Archive for August, 2008

Reviewing the weekend polls

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, August 18th, 2008 - 37 comments

As I said last week, the polls that came out this weekend can not reflect any impact of the secret agenda tapes. The Roy Morgan poll was 50% over before the first tape even came out, and remember it was not until mid-week that the story was really big. Similarly, the Fairfax poll was mostly […]

Jumping the shark

Written By: - Date published: 5:08 pm, August 16th, 2008 - 78 comments

Remember the photos of McDonald’s wrappers strewn on a grass verge that John Key expected us to believe was evidence people had been rifling through his electorate office’s rubbish? Was there ever a more transparent attempt to deflect attention from a bad story with an obviously faked picture? No-one believed that Key’s rubbish really had […]

PM loses a mate

Written By: - Date published: 4:53 pm, August 15th, 2008 - 55 comments

The death at just 59 of alpine legend Gottlieb Braun-Elwert will be greatly mourned around the Tekapo community, and much further afield too. Braun-Elwert was one of those Europeans who came here and found our great outdoors intoxicating. He arrived in his 20s on a hitch-hiking tour, fell in love with the country’s natural splendour, […]

An election strategy, not a governing strategy

Written By: - Date published: 2:50 pm, August 15th, 2008 - 20 comments

When you look at the policy National has released, it’s clear that the focus is on winning the election, not on developing policy that would work. There is a most appalling lack of detail – most of the policy one-page wonders from National have left me with more questions than answers because of lack of […]

Policy by focus group

Written By: - Date published: 1:19 pm, August 15th, 2008 - 13 comments

Colin Espiner on the Nats’ energy policy: …National’s energy policy is conservative and lacking in new ideas… What it has delivered is a short-term, pragmatic policy lacking in vision. But unlike Labour, it is probably a policy in step with current public opinion. Maybe these kinds of flaccid policy statements are inevitable when you: (a) painstakingly sterilise […]

The Standard Week August 8-15

Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, August 15th, 2008 - 30 comments

Quite a quiet week after the excitement of the secret agenda tapes last week. The Tories are keeping up their hunt for the person who exposed their secret agenda (God knows what they expect to do if they catch them). National’s welfare policy was in a predictable vein – punitive and targeted at some of […]

The Standard turns one

Written By: - Date published: 8:31 am, August 15th, 2008 - 26 comments

Today’s our first birthday. A year ago I had the privilege of the first post. It was on John Key’s contradictory statements about whether or not he wanted New Zealand troops sent to Iraq. The video’s below. Since then there have been another 1440 posts. Over the course of the day I imagine that some […]

Drinking Liberally – Palmerston North

Written By: - Date published: 4:35 pm, August 14th, 2008 - 24 comments

A third Drinking Liberally chapter is underway. The first meeting of Drinking Liberally – Palmerston North will be next Friday at the Kingsgate bar. The guest speaker will be Hamish MacDouall, Labour candidate for Whanganui, David Bowie expert, brain box, and all-round nice guy. Now, Palmy isn’t known as a hotbed of political activism but […]

Energy policy fails to energise

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, August 14th, 2008 - 31 comments

A positive and ambitious energy policy that reflects the personality of National leader John Key, was announced today. Old people wiped tears from their eyes and youths vowed never to tag another fence as they heard the ambitious vision National has developed for New Zealand’s energy future under heroic leader, John Key. Actually, there’s 10 […]

Renewable energy policy

Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, August 14th, 2008 - 23 comments

A policy paper has been released on how the Government’s goal of 90% renewable electricity generation by 2025 can be achieved. Micro-hydro projects and small-scale wind turbines will deliver power to rural areas. Reversibility of new generation will be built into new schemes as part of a more intense focus on sustainability. Solar power will be […]

National and the media

Written By: - Date published: 10:29 am, August 14th, 2008 - 17 comments

A few mini-posts on National’s relationship with the media in light of the secret agenda tapes. _______________________________________________ A signature Crosby/Textor move, seen here and abroad, is for their politicians to be matey with media as long as they run the lines, but, if they start to get critical, shut them out. So, a few months […]

Before the polls

Written By: - Date published: 6:29 am, August 14th, 2008 - 54 comments

There’s a Roy Morgan poll out today or tomorrow, then polls from Fairfax, TV1, and TV3 on the weekend. Naturally, people will be watching these closely to see if National has been damaged by the secret agenda tapes. Do not expect the polls to show National taking a big hit and don’t take the lack of a […]

Excel magic

Written By: - Date published: 4:46 pm, August 13th, 2008 - 12 comments

Insight into Mr Key costing his tax policy (lots of clever bits, best viewed in fullscreen) – hosted by 08wire

Into hiding

Written By: - Date published: 3:45 pm, August 13th, 2008 - 22 comments

The secret agenda scandal has reminded many people that, behind John Key’s smile, National’s leaders are still the same bunch who were cutting benefits and flogging off assets in the 1990s, or people who came into Parliament hoping to continue those policies. That’s not good for National’s election hopes. So, what have they done? Remove […]

Pulling the ladder up behind him

Written By: - Date published: 2:18 pm, August 13th, 2008 - 16 comments

A lot of you won’t remember it but there was a time in this country when being on a benefit wasn’t seen as the fault of the person receiving it and the idea of a social welfare system was about just that: the welfare of our society. It took a campaign of right-wing scaremongering through […]

Activist Workshop

Written By: - Date published: 1:29 pm, August 13th, 2008 - 6 comments

I’ve been awfully remiss in not posting on this earlier. Transition Towns, a group dedicated to developing the skills needed for communities to become more self-sufficient in the coming post-peak oil world, is holding an activist training session in Wellington this coming weekend. There’s a programme of activities running from Friday evening through to Sunday designed […]

Petition: sign the Enforced Disappearance Convention

Written By: - Date published: 9:18 am, August 13th, 2008 - 12 comments

In December 2006, the United Nations adopted a major new human rights treaty, the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance aimed at preventing and punishing ‘enforced disappearance’ – the kidnap and murder of political opponents by governments. 73 countries have signed the convention, 4 have ratified it. 20 ratifications are […]

Should the sins of the father be visited upon the children?

