Written By: lprent - Date published: 11:49 am, March 27th, 2024 - 38 comments
Categories: Economy, infrastructure, tax
Tags: New Zealand Initiative, politik
I have to say that writing that title made me wonder about the topsy turvey world. I don't agree with people from New Zealand Initiative often. Mostly I just growl. But Oliver Hartwich who is the Initiative's Executive Director wrote a paywalled piece in …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 10:18 pm, December 23rd, 2023 - 118 comments
Categories: chris hipkins, Christopher Luxon, International, jacinda ardern, Russia, Ukraine, uncategorized, United Nations, war
Tags: peace
Unlike Mike Smith and other noisy members of the imperialist support group, I applaud that NZ foreign policy has remained consistent in upholding UN and ICC policies against invasions and forced annexations. Christopher Luxon has finally managed to do …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 8:58 am, December 4th, 2023 - 48 comments
Categories: act, national, nz first, political parties, Politics
Tags:
After 59 days after election day, parliament will finally sit again todaywith a new government. The process has mostly been notable for its incoherent dithering, inexperience, and general stupidity. It is a coalition based on chaos, a lack of usable …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 8:48 am, November 25th, 2023 - 48 comments
Categories: act, Christopher Luxon, national, nicola willis, nz first, political parties, Politics, winston peters
Tags: New Zealand Initiative, rbnz, tova o'brien
On Friday, three parties respectively and finally signed agreements to gain a slim majority in parliament. What this means is that some time on Monday Governor General Dame Cindy Kiro will be able to swear in the new ministers of the Executive Council. …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 2:38 pm, November 3rd, 2023 - 166 comments
Categories: Coalition NZ, election 2023, Politics
Tags:
National loses 2 electorate seats to Labour, Nelson by 29 votes and Te Atatu by 131 votes. National will probably pick up Port Waikato in the by-election. Te Pāti Māori picked up two electorate seats from Labour which means that parliament will have a 2 …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 10:48 am, November 3rd, 2023 - 32 comments
Categories: act, election 2023, national, nz first, Politics, winston peters
Tags: chaos, NACT
Today we will get the final election counts. It will now include the estimated special declaration vote of 567,000 (20.2% of the vote) to count including and estimated 80,000 overseas and dictation votes. This can change the precise balance in parliament …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 9:47 am, October 16th, 2023 - 57 comments
Categories: Economy, Politics
Tags: caretaker government, NACT
As it stands right now with the indecisive election result, we're probably going to have a caretaker government for some time. The election results happen after counting the special votes locally, from other countries, and from places like Antarctica and …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 7:45 pm, October 13th, 2023 - Comments Off on Post:Election day rules
Categories: election 2023, elections, The Standard
Tags:
The rules about election day are pretty clear. This rule applies to websites and social media Don’t post anything to social media or a website on election day that could influence voters. Also make sure your profile pictures on social media don’t include …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 3:03 pm, June 20th, 2023 - 21 comments
Categories: election 2023, national, political parties, Politics
Tags: democracynz, northland, sarcasm, schism
It always intrigues me that some political parties haven't learnt the basic political lesson about politics. The latest from the fledgling Democracy NZ is a classic schism by people who don't want to actually achieve anything useful. It has lost about a …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 12:45 pm, June 12th, 2023 - 29 comments
Categories: capital gains, Christopher Luxon, climate change, Economy, Environment, farming, national, Politics, tax
Tags: GMO, jack tame, Q&A
Last night I watched Christopher Luxon in a interview with Jack Tame on Q&A from youtube. My takeaway from it was that I don't want this fool anywhere near actual policy. Even worse was that was in the question of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), A …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 10:04 am, May 19th, 2023 - 28 comments
Categories: budget 2023, climate change, Economy, Environment, infrastructure, Politics, science
Tags: asia-pacific, australia, farming for the future, fishing industry, heat waves, oceans
Almost all of the extra heat that humans have captured by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere over the last few centuries has wound up warming the deep oceans. But in the fine balance that runs between the ocean depths and the atmosphere, the …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 12:24 pm, March 2nd, 2023 - 36 comments
Categories: labour, mt albert, Politics
Tags: camilla belich, helen clark, helen white, jacinda ardern
The candidates for the Mt Albert Labour selection to replace Jacinda Ardern are Helen White MP and Camilla Belich MP. The selection meeting is on Saturday 11th March at 10am in the Western Springs School Hall. All Labour Party members who are currently …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 10:36 am, January 21st, 2023 - 101 comments
Categories: chris hipkins, jacinda ardern, labour, political parties, Politics, uncategorized
Tags: chippy
From Stuff Live Chris Hipkins is now set to become prime minister, and Stuff political editor Luke Malpass and political reporter Anna Whyte have the story: Chris Hipkins is set to become New Zealand’s next prime minister, after being confirmed as the …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 10:39 am, January 9th, 2023 - 48 comments
Categories: climate change, national, same old national, Satire
Tags: extreme weather, weather
I'm back at work at my home office desk today. I have to say that the weather generally sucked in Auckland and the north of the North Island over my break. Waiting for Luxon and his brain-dead minions will blame the weather on the government – because …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 10:36 am, January 5th, 2023 - 86 comments
Categories: Donald Trump, International, us politics
Tags: mccarthy, us congress
