Author Archive

Random notes on the reshuffle

Written By: - Date published: 2:22 pm, February 25th, 2013 - 82 comments

A few quick thoughts on the Labour reshuffle.

Return of the King?

Written By: - Date published: 8:09 am, February 25th, 2013 - 82 comments

Claire Trevett is picking Annette King to take health in a Labour party reshuffle

Walking the talk

Written By: - Date published: 8:34 am, February 18th, 2013 - 37 comments

Despite boasting so frequently of how tough he is and how weak liberals are, Richard Prosser chickened out of face a few nabie-pambie liberal’s at the Aro community hall.

If only he’d extend that no-show to parliament. For good.

Espiner on wages

Written By: - Date published: 7:22 am, February 15th, 2013 - 141 comments

For those of you who’ve missed it Colin Espiner is back on the NZ interwebz with a new Stuff blog, the (rather earthily titled) Bull-Dust. Colin was a bit of a pioneer of journalist blogging in New Zealand. He was, I believe, the first Gallery journalist to run a proper blog and certainly the first to get in amongst it in the comments sections.

Our international shame

Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, February 13th, 2013 - 192 comments

It’s not often I agree with Judith Collins but when she describes Richard Prosser’s racist filth as an “international embarrassment” I couldn’t agree more.

On engagement with the Labour caucus

Written By: - Date published: 6:49 pm, February 5th, 2013 - 282 comments

Yesterday Annette King started talking with Standard commenters on a couple of threads. As I understand it this is part of a move to engage with the Standard…

Conflicted decisions

Written By: - Date published: 5:28 pm, February 2nd, 2013 - 48 comments

Another day, another example of some unseemly looking stuff from the Nats. This time it’s Judith Collins choosing Robert Kee – a friend of her husband – for a $200,000 a year taxpayer funded job.

Why charity cannot replace the state

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, February 2nd, 2013 - 53 comments

One of the mantras of the current government is the importance of charity in society. The state is not necessarily the best deliverer of social services, they’ll tell you. Which is why it’s important to get the private sector involved

Wave goodbye to another 200 jobs

Written By: - Date published: 9:18 am, February 1st, 2013 - 78 comments

While National continues to deny there’s a manufacturing crisis and the main opposition wastes its time plotting clever procedural tricks the high dollar claims another 200 Kiwi jobs – this time as Summit Woolspinners closes in Oamaru.

Get on board

Written By: - Date published: 7:56 am, January 30th, 2013 - 15 comments

Now I don’t know if there will be a leadership vote in the next couple of weeks or not, but if there is, and you’re a Labour supporter, then you really want to be a Labour Party member beforehand so you can have your say.

This

Written By: - Date published: 9:47 pm, January 25th, 2013 - 59 comments

How many times to we have to listen to Labour MP’s claim that they can’t stand up for labour values because they won’t be seen as “reasonable”.

Yeah, because your “reasonable” has really fired up the electorate thus far.

Key’s brighter future

Written By: - Date published: 11:16 am, January 24th, 2013 - 8 comments

“I’d love to see wages drop”. Remember when John Key  said that? Well now our glorious PM is getting all excited about how we can attract investment with our low wages and lack of employment protections.

Drive-by posting

Written By: - Date published: 7:29 am, January 23rd, 2013 - 248 comments

A few passing comments on Bridges, Shearer, and Williams.

McVicar’s homophobia

Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, January 20th, 2013 - 90 comments

Garth McVicar’s submission on Louisa Wall’s marriage ammendment bill has been published.

And suprise, suprise, Garth blames teh Gayz for all of society’s ills.

What a little creep.

2013 – the policy year

Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, January 5th, 2013 - 260 comments

As our own Labour grandee Mike Smith has pointed out, 2013 is the year Labour develops its policies.

That means Labour members (and the broader left) need to start talking about what they want before conference. And what better place to have that discussion than the Standard…

2012 cabinet report card

Written By: - Date published: 12:25 pm, January 2nd, 2013 - 18 comments

After Eddie dissed the usual beltway year in review style of column/post I was a little chary about doing this one. And then I realised the good thing about The Standard is we do real world and beltway issues. So here goes my once-over assessment of the 2012 cabinet performance and what it’s likely to mean for the future.

