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Teapot fiasco becomes an international embarrassment

Written By: - Date published: 7:48 am, November 18th, 2011 - 58 comments

John Key Banks thick as thieves

The teapot fiasco has become an international story.

And it’s making us look like a banana republic.

Is this what John Key means when he says he’s “ambitious for New Zealand”?

Dirty politics ironic lolz

Written By: - Date published: 8:22 pm, November 15th, 2011 - 111 comments

key finger 3

Well it’s been quite the day of ironic Key hypocrisy lolz.

It’s also been a day that’s shown Russel Norman’s not much better.

DPF putting his readers in harm’s way

Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, November 12th, 2011 - 72 comments

david farrar on the phone

David Farrar is encouraging his readers to put themselves in harm’s way by authorising and distributing a misleading election advertisement he’s created.

Of course he won’t take the risk himself – instead he’s hiding behind “personal opinion”.

Pike River charges laid

Written By: - Date published: 8:37 pm, November 10th, 2011 - 20 comments

pike river fire

Charges have been laid over the Pike River tragedy.

National’s plan to screw workers some more

Written By: - Date published: 8:38 am, October 28th, 2011 - 89 comments

john-key finger new

John Key has announced National’s IR policy and it’s all about cutting back workers negotiating power.

The message from Key is clear – big business might have made this recession but you’re the ones who are gonna pay for it.

National’s Little smears and the big issue of market greed

Written By: - Date published: 6:40 pm, October 21st, 2011 - 42 comments

andrewlittle

A good interview from Andrew Little on the Nat’s failed attempt to smear him over facebook comments. Nice comments about David Farrar and strong support for the occupy movement. Good to see.

By the way, is it just me or is National’s obsession with opposition social media starting to look less like straight research and more like creepy stalking?

A plan to fix the pay problem?

Written By: - Date published: 2:09 pm, October 16th, 2011 - 90 comments

peanut pay packet wages

Word around the traps is Labour is working on a significant new wage policy. Good – like nearly every other deregulated market the labour market has been failing Kiwis for more than twenty years. It’s time to bring some balance back into the system. Let’s just hope Labour has the guts to make a proper job of it.

Key misleads the house

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, October 10th, 2011 - 50 comments

smiling assassin key

Looks like John Key has been caught in yet another lie.

The right’s weird obsession with Darien Fenton

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 pm, October 3rd, 2011 - 261 comments

poodles

Darien Fenton makes a mean comment about a celebrity butcher on facebook and then apologises for it and offers to shout him a drink to make up for it.

No big deal? Well according to some hysterical righties that makes Fenton worse than Hitler.

You couldn’t make this sh*t up

Written By: - Date published: 10:22 pm, September 30th, 2011 - 16 comments

oprah

I missed it at the time but apparently John Key’s big plan for Christchurch was to have a yarn to Oprah.

What kind of weird fantasy world does this guy live in?

Be careful what you wish for

Written By: - Date published: 3:25 pm, September 25th, 2011 - 43 comments

key-loony-toons

On Friday the government announced a law change that opens the door to a whole world of cheap contract labour now available to anyone producing short projects like advertisements, tv episodes or parts of movies in New Zealand.

Many of the industry locals who will be most hurt by this are the same ones who were banging the drum against actors and for international producers during the Hobbit dispute. Ironic, huh?

Whaddarya?

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 pm, September 13th, 2011 - 39 comments

murray mccully cowering sheep

There once was a time tory leaders would wield the power of the state like the powerful tyrants they were.

Nowadays that might is lent to important things like… throwing a wee party.

Those tough old bastards must be rolling in their graves.

“A commodity”

Written By: - Date published: 9:55 pm, September 12th, 2011 - 94 comments

damien grant

Big time businessman Damien Grant thinks we’re either rich or irrelevant commodities. And Granny Herald thinks it’s reasonable to give him a platform to preach this vile social darwinism. Suddenly the careless deaths of Kiwi workers and the systemic poverty of so many of our children becomes less surprising.

Third world NZ

Written By: - Date published: 10:05 pm, September 5th, 2011 - 122 comments

pike river fire

The stories coming out of the Pike inquiry paint a picture of a company with a basic disregard for workers’s safety.

But we shouldn’t expect anything else after thirty years of putting the interests of business ahead of everyone else.

FFS

Written By: - Date published: 9:40 pm, August 8th, 2011 - 107 comments

trevormallard

It’s bad to have a senior frontbencher attack the media.

It’s really really bad when that frontbencher is in charge of your election campaign.

Indeed

Written By: - Date published: 7:07 pm, July 27th, 2011 - 74 comments

key pavlova big

A classic from stuff:

Prime Minister John Key said the Government had had very little room to move on the economy.
”The public recognises that the rest of the world isn’t in great shape and so New Zealand is having to contend with that global environment,” he said.

