Author Archive

The politics of poverty

Written By: - Date published: 8:34 am, October 2nd, 2014 - 86 comments

Every election Key is confronted with the issue of poverty. His response is always pure politics with no effective action, and this election has been no different. We will be here again in 2017.

Maori support for Labour

Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, October 1st, 2014 - 56 comments

One of the few bright spots for Labour in the election was the renewed support of Maori. What now for the Maori Party?

NZ troops to Iraq?

Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, October 1st, 2014 - 109 comments

Key’s public position on sending troops to Iraq has (surprise!) changed since the election. His private position on the topic probably hasn’t changed since 2003.

Parker as interim leader

Written By: - Date published: 1:43 pm, September 30th, 2014 - 80 comments

According to early reports (Twitter) David Parker is interim leader of the Labour Party, with Annette King as deputy.

Grooming Bennett

Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, September 30th, 2014 - 85 comments

Key is grooming Bennett for a finance role and eventual succession. No point in Nat members making a fuss, they don’t get a say in who leads them.

Labour – a rock and a hard place

Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, September 29th, 2014 - 93 comments

Labour is being criticised for leadership divisions. If the party had not examined its leadership it would be being criticised for ignoring the message of the voters. So never mind the media frenzy, concentrate on running (like last time) a positive and constructive selection process and review.

What will Kim Dotcom do next?

Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, September 27th, 2014 - 173 comments

Nice to see one Journalist speaking up about National’s vicious personal attacks on Kim Dotcom. What will Dotcom do next? My guess is that he will stay out of NZ politics from now on.

Dirty Kiwiblog

Written By: - Date published: 6:40 am, September 26th, 2014 - 148 comments

Dr Jarrod Gilbert was the victim of a typical dirty politics smear campaign via Kiwiblog. In the last couple of days he has done some interesting posts on the subject. Expect dirty politics, and personal attacks on critics of the government, to escalate even further over the next three years.

Health service funding

Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, September 25th, 2014 - 62 comments

The Nats are steadily cutting funding (in real terms) to health (and other sectors). Today, yet another doctor broke. Welcome to the brighter future.

Some brief musings on unity

Written By: - Date published: 11:21 am, September 24th, 2014 - 287 comments

It’s up to all of us.

Lessons

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, September 22nd, 2014 - 482 comments

Greetings from the sanity of Dunedin North. Every pundit and their dog is opining on the lessons of Saturday, so I might as well have a go too.

A clean start

Written By: - Date published: 11:17 am, September 19th, 2014 - 27 comments

If Team Key manage to stagger over the line it will be a government paralysed from the start by scandal and investigation – inward looking and defensive. A rather Pyrrhic “victory” at best. We need a Labour led government so that we can put this nightmare behind us. We need a clean start.

Stability vs Change

Written By: - Date published: 8:22 am, September 18th, 2014 - 79 comments

This election there are two very different visions of the future on offer. I know which I prefer.

Key’s last fig leaf

Written By: - Date published: 7:42 am, September 18th, 2014 - 32 comments

Key’s last fig leaf on GCSB surveillance is to plead ignorance. Unfortunately for him the evidence is compelling. If he does manage to lead the next government, these issues will continue to haunt him.

The circle is complete

Written By: - Date published: 4:16 pm, September 17th, 2014 - 139 comments

From “There’s no ambiguity. No middle ground. I’m right. He’s wrong”
to
“[Snowden] may well be right” in just 4 days. Impressive.

Media roundup

Written By: - Date published: 7:42 am, September 16th, 2014 - 64 comments

NZ Media has got the message, leading with coverage of the Greenwald / Snowden evidence of mass surveillance of New Zealanders, and the surprise revelation of two US “spy bases” in NZ. Best coverage by Andrea Vance. Updated with a link to video of last night’s event.

A brilliant (if flawed) event – Key must resign

Written By: - Date published: 6:06 am, September 16th, 2014 - 71 comments

From Key we have changing stories, irrelevant distractions and refusal to comment. From Snowden we have compelling first person testimony and supporting documents (uncontested by any other Five Eyes leader). New Zealand is under mass surveillance.

