Author Archive

The latest battle in the culture wars

Written By: - Date published: 8:49 am, August 15th, 2021 - 79 comments

This week National agreed to the bill allowing gender self identification to proceed to select committee which was a stark contrast to their position on the bill banning gay conversion therapy.  I wonder what happened?

The Churchill picture

Written By: - Date published: 8:13 am, August 12th, 2021 - 165 comments

National, the party that claims to be focussed on the issues that matter decided to get upset when the Greens requested the replacement of a picture of a former UK leader who had a reputation for engaging in crimes against humanity.

National’s civil war continues

Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, August 9th, 2021 - 25 comments

In an extraordinary move National’s board has reselected Peter Goodfellow as Party Chairperson and this has caused former MP David Carter to resign as board member and express no confidence in the leadership or in National’s chances at the next election.

National used to be better than this

Written By: - Date published: 8:28 am, August 6th, 2021 - 59 comments

Back in the day National used to have a strong urban liberal wing that gave the impression that it was sympathetic to LGBTQI issues.  Yesterday that impression was trashed.

Aotearoa New Zealand approaches full employment

Written By: - Date published: 8:28 am, August 5th, 2021 - 84 comments

Yesterday Statistics New Zealand announced a dramatic drip in the unemployment rate as well as solid increases in wage rates and average weekly earnings for workers.  While the Government celebrated Employers thought it was a crisis.

Judith’s last stand?

Written By: - Date published: 8:04 am, August 4th, 2021 - 43 comments

Judith Collins has decided to attack the Government on the use of the Te Reo name for New Zealand even though the last National Government regularised its use.

Youtube punishes Murdoch’s Sky News for pedalling Covid misinformation

Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, August 3rd, 2021 - 38 comments

This will have the conspiracy theorists spinning.  Youtube have stopped Murdoch’s Sky News Australia from uploading videos for the next seven days after the channel uploaded videos questioning Covid and advocating for the use of alternative medicines including Donald Trump’s favourite hydroxychloroquine

The latest Reid Research Poll result

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, August 2nd, 2021 - 134 comments

Last night’s Reid Research poll result suggests that the electorate is reverting back to a more conventional dynamic after the stratospheric heights that Labour enjoyed immediately post Covid elimination.

Lies damned lies and Crime statistics

Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, August 1st, 2021 - 13 comments

It should be an offence for political parties to deliberately misrepresent law and order statistics as National has done this week.  It should be an aggravating feature if the party is a conservative party that champions law and order issues.  After all fraud is an offence and if we don’t punish it appropriately then everyone will do it.

Citizenship is a human right

Written By: - Date published: 9:40 am, July 29th, 2021 - 81 comments

National has responded to the impending return to New Zealand of Suhayra Aden by hinting that they may follow Australia and breach human rights by bringing in laws allowing countries to arbitrarily remove rights of citizenship.

Letting private enterprise handle Covid quarantine is a really stupid idea

Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, July 27th, 2021 - 31 comments

Leader of the Opposition David Seymour has proposed that private enterprise should provide quarantine services.  The recent experience of Melbourne where private security firms failed dramatically to properly managed quarantine facilities suggests that this is a really stupid idea.

The many and varied takes of Des Gorman on covid

Written By: - Date published: 3:05 pm, July 25th, 2021 - 32 comments

A review of Des Gorman’s comments about Covid over the last 15 months, pretty well all of which have been negative, makes you wonder how it is possible that we have been able to maintain an effective Covid free status in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The bubble pops

Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, July 24th, 2021 - 32 comments

The appearance of community spread Delta variant Covid in Australia has caused New Zealand to suspend the trans Tasman travel bubble.

Act likes some rights but not others

Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, July 22nd, 2021 - 37 comments

Following on from its campaign to protect freedom of expression Act has come out with policy on gangs which if enacted would involve some pretty egregious attacks on freedom of association and movement and due process.

Mother Nature gives Groundswell NZ the middle finger

Written By: - Date published: 8:17 am, July 20th, 2021 - 78 comments

With record floods in Marlborough, half of Westport evacuated, disastrous flooding in Germany and the North East and the threat of record bushfires in the North West of the United States Mother Nature is passing rather cruel judgment on Groundswell NZ’s recent protest.

Freedom day

Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, July 19th, 2021 - 58 comments

As infection rates of Covid in the United Kingdom surge Boris Johnson has announced that today will be the UK’s Freedom day and will be removing pretty well all mandatory Covid restrictions, even the wearing of masks and social distancing.