Best and worst of 2012

Written By: - Date published: 7:53 am, December 26th, 2012 - 93 comments

Well it’s the end of the year and everyone else is doing it so…

Here’s my political awards of 2012.

Making you pay for their folly

Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, December 18th, 2012 - 112 comments

Well it looks like the government has finally listened to all of the arguments about how unaffordable the Roads of National Significance are.

Their response? To tax you more to pay for their white elephant.

Killing our kids

Written By: - Date published: 7:42 am, December 10th, 2012 - 81 comments

Over at Stuff Ben Heather is reporting on the Children’s Social Health Monitor and the chilling fact that, in the last five years, 600 Kiwi children have died from poverty related causes.

Just how wrong can you get it?

Written By: - Date published: 9:03 pm, December 6th, 2012 - 164 comments

Word is that a senior Labour MP (who will go unnamed) has been lobbying National Council to put rules in place for party members who participate in the blogosphere.

JT, eh?

Written By: - Date published: 5:05 pm, December 2nd, 2012 - 78 comments

John Tamihere’s been let back into the party. On one hand it’s just a party membership and Labour’s a broad church. On the other hand he’s professed a desire to stand for Labour in Waitakeri, has made a big show and dance about his attempts to join, and was (still is?) a man who regularly had a wine in Ponsonby with the party leader.

Unsworth slams Police, Crown Law

Written By: - Date published: 7:06 am, November 24th, 2012 - 37 comments

Hot on the heels of his bold stand against environmental scientists, uber-lobbyist Mark Unsworth has come out swinging against the police and crown law over their unpatriotic highlighting of crime in New Zealand.

A good time to join Labour

Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, November 22nd, 2012 - 185 comments

Well there’s not been so much focus on the Labour Party for a long time so I figure now’s the time to point out that, thanks to rule changes (and not just the contentious ones) holding a Labour Party membership has never meant so much in terms of having a say in where the party (and hopefully, after 2014, the country) goes.

Shearer makes first move

Written By: - Date published: 12:32 pm, November 18th, 2012 - 149 comments

Vernon Small is reporting David Shearer is planning to bring the leadership vote forward to as soon as next week and it looks like their plan is to get it out of the way under the old rules.

The housing policy

Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, November 16th, 2012 - 60 comments

Labour is due to release its big housing policy at conference and I suspect it’ll be either a Kirk style subsidised mortgage scheme for first home buyers or a substantial increase in state housing stocks.

It’s time to go

Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, November 11th, 2012 - 175 comments

Eddie is right.

David Shearer needs to step down.

On the Pike Report

Written By: - Date published: 10:05 pm, November 5th, 2012 - 99 comments

The Pike report is welcome good sense.

But why has it taken the deaths of 29 men to get attention to health and safety regulations in mining?

The job ahead

Written By: - Date published: 10:36 am, October 28th, 2012 - 179 comments

The latest Roy Morgan poll bodes badly for Labour.

If they are to take the government benches in 2014 they need to get their house in order.

The problem with third way policies

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, October 6th, 2012 - 93 comments

It looks like National are going to increase funding for food in low decile schools.

That’s great news for the kids but gives the government the chance to brush the question of why they were hungry in the first place under the carpet.

Just like any good third way policy should.

Nat’s oppose transparency (again)

Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, September 20th, 2012 - 29 comments

Well it’s official. The government has no interest in allowing you to know how your money is being spent.

That’s been made clear in their opposition to Darien Fenton’s port transparency bill – a bill designed simply to make publicly owned ports subject to the Official Information Act.

When they talk about “accountability” and “responsibility” and “the social contract”, remember they’re talking about it for you. Not for them or their powerful mates.

Port transparency Bill read tomorrow

Written By: - Date published: 6:53 am, September 18th, 2012 - 14 comments

Right now council owned ports are specifically exempted from the Official Information Act. This means billions of dollars of public money tied up in ports around the country that are under the control of largely unaccountable boards. Darien Fenton has a Bill that designed to fix this and it’s being read tomorrow. It’s a common sense Bill. It will be interesting to see who backs it.

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