Archive for July, 2008

Hit and miss

Written By: - Date published: 10:13 am, July 8th, 2008 - 24 comments

Let’s look at some of the issues National has hit and run on. They were all you heard from the Nats for a while and then they were dropped when their marketing usefulness wore off. “Power crisis” – dropped in June when it started to rain “After-tax incomes” – Dropped in May, after the Budget, […]

Blueprint for a Crosby/Textor campaign

Written By: - Date published: 6:13 am, July 8th, 2008 - 41 comments

While trying desperately to paint Crosby/Textor as ‘just ordinary consultants’ and argue that C/T does nothing that polling and research companies do, National allies like the Herald have also puzzled over why National won’t just admit to being C/T clients. The answer is simple: C/T are not ordinary consultants giving media training or policy advise […]

Havoc interviews Hager

Written By: - Date published: 5:44 pm, July 7th, 2008 - 15 comments

Hager confirms that his info comes from a leak from within the National Party, not as the Nats would have you believe, a devious external computer hacker intent on exposing them.

Nats spending your money to build “Brand Key”?

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, July 7th, 2008 - 72 comments

Looks like John Key might be a little less “self-made” and a little more “taxpayer-made” than he’d have us believe… click the image for a larger version.

Broadcasting policy broadly outlined

Written By: - Date published: 4:58 pm, July 7th, 2008 - 12 comments

National’s Jonathan Coleman has announced a bullet-point excuse for a broadcasting policy. Essentially, it adopts the status quo but moves TVNZ charter funding to NZ on Air’s control (there goes any hope of TV1 ever becoming a proper public broadcaster) and preps the ground for privatisation in a second term. Amongst the bullet points is […]

Sacked

Written By: - Date published: 4:13 pm, July 7th, 2008 - 103 comments

In perhaps the most unsurprising announcement of the year, National has let slip it’s going to maintain its 90 day no rights policy, which basically means your boss can sack you for whatever reason he likes within the first 90 days of your employment. Don’t be fooled by the spin there’s already a provision for […]

The Girl Effect

Written By: - Date published: 4:01 pm, July 7th, 2008 - Comments Off on The Girl Effect

Learn more at thegirleffect.org

Introducing 08wire

Written By: - Date published: 2:50 pm, July 7th, 2008 - 2 comments

Well, as promised 08wire launched today – “The Smartest Political Fun in the Galaxy.’ After you’ve joined their Facebook group check out their first video – John the Chameleon…

Havoc interviews Key on Crosby/Textor

Written By: - Date published: 1:51 pm, July 7th, 2008 - 37 comments

Here’s some great audio of Key running Crosby/Textor lines to avoid answering Havoc’s questions. Around the half way point my personal favourite C/T line even makes an appearance: “I intend to run a positive upbeat ambitious campaign; I think it reflects my personality”. As Havoc observes “[John] you’ve spent the last nine months gaining New […]

Nats’ NGO policy, give the money to Aussies

Written By: - Date published: 1:08 pm, July 7th, 2008 - 18 comments

Charities are voicing fears that under a National Government public funding for NGOs would be administered by an Australian NGO called Mission Australia with dire consequences for small charities here. The NGOs say Key thinks there are too many NGOs here and wants to starve them of cash. Mission Australia does the admirable work you expect from […]

The right incentives?

Written By: - Date published: 12:06 pm, July 7th, 2008 - 25 comments

National tells us that, if we put the right incentives in place, people will work harder and their incomes will go up. National opposes the 39 cent tax bracket because they argue people would be incentivised to work more and earn more if incomes over $60K were taxed 6 cents in the dollar lower. They […]

Beyond the political showboating

Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, July 7th, 2008 - 36 comments

Ok. Now that the political theatre is done maybe National and its allies would like to engage in proper debate on the freight trucking industry. Here’s some issues for debate: Road user charges are less than 10% of costs and the increase, half what was recommended meaning petrol vehicles are still subsidising truck companies, is […]

Who are National’s moles?

Written By: - Date published: 5:53 am, July 7th, 2008 - 60 comments

The information being leaked to Nicky Hager is obviously coming from well-placed sources inside National The idea of hacking is farcical (Lyndon Hood mocks it beautifully). In the Hollow Men, Hager refers to his sources as ‘six senior National figures’, in the SST article he talks of ‘staffers’ being concerned about the actions of Crosby/Textor. […]

Democracy under attack

Written By: - Date published: 3:02 pm, July 6th, 2008 - 27 comments

Ruth Laugesen’s got a piece in the SST today entitled “How National’s spin doctors operate“. She points out that Crosby/Textor’s methods, contrary to the opinion of many other journalists here, do differ from what are considered standard focus group and polling methodologies. Auckland University political studies senior lecturer Jennifer Lees-Marshment suggests that C/T are different […]

National’s New Plymouth candidate quits

Written By: - Date published: 7:40 am, July 6th, 2008 - 28 comments

National Party’s New Plymouth candidate Clem Coxhead has reportedly wanted to be in politics since he was nine years old. Earlier this year he won a hard fought and sometimes bitter internal selection process. Puzzling then that he’s now abandoning the candidacy citing “work commitments”. The Taranaki Daily News has been informed that “business dealings […]

Video: The Century of the Self

Written By: - Date published: 7:25 am, July 6th, 2008 - 13 comments

Hager’s Crosby/Textor revelations and the ensuing debate reminded me of this four party BBC documentary by Adam Curtis: The Century of the Self. Embedded below is part four entitled “Eight people sipping wine in Kettering”: To many in both politics and business, the triumph of the self is the ultimate expression of democracy, where power has […]

