Author Archive

Labour re-opens Botany

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:32 am, June 4th, 2008 - 4 comments

Brenden Sheehan, the high profile spokesperson for the Muliaga family has withdrawn as Labour’s candidate in Botany. A press release put out by the party says Brenden’s chosen to pull out in order to give his time and energy to a seriously ill family member. Nominations close on June 20. The same presser also contains […]

Regrets? I’ve had a few

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:57 am, June 3rd, 2008 - 24 comments

Is Don Brash trying to help or hinder John Key? A revealing couple of articles (a news story and a feature) in the Sunday Star Times in which the former leader – full of self pity and self loathing in equal measures by the sound of it – says his two biggest regrets were supporting […]

CTU Secretary selected for Maungakiekie

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:09 am, May 3rd, 2008 - 49 comments

CTU Secretary Carol Beaumont is set for a change of career later this year. She’s been selected as the Labour candidate for the safe Auckland seat of Maungakiekie currently held by Mark Gosche. As we know, Mark is standing for the list only this year, in order to spend more time with his family and […]

Clearly confused but no conspiracy

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:43 am, April 22nd, 2008 - 47 comments

If there’s one thing the confused saga of Mike Williams and the Labour Party’s secret plot to use KiwiSaver and Working for Families pamphlets as campaign material has shown is that there never was a secret Labour Party plot to use KiwiSaver and Working for Families pamphlets as campaign material. Laila Harre put her finger […]

Joining the (blue) dots

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 5:48 pm, February 27th, 2008 - 42 comments

Perhaps you’ve heard about the Blue Chip blues? The company is in the news again today, and not just for allegedly breaking a sting of laws. The couple featured in the article have lost their home and hundreds of further ‘mum and dad’ investors may still lose their savings. The photo at left (no, it’s […]

KiwiSaver – what if…

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 4:56 pm, February 7th, 2008 - 25 comments

Kiwis are showing their canny side in the way we’ve been flocking to sign up to KiwiSaver – now over 400,000 strong and still growing. It’s another dead rat that John Key has swallowed to make National an electable brand but let’s not forget that in 1975 National abolished Labour’s universal superannuation scheme. Bryan Gaynor […]

Substance, not style

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 1:37 pm, January 31st, 2008 - 46 comments

I don’t know if this is breaking some cyber protocol (oh, but I don’t much care if I am) but I want to put Jordan Carter‘s post on Helen Clark’s speech up here on The Standard. The reason is that while I agree with a lot of what IrishBill said – mainly that her speech […]

Who’ll run John’s boot camps?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:22 pm, January 30th, 2008 - 70 comments

The Army has said it doesn’t want to run National’s boot camps – they prefer to train people who actually want to be there. So the question now is who do they plan to get to do it? They’re not saying much at the moment, but Key’s new policy does leave the door open for […]

The political brain – listen to this

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:08 am, January 28th, 2008 - 17 comments

A must hear for anyone interested in political marketing and influencing voters. This item played on Chris Laidlaw’s Sunday show on Radio NZ National yesterday. “When we decide who to vote for, are we making a rational choice? Or does emotion dictate our voting choice?” This is useful for people of all political stripes and […]

Bye bye Ed, you beauty

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:14 pm, January 11th, 2008 - 2 comments

I won’t try and add anything much to the many, many words of tribute on this, the sad death of Sir Ed Hillary except to quote what Jack Nicholson says to Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets: “You make me want to be a better man.” Thanks mate, you made the world a […]

John Key hearts Canada

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:41 pm, December 21st, 2007 - 4 comments

Move over Australia, John Key has a new heart-felt love: Canada. On his recent ‘heartland’ tour to discover what country folk thought, Key said he wanted to hear to the concerns of locals, and let them know who John Key was. Never mind the only ones he could find on his 25 minute stop in […]

Renewal, renewal, renewal in Palmy

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:03 pm, December 16th, 2007 - 22 comments

Today the hotly contested four horse race to become the candidate for Palmerston North (the position being left vacant by the tenth hottest man in NZ – Steve Maharey – can’t remember who ran that poll, a late night TV show no doubt) was won by Iain Lees-Galloway, the Campaigns and Media Advisor for the […]

Two new faces for Labour line up

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:47 pm, December 15th, 2007 - 9 comments

Yesterday two more bright young things were confirmed as Labour candidates for the 2008 general election: Kate Sutton in Epsom and Hamish McDouall in Whanganui. Twenty six year old Kate Sutton is already a proven political player – she’s a two term Tamaki Community Board Chair, she’s on the University of Auckland’s ruling council and […]

Australia ends 10-year Kyoto exile

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 2:46 pm, December 6th, 2007 - 15 comments

From the Guardian: “Australia yesterday joined the fold of rich countries committed to tackling climate change by signing the Kyoto agreement to limit CO2 emissions, at once distancing itself from the US and ending a 10-year diplomatic exile on the issue.” So where does that leave the US? And as for Mr Key, he’s struggled […]

A bird in the hand is worth two in the provinces

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:30 pm, December 3rd, 2007 - 18 comments

Fran O’Sullivan is not known as a critic of our pollies from the right. So imagine my surprise when catching up on my weekend reading I spotted these somewhat acerbic comments. On Thursday night, the man who wants to be our next prime minister was nowhere to be seen. he was off touring New Zealand […]

Tell the panel Don & I am not a liar

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 2:34 pm, November 16th, 2007 - 10 comments