Trump and Russia

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, July 18th, 2021 - 41 comments

The Guardian has reported on claims of a leaked Russian Government paper which on the face of it confirms Russian support for the Trump 2016 election at the highest level.

The problem with English Soccer

Written By: - Date published: 7:38 am, July 16th, 2021 - 13 comments

Last week’s final between England and Italy showed that there is still an ugly racist underside to what should be a beautiful game.

Rare misstep

Written By: - Date published: 7:22 am, July 14th, 2021 - 37 comments

Simeon Brown in his attack on the Government for allegedly funding the Mongrel Mob has shown a disturbing ability to understand how Government works and an even more disturbing inability to perform basic maths.

Demand the debate

Written By: - Date published: 8:13 am, July 13th, 2021 - 52 comments

In two separate leaks it has emerged that Judith Collins privately briefed Don Brash on National’s demand the debate campaign and that Brash wrote to wealthy donors seeking $300,000 for an Iwi Kiwi style billboard response.

The billionaire race into space

Written By: - Date published: 8:06 am, July 12th, 2021 - 90 comments

UK billionaire Richard Branson has won the rich man’s pissing competition by being the first billionaire into space even though 12 months ago he was urgently seeking Government grants while at the same time paying no tax because of his tax residency status.

The Covid Crisis – the perils of half hearted responses

Written By: - Date published: 4:59 pm, July 11th, 2021 - 40 comments

The New South Wales’ half hearted response to community outbreak has seen infected numbers increase while in the UK Boris Johnson is planning to remove all restrictions something top scientists describe as “dangerous and premature”.

About the Hate Speech law changes

Written By: - Date published: 12:06 pm, July 6th, 2021 - 94 comments

The debate about the Government’s consultation on proposed changes to hate speech laws continues, with the level of heat increasing, but the level of actual understanding of what is being proposed in critical shortage.

Judith Collins is not John Key

Written By: - Date published: 7:52 am, July 2nd, 2021 - 168 comments

I honestly am not sure what Judith’s game plan.  Supporting someone who on twitter called for the lynching of a person with a contrary view is not a way to reach to the middle of New Zealand politics.

The Pausing of the Travel Bubble

Written By: - Date published: 9:11 am, June 28th, 2021 - 81 comments

So far there have been no discovered cases of community spread of the Covid delta variant in Wellington following the recent visit by an Australian tourist who was infected with the variant.  Meanwhile in Australia the authorities are trying to stamp out community flareups that are appearing in different parts of the country.

Stick a fork in them, they’re done

Written By: - Date published: 7:58 am, June 25th, 2021 - 84 comments

The details of a particularly brutal National Party caucus meeting that resulted in Todd Muller announced his pending retirement from Parliament have been leaked in detail to the Herald’s Claire Trevett.

Todd’s going … who is next?

Written By: - Date published: 7:31 am, June 24th, 2021 - 67 comments

Yesterday National suffered further damage to its ranks when Harete Hipango was outed as the MP with Parliamentary Services resources issues and Todd Muller announced that he will stand down as an MP at the end of this term nominally so that he can eventually spend more time with his family.  

Will the last remaining National MP please turn all the lights off

Written By: - Date published: 8:08 am, June 23rd, 2021 - 38 comments

Oh dear.  There is yet another story about yet another National MP in trouble because of their born to rule impulses.  Update:  the Herald has reported that the MP is Harete Hipango.  These blue on blue attacks are getting out of hand.

Fisheries reform is under way

Written By: - Date published: 7:57 am, June 23rd, 2021 - 10 comments

David Parker has shown a deft handling of the Oceans and Fisheries portfolio and in the past week has announced the accelerated roll out of cameras on fishing boats and a suite of actions designed to address the failing health of the Waitemata Harbour.

He’s baaack

Written By: - Date published: 7:56 am, June 21st, 2021 - 30 comments

For the first time since the election Winston Peters has reemerged.  But instead of talking about the country’s problems such as  climate change, child poverty and recovering from the global pandemic he chose to concentrate on the “over” use of Te Reo, cycleways and gangs.

Fear and loathing in cycleland

Written By: - Date published: 3:52 pm, June 15th, 2021 - 32 comments

I am pleased the right have moved on from overtly racist attacks on minorities. But I am bemused by the current level of vitriol that has been thrown at a group who apart from wearing lycra is doing nothing wrong.