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Posts Tagged ‘Nathan Guy’

What Veterans Really Want

Posted by Iain Lees-Galloway on March 16th, 2012

Veterans Affairs Minister Nathan Guy has something to announce: Veterans’ Pensions are incresing to cover inflation!! Stop the press.

What would really get veterans excited would be for National to follow through on their promise to implement the Law Commission’s recommendations and replace the War Pensions Act. For older veterans in particular, this is the number one priority.

But other than their election promise, National has been completely silent. They won’t say when they will introduce legislation, they won’t say how much they intend to spend and they won’t say what recommendations they will implement.

They’ve said nothing since the report was tabled in June last year 2010.

Veterans deserve better and breathlessly announcing what should be routine annual inflation adjustments doesn’t make up for dragging the chain on fixing the system.

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Filed under: Veterans Affairs
7 Comments

More dodgy pokie machine scams

Posted by Chris Hipkins on August 4th, 2010

The Otago Daily Times has been hot on the heels of dodgy pokie trust scams for some time. Today they have a story about an alleged “money-go-round” involving several south Auckland pokie machine venues and southern racing clubs. Personally I find the idea that the profits from pokie venues in South Auckland are being channelled to racing clubs in the lower South Island pretty appalling.

Pokie trusts should be investing the money collected through pokie machines back into the communities they are taken from. In recent months we’ve seen countless examples of pokie trusts using money that should have been applied for charitable purposes to compete with each other for venues, refurbish venues, and even wine and dine people at flash restaurants. It’s time to end the rorts.

I questioned the Internal Affairs Minister Nathan Guy about this when he appeared before the Select Committee during the Estimates process. He referred almost every question to officials. When I asked if he thought the legislation needed changing, he said no. In other words, he’s washing his hands of the problem. That’s not good enough. It’s time for him to earn his ministerial salary…

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Filed under: Uncategorized
15 Comments

Whose going into Cabinet? II

Posted by Trevor Mallard on February 28th, 2010

Seems to be firming up on Nathan Guy.

Some discussion of Amy Adams getting the out of Cabinet role. Key getting worried about performance of most of the women ministers.

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Filed under: national, parliament, politics
18 Comments

So who is going into Cabinet

Posted by Trevor Mallard on February 25th, 2010

Intense discussion opposite between Tremain and Foss – the Hawkes Bay rivals for Heatley’s job.

Favourite possibly Nathan Guy but after today’s repeat of yesterdays procedural shambles I will renew my call for Key to bring Hone Carter into cabinet and make him leader of the House.

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Filed under: coalition management, national, politics
16 Comments

Transparency and accountability

Posted by Chris Hipkins on February 5th, 2010

Nathan Guy wins the inaugural “Richard Worth award for transparency and accountability”. Much like his predecessor, Guy has consistently demonstrated a high level of skill in ducking questions and providing as little information about his ministerial activities as possible.

Late last year I poked a bit of fun at his expense when he answered my written parliamentary question about his priorities over the next 6 months by saying he needed more time to come up with an answer. He’s finally answered that one, even if it amounts to little more than a cut and paste from DIA’s Statement of Intent.

However, when asked any questions about briefings that he has received from DIA or his official engagements, he simply dismisses them saying they aren’t specific enough. It doesn’t seem to be a problem for his more senior colleagues, who regularly answer written questions listing the reports/briefings they have received.

Guy’s predecessor confirmed that the DIA has a database recording all the briefings he gets, so it would simply be a matter of extracting the relevant data, a job that would take no more than a couple of minutes. Why is he so reluctant to be open and transparent about what he is working on?

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Filed under: democracy, national, parliament
8 Comments

Nats Support Labour Anti Drug Driver Amendments

Posted by Trevor Mallard on June 18th, 2009

Steven Joyce has indicated that the government will take on my amendments outlined in a previous post. Good parliamentary process. Congratulations to David Bennett and Nathan Guy who helped me convince Joyce to overide very cautious officials advice.

This is a small but important step towards discouraging people drving with active drugs like P in their blood.

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Filed under: consultation, democracy, parliament
5 Comments

New Minister?

Posted by Trevor Mallard on June 4th, 2009

While I don’t think anything will be gained by adding a new Minister outside Cabinet because I think that NZ governments have traditionally had too many ministers and that the last few in don’t do enough work and cause too much trouble I think John Key will appoint a new Minister.

All the goss round the buildings is that it is likely to be Nathan Guy. I hope it is. The guy is good. And he is a good guy -even if Dazza disagrees.He does a lot of covering for Gerry Brownlee and is generally well regarded. But it will leave their house team very very light taking him out of the Chief Whips role. Their two experts Carter and Guy would be outside Cabinet but not whips – the worst of all possible worlds.

The next most likely candidate is Foss but if Key had imagination he would appoint Borrows who appeals to the oldies he started to burn off last week.

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Filed under: national, parliament
14 Comments