Author Archive
Treating the voters like children
Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, June 13th, 2008 - 30 comments
Keith Holyoake used to say “tell the people, trust the people”; be honest about the benefits, trade-offs, and costs of policies and trust the people to judge you in an adult manner. Central to Brand Key, however, is playing to voters’ baser desires, especially greed, and fomenting juvenile beliefs, including that it is possible to have ones cake and eat it. For […]
The wage gap and the Nats’ crediblity gap
Written By: - Date published: 5:01 pm, June 12th, 2008 - 32 comments
Remember when National was all about the wage gap, whinging about it every day? Heard them talk about it lately? The last mention we can find is three weeks ago. Has the issue suddenly gone away? No, there is still a wage gap and solutions to it require serious debate. But National wasn’t talking about […]
With friends like these
Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, June 12th, 2008 - 85 comments
One thing that puzzles me about righties is that half the people on their side of the fence are racists, bigots, misogynists, homophobes or religious zealots and, yet, this doesn’t seem to make the rest of them re-evaluate own their beliefs. If, for example, I were a National MP and in the same caucus as […]
GWOT comics
Written By: - Date published: 6:49 am, June 12th, 2008 - 8 comments
Ah, Iraq invasion satire. thank god that war is over, eh John? [GWOT – Global War On Terror, official acronym. You can’t make this stuff up]
Why Key really wants super-fast broadband
Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, June 11th, 2008 - 29 comments
Remember National’s broadband ‘plan’ that reads like it was drawn up on the back of a napkin? Notice how the only gains they can point to from this plan to borrow $1.5 billion are better video conferencing (when was the last time the average worker used video conferencing?) and being able to download pirated movies […]
Centre party? Yeah, right
Written By: - Date published: 3:14 pm, June 11th, 2008 - 31 comments
Why is it that UnitedFuture is branded a centre party? We all know they’re socially right wing, in bed with the Christian fundamentalists, and the tax plan Dunne announced on the weekend proves they’re far-right economically too. They would blow the Budget with $4.6 billion cuts (no mention of where the money would come from and no-one […]
Mythbusting: Labour’s just had golden economic weather
Written By: - Date published: 10:16 am, June 11th, 2008 - 29 comments
The amazing economic run we’ve experienced under the Labour-led governments is just down to international forces, so National would have us believe. Of course an economy is influenced by international conditions but it’s not the whole story. Under centre-left governments New Zealand has outperformed other economies, after we fell behind under National in the 1990s. And […]
The vision thing
Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, June 10th, 2008 - 95 comments
No sensible analysis could conclude that the Labour-led governments of the last 8 years have been anything but excellent for New Zealand. As you know, we’ve seen unemployment plummet to record lows, wages rise at record rates, more spending on public services, interest-free student loans, 20Free childcare, the buyback of the rail network, the end […]
Which is the waste of money?
Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, June 10th, 2008 - 35 comments
Every now and then a ‘commentator’ pops up who is so hilariously incompetent you don’t know whether to ignore them or mock them. In Bernard Hickey‘s case, it’s been the former because the man’s work is so bad – his numbers don’t add up half the time, his understanding of economics would have had my […]
Spinbusting: the biggest party must govern
Written By: - Date published: 9:42 am, June 10th, 2008 - 38 comments
A National line that is doing the rounds goes that if National wins more votes than Labour but can’t govern alone it would be undemocratic for a Labour-led coalition to form the next government. After all, in this scenario, National has won more votes than anyone else, so it should be the government, right? Wrong. […]
Spin-busting: ‘Hardworking kiwis’
Written By: - Date published: 2:11 pm, June 9th, 2008 - 180 comments
‘Hardworking kiwis’ is National’s new ‘mainstream New Zealanders’. Referenced by Key ad nauseam, it is the population at which National purports to target it’s policies. As with ‘mainstream New Zealanders’, ‘hardworking kiwis’ has a inherently divisive implicit message: ‘not everyone is a hardworking kiwi’. The term creates an ‘other’; a type of person in this […]
Mythbusting: The govt gets rich off high petrol prices
Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, June 9th, 2008 - 95 comments
We regularly hear calls (not backed by any major party, including National) for the taxes on petrol to be lowered or removed because the prices are so high. After all, every time the price goes up, the government gets more revenue, doesn’t it? No, it doesn’t. Tax on petrol has two parts. There are four levies […]
Peters refuses to answer your questions
Written By: - Date published: 12:59 pm, June 6th, 2008 - 37 comments
In the final of our ‘Interview the Leaders’ series, we asked Winston Peters three questions submitted by readers. Damian Edwards from his office promptly replied that Peters would be answering no questions from political blogs. So instead we’ve provided answers to your questions in the form of some great political songs. Q. Of which of […]
Introducing the Standard Week
Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, June 6th, 2008 - 12 comments
We know that if you miss a couple of days of The Standard you can have 15 posts to read. Even though we try to keep posts pithy, it can be too much to catch up on. So, we’re happy to introduce the Standard Week. On Fridays, we’ll do a Standard Week post linking to the […]
Into the void: examining National’s ‘policies’
Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, June 5th, 2008 - 107 comments
National’s so-called policies are laughable. National says it has released ’14 policies’ (14! wow! anyone would think they were planning to run a scout troop not a country) but six are just to adopt the existing policy. And the others, well – * Setting national standards in reading, writing and numeracy – shown to have no positive effect […]
Many liberals, many drinks at Drinking Liberally
Written By: - Date published: 12:49 pm, June 5th, 2008 - 9 comments
