Author Archive

Free trade must be fair

Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, September 23rd, 2008 - 16 comments

In principle, a free trade deal between the US and the P4 countries (NZ, Chile, Singapore, and Brunei) is a good thing. If we want our world’s limited resources to be used efficiently, we should not place artificial barriers in the way of trade without good reason. But we must make sure that the FTA […]

PSA launches campaign

Written By: - Date published: 1:53 pm, September 23rd, 2008 - 33 comments

The PSA’s campaign looks to get past National’s simplistic ‘tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts’ mantra and ask voters to consider what they would have to give up to get larger tax cuts. (full size) Great stuff. Hopefully, they won’t be limiting this campaign to internet and magazine ads. Every kiwi family should get this […]

Can he look himself in the mirror?

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, September 23rd, 2008 - 28 comments

John Key on August 30 “The appointment of a minister to Cabinet has to be done on the basis that as Prime Minister I can look that person in the eye and have confidence that I can rely on their word.” Also, I know it’s small change to Key but to those of us who aren’t […]

Not with a bang but a whimper

Written By: - Date published: 6:11 am, September 23rd, 2008 - 38 comments

The Privileges Committee has reported back. Peters is censured for not declaring that he had made a pecuniary gain from his lawyer taking donations for Peters’ legal fund. A minority of the Committee, the Labour and NZF MPs, disagreed with this censure pointing out that the evidence given to the Committee was that, had Peters […]

Back to basics

Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, September 22nd, 2008 - 55 comments

I’ve had some interesting conversations with people recently that have me thinking we need to get back to some political basics to build up to the practical policy questions of today, otherwise many of us are talking past each other. Here are three founding principles, which I hope to build from in an occasional series […]

Nats relying on ignorance

Written By: - Date published: 12:43 pm, September 22nd, 2008 - 47 comments

It’s really easy to present misleading statistics. David Farrar shows how it’s done with a post on migration today. Note how his figures only go back to 2003. Why is that? Well, it just so happens that 2003 was the last low point in the migration cycle. So, if you show just the last five […]

Questioning politicians

Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, September 22nd, 2008 - 16 comments

We’re keen to help you get active this election campaign. That’s why we’ve launched Campaign Hub 2008 and its Facebook group to give you info, access to materials, and tips on campaigning. It’s great to see so many people have downloaded leaflets and posters from the Hub or clicked through to Vote With Both Eyes […]

Small beer

Written By: - Date published: 6:48 pm, September 21st, 2008 - 43 comments

3 News tonight: “the Government wants less pupils per teacher..” Is TV3 employing National’s billboard genius to write the tele-prompter? Also, my inside sources reveal that Matthew Hooten has no inside sources. Think about it, who in the Beehive would talk to Hooten? If you did want to leak, wouldn’t you leak to someone credible? It’s […]

Kerr shows how the Right lie to themselves

Written By: - Date published: 5:33 pm, September 21st, 2008 - 42 comments

The Business Roundtable held another in their series of forums on political issues targeted at young people on Thursday. The aim is obviously to get along the type of kid who goes to his (sorry for the gendering but they were 90% male) commerce classes in a suit that he can’t yet fill and give him an […]

The Standard Week: 12-19 September

Written By: - Date published: 12:49 pm, September 19th, 2008 - Comments Off on The Standard Week: 12-19 September

Work rights and judgement look to be central issues in the campaign. The Greens set the standard by putting forward a fantastic work rights policy in counter to National’s continued attacks on our rights. Key’s judgement in fiercely advocating Kiwi involvement in the invasion of Iraq raises serious questions over whether we can trust him […]

Unacceptable

Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, September 19th, 2008 - 164 comments

From Newzblog: “Local activist James Sleep was today exercising his democratic right to protest when he was approached by an entourage of 4WDs carrying Wairapara MP John Hayes and John Key. Sleep attempted to get out of the way however he soon found himself being propelled backwards by the force of Hayes’ car. The car […]

Compliments and questions

Written By: - Date published: 3:20 pm, September 18th, 2008 - 25 comments

First, it’s nice to be pleasantly surprised by a tory. Turns out Tony Friedlander’s Road Transport Trust is not just donating to National. As well as $30K to the Nats, Labour got $20K and other parties will get something as well to help the democratic process. Can’t help but notice National got the most though. […]

Greens good for workers

Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, September 18th, 2008 - 75 comments

Work rights should be a big issue this election. National is proposing to strip workers of their rights to undermine wage increases. The Greens’ work rights policy, on the other hand, rocks. – Lift the minimum wage from $12 an hour to $15 an hour immediately. That will restore the minimum wage relative to the […]

Key still wishes we had invaded Iraq

Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, September 18th, 2008 - 158 comments

Helen Clark made foreign policy judgement a campaign issue today when she told a Grey Power meeting that if New Zealand had invaded Iraq with the US as John Key wanted we would have lost up to 60 soldiers*. Through a spokesman, John Key said “the claim of 60 dead is hysterical and desperate”. I […]

Hooton hits rock bottom

Written By: - Date published: 4:25 pm, September 17th, 2008 - 130 comments

Matthew Hooton lies for a living. He was one of the architects of Don Brash’s deceptive, racist campaign in 2005, he has told lies about me personally in his SST column, and he lies endlessly on his new paid blog. The latest lie is that a small rightwing blog called ‘No Minister‘ has been blocked […]

The descent continues

Written By: - Date published: 10:09 am, September 17th, 2008 - 87 comments

I sometimes have Fox News on in the background when I’m home, it’s good to get wound up now and again. So, I’m used to seeing the most bizarre attack angles masquerading as serious journalism. But I took a second-take when I saw this one because it took a moment to realise I wasn’t looking […]

