Archive for April, 2008

NZ Growing Faster Than Aussie, US, Japan, and UK

Written By: - Date published: 11:16 am, April 10th, 2008 - 42 comments

The Reserve Bank produces a series of helpful tables of economic data. One table compares our growth to that of Australia, the US, Japan, and the UK. Here’s a graph comparing growth across the countries between National and Labour’s periods in government. National has a pathetic track record on growth. Under them, our economy grew 1% […]

Too stupid for words

Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, April 10th, 2008 - Comments Off on Too stupid for words

I’m not usually big on the Bush-bashing, but this is classic: Say what you like about Reagan, at least the dude could read from an autocue. Hat tip: onegoodmove

Beware the Tory wolf in liberal clothing

Written By: - Date published: 4:28 pm, April 9th, 2008 - 23 comments

Polly Toynbee of The Guardian writes: “Beware the lesson of the Tory wolf in liberal clothing: Sweden’s great social democracy has been transformed for the worse – and Britain risks importing the nightmare”. At the previous election [the moderates] had crashed at just 15%, so Reinfeldt, an appealing and eloquent 41-year-old, had a free hand […]

Key’s plan for NZ to require lots of tug-boats

Written By: - Date published: 1:50 pm, April 9th, 2008 - 42 comments

From Key’s speech to the NZ Institute of Foreign Affairs on emulating the ‘Celtic Tiger’: “Thirty years ago, Ireland was a total basket case. Today, it has all of the trappings of a considerable economic success story, including the capacity to attract and retain smart, educated, enterprising people. three key policy initiatives which were critical […]

Winston and the FTA

Written By: - Date published: 11:04 am, April 9th, 2008 - 28 comments

New Zealand First’s opposition to the China FTA is no surprise but it is interesting to reflect on the grounds for it that Winston Peters has laid out: a) the deal is not good enough. A pretty weak argument when the other option is no deal. b) the immigration provisions are bad and shouldn’t be […]

National under fire over unauthorised advertising

Written By: - Date published: 4:02 pm, April 8th, 2008 - 80 comments

Annette King has hit back at National in the House today, producing two items of electoral advertising from them, neither of which is authorised. The first of these is a promotional pamphlet for John Key, the second is their 2005 Broadcasting policy – still available for download on their website, which bears the slogan “Party […]

Sensible Sentencing: Disgusting

Written By: - Date published: 12:50 pm, April 8th, 2008 - 80 comments

The Sensible Sentencing Trust is a backward, reactionary organisation at the best of times but this is a new low. Responding to comments Children’s Commissioner Dr Cindy Kiro made about tagging, Sensible Sentencing’s Garth McVicar said ‘Her comments are hugely provocative at a time when a decent hard working citizen is facing a murder charge […]

Fair and balanced

Written By: - Date published: 11:17 am, April 8th, 2008 - 16 comments

The Herald could barely contain its self-satisfaction when National’s David Farrar complained to the Electoral Commission that the country’s largest private sector union, the EPMU, which comprises 50,000 working New Zealanders, should not be allowed to register as a third party under the Electoral Finance ACT. ‘ Law gags friend as well as foe‘ proclaimed […]

Finlay MacDonald: The Audacity of Hype

Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, April 8th, 2008 - 14 comments

A reader wrote to us to say that they’d recently seen Finlay MacDonald speak at Otago University as part of the Distinguished Communicator Lecture Series for the Centre of Science Communication. The talk is now online: The Audacity of Hype: John Key and the new National Socialism. In case you hadn’t picked up on this […]

Interview the leaders III: Labour

Written By: - Date published: 5:14 pm, April 7th, 2008 - 64 comments

A big thanks to Progressives’ leader Jim Anderton for being the first participant in our ‘Interview the leaders’ series. The quality of his answers has set a standard for the others to emulate. Our next leader is Jeanette Fitzsimmons of the Green Party. The general question remains: Of which of your achievements in politics are […]

A dereliction of duty

Written By: - Date published: 3:20 pm, April 7th, 2008 - 39 comments

John Key’s failure to ask a parliamentary question last week exposes a crisis of confidence in National’s ranks. It is unprecedented for an Opposition leader to be in attendance in the House for a full sitting week, and to not once challenge the Government. This never happened when Helen Clark led Labour in Opposition from […]

Jim Anderton answers your questions

Written By: - Date published: 9:55 am, April 7th, 2008 - 27 comments

Today we’re posting the first of our “Interview the leaders” segments – where you get to ask the leaders the questions you want to hear the answers to. We asked that answers be kept to 300 words and undertook to post them verbatim. We also warned the leaders that they were writing for a politically […]

Sir Ed and Helen Clark – admired Kiwis

Written By: - Date published: 6:39 pm, April 6th, 2008 - 15 comments

From the Sunday Star Times: A new poll suggests that National Leader John Key may be up against a bigger obstacle than he thought in knocking Prime Minister Helen Clark off she is the person New Zealanders most admire after Sir Edmund Hillary. The much-loved mountaineer topped the Roy Morgan Poll with 17.4 per cent support, followed by […]

Helen Clark on BBC’s “Hardtalk”

Written By: - Date published: 7:43 pm, April 5th, 2008 - 17 comments

Sarah Montague from BBC’s Hardtalk interviews Helen Clark – starting with a question about whether the time might be right for a New Zealand referendum on republicanism. I’ve got to admit that I found it thoroughly refreshing to watch an interview where the interviewer doesn’t pull punches but also isn’t competing to be the centre […]

Me-too but Cool

Written By: - Date published: 3:03 pm, April 5th, 2008 - Comments Off on Me-too but Cool

Do you have a fascination with ads? Ever wonder where they come up with their ideas or feel like you’ve seen an ad that’s similar somewhere else? This site has a curious and diverse range of original and less original works to view. The motto seems to be if it was successful the first time […]

China Syndrome

Written By: - Date published: 12:41 pm, April 5th, 2008 - 23 comments

Liberal democracy (ie. democracy where there are truly competitive elections) is the dominant ideology of government of our time, having seen off monarchy and totalitarianism in both its fascist and communist guises. And if there’s one thing the world’s liberal democracies agree on is that spreading liberal democracy is a good idea, (unless it interferes […]

What’s Eating Slippery John?

