Has Andrew Little gone silent? Yes, but only about his Labour leadership ambitions

“But keeping quiet isn’t my strong suit.”

On the front page of the NZ Herald, one item grabbed Alf’s attention: It was headed Little not saying much and it steered readers to an item headed…

Little dodges leadership contest questions.

Oh joy, Alf thought.

Has the Labour MP been struck dumb?

Alas, no.

Rather, he he was being evasive – or had gone coy.

Labour MP Andrew Little has dodged questions about whether or not he will throw his hat into ring of the leadership contest.

Speaking on TV3’s The Nation this morning, Mr Little said he is waiting until after final election results are released today before he starts to make a decision.

“I’m just waiting to see whether I am going to still be in parliament, I won’t know until 2pm today,” he said.

“It is not something I have given thought to at this point, but if I am confirmed today I will have an opportunity to think about it, and if I’m not I’ll find other ways to support the cause.”

Tariana is right on the button: tobacco tax compensation either isn’t needed, or it would soon go up in smoke

A bloody silly headline can be found atop a Herald report today – Beneficiaries and pensioners lose $430m

They haven’t lost a cent because they were never given it.

They shouldn’t be given it, either.

The report carries the by-line of the highly regarded Simon Collins, a bloke remembered by Alf as a bloody good hack in the Parliamentary Press Gallery some years back. Mind you, he never ever quoted the hard-working member for Eketahnuna North in his reports, a serious oversight which somewhat sullies his reputation.

Anyway, he has written about one of the consequences of the Government decision to raise the price of cigarettes.

The Government has cancelled pumping $430 million into superannuation, tax credits and benefits that would have, in effect, been direct compensation for higher tobacco taxes.

Advice to an upset widower: get a grip, Mike, and raise a storm about those bloody answering machines

Alf is a tad bemused that a Christchurch bloke has been upset by Inland Revenue sending a letter to his dead wife, advising she could be eligible for superannuation.

If she had died recently, Alf could understand the upset.

But Mike O’Brien’s wife, Rosalie, died in 1995.

Let’s see. That’s 15 years ago.

Is he still genuinely grieving and prone to being upset by the receipt of a letter addressed to her?

Or is he just a grumpy old fart looking for a bit of attention?

SOS: save our savings from Cullen’s sorcery

The Kiwisaver scheme, proudly introduced by Michael Cullen when Clark and her coven were running the shop, was supposed to perform the alchemy of lifting the nation’s savings

Guess what?

Black magic. The savings habit has been shrunk.

The number of New Zealanders saving regularly has dropped in the past four years despite more than a quarter of adults joining KiwiSaver.

A Retirement Commission survey carried out in March and April has found that only 49 per cent of adults aged 18 and over are now saving regularly, down from 53 per cent in the commission’s first survey in 2005.