Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, October 1st, 2024 - 35 comments
Casey Costello’s decision to give Phillip Morris a $216 million tax cut was based on alternative advice that she has received but which she is not disclosing. And Christopher Luxon is comfortable with this.
Written By: - Date published: 9:53 am, September 1st, 2024 - 16 comments
This is going to take some explaining. The police have decided to take no action against National MP David MacLeod for failing to declare $178,394 in electoral donations. No this is not an Onion headline.
Written By: - Date published: 12:24 pm, August 30th, 2024 - 8 comments
NZ Parliament sitting where Labour’s Kieran McAnulty implores the Coalition government to stop deceiving Kiwis, and Winston Peters and Louise Upton both get fired up. Meanwhile, Casey Costello still doesn’t know who wrote her tobacco Ministerial papers.
Written By: - Date published: 3:15 pm, August 26th, 2024 - 27 comments
Casey Costello and the Coalition government have already halved tobacco excise at a cost of up to $216mn. Today RNZ reports there remain more questions on who wrote her Ministerial papers begging for tobacco industry benefits.
Written By: - Date published: 3:53 pm, July 18th, 2024 - 10 comments
A track record of deception and pro tobacco industry policies is becoming evident in the Coalition. Casey Costello is at it again, this time quietly halving excise tax for some tobacco products. This is the first time in NZ’s history to have reduced excise on tobacco. We should all ask ‘Why now?’
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, July 15th, 2024 - 73 comments
Trump’s shooting has left the world shocked and bewildered. But what, if anything, does it mean for us here in New Zealand?
Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, July 7th, 2024 - 6 comments
Last week the Coalition Govt said they were doing away with the name “fast-track.” This is a Govt of professional lobbyists so I am not surprised by their attunement to marketing. “Fast-track” became bad for business. The name had to go. They have also weakened regarding fast-track because of opposition.
Written By: - Date published: 8:46 am, June 7th, 2024 - 21 comments
Be there, bring your whanau, bring friends. Make it noisy and passionate and make it count.
Written By: - Date published: 8:53 am, June 1st, 2024 - 18 comments
Radio New Zealand has broken the jaw dropping and astounding story that shows why the Fast Track Projects Bill is potentially so corrupting to the body politic and why there has to be electoral law reform to stop corporations from buying influence.
Written By: - Date published: 11:11 am, May 26th, 2024 - 46 comments
The past fortnight has seen a number of breaking stories each of which raises concerns about the motivations and goals of this Government. It makes you wonder whether the pursuit of self interest is an embedded feature as opposed to a bug.
Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, May 21st, 2024 - 21 comments
In breaking news New Plymouth National MP David MacLeod apparently *forgot* to declare $178,000 in declarations to the Electoral Commission.
Written By: - Date published: 8:50 am, April 27th, 2024 - 8 comments
There is absolutely nothing to worry about if the Fast-track Approvals Bill gets passed into law and Shane Jones gets extraordinary powers to decide on consent applications which normally would be subject to enormous rigour and oversight.
Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, April 21st, 2024 - 11 comments
Making a major infrastructure deal happen takes years of planning, exceptionally qualified people on all sides, and in New Zealand it takes about ten years of your life. Until now.
Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, April 17th, 2024 - 27 comments
There is a bill before Parliament right now that has the potential of blowing a rather big hole in our reputation as an open and transparent democracy.
Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, October 2nd, 2021 - 41 comments
Mike Hosking’s go to female Politician Gladys Berejiklian has resigned in disgrace after the Independent Commission against Corruption announced a formal inquiry into her involvement in preferential grants given to organisations in her former boyfriend’s seat from which it is alleged he attempted to receive a commission.
Written By: - Date published: 11:50 am, January 20th, 2021 - 32 comments
Donald Trump’s final decision as President may be to pardon a number of people. There is speculation that the exercise of the Presidential prerogative of mercy may have a price attached …
Written By: - Date published: 1:49 pm, July 8th, 2020 - 65 comments
Privacy breaching MP Hamish Walker has announced he will step down at the next election. But who else should go?
Update: Muller tries to divert attention by announcing that National still want a 4 lane highway from Chch to Ashburton. Problem solved!
Written By: - Date published: 10:46 am, May 7th, 2020 - 56 comments
I’d agree with what No Right Turn says..
“The entire project looks to be an expensive failure. Rather than transferring risk to the private sector, it turns out to be the usual scam of privatising profits and socialising losses.”
Written By: - Date published: 8:21 pm, March 10th, 2020 - 60 comments
That’s not a request by the way. This post is a kind of “confessions of a cynic who allowed optimism to creep up and have a hand in thought processes” post.
Written By: - Date published: 1:26 pm, February 29th, 2020 - 16 comments
There’s an increasing number of progressive and conservatives who are rediscovering their moral compass in these, the final days of unfettered liberalism.
Written By: - Date published: 2:12 pm, February 22nd, 2020 - 12 comments
If major Democratic Party donors and ‘big business’ lobbyists wanted to monkeywrench democracy in the US, then here’s how they could go about it.
Written By: - Date published: 9:58 pm, November 19th, 2019 - 95 comments
It has been ironic at our media frenzy on political ‘donations’. I suspect that our legal structure has been setup for bribing politicians with ‘donations’. Let us just make all politicians and donors guilty until proven innocent of false reporting of ‘donations’. It’d be more interesting than the current farce. Start with Simon Bridges – currently still under investigation by the SFO.
Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, November 10th, 2019 - 81 comments
There is a very good chance that the upcoming impeachment trial of
President Donald Trump will turn into one massive campaign launch –
one which significantly increases his chances of winning a second
term.
Written By: - Date published: 7:16 am, October 10th, 2019 - 72 comments
“They’re allowing Trump to spend over $1 million a week right now for ads on their platform—including ones that air the same lies that TV stations won’t.”
Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, March 27th, 2019 - 23 comments
Pauline Hanson’s One Australia party is trying to defend claims that it should funding to oppose gun restrictions from the NRA and the Koch Brothers by stating that its chief of staff was drunk.
Written By: - Date published: 12:08 pm, January 26th, 2019 - 141 comments
The Trump shutdown is over, as the doofus President waves the white flag. And in Florida, his trusted advisor Roger Stone is led away in handcuffs to face charges of lying to the Mueller enquiry. Good times, people, good times!
Written By: - 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.
Written By: - Date published: 4:26 pm, October 25th, 2018 - 21 comments
The Jami-Lee Ross scandal may have quietened down but issues raised by his explosive tape recording of Simon Bridges still need addressing. Does the $100k Zhang Yikun donation suggest we are going down the US track and, if so, what needs to be done about that
Written By: - Date published: 12:41 pm, October 16th, 2018 - 171 comments
Jamie-Lee Ross will seek to win a by-election as an independent. Says that Simon Bridges is corrupt and unlikeable and that he could prove it. Refutes Simon Bridges claim against him of harassment of women. Said the by-election would be a referendum on Bridges’ leadership. Updated: Simon Bridges responds – what he doesn’t say is more interesting
Written By: - Date published: 12:57 pm, October 9th, 2018 - 185 comments
We know the real names of the Russian spies who bungled the Salisbury novichok poisoning. Will it make a difference to the Kremlin’s plans?
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, September 30th, 2018 - 7 comments
In Australia this week the Liberal Government has become embroiled in a scandal relating to political pressure being brought to sack the head of the ABC and one of its most senior reporters. Failed estate has the details.
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