Been watching C-SPAN in the US House of Representatives trying to elect a speaker. Last time that there was more than one vote to get a speaker was in 1923. This figures, the author of this political madness, Donald Trump seems to be a law and tax evading…
Written By: lprent - Date published: 10:09 am, January 4th, 2023 - 23 comments
Categories: Christopher Luxon, Gerry Brownlee, national, same old national
Tags: andrew bayly, earthquake
This morning a estimated 5.1 earthquake close to Te Aroha shook Hamilton, Tauranga, Auckland and Rotorua. This region contains roughly half of our 5.1 million population. Hopefully also a wakeup call for National about their consistent short term …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 9:15 am, December 10th, 2022 - 47 comments
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: brian easton, electricity, electricity prices, gentailers, pundit, transpower
Brian Easton at Pundit provides a clear overview on what is happening in our large generator / retailer market at present and the way that their implicit collusion on excessive pricing looked at in economics. They're profiteering and even using future …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 2:17 pm, November 28th, 2022 - 12 comments
Categories: australian politics, International, Media, Politics
Tags: liberals, newscorp
The Liberal/Nat victory that Newscorp had been promoting in the Victorian state elections simply didn't materialise. For some reason pandering to the loud and noisy just isn't what it used to be. Probably it is mostly the purview of the decreasing numbers…
Written By: lprent - Date published: 12:34 am, November 22nd, 2022 - 15 comments
Categories: internet, Media, parody, Satire, twitter, uncategorized
Tags: elon musk, free speech, freedom of expression, great twit, jordan williams, nz taxpayers union, wordpress
The new Great Twit at Twitter has been cauterising off staff in excess. So I suspect that the platform is going to go down the toilet for that (amongst other reasons). But my main concern here has been to preserve the embedded tweets in posts and comments…
Written By: lprent - Date published: 9:35 am, July 1st, 2022 - 38 comments
Categories: Europe, International, jacinda ardern, Ukraine
Tags: eu, NATO
Kia ora koutou katoa. It is a rare thing to have New Zealand represented at a NATO Summit. While we have worked together in theatres such as Afghanistan, and have been partners for just on a decade, today represents an important moment for our Pacific …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 1:31 pm, May 13th, 2022 - 13 comments
Categories: australian politics, humour, International, Satire, uncategorized
Tags: juicemedia
What can one say. JuiceMedia have done their high quality opinionated but fact based satire Honest Government Ad describing the lowlights of the current Aussie shitshow. If you haven't seen it yet, then be my guest. Feel free to link to previous great …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 12:22 pm, May 11th, 2022 - 33 comments
Categories: australian politics, electoral systems, gender, International, MMP, political alternatives, Politics, Single Transferable Vote
Tags: Clive Palmer, teal candidates, UAP
The early voting polls have opened in Australia, so the election there is nigh. Reading on the election there has been interesting. Two things stand out for me. The weirdness of having marginal seats to a political geek from NZ. The burgeoning …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 12:22 pm, April 16th, 2022 - 38 comments
Categories: Donald Trump, humour, Satire
Tags: anti-anti-vax, anti-vax, pimples, spoof
This little gem popped up again. The comments are risible and barbed. As an ex-army medic, I'd suggest that you only do this if you are insane. Which appears to be common when in thrall to the Orange wonder. For those who are unsure what a enema is, then …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 11:35 am, March 2nd, 2022 - 230 comments
Categories: International, military, Politics, Russia, Ukraine
Tags: atrocity
The Russian armed forces obviously didn't expect much resistance. I get the distinct impression that they had believed their own ridiculous propaganda (always a characteristic of dumb-arse dictatorships) and expected the Ukrainians to fall weeping in …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 7:56 am, February 25th, 2022 - 266 comments
Categories: Diplomacy, International, Russia, Ukraine
Tags: sanctions
Russia has invaded a neighbouring state with no more justification than an vague appeals to the same arguments that underpinned obsolete 19th century gunboat diplomacy. They simply don't like the economic and political decisions of the government of the …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 8:17 am, February 15th, 2022 - 16 comments
Categories: Economy, im/migration, immigration, International, wages, workers' rights
Tags:
It sounds like the Industrial and Trades sector of the economy has had a significiant wage rise over the last year. While we wait for the wages stats data, this is an interesting indicator. Data from industrial recruitment agency OneStaff shows the …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 11:56 am, February 13th, 2022 - 47 comments
Categories: covid-19, health, long covid, science
Tags:
There has been a depressing large study published looking at the medical risks of having covid-19 on the cardiovascular systems in Nature Medicine. Ars Technicia have a readable version. The study tapped into a massive database of health records at the …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 12:55 pm, February 9th, 2022 - 24 comments
Categories: chris bishop, Dirty Politics, national, Politics, same old national, uncategorized
Tags: cameron slater, carrick graham, Food and grocery council, katherine rich
As I was rather anticipating, the Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) fixation of the National and Act parties has blown up in their face. The government of NZ buys in bulk for medical goods, usually from the manufacturing sources. That way they don't pay as much …
Written By: lprent - Date published: 12:01 pm, January 28th, 2022 - 16 comments
Categories: Politics, polls
Tags: colmar brunton
Because I love accurate comparisons and because the media typically do a shit job of looking at political polls, I decided that a look backwards to a comparable poll in the last parliament. So One News – Colmar Poll from the start of the mid-term year – …
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