Author Archive

Fairs fair : how to complain, how not to and why not

Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, May 16th, 2018 - 21 comments

Phil Quin has been his usual dickheaded self on the net. Trying to bully people about material that they probably didn’t write on this site is not a way to get it looked at. For that everyone need to follow the procedures detailed in our contact page and the pages linked to it. The alternatives aren’t nice. Ask Dermot Nottingham. Updated

Nearly time for the Bionic Beaver

Written By: - Date published: 12:18 pm, May 5th, 2018 - 10 comments

Like everyone these days, I live in a range of widespread cultures. There are always interesting shock effects when one culture runs into another. Like the Bionic Beaver…

Northland politicians want to drop more trucks into Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 6:24 am, April 5th, 2018 - 75 comments

Politik reports that some mayors from Northalnd are upset that they aren’t going to get a four lane boondoggle to feed more heavy trucks into traffic chaos that is the Auckland isthmus. They can stick their trucks up their body cavity of choice and learn to love rail. We don’t need more traffic in Auckland until we fix the disaster that National have left us.

Inevitably the crazy old morons remain

Written By: - Date published: 9:10 am, March 14th, 2018 - 164 comments

In his usual dignified way, Donald Trump announced that he was sacking Rex Tillerson, the American Secretary of State in a tweet. And so the round of musical chairs that marks the White House’s descent into even more incompetence continues. Meanwhile the farce of the Russian election proceeds in their background of state operated terrorism in the UK. But there is some light

Bill is gone. Free for all spectator time

Written By: - Date published: 11:53 am, February 13th, 2018 - 353 comments

Bill English has resigned. Apparently his confidence of last week had a limited lifespan. RNZ has the live feed. Now we can really speculate on which one of the no-hopers will assume the position to fail at the next election.

Really buffering climate change

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 pm, January 14th, 2018 - 53 comments

The recent development of accident and disaster insurance over the last century is now having a profound influence on buffering climate change. The Economist had a recent article with an excellent graph. Perhaps this is worth encouraging to give a price signal and a political lobby against that of the polluter lobby.

The joy of biking

Written By: - Date published: 10:52 am, December 28th, 2017 - 22 comments

As I prepare to fly out of NZ yet again for work, I’m contemplating how much my personal transport has changed over the years. These days I most ride a e-bike. Faster than a car for my commute because of the frigging Auckland traffic. Effective exercise without too much pain. And a lot of fun.

RealMe and online government – good when it works

Written By: - Date published: 2:53 pm, December 27th, 2017 - 24 comments

The only thing worse than standing in queues with lumps of paper is having a website system that isn’t functioning. It is a first world problem I know. But having the government’s systems not be down for maintenance during the holidays is a good idea. There are no queues to form at the passport office because they are on holiday.

Phil Quin: our media’s goto dogwhistling Aussie

Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, November 29th, 2017 - 93 comments

It always disappoints me in NZ is who our local media consider are ‘left’ or ‘labour’ commentators. They are usually strange and weird relics of left behind who frame their commentary in terms of long past history. Phil Quin, a grizzled veteran misogynist of the 1990s Thordon Bubble who thrives on chaos and ill informed dog whistles, is one of them. It isn’t like he knows much about NZ politics. Updated.

Nett migration – still coming in fast and not going out.

Written By: - Date published: 8:21 am, November 23rd, 2017 - 42 comments

Statistics NZ has released the latest nett  permanent and long term migration figures for the year to date at October 2017.  There is a slight fall from a  few months previously. But it remains a sustained high putting major pressure on infrastructure and resources – especially in Auckland. We need to massively cut any new migration here for years to catch up with the work.

 

Measuring the honeymoon

Written By: - Date published: 8:27 am, November 14th, 2017 - 34 comments

One of the things that I like about the Horizon poll is that it is unashamedly qualitative and highlights data beyond what is required for idiot talking heads needing a soundbite. Horizon breaks down some of the demographics to look at who is giving the government their honeymoon.

TPP: A slight improvement but deservedly still a zombie

Written By: - Date published: 9:23 am, November 13th, 2017 - 124 comments

Fortunately the TPP is still the dead walking. Now that the immediate rush for ‘momentum’ is over (a scam phrase), it is time to do some real analysis of the project. This government, if it wants to convince its own supporters to support it, needs to discard that hucksterism fostered by the John Key government. Because to me TPP is a still a crock.

Suck it up political sleazers.

Written By: - Date published: 8:22 am, November 8th, 2017 - 113 comments

Winston Peters has launched a legal fishing expedition to identify who exactly breached privacy on his superannuation over payments. A problem that he shares with about 50 thousand other pensioners. Unlike them, his problem wasn’t trying to find money to repay it. It was that the breach was deliberately timed to be a classic dirty politics ploy, almost certainly by National, in the leadup to the  recent election. I wish him good fishing.

 

The days of National dick waving

Written By: - Date published: 8:06 am, November 7th, 2017 - 28 comments

The spin that National are running is that they are unhappy with the move to reduce the MPs in select committees. That their dick size opposition party is the largest make me see teenage boys being idiots. Because there is no substantive difference to parliament from when this was recommended and now.

Better roads rather than fighting to maintain them against trucks.

Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, October 25th, 2017 - 46 comments

Truckers don’t own the roadways. We do. If Ken Shirley wants a stricter adherence to user pays, then he should start with his trucking members. In the meantime the best thing we can do for improving the roading network is to get large trucks off of the road – they damage it way too much.