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 pm, April 4th, 2008 - 23 comments

Slippery John and his mates seemed pretty down in the dumps in the House this week. I know that no one, but a few political junkies, watch the House but a political party’s performance there is a good indicator for their mood. And, frankly, the Nats and their leader were not in a good one. […]

Davey gets it wrong again

Written By: - Date published: 3:57 pm, April 4th, 2008 - 79 comments

David Farrar’s latest political campaign on behalf of the National Party has, like so many of them before, foundered on the sharp rocks of reality. In an attempt reminiscent of the ramshackle PR fiasco that was the Free Speech Coalition, DPF tried to get the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union’s application for third party status […]

If I were Labour’s campaign strategist

Written By: - Date published: 2:49 pm, April 4th, 2008 - 18 comments

Part three of the ‘If I were [Party X]’s campaign strategist’ series brings us to Labour. The strategy for a major party is very different from that of a smaller party. Rather than trying to grab attention public attention and target niche concerns, a major party needs a broad-based platform that will appeal to most […]

John Key’s DVD: Take 2

Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, April 4th, 2008 - 20 comments

Our sources tell us National is set to follow-up to last year’s DVD ‘John Key: Vacuous for New Zealand’ with its sequel ‘John Key: I won’t bite, promise’. ‘Vacuous’ was withdrawn after The Standard and Kiwiblogblog revealed that Key had illegally used Coldplay’s ‘Clocks‘ as the theme tune. National and Coldplay’s record label are reported […]

Didn’t take long

Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, April 4th, 2008 - 7 comments

A reader just sent us this – REM meets John Key. (Hat-tip: PJ)

Lockwood: unsurprisingly relaxed about global warming

Written By: - Date published: 4:59 pm, April 3rd, 2008 - 28 comments

“Frankly, it’s a market”

Written By: - Date published: 3:33 pm, April 3rd, 2008 - 9 comments

That’s what Key said when asked about his plan to increase GP fees. A reader reckons Key’s planning to apply the same market logic to crime: Great cartoon. No wonder National’s Law and order Spokesperson, Simon Power, is distancing himself from Key’s policy.

In praise of ACC

Written By: - Date published: 2:21 pm, April 3rd, 2008 - 34 comments

It was nice to see this independent report into the ACC scheme by Price Waterhouse Coopers. Amongst the general positive comments was this observation: “The ACC under its current implementation structure performs as well or better than most other schemes we can observe around the world.” “No fault” models (such as ours) are associated with: […]

Campbell grills Peter Brown

Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, April 3rd, 2008 - 61 comments

Now this is what Campbell needs to do more of. Last night the man ripped poor old Peter Brown to shreds over his racist comments about Asian immigrants, and it was brutal. You almost had to feel sorry for the guy:

Interview the Leaders – reminder

Written By: - Date published: 11:31 am, April 3rd, 2008 - Comments Off on Interview the Leaders – reminder

Just a reminder, there’s still time to get your questions in for the Greens in our upcoming Interview the Leaders series. You can place your questions in the comments section of this post. Remember, keep them above the belt but make them tough. Jim Anderton will lead off the series on Monday answering your questions […]

Hiding from the hakapiks

Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, April 3rd, 2008 - 6 comments

There is a Novotel hotel beside the Canadian High Commission on The Terrace in Wellington. Check out this billboard on the wall of the hotel nearest the High Commission, you can see the Canadian flag in the bottom left corner. So, that’s where the baby seals are hanging out during the hunt. Good on the […]

Poor Poor John

Written By: - Date published: 8:15 pm, April 2nd, 2008 - 43 comments

Tracy Watkins tells us in today’s Dom-Post that John Key may have taken a beating in the stock market lately. He wouldn’t say how much he lost, but did admit, ‘I’m worth less than I was.’ And, I’ll bet some in his Caucus would agree. Anyway, Tracy tells us that Poor John came to New […]

Sack Spotless

Written By: - Date published: 7:20 pm, April 2nd, 2008 - 14 comments

I’ve just got back from a small but very vocal picket outside Spotless’ corporate HQ on The Terrace in solidarity with the 800 cooks, cleaners and orderlies from hospitals around New Zealand who began 24 hours of strike action today. They’re striking because despite agreeing to a pay deal with Spotless last year the company […]

Power disavows $50 offender penalty

Written By: - Date published: 4:30 pm, April 2nd, 2008 - 17 comments

Duncan Garner kept Copperfield diners entertained yesterday by teasing Simon Power about the implications of National’s $50 conviction levy. We’re told that in response Power threw his hands into the air and exclaimed loudly that the policy wasn’t “his”. What an odd thing for the National Party spokesperson on law and order to say. It […]

Ng on fact-free politics

Written By: - Date published: 1:02 pm, April 2nd, 2008 - 17 comments

Keith Ng of Public Address has a long-standing commitment to improving the quality of journalism in this country. Now, he is proposing a non-partisan wiki-style forum for fact-checking politicians’ statements. It seems like a great idea. We constantly see politicians making statements that are not backed by the facts but have time to only cover […]