News

Summer isn’t all backyard cricket, beer and barbecues. In fact, New Zealand’s politicians have been working hard all summer to take away your freedom to engage in those activities. Here’s a roundup of what happened while you were away over the break ...

Tea tapes

Biggest letdown of 2012. The infamous voice recording of John Key and John Banks having a yarn over a cup of Dilmah was leaked to the public in January. The tape was about as interesting as a trip to Hamilton.

Mojo Mathers

As with Moonbeam Jones, Mathers’s name made it inevitable that she would join the Green Party at some point. Now she’s an MP, but since she also happens to be deaf, she needs an assistant in order to carry out her duties. Unfortunately, Parliament’s rules are out of date and don’t provide for that sort of funding. A public outcry ensued, and though Mathers couldn’t hear it, the rules are likely to be changed.

ACT is dead

Well, technically they’re still alive, but in the same way as a UniCol fresher’s medical school ambitions will be after their mid-year exam results.

Yellow Peril

A Chinese company wanted to buy the privately-owned Crafar Farms. Labour wanted National to block the sale, but they refused. The High Court stepped in and said National had to go away and start the decision-making process again because they hadn’t properly complied with the Overseas Investment Act. Critic understands the Government is sick of the bad publicity, and the decision will be made by paper-scissors-rock next week.

Scalped

Labour MP Trevor Mallard was busted selling Homegrown festival tickets at an inflated price, after having passed legislation to crack down on ticket scalping. Lol. Now Critic just has to catch Jim Anderton popping party pills …

Republican Primaries

No one in NZ cares about any of the nominees except Ron Paul. But despite the fact that Herman Cain quit the race, Critic is endorsing him for 2012 US President based on his resignation speech, which contained the immortal line “I believe these words came from the Pokémon movie”. Pikachu impersonations may or may not have followed.

We are the 99%

The Occupy the Octagon campers were full of nice-sounding yet ultimately meaningless slogans like that one. But now they’re gone. WINZ case officers are gutted that they now have to visit clients at various houses across the city rather than conducting all their interviews in one convenient location.

Drink up me hearties

Online pirates, be ye warned. The Copyright Amendment Act has made it three strikes and you’re out for illegal downloading. And the joys of Megavideo.com were brought to an end by the capture of pirate captain Kim Dotcom. That’ll teach him for putting a 72-minute limit on streaming per day.

Fairness at work

A good old-fashioned waterfront strike by the Maritime Union has brought the Ports of Auckland to a standstill. To quote the smash-hit union ballad Solidarity Forever, “Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite/Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?” Apparently the union workers earn an average of just $62.50 per hour, so you really can’t blame them for getting fed up.

Australian coup

In June 2010, Kevin Rudd was given the flick as Australian Prime Minister because his colleagues were sick of being treated like shit. Now he’s coup-ing Prime Minister Julia Gillard right back. Critic can only imagine how badly Rudd would treat his colleagues this time round, and the hilarity that would ensue if details of his trademark rants were to be leaked to the public … oh wait.