Drinking Liberally last night was another raging success. The crowd was about 80, lots of new faces and good fun had by all. Given an open brief, Michael Cullen went back to his roots. He talked about social democracy and what it stands for; what that meant growing up in a working class family and […]
OCR unchanged
Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, June 5th, 2008 - 14 comments
The Reserve Bank has left the Official Cash Rate unchanged; no-one expected a rate cut this early. It’s encouraging that Bollard has firmly signalled that interest rates will be coming down this year despite projected inflation reaching 4.7% in the September Quarter. There’s no use in the Reserve Bank strangling our economy with high interest […]
A World Environment Day Carol
Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, June 5th, 2008 - 18 comments
Garth George surprised me today, and a welcome surprise it was. Here’s an extract from his article – I decided that in this week’s column I would have a bit of fun at the Greens’ expense in the wake of their annual meeting. But since the spartan media coverage given to that conference was insufficient […]
Drinking Liberally tonight
Written By: - Date published: 3:19 pm, June 4th, 2008 - 11 comments
Just a reminder that Drinking Liberally is on again this evening. See youse there. WHAT Drinking Liberally WHEN From 5.30pm, Wednesday June 4th. WHERE Southern Cross, Abel Smith Street SPEAKER Michael Cullen, Deputy Prime Minister CONTACT wellington@drinkingliberally.org
Food Police State fails to eventuate
Written By: - Date published: 12:18 pm, June 4th, 2008 - 86 comments
Remember the tories and the Kiwiblog Right getting all flustered about the ‘Food Police’, when guidelines were announced to control junk food in school tuck shops? Remember how this was the Nanny State at its most perverse and surely one step from us all being fed a daily ration of Soylent Green? Well, now the […]
Ward sees sense
Written By: - Date published: 11:43 am, June 4th, 2008 - 35 comments
Good on Mike Ward for finally seeing sense and stepping aside, allowing Greens co-leader Russel Norman to enter Parliament replacing Nandor Tanczos. Norman is rapidly establsihing himself as a very good media frontperson for the Greens; being in Parliament will enhance his role. Only the righties were praising Ward for not stepping aside (just as […]
How much did Key pay for his seat?
Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, June 4th, 2008 - 85 comments
It’s funny the stories you hear when you’re out in the provinces. I was up in Auckland over the long weekend and came across someone who told me the story of how Key became involved in National. See, Key was never political growing up and certainly not strongly National. He can’t remember where he stood […]
Foreign media owners slash journo numbers, again
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, June 4th, 2008 - 33 comments
The New Zealand Press Association, owned by APN and Fairfax, has announced it is slashing its journalists from 55 to 48. In election year, they are reducing the parliamentary bureau from five to four. They are even sacking their only (yes, only) South Island reporter. This is the problem with having our print media owned […]
Treasury dreams of cheap oil
Written By: - Date published: 2:59 pm, June 3rd, 2008 - 26 comments
This is the graph of the oil price forecasts Treasury used to underpin its fiscal model for the Budget. It assumes that oil would touch $115 a barrel US in about July this year before easing off to a long-run level of $100 a barrel. That is already up on Treasury’s forecast from November, which […]
Polling companies confirm reputations
Written By: - Date published: 12:02 pm, June 3rd, 2008 - 61 comments
Another pair of TV polls, another embarrassment for Colmar Brunton as their poll goes widely out of line with the others even as TNS/TV3 is confirming the established trend. Still, neither of the polls looks great for the Left. National would govern alone under either result. That said, given the trend of 35% for Labour, […]
What’s National’s real assets policy?
Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, June 3rd, 2008 - 18 comments
Isn’t this the one issue where we truly know what National will do? Didn’t John Key say ‘there will be no asset sales in the first term of a National Government (we’ll save that or the second term)’? Yes, he did. But that goes against the deepest of National principles and caused real disquiet about […]
Cullen to speak at Drinking Liberally
Written By: - Date published: 3:50 pm, May 30th, 2008 - 100 comments
Drinking Liberally’s Facebook group has just sent out the invitation to their second event. I don’t know how they’ve swung it, but they’ve got Michael Cullen speaking. It’s not every day the Deputy Prime Minister agrees to talk to your drinking club/politics forum. It will be on Wednesday again to fit Cullen’s schedule. So, details: […]
Butting out
Written By: - Date published: 2:43 pm, May 30th, 2008 - 16 comments
The Government has announced that the percentage of kiwi adults who smoke has fallen to 19.9%. The number of daily smokers is down from 25.2% of the adult population in 1996 to 18.7%. 150,000 people have given up in the last four years alone. The really good news is that the number of teenagers who are […]
Ryall: disgraceful
Written By: - Date published: 1:28 pm, May 30th, 2008 - 34 comments
National’s Tony Ryall has made a disgrace of himself, yet again. This time, by labelling a Government initiative to hasten improvements in the detection of colon cancer (which kills 1200 people a year) ‘a political stunt’. Here is Health Minister David Cunliffe and Ryall on National Radio: CUNLIFFE: I’m not doing this because of votes, […]
On the perils of polls
Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, May 30th, 2008 - 43 comments
We’re used to hearing that a poll has a margin of error but what does it mean? A margin of error of 3% doesn’t mean the poll’s numbers are definitely within 3% of the ‘real’ numbers, it means there is a 95% chance they are within 3% of those numbers; that is, one in 20 […]
Notional Policy: Kiwisaver
Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, May 30th, 2008 - 24 comments
Tracy Watkins reported yesterday that National’s weakening of the employer contribution to Kiwisaver may take a different path to the one we envisaged. Rather than limiting employer contributions to a lower level Watkins reports businesses want to be able to dock or cut wages to compensate for the Kiwisaver contributions they make. This is currently […]
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