Written By: - Date published: 1:31 pm, June 4th, 2011 - 15 comments
John Armstrong says NZers are like frogs in ever hotter water, not realising the incrementally more radical agenda of National.
Tracy Watkins looks at the rise of lobbyists and their lack of accountability.
Written By: - Date published: 3:45 pm, May 26th, 2010 - 89 comments
Tracy Watkins recently observed of Key’s reluctance to front the media post-budget that:
“Mr Key has refused all but three requests to be interviewed by National Radio’s Morning Report so far this year. That must be unheard of among modern-day prime ministers…”
She puts his avoidance of the tough questions down to a desire to protect his brand.
Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, February 23rd, 2010 - 17 comments
This morning the DomPost ran an article by Tracy Watkins about several ministers misusing their ministerial credit cards for personal entertainment. They obtained the information by doing OIAs (Official Information Act requests). Now I’ve come to expect that NACT ministers will do (in John Keys words) “stupid” things in office. But what I found significant was that John Key appears to have discovered the use of a new word “disappointment”. This is a major advance for the NACT political vocabulary.
Written By: - Date published: 4:14 pm, February 13th, 2010 - 110 comments
Tracy Watkins awards the first week of Parliamentary politics this year to Phil Goff, and points out that it’s as much due to his and Labour’s much improved performance as it is to Key and National’s shambolic, over-promise, under-deliver governance. (more…)
Written By: - Date published: 3:39 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 16 comments
Nick Smith has taken a leaf out of the Double Dipton school of politics, calling journalists and swearing at them when the coverage isn’t to his liking. Now, to be fair to Smith, he’s got a point about the story the Dom published on Saturday. The story said Smith and six other MPs (all but …
Written By: - Date published: 1:04 pm, February 20th, 2009 - 23 comments
The praiseworthy and the pitiful is our weekly post on the little things that caught our eye but didn’t lead to a full post. This week: Tracy Watkins’ new blog A best of the political journos’ blogs I reckon. Watkins has been responding to comments, showing a bit of a sassy side, and her pieces …
Written By: - Date published: 9:22 am, December 9th, 2008 - 38 comments
Tracy Watkins reports that the National/Act government will be taking all work rights from anyone in a new job in a firm with 20 staff or less and they’re going to do it under urgency. I’ve heard that the question of whether to proceed with the bill under urgency was still being hotly debated within …
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