Changes
have been made to the Immigration Bill, which Green MP Keith Locke
says is an improvement on the previous version, but it is still
nevertheless oppressive. "Too many decisions will be made on
information kept secret from those affected," Mr Locke, the
Green Party's Immigration Spokesperson says.
"Fourteen
state agencies, from the Department of Corrections to the Ministry of
Fisheries, will now be able to define information as 'classified' and
not to be seen by the affected person. While summaries of secret
allegations will generally be available, the agency producing them
will be tempted to leave out anything which doesn't favour its own
case.
So
Labour are "looking into" a universal student allowance. Seems
awfully reminiscent of their interest free student loan policy that
came out before the last election, but I have to admit, it is
tempting.
However,
Green MP Metiria Turei is unhappy that they are playing "political
games" with student livelihoods, and that they should disclose a
timetable for the rollout of the universal allowances plan.
National
have said they will give back the rights of New Zealand state housing
tenants to buy their houses as they were before Labour won the 1999
election. However, one change is that outside investors are not
eligible to purchase the houses, as they were in the 90s.
Meanwhile,
Rodney Hide has said that Labour's "growth-busting" policies
are hurting Kiwis. I have no idea what this means, but he has said
that, "Labour's growth-busting political programme has had the
effect we knew it would. Prime Minister Helen Clark can't blame bad
luck or international events: it's her policies that have made it
tough now for Kiwi families. Meanwhile, National's approach is to
stick with Labour's spending track while also retaining Labour's
policies. This means that we will be stuck with the same old
results."
Also
of interest is the proposition going around that future censuses will
ask for sexual orientation. Is this a valid statistical question or
an invasion of our privacy? Tough one.
Subscribe to this comment's feed