Author Archive

Young Tory of the Year

Written By: - Date published: 5:10 pm, November 13th, 2008 - 50 comments

A mate just sent me this, classic:

Careful of them monsters, John

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, November 13th, 2008 - 77 comments

It’s amazing to see how quickly John Key got over his fear of five-headed monsters once it came time to cobble together a government, and more amazing still how quickly the media chose to forgive and forget. You’ll recall that just two weeks ago the media couldn’t get enough of John’s line that having a […]

National gives ACT consumer affairs

Written By: - Date published: 9:18 am, November 13th, 2008 - 37 comments

John Key’s got to be taking the piss with his decision to appoint ACT MP Heather Roy as Minister of Consumer Affairs in the new National/ACT government. I guess it could have been worse (say, ACT in charge of Labour or Social Development) but you do have to wonder how the Consumer Guarantees Act and […]

Class and the Maori Party

Written By: - Date published: 12:10 pm, November 12th, 2008 - 71 comments

The New Zealand Herald has a telling story today about how the Maori Party’s decision over whether to prop up a right-wing National/ACT government “has exposed a schism between iwi elite views and ordinary Maori”. Ordinary working class Maori who’ve felt the brunt of right-wing policies in the past are, unsurprisingly, not keen to sacrifice […]

What goes around

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

Well, after years of National and its proxies beating up stupid, pointless stories about Labour MPs spending taxpayers’ money on ‘perks’ like driving around the country doing their jobs it looks like it’s finally coming back to bite them. This morning the Dominion Post reports on its front page that John Key spent $217,615 on […]

LolKeys

Written By: - Date published: 4:46 pm, November 10th, 2008 - 77 comments

Hat tip: Sam Vilain

Final Roy Morgan poll

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, November 7th, 2008 - 43 comments

The final Roy Morgan poll is out and the Left (LPG+M) has it by a nose with 62 seats out of a 122 seat Parliament. The Greens will be happy with 10% – that puts them in a strong negotiating position after the election and gives a 17 seat voting bloc in conjunction with the […]

Greens’ closing broadcast

Written By: - Date published: 12:23 pm, November 6th, 2008 - 4 comments

Via frogblog, the Greens’ closing campaign broadcast. I’d put Labour’s up too, but I can’t find it.

Text polls

Written By: - Date published: 7:15 pm, November 3rd, 2008 - 25 comments

Watching the TV3 debate and it seems they’re running another text poll. It’s too early yet to tell who’s going to win, but what’s the bet the text poll favours the party whose voters are wealthy enough to: a) be at home on a weekday evening, b) own a cellphone, and c) be in a […]

Election Quiz

Written By: - Date published: 3:48 pm, November 3rd, 2008 - 26 comments

If you haven’t seen Pundit’s New Zealand election quiz you should head on over and take a look. It’s based on the award-winning US version and provides a pretty quick and accurate measure on how your views line up with each parliamentary party. I got Greens 84, Prog 77, Labour 74, NZ First 62, United […]

Side-show

Written By: - Date published: 6:12 pm, October 31st, 2008 - 32 comments

I see the media are now comparing the ‘redundancy’ packages on offer with all of the horse race vigour they applied to the tax cuts. That’s understandable as the media like quantifiable measures so they can make simple graphs and X is greater or less than Y soundbite statements. But what they have forgotten is […]

Greenpeace converts John’s office

Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, October 31st, 2008 - 34 comments

Some great political theatre from Greenpeace yesterday. A bunch of climate activists got up at the crack of dawn, plastered ready-made lawn around the outside of John Key’s electorate office, then put up some wee pine trees and stumps alongside a billboard saying ‘Would John solve this climate crime?’ Looks like a couple of them […]

More redundancy protection

Written By: - Date published: 4:01 pm, October 30th, 2008 - 78 comments

It’s good to see Labour turning its focus back onto policy (and particularly the economy) today with its announcement of a “job search allowance” for people made redundant in the coming economic downturn. Basically, the allowance means if you lose your job you’ll be eligible for the dole without means-testing for up to 13 weeks. […]

This looks big

Written By: - Date published: 4:35 pm, October 29th, 2008 - 47 comments

It looks like the Herald has as a scoop on John Key’s possible involvement in the H-fee scandal. According to the article: John Key faces accusations of misleading the public about his knowledge of one of New Zealand’s most notorious white collar crimes. The allegations centre around the so-called H-Fee – two payments totalling A$66.5 […]

English pulls a Lockwood

Written By: - Date published: 2:28 pm, October 29th, 2008 - 64 comments

Oh dear. In the same week Lockwood Smith made his racist remarks and Maurice Williamson committed the gaffe of talking openly about National Party policy, it appears Bill English pulled a wee Lockwood of his own. According to the Ashburton Guardian, English complained to a local Greypower meeting about the Filipino ‘invasion’ in his home […]