NZ First: We could and should be doing better

Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, October 20th, 2017 - 15 comments

NZ First chose to be inside Cabinet in a full coalition. I’d rather expected that they would choose to be in a confidence and supply agreement as they did with Labour back in 2005. That they decided to take the risk despite their previous experience with National is a stunning level of trust. But they work well with Labour.

Today is a win-win with Winston

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, October 19th, 2017 - 103 comments

It appears that Winston is about to announce the decision of the NZ First party about their coalition partner today. For those who seem to think that coalitions should be formed with rapidity, they simply shouldn’t. That is the path to making stupid decisions, and I am yet to hear a single good reason to do it.

Another day

Written By: - Date published: 5:03 pm, October 17th, 2017 - 34 comments

Just watched the “waiting for Winston Peters”  live feed from Stuff. It sounds like the NZ First board know what they want and now there will be a bit more negotiation with both major parties to get closer to what the NZF board were after. They are heading back home leaving the politicians to finish up.
Updated: Winston in one-on-one talks with Bill and Jacinda last night. Looks like it is getting serious.

ETS is useless, scrap it

Written By: - Date published: 9:11 am, October 4th, 2017 - 25 comments

I suspect that ETS has become a political football in the next parliament, but probably not part of a coalition agreement with either National or Labour. My guess is that both NZ First and the Greens will want it off the table unless it is agreed that it will go. That leaves them able to vote against further stupid patches being added to it.

Consider the people of New Zealand First

Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, September 24th, 2017 - 55 comments

The political reputation of NZ First as being a one man band. It isn’t. It is a real political party with the classic volatile mixture of members, supporters, candidates and MPs, plus undercurrents of factionalism. They will take some time to negotiate how they should negotiate and with whom.

National rules itself out of coalitions with cynical BillShit.

Written By: - Date published: 11:48 pm, September 22nd, 2017 - 4 comments

National do a last ditch dirty politics effort. A few hours before it becomes impossible for anyone to refute this, Tracey Watkins publishes an opinion piece which sounds like the usual National BillShit. Another cynical lie designed to stop the horses from thinking rationally when they vote. This time it is a lie about things that the Greens can’t do – not without going to members. Who aren’t going to go for it.

 

Federated Farmers need to cut the crap

Written By: - Date published: 1:09 pm, September 20th, 2017 - 98 comments

Federated Farmers continued their fear campaign today in a Herald editorial. Their anonymous demand is that “Farmers should know they are still appreciated”. It is hard to have respect looking at bills that urban dwellers and businesses pay tofix their environment, while Federated Farmers bullshit about the environmental impacts of farming and how they don’t like paying to fix them.

Women readers of the site

Written By: - Date published: 11:25 pm, September 18th, 2017 - 49 comments

Apart from the usual election year rise of the readership, the demographics on this site have been moving a lot earlier this election. The most noticeable statistic in the recent months has been to do with gender. Most of it appears to me to have been associated with female interest in Metiria Turei. There is a lot more interest by women in this election than in 2014.

David Farrar has no idea about business nor apparently the role of government for business.

Written By: - Date published: 1:38 pm, September 18th, 2017 - 44 comments

I see that David Farrar, the National parties favourite paid polling poodle, is trying to spin up the old line about politicians not being business people. He sounds like a blithering idiot. He also obviously knows bugger all about real business and I’m not sure that he really understands what government is about for businesses. Perhaps he should get some training in running a business?

Roy Morgan – shows the Nats have been targeting the wrong place

Written By: - Date published: 10:59 pm, September 15th, 2017 - 98 comments

With the usual inane commentary from our aussie cousins, we get the final Roy Morgan poll. It shows Labour + Greens at 60 seats and with choice of partners to take them over 60 seats. It shows National at 50 seats and requiring NZ First + the Maori Party and Nationals servile parties to get […]

US presidential campaign heats up along with the hurricanes

Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, September 12th, 2017 - 9 comments

The first contender has declared, albeit so far in a humorous manner. Less humorous has been the hurricanes that have been hitting southern states this season. You can understand why the oil industries anti-scientist Scott Pruitt that Trump put in charge of the EPA doesn’t want to talk about it.

I’m off to vote today

Written By: - Date published: 1:22 pm, September 11th, 2017 - 75 comments

Voting has opened for advance votes and the expectation is that it will be pretty heavy prior to polling day over the next couple of weeks. I’ll be out there voting today for Jacinda Arden as my local MP, and for the Greens as my party vote.

Stupid myths on immigrant construction workers

Written By: - Date published: 9:16 am, September 8th, 2017 - 31 comments

One of the dafter myths about the current burgeoning immigration industry is that we need skilled immigrants for the construction industry. As usual the talkback idiots are wrong. We don’t get many. We need more. We need to get rid of the migrant dross to get them. A Kiwibuild quota is a good idea.

Why is Farrar smearing the superannuation shit?

Written By: - Date published: 7:59 am, September 1st, 2017 - 38 comments

A lot of politics and political blogging is all about the details. This includes National’s pollster David Farrar who falsely asserted yesterday that Winston would have received 7 annual letters about his superannuation status. So why is National trying to irritate their only possible coalition partner?

A personal view of a decade of The Standard 2.0

Written By: - Date published: 8:18 am, August 25th, 2017 - 43 comments

With the distraction of the a looming election, one that is likely to ditch the dead hand of National’s cronyism on our economy and society, I missed that we’d managed to make this site survive and thrive for a decade. I think that deserves some recognition …

It is National’s time for the brown trousers

Written By: - Date published: 11:26 pm, August 9th, 2017 - 92 comments

If you want to know why the right is farting so much personal smoke, take a look at the poll trends 2011, 2014, 2017. It’s not a pretty picture for the Nats.