Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:15 am, May 19th, 2022 - 44 comments
Today is budget day. What surprises will Grant Robertson announce to address the country’s many and varied problems. Will Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis be able to sound like they actually understand what is in the budget? Stay tuned for 2 pm …
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:08 am, May 17th, 2022 - 18 comments
Business NZ has claimed that the proposed Fair Play legislation breaches International Labour Law and that the International Labour Organisation agrees with it. But its claims appear to be on the wrong side of what we could politely describe as the truth.
Written By: weka - Date published: 6:05 am, May 17th, 2022 - 33 comments
what kind of climate action do we want?
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:02 am, May 14th, 2022 - 11 comments
Former Labour MP Shane Jones has criticised the 2021 budget even though he has no idea what is going to be in it.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 12:29 pm, May 11th, 2022 - 41 comments
Act has publicly released its proposal to decimate the state should it have a say in the next Government. Its Real Change Alternative Budget may be wet dream inducing for Ayn Rand acolytes but for the rest of us the proposals should instill a deep sense of dread.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:29 am, May 9th, 2022 - 22 comments
Paula Bennett has forgotten history by advocating for a significant increase in spending on Pharmac while at the same time forgetting that under the National Government she was a senior member of Pharmac’s funding stagnated.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:11 pm, May 3rd, 2022 - 109 comments
The latest Reid Research poll result has been released. Basically it reflects other polls that have been recently conducted. But the Herald have chosen to suggest it shows a dramatic change.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:03 am, April 30th, 2022 - 71 comments
National’s short list of candidates for the Tauranga seat has been released. And it is clear that its gender and ethnic representation problems will be made worse after the selection process is completed.
Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:12 am, April 29th, 2022 - 157 comments
The tide of this government is running out. There’s 18 months left in the term. What would you save?
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:03 am, April 23rd, 2022 - 91 comments
National leader Chris Luxon has publicly declared full confidence in National Finance Spokesperson Nicola Willis by proposing that former PM Bill English, not currently an MP, and Willis, who is an MP would be jointly directing the Ministers of every department to find savings.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:00 am, April 21st, 2022 - 72 comments
In the space of one day Chris Luxon called repeatedly for the scrapping of Labour Day as a holiday then confirmed that a future National Government would not do this and said that his earlier comment was facetious.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:31 am, April 18th, 2022 - 79 comments
Despite Labour seeing the country through the biggest public health threat seen in the last century and despite improving numbers of houses and a reduction in child poverty some on the left are buying into National’s despair lines. And the issues on which the next election will be fought are becoming clearer.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:29 am, April 13th, 2022 - 66 comments
Yesterday Chris Luxon showed the sensitivity and sophistication of someone who owns seven properties and at one stage had 6.1 million Air New Zealand shares by stating that he believed that at least some public transport services should not be supported and that public transport needs to stand on its own feet.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:08 am, April 12th, 2022 - 122 comments
Worrying news has emerged that New Zealand officials sought along with other agricultural nations to remove references to the benefits of consuming plant based foods on climate change from the IPCC report summary.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:14 am, April 8th, 2022 - 14 comments
Hot on the heels of news that Act has recently received a number of significant donations comes news that it may have spent some of these funds on buying social media followers following news that Seymour’s Instagram followers jumped from 23,800 to 72,600 in one day.
Written By: weka - Date published: 12:56 pm, April 7th, 2022 - 151 comments
The Green Party has published a reasonable plan to make renting more affordable for low income New Zealanders. There’s nothing extreme-communist-scary here, it’s well within the values of the NZ electorate.
Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:26 am, April 7th, 2022 - 20 comments
If the 3 Waters reforms can survive its attacks and be implemented, a consequence will be that we are going to have a most enormous nationwide economic argument about the price of water and who pays for it all.
Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:04 am, April 6th, 2022 - 15 comments
You get to a point – and Ardern must be close – where the most you can do is hang on.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:27 am, April 5th, 2022 - 77 comments
National’s friends are in unison complaining that the Government should be announcing now when we will be back into Orange. But our exemplary performance compared to other nations suggests strongly that the Government should continue to respect the medical advice it is receiving.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:45 am, April 3rd, 2022 - 37 comments
This week National found itself the centre of media suggesting that its treatment of women is still not acceptable. A couple of Young Nats were outed as being behind the trolling of Christchurch left wing female politicians. Christchurch city councillor Sara Templeton was on the receiving end of the trolling. She did the very wise […]
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 2:43 pm, April 1st, 2022 - 43 comments
National has gazumped Act’s recently announced significant donations drive and has just announced that it will shortly be filing declarations confirming that it has recently received $1.8 million in donations.
Written By: notices and features - Date published: 7:44 am, April 1st, 2022 - 32 comments
The Standard has learned from a normally reliable source that John Key is considering seeking the National Party nomination for the Tauranga seat.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:25 pm, March 31st, 2022 - 10 comments
Earlier this week Louisa Wall announced that she is retiring as a Member of Parliament. History will confirm that she was one of our best Parliamentarians.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:18 am, March 29th, 2022 - 66 comments
National is opening up nominations for the Tauranga by election today. The Standard reviews some potential candidates for the seat.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:28 am, March 28th, 2022 - 141 comments
Jacinda Ardern has burned significant political capital on dealing with Covid. But it is something that a responsible Political leader, of which there are few, would do.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:18 am, March 26th, 2022 - 65 comments
This has not had the media attention that it deserves but Act has raised, to use the technical term, a shit load of money recently. And it is using this money to engage in some good old fashioned racist dog whistling.
Written By: advantage - Date published: 5:43 pm, March 25th, 2022 - 118 comments
Can Labour win a third term? Here are some pathways up, and some pathways down.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:52 am, March 23rd, 2022 - 218 comments
The Government has announced changes to Covid policies relating to traffic light settings and mandates.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:07 am, March 21st, 2022 - 34 comments
A slightly deeper review of National’s response to the Covid epidemic over the past two years. The overwhelming impression is that they have always complained about supposed Government incompetence in handling the pandemic and have always argued for the loosening of restrictions no matter how justifiable.
Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 4:32 pm, March 20th, 2022 - 194 comments
New Zealand’s sanctions on Russia have not stopped the war in Ukraine. They may have made our parliamentarians feel better, and Tony Blinken was quick to congratulate us on falling into line with the US “high-impact sanctions.” The language is combative, but the evidence shows sanctions do not work. They can have significant blow-back effects, particularly if not combined with effective diplomacy.
Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:05 am, March 17th, 2022 - 141 comments
There has been the occasional criticism of Labour for not achieving enough progressive change by people who then propose supporting National. What are they thinking?
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