The Standard Week: June 27-July 4

Written By: - Date published: 3:49 pm, July 5th, 2008 - 18 comments
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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 National came to power in 1990 and incomes continue to rise, and National allies organised a ‘truck strike’ to embarrass the Government but which was strangely underwhelming in the end.

Here are our favourite posts of the week:

Misdirection
But the mother of all misdirections, the one which is probably framed and hanging on Crosby Textor’s office wall of fame, is the ‘stolen emails’ misdirection. Remember that? [more]

Busted
Nicky Hager’s piece in today’s Sunday Star Times has confirmed what we all suspected: Crosby Textor are the creators of Brand Key… [more]

John does a Don
RDU’s Kate Gorgeous asked John Key back in November 2007, ‘Have you got any advisers round now that are seen in The Hollow Men?’. Here’s John Key’s reply: [more]

Merrill Lynch: Nats will privatise ACC
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out National’s telling the public one thing and its backers in the insurance industry another on this one… [more]

Mr Key, where is your ‘positive, ambitious’ campaign?
when was the last time you can recall Key saying anything positive at all? [more]

Poverty falls, more to be done
Unquestionably, Labour has done well on poverty and incomes, restoring poverty to the low levels that existed before the disaster of the rightwing revolution in the 1980s and 1990s [more]

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18 comments on “The Standard Week: June 27-July 4 ”

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  1. Inventory2 1
    5 July 2008 at 4:47 pm

    “National allies organised a ‘truck strike’ to embarrass the Government but which was strangely underwhelming in the end”

    Were you hiding under a rock yesterday Steve – or in Helen Clark’s office where she didn’t see or hear the truck protest? Calling this protest “underwhelming” is like suggesting that the Standard supports John Key!

  2. Chlorpromazine 2
    5 July 2008 at 5:03 pm

    A big week in Politics is an understatement.

    Clark is universally panned for her poor attack on Key.

    The true cost of Kiwi Rail begins to dawn on NZ, although Clark herself doesn’t know and is much more interested in how much money Key lost in the sharemarket years ago.
    But gets that wrong too.

    The Truckies express what the whole country feels, Clark could have tried to manage the disaster that the King and the RUC release was, but chose to look even more distant and out of touch instead. The turnout was massive, Public support overwhelming.Another poll mauling for Labour looms as even their traditional worker base will dump them.

    Business owners breathe a sigh of relief as the end of the ACC rort is in sight.

    Poverty falls? Ruth Dyson doesn’t agree. Was anyone listening?

    This is the week that everyone realised that Labour is not only doomed, but utterly deserves to be mauled to death.
    A big week indeed.

  3. Dilip 3
    5 July 2008 at 5:24 pm

    The standard week is so out of touch with real week in politics.

    Nicky Hagar’s piece in SST shows shock horror National uses political advice just like Ms Clark uses political advice from both taxpayer and labourparty funds.

    National has not said they will be privatising the ACC, they have said they will open to competition just as they did ten years ago and everything went well.

    Standard criticise John Key for positive campaign in yet another personal smearing against Mr Key.

    National allies did not do organising truck strike. How you say it is underwhelming is very strange Mr Pierson. It locked up 13 cities for all morning and is supported overwhelming by New Zealand people who are angry with government. Calling biggest protest ever in last 27 years underwhelming is very strange. What do you have to do to be having overwhelming result in strike?

    I am noticing in your standard week you are not writing about smearing attack against Mr Key that backfires or about labour getting big embarrassment from truck protest or labour going down more in political polling. You are not writing about how the government still is not telling the truth about how much is costing kiwirail because maybe they do not know. In the news also is report from tv3 that prime ministers friends are using internet to anonymously spread propaganda about mr key.

    That is real news of week Mr Pierson. You do not cover real news only labour propaganda.

  4. lprent 4
    5 July 2008 at 5:48 pm

    Dilip:

    Nicky Hagar’s piece in SST shows shock horror National uses political advice just like Ms Clark uses political advice from both taxpayer and labourparty funds.

    I think the question is more on the quality of the advice. Put in the crudest form for effect 😈

    1. If you associate with political scum like C/T, then what are you?
    2. Possibly you’re a puppet? Possibly you have no principles.

    C/T’s previous behavior on the political scenes in various countries indicates that they are bottom feeding scum (Tampa, pushpolling abortions). What does that make the National party?

