Written By: - Date published: 4:16 pm, November 15th, 2011 - 20 comments
MANA’s Epsom Candidate Pat O’Dea, reminds the voters of Epsom who they are really voting for.
Written By: - Date published: 4:16 pm, July 9th, 2011 - 136 comments
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.
Written By: - Date published: 8:53 pm, May 4th, 2011 - 217 comments
Righto. I’ve just watched the debate between Harawira and Brash on Close Up and about five minutes fifty into the second part Brash had the gall to challenge Harawira on whether he believed everyone should have the same rights.
Written By: - Date published: 7:12 am, April 29th, 2011 - 123 comments
The Left are rubbing our hands with glee at the prospect of taking on BrashKey, but make no mistake, Key wanted this coup too. Think about it: former Nat Leader Don Brash, former Nat Minister John Banks, Nat money man Alan Gibbs, former Nat President Michelle Boag – and it goes down while John Key is far away playing smile and wave in Europe.
Written By: - Date published: 1:51 pm, April 28th, 2011 - 49 comments
So, just as Irish predicted, Calvert was the swinging voter, and Brash has now achieved his hostile takeover of ACT. Goodbye Rodney, and good riddance. What does this do to the political landscape? Here are some preliminary thoughts.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, April 28th, 2011 - 77 comments
ACT’s newest MP Hilary Calvert is reported to have changed her support from Hide to Brash. That means the leadership of New Zealand’s most rightwing party will transfer to someone who isn’t currently even a member of the ACT Party.
UPDATE: Hide expected to announce resignation at midday
Written By: - Date published: 7:09 am, April 28th, 2011 - 15 comments
Ben ‘Blanket Man’ Hana has thrown his loin cloth into the contest for ACT’s leadership. Despite not having any political experience, Blanket Man says he is the man for the job due to his firm commitment to laissez-faire economics, his excellent face recognition, and the virtue that he is not a tired, old, has-been, racist arsehole.
Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, April 27th, 2011 - 26 comments
ACT Leader Rodney Hide will soon be out of a job. I doubt he’ll be in the running for any prime SOE chairs like Jim Bolger, and all the best jobs at the UN are taken by competent people. Jenny Shipley went in to the HR business and Mike Moore became a WTO lapdog.
So what next for Rodney?
Written By: - Date published: 8:38 pm, April 26th, 2011 - 63 comments
Hide’s gone if Calvert or Boscawen jump ship. But so is the one that doesn’t jump. I’m picking Calvert will be the key.
Update: As of noon today 3 News reports that Rodney may be about to go…
Written By: - Date published: 12:13 pm, April 25th, 2011 - 48 comments
Hone Harawira is set to launch his Mana Party next weekend, possibly triggering a by-election in Te Tai Tokerau at the same time. At the other end of the spectrum, Don Brash’s haphazard to take over ACT may actually just be casus belli for him to establish a New Right Party.
Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, April 24th, 2011 - 79 comments
Tweedledum and Tweedledee were a bit slow off the mark responding to the news that Don Brash is looking to take over ACT. Took the Nats a while to get their lines together but have decided, on balance, they want ACT dead. And that will be a lot easier to achieve if Brash isn’t in charge.
Written By: - Date published: 8:29 am, April 23rd, 2011 - 98 comments
Brash has thrown his hat in the ring for ACT’s leadership.
If the best the far right can do is a failed National MP warmed over then things are looking up.
Written By: - Date published: 12:57 pm, March 23rd, 2011 - 9 comments
Turia’s learning the price of loyalty. Her Whanau Ora is getting cuts. Key knows she’ll roll over and vote for any budget to keep her seat in the limo. Hide’s 2025 Taskforce is for the chop too. Key says it’s not worth the money. Never was. 300K down the drain. Brash off the gravy train; back to corned beef and peas. Bet Key’s silly cycleway won’t be cut.
Written By: - Date published: 12:57 pm, March 15th, 2011 - 91 comments
3-time election loser Don Brash spoke at the ACT conference on the weekend. It was an attempt to revive the Owera days with an anti-Maori speech. When he made a ‘they don’t know how lucky they are’ reference to how Australians used to “shoot the natives”, a ACT member yelled “bring that back” and the audience laughed.