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, August 13th, 2008 - 91 comments

When the DPB was first proposed it had a very simple purpose, to allow mothers to leave abusive relationships, to allow them to protect their children from beatings, alcoholism and psychological abuse. It was intended to ensure that those children would have a real chance at a healthy and happy life. It did not, and could […]

Wait, what’s working?

Written By: - Date published: 6:26 am, August 13th, 2008 - 18 comments

ENGLISH: So we’re sitting here saying the punters are keen to keep it. They’re facing a recession. The last thing we want is to spend the whole election campaign with families of four on TV saying ‘Mr Key’s taking money off us’. You can’t do that. So later on we’re gonna have to have a […]

Bill’s big wink

Written By: - Date published: 1:51 pm, August 12th, 2008 - 44 comments

‘No ifs, no buts, no maybes’ – that’s the phrase Bill English chose to use when denying he had any intentions of launching a coup against John Key after the election. It’s a phrase that is burned indelibly into many New Zealander’s memories, not least of all English’s; a phrase heavy with connotations of deceit. […]

Cartoon: Attacking the poor

Written By: - Date published: 10:45 am, August 12th, 2008 - 21 comments

The Child Poverty Action Group thinks that National’s welfare policy is likely to hurt vulnerable children.

Gordon Campbell on Nats’ welfare plan

Written By: - Date published: 10:36 am, August 12th, 2008 - 15 comments

Dog whistle politics to some, beneficiary bashing to others. But is there logic to National’s policy on benefits? Gordon Campbell asks: Will John Key’s policy announcement on welfare this afternoon do much to resolve the problems it claims to address? Hardly… It is as if National felt the need to beat up on beneficiaries somehow, and somewhere […]

I do a lot of work for charity, but I don’t like to talk about it

Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, August 12th, 2008 - 57 comments

Many New Zealand politicians give away a large portion of their salaries to needy causes but they don’t make a song and dance about it because a) lots of MPs do it b) boasting about charity donations is a rich man’s game, and the reason we have decent salaries for MPs is to prevent politics […]

Sensitive about security

Written By: - Date published: 6:01 am, August 12th, 2008 - 20 comments

National activist/advisor Matthew Hooton on Nine to Noon: ‘the National Party leadership group is very sensitive about security. They look at the last election campaign that was lost on basically matters of security: the leak of the ‘gone by lunchtime’ notes and the Brethren link.’ No. National lost because it had a secret agenda; not […]

Nats bashing on solo mums

Written By: - Date published: 4:28 pm, August 11th, 2008 - 110 comments

Wonder of wonders, the Nats’ benefits policy has an 11 page document attached to it. Oh, wait, it’s mostly just stats ripped from the MSD website and long-winded rewordings of the bullet-points, not actual detail of the Nats’ policy. So, what have we got from the party that proclaims it wants more disciplined spending, less […]

3 more points on the secret agenda tapes

Written By: - Date published: 1:25 pm, August 11th, 2008 - 61 comments

1) A secret agenda is not something that people talk about in public or when they know the information will get to the public. Therefore, the only way to expose a secret agenda with definite proof is by recording that evidence when the target does not know they are being recorded. The Police can’t just […]

Ambitious for beneficiary-bashing

Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, August 11th, 2008 - 40 comments

That nice man, Mr Key, the one who says the old Left/Right divide is over, that he’s a new man with a new (ambitious) vision for New Zealand has rolled out an unprecedented and exciting policy today: beneficiary bashing. At present, we have a world-leading benefit system. By investing in staff, WINZ has become more […]

Policies for the wrong time (again)

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 pm, August 10th, 2008 - 40 comments

We’ve heard a lot about the ‘private’ opinions of some senior National MP’s this week. What we haven’t heard much about is the policy direction National was putting out in public during the conference. Rod Oram has a very interesting commentary on that topic in Sunday Star Times “National needs a shake-up”. Rod Oram always […]

Giving with one hand, taking with the other

Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, August 10th, 2008 - 30 comments

I’ve gotta admit feeling a little bit sorry for Key over the story of his offer to donate “a good part” of his PM’s salary – should he win – to charity. One of those cases of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Crosby/Textor would be rightly concerned about the potential downside of […]

A hard place

Written By: - Date published: 11:41 am, August 10th, 2008 - 13 comments

Kudos to Crosby Textor for doing such a good job of changing the secret agenda debate to the issue of who taped the conversations (although whoever came up with the absurd idea of taking photos of John’s rubbish should probably be put on leave until the election is over) but they have a harder job […]

Semantics

Written By: - Date published: 11:29 am, August 10th, 2008 - 17 comments

The SST reports that English says that he will “never” challenge Key for the leadership. Yet I’m told that over the past couple of years, even to some in the press gallery, English hasn’t made a secret of his future leadership ambitions around Parliament. Makes you wonder what else his faction has on Key.