    Freaky captcha: Guantanamo If

  5. dave 5
    5 July 2008 at 6:27 pm

    Yeah big week in politics alright

    Truck protest gives big middle finger to Labour
    Helen Clarks smear on John Key backfires
    Labour still down in the polls – and down in the dumps
    Nobody said much about policy – except National
    Corrections leaves another confidential file on the street
    The Labour battle for Dunedin South gets bitter – more labour infighting
    Electoral Finance Act supporter gets prosecuted
    Labour refuses to criticise Iran’s nuclear programme because Helen Clark wants a job at the UN after Labour loses the election
    Labour – through all its spending – cant keep inflation within the PTA so it wants to change the rules at the Reserve Bank
    It’s revealed that we pay our Reserve Bank staff 24% less than our sports funding agency SPARC…

    Yeah big week, and Ive only said half of it…

  6. darryl 6
    5 July 2008 at 6:40 pm

    wow fellas, you’re just asking to be mocked when you put up such a head in the sand post. I know you have to be cheerleaders for your team but this is just Comical Ali stuff!

  7. Lint Remover 7
    5 July 2008 at 7:21 pm

    you people are actually a bit biased

    [lprent: read the About section at the top of the page. That explains our general biases. What are yours?]

  8. dave 8
    5 July 2008 at 8:07 pm

    Biased? surely not.

  9. Murray 9
    5 July 2008 at 8:48 pm

    Lint Remover, and the deluded total fuckwit who wrote this post isn’t?

    Banned for a year.

  10. coge 10
    5 July 2008 at 9:48 pm

    Yes. This was clearly a monumental week for Labour. Young Labour can confidently work themselves into a frenzy at the prospect of Clark’s fourth term. May there be many more weeks like these prior to the election.

  11. Whaleoil 11
    5 July 2008 at 10:42 pm

    Shhhh…..shhhh….What’s that sound?…..oh it’s the sound of no-one caring what the Standard says

  12. Phil 12
    6 July 2008 at 12:02 am

    “It’s revealed that we pay our Reserve Bank staff 24% less than our sports funding agency SPARC ”

    🙁

    All this time I thought a career in economics and finance was a sound financial choice… I’m going to have to keep this one in mind for my next PR in April!

  13. ak 13
    6 July 2008 at 12:54 am

    Shhhh…shh…. what’s that sound?

    Oh, no worries, it’s just the grating sound of the son of a former National Party president who has pasted the image of the Prime Minister of New Zealand onto a pornographic image and made it available to the whole world…. a person who has apparently devoted his life to digging up dirt and filth, promoting misogynistic and pornographic images combined with firearms in a deluded attempt to persuade kiwis that hatred is a good motive for selecting our leaders ….a person roundly condemned by the few National Party supporters who realise what damage he does …yes that’s who it is. No cause for alarm. Just another wee boy missing his dad.

  14. Clint Heine 14
    6 July 2008 at 3:33 am

    I’m with Murray. The author of this piece is going to be one very upset person on election day.

    Or in other words, a deluded fuckwit. Did you go to the same school as Mugabe – nothing to see here? All is well??

    Jeeesus, this post should be paraded throughout the blogosphere as satire at it’s best.

  15. Felix 15
    6 July 2008 at 4:10 am

    Is Kiwiblog down tonight or something?

    Seriously, don’t you guys have anywhere else to go?

    Why don’t you take it to Clint’s blog? I bet it’s a lovely place, full of intelligent, literate, worldly young sophisticates engaging at a high level in robust but well-mannered debate on the important questions of our time (and for that matter, of all time).

    A place, no doubt, where the level of humour is as high as that of the greater ideas expressed and encouraged.

    I’m sure Clint would love to see you there. After all, he probably won’t be coming back here for a while.

  16. andy 16
    6 July 2008 at 8:00 am

    Sunday Star Times

    Crosby/Textor gets another run:

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/sundaystartimes/4609020a6442.html

    There is a Hager follow up Page A4:

    Can’t find link yet.

    National Party leader John Key appears to be using taxpayers money to pay for his controversial Australian Strategy advisers….

  17. coge 17
    6 July 2008 at 11:36 am

    I think Clint has a valid point re this post.

    It seems that Steve is either,

    A/ Rattling our collective cage, or

    B/ He is in fact a deep plant for the VRWC.

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