th. This is the highest increase for 18 years, but Australia is reporting the same increase. The Governor of the New Zealand Reserve Bank has to keep inflation between 1% and 3% so thi...
Last Monday, Helen Clark talked to the students at Otago University and promised that the Labour government would pay all university students an allowance in the future. It would happen over the next four years. In the past, students at university re...
The economy continues to be a major concern globally but also to New Zealand. We are especially affected by what happens in Australia, partly because our major banks are Australian owned. In the last few days, the US and European countries have moved...
The New Zealand dairy company, Fonterra, which has a 43% share in the Chinese SanLu dairy factory, is donating $8.4 million to charity in China. SanLu baby milk formula was contaminated with melamine. Other baby milk formula has also been contaminate...
On Monday, the present government had to open the books before the election to show how much money the country has. Just as we expected, it was bad news. Last year the books showed the government had more money than expected but things are very diffe...
It is not just the American Presidential elections in early November. Four days after the Americans have chosen their new President, we will vote but we cannot choose our leader. We can only vote for one person in our local area, our electorate, and...
The PPTA is holding their annual conference this week. PPTA means Post-Primary Teachers Association and it is the union for high school teachers. Discussion today was about the Labour governments plan, called Schools Plus, for keeping all young peopl...
The financial problems in the US are a worry not just to the United States. Many countries throughout the world will be affected. How will New Zealand be affected? Both the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, and the leader of the National Party, John Key,...
Last week was the final session for Parliament before the elections on November 8th. During the session last week, MPs who were retiring gave their farewell speeches. One well-known National MP, Katherine Rich, decided to retire from Parliament as sh...