accountability

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Then and Now.

Written By: - Date published: 11:54 am, April 30th, 2018 - 13 comments

Claims that “Russian bots” helped Labour during the 2017 UK General Election…

 

Catriona MacLennan takes on the Law Society

Written By: - Date published: 6:16 pm, April 19th, 2018 - 49 comments

Catriona MacLennan is being sent to a disciplinary committee for criticising a judge, in a case where he made an appalling judgement.  Where are the freedom-of-speech advocates?

Gaza

Written By: - Date published: 10:46 am, April 6th, 2018 - 69 comments

Is it the new by-word for silence?

An Orwellian Minister for Open Government

Written By: - Date published: 1:46 pm, March 27th, 2018 - 257 comments

A picture of Minister Clare Curran

The Minister for Open Government has been caught organizing a secret meeting, and it has led to the resignation of an RNZ manager who covered for her. Is it time to kick Curran out?

Green Party statements on giving their parliamentary Questions to the Opposition

Written By: - Date published: 11:03 am, March 19th, 2018 - 49 comments

“As Greens, we’ve always stood for modernising our democracy, making MPs more accountable and giving the public better access to the levers of power.”

#MeToo

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, March 15th, 2018 - 13 comments

It’s been awesome to see feminist activists in New Zealand enable a new and fast liberation occur.  It’s worth reflecting on the success of #MeToo  and all its new forms.

James Shaw’s speech to the Green Summer Policy Conference

Written By: - Date published: 6:15 am, March 4th, 2018 - 8 comments

Alongside announcing the Greens’ new transparency measures, James Shaw talks about being in government and having the ability to influence, as well as staying true to the Green Party’s values.

Green Party announces new transparency measures

Written By: - Date published: 6:10 am, March 4th, 2018 - 28 comments

Green Party Co-leader James Shaw has today announced two important new transparency measures, which will apply to Green Party Ministers, MPs and staff, to help counter the influence of money in politics.

TPPA-11 update and actions

Written By: - Date published: 6:23 am, February 16th, 2018 - 70 comments

The TPPA-11 is set to be signed on March 8. There are still huge problems with the agreement for NZ. Jane Kelsey provides an update.

There is a hole left in the world

Written By: - Date published: 12:27 pm, January 24th, 2018 - 17 comments

Ursula K Le Guin has died.

Auckland Council by election hypocrisy alert

Written By: - Date published: 11:03 am, January 22nd, 2018 - 13 comments

The National candidate for the Maungakiekie Tamaki Auckland Council by election is complaining that if the Labour candidate wins it will trigger a costly by election. But he is ignoring the fact that the three current by elections have all been caused by National endorsed local government representatives resigning.

It’s time to embrace nanny state

Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, January 19th, 2018 - 22 comments

Rather than apologise, it’s time the Left and the new government embraced “nanny state” as a positive, just as the gay community claimed the previously pejorative term “queer”. A nanny state is clearly economically and socially more efficient. We should celebrate our nanny state and not apologise for it.

Shock horror right wing think tank thinks NZ not very democratic

Written By: - Date published: 10:04 am, January 18th, 2018 - 74 comments

National’s cheerleaders are pushing an international report which suggests that New Zealand’s democratic system is only slightly better than average in world terms.  But the organisation behind the report and the methodology used need some checking.

Can This Government Regain Power on Its Policies?

Written By: - Date published: 11:46 am, January 17th, 2018 - 82 comments

The sixth Labour led Government has made a good start to its term. But what policy results will New Zealand have to vote for and campaign on in 2020?

Up in Smoke.

Written By: - Date published: 2:38 pm, January 5th, 2018 - 23 comments

US reverses Federal marijuana stance.

Shaking the Tree

Written By: - Date published: 11:35 am, December 11th, 2017 - 69 comments

When an apple tree is shaken, pips can fall to the ground and germinate. And then things grow back more or less as before.

National Standards causes decline in educational levels

Written By: - Date published: 8:13 am, December 7th, 2017 - 30 comments

The latest Progress in International Reading Literacy Study results suggests that National Standards has been a failure.

Making official Information flow again

Written By: - Date published: 2:08 pm, December 4th, 2017 - 31 comments

“Ministers realised they had a device through which they could reduce the surprises they suffered. And, as it went on, the surprises ministers no longer wanted to experience became greater in number and smaller in significance.Increasingly, it placed on the public service a political imperative which it had never had to shoulder. “

The House’s Man

Written By: - Date published: 6:50 am, November 11th, 2017 - 60 comments

How is Trevor Mallard doing as speaker? Early signs are good.

The Missing Noun.

Written By: - Date published: 10:09 am, November 8th, 2017 - 88 comments

When they said they wanted to eradicate poverty, I didn’t suspect they simply meant to expunge the word.

Justice for Teina Pora

Written By: - Date published: 10:02 am, November 8th, 2017 - 13 comments

Andrew Little has announced that the Government will increase the payout to Teina Pora by adjusting for inflation and by paying costs on Pora’s successful judicial review of the previous Government’s decision.

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.

Jian Yang and his residence application

Written By: - Date published: 10:35 am, November 5th, 2017 - 68 comments

Just before the election news broke that National MP Jian Yang had previously taught in a Chinese University training spies.  A recent OIA release of his immigration application raises further issues.

National reverts to type

Written By: - Date published: 7:47 am, November 3rd, 2017 - 225 comments

Bill English has claimed that it is not the role of National to make Parliament run properly.

The new government and the TPPA-11

Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, October 28th, 2017 - 150 comments

An update from Professor Jane Kelsey on the TPPA-11, a look at the issues for the new Labour-led government, and reasons why we still need to be concerned.

The mess that the new government inherits

Written By: - Date published: 11:47 am, October 23rd, 2017 - 51 comments

This post is too long to read. Its purpose is to serve as reference material, a “one stop” snapshot of where we are as a country. The mess that the new government inherits. The consequences of the nine long wasted years of National. The magnitude of the challenge ahead of us.

Kiwibloggers discuss assassination of “terrorist” Winston Peters

Written By: - Date published: 1:31 pm, October 22nd, 2017 - 145 comments

Right wing online forums are going to reach new levels of toxicity over the next 3 years. Someone really needs to monitor them.

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.

Nats – lousy at government – “brilliant” at opposition

Written By: - Date published: 9:57 am, October 15th, 2017 - 102 comments

Peters has the opportunity to put an end to this useless government (and turn National into “the opposition from hell”). I think he’s going to ’96 us, but I’d be happy to be proved wrong

Another term of Nats bad news for democracy

Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, October 13th, 2017 - 64 comments

It’s starting to feel a lot like 1996 all over again. Another term of the Nats would be bad news for the institutions of democracy. We’ve had recent warnings on the state of the justice system, press freedom, and the public service.