“Moment of Truth” – a key claim

Written By: - Date published: 7:14 am, September 15th, 2014 - 152 comments

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald is standing firm in the face of Key’s attacks and denials. A fascinating interview with Steve Braunias yesterday contains a key claim.

“Moment of Truth” – Preview

Written By: - Date published: 7:32 am, September 14th, 2014 - 67 comments

The positioning re Kim Dotcom’s “Moment of Truth” has started this morning.

The working poor

Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, September 13th, 2014 - 46 comments

National is not interested in doing anything about poverty in NZ. They won’t even officially measure poverty, because they don’t want to know.

One chance to clean up politics

Written By: - Date published: 8:04 am, September 12th, 2014 - 72 comments

If we, the electorate, reward dirty politics by re-electing a National government, we will be validating the most vile tactics this country has seen since Muldoon.

Poverty a National disgrace

Written By: - Date published: 7:12 am, September 10th, 2014 - 82 comments

Advocacy groups are calling for action. People are marching for action. The parties of the left are ready to take action. Only National stands in the way.

Nats useless on economy

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, September 9th, 2014 - 49 comments

The economy is a mess, the Nats have no ideas, and their current policies (e.g. hypothetical tax cuts) are getting laughed out of town. National is useless on the economy, and the sooner we the people wake up to this fact, the better off we will be.

Tax cuts – simple question simple answer

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 pm, September 7th, 2014 - 84 comments

Duncan Garner asks – “when we’ve just borrowed $55b over 6 years how on earth are tax cuts suddenly affordable?”. Presumably it’s a rhetorical question…

All the way to Key

Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, September 1st, 2014 - 30 comments

All credit to Guyon Espiner for another hard-hitting interview with Key on Morning Report today. Espiner tries to get a straight answer from Key over his personal contacts with Slater. Tries and tries and tries, to no avail. It is clear that Key, personally and through his office, is up to his neck in dirty politics.

Wakeup call for the media – has Slater done us all a favour?

Written By: - Date published: 8:02 am, August 31st, 2014 - 171 comments

National’s dirty politics, for all its corrosive damage, also marks an opportunity for NZ. An opportunity to take stock, recognise such tactics for what they are, and reject them. An opportunity to clean up both politics and the media’s coverage of it.

I think that most New Zealanders…

Written By: - Date published: 12:35 pm, August 28th, 2014 - 17 comments

Our PM is fond of telling us all what we think. In the wake of Dirty Politics he is working it overtime, telling us all that we believe his spin. Interesting then to get some actual data on what (extrapolating from a sample) most New Zealanders really do think. Many thanks to the Horizon polling people for putting this up on line.

Condemning the obvious

Written By: - Date published: 12:46 am, August 27th, 2014 - 143 comments

Of course I (and other Standard authors) condemn lyrics that incite violence, and any and all threats to the children of politicians (who are completely out of bounds). Does this even need saying? But – Farrar, his little fan club, and the moral high ground? – it is beyond hypocrisy. There is no equivalence between the actions of a disenfranchised, angry few and the systematic abuse of democracy and decency undertaken by National’s dirty politics.

Timeline: Key responsible for SIS release

Written By: - Date published: 8:16 am, August 25th, 2014 - 30 comments

[Reposted] Key is responsible for the release of SIS briefing notes to Cameron Slater – one of the main issues summarised in Dirty Politics. Here’s the timeline in detail.

Update: Hooton and Williams on Nine to Noon – Key not credible

Timeline: Key responsible for SIS release

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, August 23rd, 2014 - 73 comments

Key is responsible for the release of SIS briefing notes to Cameron Slater – one of the main issues summarised in Dirty Politics. Here’s the timeline in detail.

Key lied – The smoking gun?

Written By: - Date published: 2:26 pm, August 21st, 2014 - 165 comments

[Updated] John Key 8th August 2011: “”What happened is Warren Tucker didn’t come to me, he went to his legal adviser and his legal advisers told him this is the process they have to follow and when he was going through that process it was at that point he told me he’d release it because he has to tell me that under the no-surprises doctrine.”

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