The violent right

Written By: - Date published: 8:26 pm, July 25th, 2011 - 315 comments

templar

The kind of racist right wing opinions held by the Norway shooter are shared by quite a few New Zealand bloggers and commenters. Many of the same bloggers are now claiming the massacre is somehow the Left’s fault. We should be concerned that there are people with such hatred and self-delusion among us.

Exit, stage right

Written By: - Date published: 4:16 pm, July 9th, 2011 - 136 comments

act shattered large

It’s a big call, I know, but I’m pretty sure we’re seeing the end of the ACT party happening right before our eyes.

Friday lolz

Written By: - Date published: 5:09 pm, July 8th, 2011 - 60 comments

capital gains tax lolz

Even Bill’s readers like the CGT…

Aussies on Pike River

Written By: - Date published: 9:17 pm, June 28th, 2011 - 22 comments

New Zealand Mine Explosion

Why is it the Australians are getting better coverage of Pike River than we are?

The Australian, for example, ran a story yesterday asking some hard-hitting questions about safety at the mine including the lack of remote gas measurement and a second escape route.

(Another) Tory astroturf fail

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 pm, June 28th, 2011 - 42 comments

Farrar MMP

The latest anti-MMP outfit is already unraveling with Pundit’s Rob Salmond uncovering the fact it’s basically the Peter Shirtcliffe club.

It’s a surprisingly clumsy effort. Especially given David Farrar provided strategic advice.

I guess he’s not learned any lessons from his previous PR fiascos…

A gutless strategy

Written By: - Date published: 9:07 pm, June 22nd, 2011 - 41 comments

Sitting Room Key

Key is due to fly in to help announce the bad news in Christchurch tomorrow only to fly straight out to India the next day.

It’s seems the timing is all about keeping Key’s brand away from the bad news – he’ll do the sombre announcement and then leave others to deal with the fall out.

Gutless.

Curiouser and curiouser

Written By: - Date published: 7:38 am, June 13th, 2011 - 208 comments

slater key lee

It looks like the Labour party site was breached from National HQ.

Does this mean National are still laundering their dirty tricks though their pet bloggers?

Time to add parliamentary services to the OIA

Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, June 12th, 2011 - 18 comments

NZparliament

Although the latest “scandal” the HoS and a couple of bloggers are getting excited about is a damp squib it does raise a few issues about the accountability and transparency of parliamentary services.

I think it’s time to add parliamentary services to the OIA.

Welcome molesworthst

Written By: - Date published: 3:40 pm, June 5th, 2011 - Comments Off

A warm welcome to molesworthst – a new political blog recommended by Morgan over at his own must read blog, Maui Street.

Just like Ruth, Jim and Jenny

Written By: - Date published: 9:48 pm, May 30th, 2011 - 131 comments

john-key finger new

Having wrecked the economy and put tens of thousands of workers on the dole queue John Key is now planning to give them another kick in the guts by cutting their benefits.

And of course that’ll help drive wages down too.

To anyone that lived through the 1990′s this bullshit should be very very familiar by now.

Your chance to ask John the hard questions

Written By: - Date published: 2:36 pm, May 26th, 2011 - 47 comments

smiling assassin key

John wouldn’t answer our readers’ questions but he’s out in New Plymouth this Tuesday.

Get along and ask him the hard questions if you can.

And if you can’t get there make sure you email your question to editor@dailynews.co.nz

A shoddy, shoddy budget

Written By: - Date published: 8:12 am, May 20th, 2011 - 59 comments

Bill English and John Key as the odd couple

Poor accounting, bad forecasting, dodgy cuts and no vision whatsoever.

Yesterday’s budget was a fail on pretty much every front.

The Kiwisaver “employer contribution” scam

Written By: - Date published: 7:28 am, May 12th, 2011 - 23 comments

john-key finger new

The media is claiming Kiwisaver cuts will be offset by increased worker and employer contributions.

But because of a loophole in the scheme National created in 2009, employers can simply take their “contribution” out of their workers’ wages.

No wonder business lobby groups are unconcerned by the move.

The “big issues”

Written By: - Date published: 6:30 am, May 12th, 2011 - 77 comments

John BBC

John Key is whinging about how labour isn’t focusing on the “big issues”

But he and his government have been avoiding the big issues for years.

That’s not surprising given how badly they do on these big issues. But it’s still pitiful to see them whinging about it.

They made this guy the minister of tourism?

Written By: - Date published: 6:12 pm, May 10th, 2011 - 99 comments

John BBC

I was wondering why Key’s team weren’t trying to milk his upcoming hardtalk interview for PR like they have with his other international media appearances.

I guess now we know…

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