Written By: - Date published: 1:40 pm, November 29th, 2010 - 18 comments
Don Brash has been blurting at Orewa again, in a speech which has been reported as attacking Maori, attacking Key, and opening up divisions within National. But I don’t think anyone cares, or indeed anyone should care, about anything that this fading clown says…
Written By: - Date published: 10:28 am, November 4th, 2010 - 23 comments
Don Brash’s latest 2025 Taskforce report will be ignored like the last. Brash tries very hard to scare us into adopting his failed neoliberal agenda but we all know the point of the Taskforce is to make John Key look moderate. That said, Brash’s latest offering is a curate’s egg – nearly all of it foul and rotten but with one partially redeeming section:
Written By: - Date published: 7:18 am, July 23rd, 2010 - 17 comments
Brash’s call for a “flexible pension” is the thin end of the wedge leading to a rise in the age of eligibility for super. At the moment National are rejecting his call, as Key would be obliged to resign if the age is raised. But the problem remains. National have weakened Labour’s Cullen fund and KiwiSaver, and they seem to have no ideas of their own…
Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, March 16th, 2010 - 19 comments
The New Zealand economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s were largely a failure. This can be seen from the large negative divergence post 1984 in New Zealand’s real output per capita in comparison to Australia, our usual benchmark. New Zealand’s comparative position vis-Ã -vis unemployment also worsened. Poverty and social inequality increased. Australia undertook various …
Written By: - Date published: 2:09 pm, March 9th, 2010 - 40 comments
Michael is dead right. The most important thing about the Hollow Men is not how Nicky Hager got the information but what the information is. It reveals National’s modern politics in all its unprincipled ugliness. Nonetheless, which Nats gave Hager the information is a subject of legitimate interest. I have some theories.
Written By: - Date published: 1:04 pm, March 9th, 2010 - 11 comments
John Key doesn’t need evidence. He just knows stuff. John Key just knows that Don Brash’s emails were stolen by a mysterious hacker, despite having no evidence at all. The same “reasoning” underpins most of National’s flagship policies. Key just knows they’ll work, even when the evidence says otherwise…
Written By: - Date published: 7:41 pm, March 8th, 2010 - 61 comments
The leaked emails which helped bring about the downfall of former Nat leader Don Brash hit the headlines again today, for all the wrong reasons. The story of who “stole” the emails was nothing more than a successful Tory decoy. Journalists have already forgotten the insidious tricks used by the top echelons of the National Party.
Written By: - Date published: 8:07 am, March 1st, 2010 - 50 comments
With true tory arrogance at the ACT conference this weekend, Don Brash has described New Zealand voters as venal and stupid.
Apparently New Zealand’s reluctance to destroy what is left of their society by implementing Brash’s discredited crazy old man economic voodoo is a sign of their stupidity.
Apparently nobody in ACT disagreed with him. Go figure.
Written By: - Date published: 5:26 pm, December 3rd, 2009 - 25 comments
We all know the 2025 Taskforce is a farce and a waste of taxpayers’ money. The Government has disowned it, the critics have panned it. Even Garth George has come out calling for its first report to be recycled into toilet paper. It genuinely appears to serve no function but to subsidise the wacky right-wing …
Written By: - Date published: 12:05 pm, December 3rd, 2009 - 4 comments
One of the most amusing things in the granny today is Garth George, our iconoclast from Rotorua ripping another hole into the credibility of the Brash Taskforce 2025. Absurdities abound, the first of which was the appointment of people like Dr Brash and Mr Caygill who, along with their soulmate, Act Party seat-warmer Roger Douglas, …
Written By: - Date published: 10:16 am, December 3rd, 2009 - 11 comments
Always worth listening to, Rod Oram rips the Brash Report on Nine to Noon, not just on the findings but on the quality of the work, that we’re paying half a million dollars for. Here are some of the choice quotes: “At every point it has unbelievably facile analysis and, in fact, substitutes rather generic …
Written By: - Date published: 1:52 pm, December 2nd, 2009 - 31 comments
felix in comments points out in his usual sarcastic style about the media response on Don Brash’s 2025 Taskforce report. For example, consider this online poll (tvnz): What do you think of Don Brash’s 2025 Taskforce financial report? It’s too radical It’s about right It doesn’t go far enough All the questions imply some degree …
Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, December 1st, 2009 - 22 comments
Pascal’s Bookie dug up this classic in the comments: Congratulations…. You always knew that politics would be exciting, but I guess that neither of us thought that it would get quite this exciting quite so soon. Don, I wish you all the very best I am confident of your capacity to lead National and ultimately …
Written By: - Date published: 3:17 pm, November 30th, 2009 - 77 comments
As we predicted, the main recommendations of the Brash report have been rejected out of hand by John Key. They are, as intended, mere headline grabbers – outlandish, silly ideas like flat tax funded by slashing government spending by 20% (that’s $17 billion). Forget relatively minor measures like cutting free early childhood education and putting …
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, November 30th, 2009 - 8 comments
As the same old faces of the Right roll out the same old failed neoliberal ideas in new packaging, it’s a useful time to rewatch Alister Barry’s fantastic documentaries on what happened the last time round. In many cases even the faces haven’t changed. Someone Else’s Country examines the devastating effects of the neoliberal revolution …
Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, November 30th, 2009 - 51 comments
Well the productivity task force is reporting back today and some of their ideas have been forward released. As we expected they are a grab-bag of unpalatable, short-sighted and frankly mad measures from the loony right including putting interest back on student loans, flat tax and means testing free childcare. As the official announcement comes …
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