Author Archive
Fewer literacy?
Written By: - Date published: 10:35 am, September 11th, 2008 - 40 comments
Like John Key, I’m utterly bored with Peters. So, just a short, tangentially-related note. Tracy Watkins, like every other press gallery journo, thinks the latest micro-development around Peters is more important than the release of a major party’s health policy (in contrast, my flatmates are changing the channel when Peters comes on but were straight […]
Nats’ leaked health policy full of holes
Written By: - Date published: 9:20 pm, September 10th, 2008 - 10 comments
Having just read the National health policy and background paper released by Labour, a few things stand out to me. 1) There is no commitment to primary health-care. In fact, in 25 pages all it says is ‘we’ll do what’s already happening but we’ll re-name PHOs ‘Family Health Centres’, got ‘family’ in the name, don’t […]
Mr Slippery at it again
Written By: - Date published: 6:02 pm, September 10th, 2008 - 27 comments
An interesting interview between John Key and Wammo today. He starts out saying Labour is spending all its time talking about Owen Glenn and Peters whereas he wants to concerntrate on what matters. Funny, because he then spends the rest of the interview turning the topic back to that issue whenever possible and the only […]
Nat health policy: more money for rich, fewer for poor
Written By: - Date published: 2:11 pm, September 10th, 2008 - 60 comments
Jim Anderton is releasing elements of National’s health policy at Question Time: – Pharmac’s independent decisions could be overruled by politicians. – Private health insurance would be subsidised by the taxpayer. – No more money for public health National’s Jonathan Coleman also reportedly said that he doesn’t think GP fees are high enough.
The truth behind the Shawn Tan affair
Written By: - Date published: 1:27 pm, September 10th, 2008 - 43 comments
For the last several weeks the EPMU has had to weather an extraordinary series of attacks from ACT, ACT candidate and EPMU employee Shawn Tan, and right-wing activist/Herald journalist Lincoln Tan. The union has been accused of breaching Tan’s human rights and racism but it has had to respond to these attacks with one hand […]
End of the line for Peters
Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, September 10th, 2008 - 152 comments
Winston Peters will be wondering why he has let his political legacy be destroyed by not simply declaring donations that came from legal sources and being open in his role in soliciting them. All those MPs and other hangers-on who have ridden on the coat-tails of one of New Zealand’s most successful politicians* must be […]
Which seems more likely?
Written By: - Date published: 6:30 pm, September 9th, 2008 - 109 comments
Multiple spies, whom National has been unable to catch, and a series of ‘gaffes’ and accidents involving sensitive papers? Or a bitter faction led by the man who was deposed by Key’s vote?
How many leaks to sink a ship?
Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, September 9th, 2008 - 44 comments
This is really getting pretty serious now – a fourth National party policy has been leaked to Labour, who have made it public. In the last week we’ve seen National’s environment, conservation, biofuels, and, now, research, science, and technology policies leaked from within National. This is unprecedented – so many policies being leaked this close […]
Spin-busting: ‘Labour has no policy, either’
Written By: - Date published: 9:09 am, September 9th, 2008 - 45 comments
John Key is running a line that first emerged in the rightwing blogs a few months ago: ‘Labour doesn’t have any policy, either’. It was a moron’s line when it was on the blogs and Key has only taken it up in a desperate attempt to divert from National’s policy leaks. It’s meant to be a response […]
What I want from a 4th term Labour-led Govt
Written By: - Date published: 1:59 pm, September 8th, 2008 - 140 comments
With the election fast approaching, here’s a non-exhaustive list of policies I would like to see from a 4th term Labour-led Government. Hopefully, other Standardistas will have time to make their own wish-lists too: – Serious investment in low-oil/low-carbon infrastructure. If we’re not to let peak oil catch us unprepared, we have to get serious […]
The polls and petrol prices
Written By: - Date published: 1:43 am, September 8th, 2008 - 19 comments
Updating a post from a few months ago, here’s how Labour’s Roy Morgan poll numbers are going compared to the price of petrol since the last election (the price of petrol axis is inverted, lower line = higher price). The trend continues, when petrol prices go up support for Labour goes down and vice versa. Labour hit a […]
The Standard Week: August 29 – September 5
Written By: - Date published: 2:15 pm, September 7th, 2008 - 10 comments
As always at The Standard, we’re interested in the issues that affect people’s lives. So, rather than endless posts on who said what over donations made three years ago, we looked at some interesting stories on wages, living standards, and protections against loan sharks. National’s awful billboards provided a lot of fun, readers sent in some great parodies, […]
The sincerest form of flattery
Written By: - Date published: 12:14 pm, September 7th, 2008 - 78 comments
The Greens billboards have shown how it’s done – striking and simple without being dishonest or simplistic. Maybe National could imitate them: Maybe not.
Fewer bureaucrats
Written By: - Date published: 3:20 pm, September 5th, 2008 - 39 comments
OK. They were laughably bad before but now they don’t even have the grammar correct. If you can count it, you use fewer: less water, fewer litres of water; less bureaucracy, fewer bureaucrats. Simple. This from the bunch promising to magically raise education standards? Wait though – since when did National have a policy to reduce the number […]
The hypocrisy of the Right
Written By: - Date published: 2:50 pm, September 5th, 2008 - 3 comments
Today, we have National’s Judith Collins attacking the Government because the number of Kiwis on the unemployment benefit rose from 17,710 to 20,465 between June and July. Never mind the fact that 17,710 was a 30 year record-low and even 20,000 is 120,000 fewer Kiwis on the unemployment benefit than the best National could manage. […]
Why didn’t NZF use Nats’ donations playbook?