The making of some (commercial) magic

Written By: - Date published: 8:36 pm, July 5th, 2008 - Comments Off on The making of some (commercial) magic

As usual we’ve been running the hot political stories this week but I, for one, need a breather. And what better way to relax than to watch people create an amazing scene of fluffy white stuff floating around? It’s not the snow and wintry weather that’s covering the country. This is the Making of Foam […]

The Standard Week: June 27-July 4

Written By: - Date published: 3:49 pm, July 5th, 2008 - 18 comments

A big week in politics. The rail system is back in public ownership as KiwiRail, Nicky Hager exposed Brand Key as a Crosby Textor production, National was forced to reveal that it was secretly planning to privatise the ACC scheme, the Incomes Report showed poverty rates continue to fall back to levels they were before […]

Geek’s View – Papers Plus

Written By: - Date published: 1:42 pm, July 5th, 2008 - 3 comments

One of the links to The Standard this week was from Reading the Maps on the topic of Playing the history card. The very long post is a interesting commentary of the differences between the various wars of the 19th century that made up New Zealand formation and well worth a read. The author rightly […]

On Freedom

Written By: - Date published: 6:51 am, July 5th, 2008 - 122 comments

It is time for the Left to take back the language of freedom. At its heart freedom, power for the ordinary person, is what the Left is about. – Freedom from unemployment, – Freedom from crappy wages that mean you have to work 60 hours a week to make ends meet, – Freedom from having to […]

Report shows incomes up, inequality down

Written By: - Date published: 1:50 pm, July 4th, 2008 - 32 comments

The MSD’s Incomes Report provides a wealth of information. For instance, here’s how the mean and median household incomes have moved since 1982. Households suffered a massive erosion of income during the rightwing revolution from 1984 to the late 1990s. The leftwing governments since 1999 put that to a stop that. Now, incomes have regained […]

Buying trains gets noticed in Britain

Written By: - Date published: 1:44 pm, July 4th, 2008 - 16 comments

The buy back of rail has been put in a British context in this article from the Guardian. Here are some excerpts: “New Zealand has long had a record of being ahead of the political game. It was the first country in the world to accept women’s right to vote, in 1893. In the 1930s, […]

Reviewing the ‘truck strike’

Written By: - Date published: 12:59 pm, July 4th, 2008 - 46 comments

As a piece of political theatre it’s good and people who walk to work, including myself, enjoyed the unusual sight and gave them a wave (some people stuck in traffic didn’t find it so fun, though). But just remember, this was a set-up – truck companies did not waste a whole morning and all that fuel protesting […]

Poverty falls, more to be done

Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, July 4th, 2008 - 35 comments

13% of people are living in poverty in New Zealand (defined as less than 60% of the median income, less than $40K a year for a household, $16K for an individual) compared with 17% in 2004 and 23% in 1994. Child poverty dropped 7% between 2004 and 2007. Since the Government came to power it […]

Government slashes ‘waste’

Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, July 4th, 2008 - 36 comments

The Government’s new core benefit will see all beneficiaries given the same treatment and the same assistance to get into work if they are able. The changes will reduce monthly costs for both beneficiaries and MSD. The more efficient system will save $40 to $70 million a year (source: newsroom). A cheaper system that will […]

Mr Key, where is your ‘positive, ambitious campaign’?

Written By: - Date published: 6:01 am, July 4th, 2008 - 67 comments

In four separate interviews this week, John Key used more or less exactly the same line to divert from questions on his use of Crosby/Textor: ‘I’m the Leader of the party and I’ll set the tone of the campaign. And it will be a positive, ambitious, outlooking campaign because that fits with my personality‘ OK, everyone can […]

Road spike

Written By: - Date published: 5:02 pm, July 3rd, 2008 - 118 comments

The truck companies are going to blockade our motorways tomorrow morning to protest being forced to pay a levy to cover the damage their trucks do to the roads. They expect us to pick up the tab instead. Well, hey, we all like a free-ride, don’t we? So, click on the image below and print off […]

Did Clark endorse push-polling?

Written By: - Date published: 3:59 pm, July 3rd, 2008 - 18 comments

Some of the more excitable righties on the blogosphere and John Key have taken a throw-away comment in Audrey Young’s blog to mean that Helen Clark said Labour will be doing push-polling. Here’s what was actually said, according to Young’s recording: Reporter: Will Labour use push-polling with ‘the truth?’ Clark: Well I’m not sure how […]

Who’s driving the ‘truck strike’?

Written By: - Date published: 3:02 pm, July 3rd, 2008 - 100 comments

So, let’s get this straight the Government has increased road user charges for diesel vehicles by half the amount recommended by the Ministry of Transport to cover the roading costs of those vehicles. The increase is 7-8%. Road user chargers account for 10% of trucking costs. So, we’re talking a less than 1% increase in […]

Drinking Liberally reminder

Written By: - Date published: 12:44 pm, July 3rd, 2008 - 3 comments

Don’t forget Drinking Liberally tonight. The weather’s crap but the good people at Southern Cross have provided their function room, so you won’t get wet. Nicky Hager will be drawing a big crowd and there should be plenty of lively discussion in the light of this week’s political events. WHAT  Drinking Liberally Wellington WHEN  5:30pm, […]

Question

Written By: - Date published: 11:56 am, July 3rd, 2008 - 72 comments

Howcome when capital goes on strike over political issues it’s seen as a legitimate part of democracy, but if workers tried the same thing it would be illegal under the Employment Relations Act? [UPDATE: Seems frog had similar thoughts over here.]