Author Archive

Show us the money Simon

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:06 am, January 31st, 2019 - 82 comments

Hopefully the media will ask of National the tough questions, like how it is going to increase spending in critical areas, pay down debt and give us a tax cut at the same time.

A detailed analysis of Simon Bridges’ state of the nation speech

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 4:59 pm, January 30th, 2019 - 88 comments

As a public service the writers of the Standard provides you with this in depth analysis of the contents of Simon Bridges’ state of the nation speech delivered this afternoon.

The world cannot afford to have billionaires

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:48 am, January 30th, 2019 - 246 comments

American politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said that it is immoral to have a world that allows for billionaires. She may well be right.

The Blue Green oxymoron

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:18 am, January 28th, 2019 - 252 comments

National appears to be well advanced in the formation of a new puppet party, one with an environmental theme that will present a challenge to the Green Party.

About that $100,000 National Party donation

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:20 am, January 27th, 2019 - 88 comments

Fran O’Sullivan has correctly stated that the investigation of the $100,000 donation made to the National Party that was partitioned to hide it should be of much greater concern to the New Zealand Police than Sarah Dowie’s texts.

Roastbusters redux

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:46 am, January 27th, 2019 - 92 comments

One of the Roastbusters this week has talked publicly about what happened in an apparent attempt to start a music career. And John Tamihere has started his Mayoral campaign having to answer questions about his attitude to what happened.

Herald names Dowie as the sender of that text to Jami-Lee Ross

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:02 am, January 25th, 2019 - 205 comments

Sarah Dowie has been identified as the MP under police investigation for sending the text to Jami-Lee Ross saying that he deserved to die.

Taxpayers Union receives funding from British American Tobacco

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:36 am, January 25th, 2019 - 39 comments

Sam Sachdeva at Newsroom has connfirmed that the Taxpayer’s Union (*not a real union) has received funding from British American Tobacco.

Stuff is now an official mouthpiece of the National Party

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:03 am, January 24th, 2019 - 47 comments

Mark Mitchell is an early contender for most stupid utterance by a politician this year. And Stuff has packaged up his utterance and uncritically made it a headline.

National’s Jami-Lee Ross problem

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:59 am, January 23rd, 2019 - 56 comments

Jami-Lee Ross has written a somewhat conciliatory facebook post which essentially confirms that he is not going to resign as an MP.

National starts political year beneficiary bashing

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:14 am, January 22nd, 2019 - 70 comments

National has kicked off the year by reverting to type and engaging in a classic example of beneficiary bashing based on a distortion of official statistics.

Housing affordability and urban form

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 3:07 pm, January 21st, 2019 - 35 comments

Hugh Pavletich thinks that Auckland’s housing crisis is because of restrictions on urban sprawl and that loosening up would be a good thing. I disagree.

D Day for US shutdown

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:30 am, January 20th, 2019 - 160 comments

Donald Trump is to make an announcement today concerning the shut down. And Buzzfeed has suggested that the Mueller Investigation has uncovered evidence suggesting that Trump instructed his lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress.

Family First thinks there is a Cafe porn watching crisis

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:00 am, January 19th, 2019 - 104 comments

Family First thinks that there is a crisis of porn watching at cafes. And has commissioned Curia to see if others think the same.

National shafted us with the MOM privatisation

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:20 am, January 17th, 2019 - 318 comments

Five years on how are the benefits from the Mixed Ownership Model privatisation process the last Government engaged in working out?

Chinese Herald changed Herald articles to be more China friendly

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:00 am, January 15th, 2019 - 70 comments

Stuff has reported that its opponent, the New Zealand Herald, has via its Chinese version amended stories to make them more acceptable to the Chinese Government.

David Seymour can’t handle criticism

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:21 am, January 14th, 2019 - 112 comments

ACT MP David Seymour has lashed out on Facebook at Dianne Khan apparently for successfully fact checking him.

National has lots of questions

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:30 am, January 12th, 2019 - 38 comments

National asked 40,000 questions of Ministers last year. This seems excessive.

New Zealand needs a Government that understands climate change

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:58 am, January 10th, 2019 - 47 comments

In an opinion piece in Stuff National Spokesperson on climate change Todd Muller has cast doubt on National agreeing to a political consensus on climate change.

The Bigliest shut down ever

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:34 am, January 9th, 2019 - 95 comments

Donald Trump in the longest presidential temper tantrum every is refusing to reopen the US Government unless Congress agree to funding his Mexican Border wall.

Mood of the workforce shows urgent need for change

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:00 am, January 8th, 2019 - 81 comments

The CTU has released the results of its recent cost of living and income survey. The results suggest that urgent change is needed.

Drug testing at music festivals

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:00 am, January 7th, 2019 - 18 comments

Police Minister Stuart Nash has said publicly that he wants to see all New Zealand music festivals to have drug testing kits by next summer.

National just wants to have some friends

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:55 am, January 6th, 2019 - 63 comments

National clearly needs new friends if it is to regain power. Could the nutty New Conservatives be a possibility?

Farrar criticises Genter for not solving National’s transport safety mess quickly enough

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:17 am, January 5th, 2019 - 119 comments

David Farrar has accused Julie Anne Genter of saying she can do nothing about the road safety when she said nothing of the sort.

Political punditry in 2019

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:57 am, January 4th, 2019 - 79 comments

The media has recently reviewed its predictions from last year and made a few new ones. How did it go? And what is going to happen in the next 12 months?

What can we do about climate change – air travel emission offset

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:00 am, January 2nd, 2019 - 257 comments

How do you reconcile your desire to do what you can about climate change with taking air travel?

Matt King goes full nut job

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:00 am, December 29th, 2018 - 77 comments

National MP Matt King has claimed that Stuff has been censoring comments that are critical of the Government and that an article expressing concerns about the run down of health infrastructure, the increase in child poverty, the use of private contractors to spy on us and the inability of NZTA to properly regulate WOF inspections is “left wing claptrap”.