Spotted yesterday in the Westin Hotel in Auckland’s Viaduct Basin by our orbiting surveillance satellite & Don Brash in a job interview line. Could it be he’s going for the now vacant National Party general manager’s job? Steven Joyce and Jo de Joux, also of Hollow Men fame, are back at National’s HQ & perhaps […]

Landslide sliding away

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:53 am, November 15th, 2007 - 16 comments

The Roy Morgan poll results have been included in the latest rolling poll from Molesworth and Featherston and shows that National – despite John Key’s confident prediction of a landslide victory (The Press, 9 Jun 2007) – is going to have to lift its game if it wants to present itself as a viable alternative. […]

Electoral Finance Bill – some sense at last?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 4:20 pm, November 12th, 2007 - 13 comments

I’m not always a fan of Colin Espiner’s work, but thank goodness someone’s injected a bit of sense into this morning’s hysteria over the EFB. This morning’s blog post kicks off by pointing out the credibility hit the Herald will take for its shameless National Party propagandising this morning: The Electoral Finance Bill comes back […]

The power of the web

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 1:11 pm, November 9th, 2007 - 1 comment

All election addicts are casting their eyes to what is happening in other countries & especially over in Australia and in the States. The US political teams lead the way on the integration (and spend power) of web resources & but as this article points out, much of the firepower is pointed at Hilliary Clinton: […]

Reclaiming the high ground of morality and economics

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:57 am, November 9th, 2007 - 20 comments

Evan Thornley is a member of the Upper House of the Victorian State Labor govt. He spoke recently at the NZ Labour Party conference about Labour values. He helped set up the internet based campaigning organisation GetUp! which now has over 200,000 members. He’s big on ideas. He started the Australian Fabians and was the […]

More gossip from the right

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 7:11 am, November 9th, 2007 - 25 comments

Crown Prosecutor Simon Mount is rumoured to be replacing Bob Clarkson for National in Tauranga next election. Which is a bit rough considering Bob won the seat off Winston last time round. But you can’t blame them – the man can barely feed himself, let alone represent an electorate. And Sam Lotu-Iiga, newly elected C&R […]

Chaos at National

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 2:58 pm, November 8th, 2007 - 9 comments

It seems the suggestion of “Deutschland uber alles” as a campaign song has got National’s General Manager Chris Simpson the boot. I also hear that there’s no love lost between him and Judy and apparently it’s a matter of madness. One of them thinks the other is. Jo de Joux has been appointed Interim General […]

Why’d you do it Chris?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:03 am, November 8th, 2007 - 19 comments

Chris Knox had a good piece in the Dom Post today explaining why he wrote Labour’s new campaign song. Here’s an extract: Good grief! I’ve gone and written a campaign song for a mainstream political party! Could I possibly be the same Chris Knox who has consistently railed against all forms of conformity, intellectual blandness […]

Running like a well oiled machine

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:46 am, November 8th, 2007 - 1 comment

Watching party conference made me think of this old ad – when it all lines up great things can happen. Fortunately for Honda they didn’t have to contend with Len Richards on the set…

Brownlee dazed and confused over election spending

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:05 am, November 7th, 2007 - 7 comments

Following on Tane’s post yesterday, it looks like Ger’s in trouble with his Nat bosses over his comments that National would back the law around Parliamentarly spending if Labour shortened the period under which parties come under the spending limits in the Electoral Finance Bill. This morning Gerry phoned Morning Report to say that he […]

Herald farewells fact-check

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:44 am, November 7th, 2007 - 12 comments

It looks like Herald journo Audrey Young needs to go back to the basics and check a few facts before going to print. Reporting on the Labour conference and the performance of Chris Knox’s song Audrey’s blog says: “What you won’t get on the recorded version are the backing vocals from tonight provided by the […]

TV One News – oh shame you pakeha palangi

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:01 pm, October 31st, 2007 - 11 comments

Following a perfectly sensible Cabinet reshuffle story tonight, TV One News must have had this weird rush to the head because they sent an English (really silver spoon English too), white, tie wearing suit to interview the good people of South Auckland to find out what they thought of Labour’s Cabinet reshuffle. Is it me […]

First woman CTU president

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:08 pm, October 17th, 2007 - 2 comments

Congratulations to Helen Kelly, the first woman to lead the Council of Trade Unions. Helen replaces Ross Wilson, who’s been CTU President since 1999 (and who must now go on to head the ACC surely?), and together with Secretary Carol Beaumont and Maori Vice Pres Sharon Claire present a formidable trio at the apex of […]

The real crime with the Brethren spending

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 2:46 pm, October 12th, 2007 - 35 comments

I want to clarify the major difference between the Brethren spending money to elect National and the union’s spending money to elect Labour. The Brethren spent $1.2million and National didn’t have to account for it. Whatever the unions spent on Labour came under Labour’s spending cap. So in fact the National Party got what was […]

Hollow Men new season at Circa 2

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:54 am, October 10th, 2007 - 3 comments

Good news for Wellingtonians. It looks like Dean Parker’s play The Hollow Men (based on Nicky Hager’s Don-downing book) has got a new season at Circa 2 for almost 3 weeks in early November. More details when we have them. Good news too for National Party blogger David Farrar who said the reason he hadn’t […]

Political suicide on bFM

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 6:02 pm, October 4th, 2007 - Comments Off on Political suicide on bFM

What is it with National Party leaders and their apparent desire to commit political suicide on bFM? First Don Brash’s sensational harakiri moment when, after a week of teeth pulling torment as he wiggled and squirmed away from the truth, he finally admitted that he knew that it was the Exclusive Brethren behind anti-government pamphlets […]