More slippery attacks, still no solutions

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, September 17th, 2008 - 70 comments

Yesterday, John Key “attacked Labour’s economic record, which he said amounted to overtaxing voters so it could put money into its pet projects” So, what are these ‘pet projects’ and which of them National would cancel? Well, Labour’s major spending projects have been increasing the health budget, spending more on transport (including roads, unfortunately), more […]

Billboard ideas for Left and Right

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, September 17th, 2008 - 46 comments

I see the National billboard on the corner of Dixon and Victoria in Wellington is already down. Are they pulling them all because they have been unanimously ridiculed or were the hilarious extra comments* that kept appearing on this one making it a liability? Either way, perhaps they will consider replacing it with something like […]

Chutzpah

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 16th, 2008 - 17 comments

When the EPMU released its investigation notes on Shawn Tan it was obvious that some right-wing bloggers would seize on the fact that Tan had been employed on a probationary agreement and stupidly claim that, therefore, the union was hypocritical for opposing National’s fire at will policy (which creates a 90 day no-rights period for […]

How would Nats cut tax? Where would the money come from?

Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, September 16th, 2008 - 22 comments

Bill English has confirmed that National still intends to give the average worker a $50 tax cut. That’s $18 a week more than they will get in Labour’s tax cuts after 2011. If National’s would increase the cut for all taxpayers by around $18 a week it would cost nearly $3 billion a year. In […]

Nats’ dirty tricks exposed?

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, September 16th, 2008 - 53 comments

Cameron Slater, aka Whaleoil, is a nasty piece of work. If you’re a leftie and you get into the media, he’ll dig whatever dirt he can find on you from the ‘net and what he can’t find he’ll make up in an attempt to intimidate you and others into silence. But the intertubes flow both […]

Nothing to Hide? + more moaning

Written By: - Date published: 3:50 pm, September 15th, 2008 - 46 comments

Prime is running a series of interviews every Sunday until the election with the leader of each party in Parliament, starting with Rodney Hide last night. It was surprisingly good. Hosted by Bill Ralston with a panel of Barry Soper, Audrey Young, and Colin Espiner, some good questions were asked and Hide himself was good […]

Govts do keep promises, some more than others

Written By: - Date published: 12:40 pm, September 15th, 2008 - 24 comments

It’s an old saw among those who think knee-jerk cynicism is a replacement for healthy skepticism that politicians always break their promises. That’s challenged by an interesting study out of Canterbury University about whether governments keep their election promises. In the 11 terms from 1972 to 2005, each government kept at least half its election […]

Disappointing

Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, September 15th, 2008 - 79 comments

I just have to say, it’s incredibly disappointing that a simple prank, a google bomb, gets three newspaper articles and coverage on TV3 and when talkback radio suggests The Standard was tipped off on the election date that is an issue worth following up with the PM. But when John Key is quoted in a […]

To ask the real questions, you have to know the details

Written By: - Date published: 6:02 pm, September 14th, 2008 - 32 comments

Agenda this morning showed, in several ways, that if you want to ask difficult questions, you have to know your topic. Guyon Espiner gave a comprehensive lesson in the dangers of only knowing the media hype on a topic, not the actual detail. Defence Minister Phil Goff, frankly, made mince meat of Guyon’s attempts to […]

Negative vs dirty

Written By: - Date published: 7:13 pm, September 13th, 2008 - 69 comments

There’s an important difference between negative campaigning and dirty tricks but it already seems the two are getting confused in the media. Negative campaigning is saying bad things about your opponent that are at least arguably true (eg Clark saying Key was like a tourist at the South Auckland markets). Dirty campaigning is knowingly telling […]

The Standard Week: September 5 – 12

Written By: - Date published: 5:53 pm, September 12th, 2008 - 31 comments

The election date was announced as November the 8th. Everyone had worked that out based on the available dates. But that didn’t stop Colin Espiner asking the PM if she had tipped off The Standard about the date seeing as we have called the 8th correctly on a number of occasions. No tip off Colin, […]

On morality

Written By: - Date published: 10:55 am, September 12th, 2008 - 81 comments

The Catholic Church has called for politicans to take a ‘moral stand’ on abortion, adoption by same-sex couples, gambling, embryonic stem-cell research, and euthanasia. Ok, well here are my moral stands on those issues: Abortion: is an awful thing for anyone to have to go through but the moral principle is that a woman’s body is […]

National: for a more confused future

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, September 12th, 2008 - 14 comments

On Sunday, John Key, apparently off-the-cuff, announced he would dismantle the Families Commission and give the money to church groups, who just happened to be the people he was speaking to at the time. Then, he had to speak to UnitedFuture Leader Peter Dunne. The Families Commission is his baby and Key will probably need […]

Introducing Campaign Hub 2008

Written By: - Date published: 3:37 pm, September 11th, 2008 - 69 comments

Helena Catt, head of the Electoral Commission, says the EFA has had a ‘chilling effect’ on democratic participation. I’m convinced that that is a foolish position based on a belief that ‘democratic participation’ is rich lobby groups paying for ads and billboards, trying to market to us. What the EFA has actually done is democratise […]

Nats still getting money from trusts

Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, September 11th, 2008 - 79 comments

One of the great things about the EFA is that donations over $20,000 must be declared within 10 working days. Because of that, we have today learned National received $30,000 from something called the Road Transport Trust on August 27. The Trust is clearly a front – there is no record of it on the […]