Prisons for profit

Written By: - Date published: 5:50 pm, October 28th, 2008 - 49 comments

National’s announcement that it plans to privatise the prison system says a lot about the party’s underlying values. Say what you like about National’s temporary flip-flops, underneath they haven’t changed a bit. Whether it’s ACC, privatising assets, drafting electoral law or reforming the Resource Management Act, the National Party stands for entrenching private power at […]

Fact checkin’ – five-headed monsters

Written By: - Date published: 3:48 pm, October 24th, 2008 - 114 comments

The New Zealand Herald is, as usual, uncritically repeating John Key’s latest lines on the front page of its website. This time Key’s scaremongering that a Labour-led government would be a “five-headed monster”. Much better to go with a simple, straight-forward National government, says Key. It’s a pity we don’t have the resources for basic […]

Roy Morgan poll

Written By: - Date published: 2:49 pm, October 24th, 2008 - 86 comments

And the polls keep coming. Today’s Roy Morgan poll has Labour down 5.5% and National up slightly, while the Greens rise to an astonishing 11.5% – that’s 15 MPs. NZ First drops just below the threshold to 4.5%. Under this scenario an LPG+M arrangement is possible, but only just, with 61 seats out of 121 […]

Herald Digipoll

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, October 24th, 2008 - 72 comments

The latest Herald Digipoll presents quite a different picture to last night’s 3 News poll. While TV3 had the Left and Right blocs neck-and-neck with the Maori Party as kingmaker, the Herald has National still able to govern alone at 50.4% and 63 seats. You can argue all you like over whether this result is […]

3 News poll

Written By: - Date published: 8:53 pm, October 23rd, 2008 - 47 comments

Tonight’s 3 News poll has the election wide open with two weeks to go, putting the Left on 59 seats to the Right’s 60. 3 News says that with the Maori Party in the kingmaker position it’s too close to call, but when Colin Espiner is promising to print out his blog and eat it […]

National’s ‘redneck element’

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, October 23rd, 2008 - 117 comments

In the heat of the Lockwood Smith controversy yesterday, some of our right-wing readers had a go at John A for posting a link to National’s racist 1975 election ad with the comment that “underneath they haven’t changed”. In light of this, I thought the comments in the Herald today from National’s first Pacific Island […]

John vs John

Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, October 21st, 2008 - 53 comments

Labour’s new television ad is up on Youtube and I’m pleased to see it’s actually pretty bloody good. They’ve managed to draw attention to one of John’s many flipflops, this one on Kiwisaver, in a way that uses humour and sticks to the facts and thereby avoids the nastiness often associated with negative campaigning. It’s […]

Daily Show on Fox

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 pm, October 13th, 2008 - 4 comments

Jon Stewart looks at some recent clips from Fox News on the American presidential race. Just incredible.

Crash and burn

Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, October 13th, 2008 - 8 comments

Roy Morgan poll

Written By: - Date published: 2:09 pm, October 10th, 2008 - 69 comments

The new Roy Morgan poll is out today. It was taken between Sep 22 and October 5, and has National’s vote collapsing by 7 points to 40.5%, Labour up one to 37.5 and the Greens shooting up to 9. So very good news for the Left. I’d be careful about reading too much into this […]

Green TV ads

Written By: - Date published: 10:55 am, October 10th, 2008 - 22 comments

The Greens’ new TV ads are up on Youtube. Pretty sparse, but they get the message across clearly. [Hat tip: frogblog]

Tax cuts for the rich

Written By: - Date published: 1:12 pm, October 8th, 2008 - 29 comments

National has released its tax policy. At first glance it appears the top rate will be reduced to 37% by 2011, giving the rich thousands of dollars in tax cuts. People earning $24-50k who aren’t getting Working for Families will get $15 a week rebate by 2011. Working families will basically get nothing, except for […]

No one likes McCain

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, October 8th, 2008 - 19 comments

Ever wondered what would happen if the whole world could vote for the President of the United States? According to The Economist’s online poll, which divvies up electoral college votes to each country based on population, it’s Obama by 8,471 to 16. Only belligerent wee Georgia is leaning strongly to McCain. It’d be interesting to […]

Depressing

Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, October 6th, 2008 - 29 comments

I see National has released a knee-jerk reactionary crime policy this morning, and it’s been reported largely uncritically by a news media that’s made a fortune fostering public fear of crime at a time when crime rates are falling and resolution rates are on the rise. It’s frankly depressing that our level of public debate […]

Trivialising the electoral process

Written By: - Date published: 3:48 pm, October 3rd, 2008 - 29 comments

I don’t have a lot of time for Winston Peters’ politics or his dodgy electoral practices, but sometimes the man just hits the nail on the head: Rt Hon Winston Peters has accused a number of media outlets of trivialising general election coverage to the point of mindless banality. This follows a request from a […]

National lies, again

Written By: - Date published: 12:25 pm, October 1st, 2008 - 69 comments

National just can’t stop lying. We’ve covered National’s lies on wages and migration in the past and our last two posts have debunked National’s lies on crime, the economy, compliance costs, corruption, press freedom and, well, just about everything. Now they’ve resorted to repeating David Farrar’s discredited lies by deliberately misquoting Helen Clark on tax. […]