Written By: - Date published: 2:22 pm, September 4th, 2008 - 56 comments
This business with donations from the Spencer Trust going to New Zealand First but not being declared. I find it hard to credit that this was an accident. It seems beyond belief that no-one in the party would have seen the donation declaration at some point and said ‘hey, what about that $50K from the […]
Why the rush?
Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, September 4th, 2008 - 51 comments
We are, at a legal maximum, 72 days away from the election. The tradition is that the date is announced at least six weeks before election date (that’s the timeframe the Electoral Office needs). So, we would expect to have the election date announced by the start of October, no more than four weeks from now. […]
Are you positive?
Written By: - Date published: 12:43 pm, September 3rd, 2008 - 5 comments
Talking about the Nat billboard campaign on Wammo’s show this morning, Key said it was going to positive and on message*. Umm, when’s the positive bit coming? Because ‘wave goodbye to higher taxes, not your loved ones’ is not a positive message. It’s negatively framed and intentionally so. If the Nats wanted to be positive […]
Metaphor (2)
Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, September 3rd, 2008 - 11 comments
So, the day after our post last week a couple of readers were in town and they came across Stephen Franks beside his faded old yellow VW Beetle. Seems the tired old vehicle was on its last legs and had run out of juice. So, socialists that they are, they decided to aid their fellow […]
Dissection
Written By: - Date published: 1:13 pm, September 2nd, 2008 - 19 comments
OK, so there are limitless ways to mock the Nat’s ‘WW2 bombers flying to Chile’ billboard (send us yours to add to these ones) but I want to quickly examine it seriously as a piece of political argument. First, the premises: a) our taxes are high: No, they’re not. Tax as a percentage of GDP […]
Russel Norman at Drinking Liberally Wgtn – tomorrow
Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, September 2nd, 2008 - 6 comments
The Drinking Liberally – Wellington email: By popular demand this Wednesday Drinking Liberally Wellington presents: Russel Norman – Co-leader of the Green Party. Russel is a relatively recent addition to parliament and many of you expressed an interest in hearing more about him and his views. This is your chance! Come share a drink with […]
Break open the trusts
Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, September 2nd, 2008 - 25 comments
As we’ve discussed earlier, it would be highly surprising if the investigations into NZF’s finances find any serious illegality. At worst, a failure to declare donations might be found, an offence for which charges cannot be laid more than 6 months after an alleged offence. Now, TV3 was shown accounts by the Spencer Trust which show that […]
Buy Kiwi online
Written By: - Date published: 6:07 am, September 2nd, 2008 - 7 comments
As part of the Buy NZ Made programme that was part of the Government’s abstention deal with the Greens, the Get NZ Made website has been launched. It works like a normal online shopping site and lists thousands of New Zealand-made products – everything from asphalt to zinnia skirts. Now, if only the Buy NZ […]
Key- you like Obama? OK.. I’m the white Obama!
Written By: - Date published: 3:04 pm, September 1st, 2008 - 33 comments
“I’m a bit like (Barack) Obama,” – Key Of course, National has been trying to link Key to Obama because Obama is probably going to win and Key hopes to piggy-back on that. But, as we’ve seen before, they really have nothing in common: Turns out Key has more in common with another fellow born […]
New York Times praises NZ on nukes
Written By: - Date published: 2:31 pm, September 1st, 2008 - 6 comments
‘Let’s hear it for New Zealand’ exclaims the New York Times editorial. Why? Because New Zealand is leading a group of countries that opposes a Bush Administration plan to supply nuclear technology to India. Supply of nuclear technology to India is banned because it used its civilian nuclear programme to develop an atomic bomb, contrary […]
ToryAid: Wastewatch (4)
Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, September 1st, 2008 - 20 comments
Because National has abandoned its wastewatch website, we keep track of the ‘waste’ National has promised to cut to pay for those magical, mysterious, cure-all tax cuts. Here’s what they’ve said they will cut: 1) Embassy in Sweden – approx $3 million capital, $3 million operating (why it’s not waste) 2) Badges about Te Reo […]
Just sayin’
Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, September 1st, 2008 - 25 comments
The TV channel in Lebanon that relays Fox News is called ADD. I…I just think it’s funny.
Whom to believe? (3)
Written By: - Date published: 6:09 am, September 1st, 2008 - 26 comments
John Key tells us that National hasn’t decided yet what it would spend its extra borrowing on, what projects would be PPPs, what roads would be tolled under National. How, then, to explain this from last week’s Agenda? RAWDON Give me an example of a toll here, give me an example of what it will […]
New Facebook groups
Written By: - Date published: 6:36 pm, August 31st, 2008 - 42 comments
After I was part of the ‘Great NZ Sell-off’ skit protest outside the National Party conference at the start of the month, I did a wee interview with a journo from NewstalkZB and he, knowing I’ve got something to do with this interweb thing, asked ‘what do you think of the fact that John Key’s […]
Throw-away
Written By: - Date published: 4:24 pm, August 31st, 2008 - 18 comments
Sometimes, the throw-away comments a person makes are the most revealing – for example, Bill English’s attitude towards the “punters” and towards John Key, both made as side comments in the secret agenda tapes, are in some ways more revealing than his substantive comments on Working for Families and Kiwibank. And it was a throw-away […]
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