Politics

Posts on government and governence at national and local level, political parties,politicians, and political participation

Categories under Politics

Chris Hipkins – Values Matter

Written By: - Date published: 3:59 pm, March 24th, 2024 - 94 comments

Text of the speech delivered by Chris Hipkins delivered in Auckland today.

The GCSB revelations

Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, March 24th, 2024 - 24 comments

RNZ has reported that a foreign agency collected signals intelligence out of the GCSB for years without ministers knowing. And the collection only stopped after the equipment broke down.

Hoatu he tumanako ki a rātou

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, March 21st, 2024 - 20 comments

Grant Robertson has given his valedictory speech in Parliament.

This is what happens when you give landlords a big tax cut #1

Written By: - Date published: 3:34 pm, March 20th, 2024 - 57 comments

No funds to continue to give families of disabled people

Peters gets knocked down but may not get up again

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, March 20th, 2024 - 54 comments

Chumbawamba have threatened legal action against Winston Peters for NZ First’s use of their song “I get knocked down” and have described him as having divisive, small-minded, and bigoted policies.

Amateur hour

Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, March 16th, 2024 - 11 comments

Government members of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee have managed to vote to support a Labour amendment that would make electric vehicles more attractive but submit a report to Parliament that suggested that the amendment had been lost.

National’s Overseas Gambling Levy policy figures are not rock solid

Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, March 15th, 2024 - 4 comments

The IRD has estimated that National’s proposed Overseas Gambling Levy Policy will bring in $500 million less than it promised during the election campaign.

Rock Solid Financial Geniuses

Written By: - Date published: 2:55 pm, March 13th, 2024 - 45 comments

The right has this belief that they are economic geniuses. Occasionally this belief is shown to be faulty. Like this week when National’s costings for tax cuts to Landlords was $800 million more than previously estimated.

Tax cuts for landlords will not reduce rents

Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, March 11th, 2024 - 127 comments

Recently the Government has been working out how to cut funding for school lunches for poor kids while at the same time it has also announced that it will restore interest deductibility for landlords.

Chloe Swarbrick’s first words as new Green Party Co-Leader

Written By: - Date published: 2:21 pm, March 10th, 2024 - 71 comments

In her first speech as Green Party Co-Leader, Swarbrick brings the party’s Charter to the fore, and talks about mobilising citizens to be part of democracy.

Vale, Magista

Written By: - Date published: 12:37 pm, March 10th, 2024 - 5 comments

Respects to the falling of the Rt Hon Jonathan Hunt.

“Deliberate nuclear use

Written By: - Date published: 10:38 am, March 9th, 2024 - 18 comments

in a war over Taiwan” is the title of an Atlantic Council paper produced last September. They mean nuclear weapons. These are serious people; Undersecretary Bonnie Jenkins addressed them last year about AUKUS.

News and New Zealand Democracy

Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, March 9th, 2024 - 15 comments

How do we prevent the decline of broadcast tv news being a deep wound to our democracy?

Luxon crashes in latest Curia poll

Written By: - Date published: 8:52 pm, March 8th, 2024 - 39 comments

The Atlas aligned Taxpayer’s Union has released its latest Curia poll results. And the results are bad news for Christopher Luxon.

Open letter to Judge Glubb

Written By: - Date published: 6:10 am, March 7th, 2024 - 63 comments

… the assault had the very real potential to cause serious, possibly fatal injuries. 

That fact should have featured in your sentencing, if only to use the opportunity to send a message to all men who punch women, and to young men who punch anyone in the head but especially old women, that it is an extremely dangerous act.

Let them eat cake

Written By: - Date published: 8:51 am, March 5th, 2024 - 73 comments

David Seymour has stated that funding for free school lunches will be cut by up to half.

Where is Melissa Lee?

Written By: - Date published: 1:22 pm, March 4th, 2024 - 44 comments

The New Zealand media sector has been in turmoil during the past week. But Broadcasting Minister has refused to publicly discuss what is happening or what her government proposes to do about it.

USUKAs

Written By: - Date published: 8:21 pm, March 3rd, 2024 - 32 comments

US Undersecretary of State Bonnie Jenkins is in Wellington this week with a hard sell for us on AUKUS Pillar 2 wunderwaffen maybes. We should say tai hoa.

Dune 2 and Gaza

Written By: - Date published: 8:37 am, March 3rd, 2024 - 7 comments

What if life followed fiction and Gaza was explained by Dune 2? Sigh. It isn’t. 

Who is treating taxpayers as an ATM?

Written By: - Date published: 12:16 pm, March 1st, 2024 - 51 comments

It has been revealed that Christopher Luxon receives $52,000 a year from the taxpayer to pay for him staying in his own apartment. Update within the space of an hour he has said that it was his entitlement but then said that he will pay the money back.

What does the Government have against Maori health?

Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, February 29th, 2024 - 12 comments

National spent much of yesterday ramming through under urgency and without a select committee process two measures which will have detrimental effects on Māori health.

Newshub Closes

Written By: - Date published: 8:01 am, February 29th, 2024 - 80 comments

One can hate the mainstream media but OMG you sure will miss it when it’s gone.

Guns and gangs

Written By: - Date published: 12:32 pm, February 28th, 2024 - 63 comments

The Government has announced yet another tough on gangs policy involving a severe restriction on the rights of freedom of expression at the same time that gun ownership laws will be liberalised.

What’s Left?

Written By: - Date published: 12:07 pm, February 25th, 2024 - 51 comments

From Election 2023’s result through to February 2024 there has been massive loss and damage to the Parliamentary capacity of Labour and Greens. Who still has the capacity to lead? What’s left?

About the promoters electoral returns

Written By: - Date published: 9:14 am, February 25th, 2024 - 8 comments

The Electoral Commission has released the major promoters’ electoral returns. These show significant amounts of money being spent on getting Labour unelected but give no detail about how the campaigns were funded.

The problem with corporate money in electorate campaigns

Written By: - Date published: 10:44 am, February 24th, 2024 - 34 comments

Patrick Phelps campaign expense return

The 2023 candidate election returns have released and it has emerged that Bathurst Resources Ltd contributed $32,600 to Patrick Phelps, who ran a spoiler campaign against Damian O’Connor in West Coast Tasman.

Go well Grant Robertson

Written By: - Date published: 8:56 am, February 21st, 2024 - 72 comments

Yesterday it was announced that Grant Robertson was leaving politics.

Bene bashing 6.0

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, February 20th, 2024 - 102 comments

So what does National do when its minor support party tries to steal media attention with dog whistling racism? It reverts to some good old beneficiary bashing.

About the One News Poll

Written By: - Date published: 9:06 pm, February 19th, 2024 - 43 comments

The latest One News Verian poll suggests that there has been absolutely no honeymoon for the Government.

Get ready for your water to be privatised

Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, February 17th, 2024 - 124 comments

The National Government’s repeal of the Three Waters Legislation and its pursuit of “new forms of infrastructure funding and financing” suggests that privatisation of water is on the drawing board.

A sad lament from the serial left

Written By: - Date published: 10:39 pm, February 13th, 2024 - 103 comments

Attacking leftists attempts to expose the Atlas Network of right-wing think tanks, Chris Trotter offers this gem “Morally speaking, is taking money from oil companies really all that distinguishable from giving money to oil companies every time we fill up our petrol tank?”