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NZ Growing Faster Than Aussie, US, Japan, and UK

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 11:16 am, April 10th, 2008 - 42 comments

The Reserve Bank produces a series of helpful tables of economic data. One table compares our growth to that of Australia, the US, Japan, and the UK. Here’s a graph comparing growth across the countries between National and Labour’s periods in government. National has a pathetic track record on growth. Under them, our economy grew 1% […]

Interview the leaders III: Labour

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 5:14 pm, April 7th, 2008 - 64 comments

A big thanks to Progressives’ leader Jim Anderton for being the first participant in our ‘Interview the leaders’ series. The quality of his answers has set a standard for the others to emulate. Our next leader is Jeanette Fitzsimmons of the Green Party. The general question remains: Of which of your achievements in politics are […]

A dereliction of duty

Written By: Tillerman - Date published: 3:20 pm, April 7th, 2008 - 39 comments

John Key’s failure to ask a parliamentary question last week exposes a crisis of confidence in National’s ranks. It is unprecedented for an Opposition leader to be in attendance in the House for a full sitting week, and to not once challenge the Government. This never happened when Helen Clark led Labour in Opposition from […]

If I were Labour’s campaign strategist

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 2:49 pm, April 4th, 2008 - 18 comments

Part three of the ‘If I were [Party X]’s campaign strategist’ series brings us to Labour. The strategy for a major party is very different from that of a smaller party. Rather than trying to grab attention public attention and target niche concerns, a major party needs a broad-based platform that will appeal to most […]

April 1 changes boost wages and cut taxes

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 10:02 am, April 1st, 2008 - 15 comments

Today is a big day for government policy affecting Kiwis’ incomes: The minimum wage is now $12 an hour, up from $7 when Labour gained power. Youth rates have been effectively abolished, meaning young people will get the same pay for the same work. From today, employers must contribute to employees’ Kiwisaver accounts equivalent to 1% […]

Blackball centenary

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 4:32 pm, March 25th, 2008 - 10 comments

The weekend marked the centenary of the Blackball miners’ strike. TV3 reported that: “Politicians flocked to Labour’s spiritual home on the West Coast to celebrate the centenary of a miners’ strike which helped build the country’s Labour movement into a political force.”

Policy Summary: Labour v National

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 11:30 am, March 25th, 2008 - 24 comments

The Sunday-Star Times has an interesting list of the policies the election will be fought on and where the two major parties stand on them. Here’s the article in summary, see if you can spot the pattern: KiwiSaver Labour: Set up KiwiSaver, added government and employer contributions. Half a million Kiwis have now joined. National: No final policy yet. […]

$700m for R&D

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 1:48 pm, March 11th, 2008 - 11 comments

The Dom reports that “Prime Minister Helen Clark unveiled the $700 million funding boost for research, development and innovation projects today and said the fund would grow to around $1 billion as it earned interest over the next 10 to 15 years. Industries would be expected to match the government’s commitment, causing the fund to […]

Stepping in

Written By: Tane - Date published: 1:45 pm, March 11th, 2008 - 8 comments

No Right Turn makes a good point about the government’s $700 million innovation fund for the agricultural and food sector: I’m a little surprised that its the government doing this. We have a number of large companies involved in these sectors, and under competent managers, they’d already be making these investments themselves. Unfortunately, corporate management […]

Protecting New Zealand’s assets

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 11:10 am, March 4th, 2008 - 90 comments

The government has made a series of moves to prevent strategic New Zealand assets being exploited by foreign companies. Last week tax law was changed to prevent the Canadian Pension Fund avoiding tax in its bid for Auckland Airport. Yesterday, the government changed the Overseas Investment Act to give Ministers veto power when strategic land […]

Rod Oram: Insight into 2008

Written By: Dancer - Date published: 11:31 am, February 26th, 2008 - 6 comments

For those who are looking to the Beehive to bring some single minded focus to the current situation Labour finds themselves in, this article from Rod Oram at the begining of the month reads like a good starting point (SSTimes, 3 Feb 2008). He raises what the challenges for Labour are: If it wants to […]

Margaret Wilson to stand down

Written By: Tane - Date published: 1:14 pm, February 22nd, 2008 - 8 comments

Speaker of the House Margaret Wilson has announced she will not be seeking a position on Labour’s list next election. This won’t come as a huge surprise, and after what she’s had to put up with in the house over the last couple of years I’m sure she’ll be pleased to be moving on.

Labour with its claws out

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 11:28 am, February 19th, 2008 - 31 comments

The Press has a good article on the political blogs. The Standard and our mates Kiwiblogblog are referred to as “Labour with its claws out”. As has been explained before, we are not Labour: we are a loose group of Leftwing writers, some of whom are associated with the labour movement, but the image is […]

Tim Barnett to leave parliamentary politics

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 7:43 am, February 19th, 2008 - 10 comments

The Press reports that “Christchurch Central MP Tim Barnett has announced he will not stand as a candidate for any seat in the general election.” At the end of October, Labour MP Barnett announced he would not stand for the Christchurch Central seat again. Now he has withdrawn entirely, saying he will not put himself […]

Clark targets housing affordability

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 3:57 pm, February 12th, 2008 - 24 comments

In her speech today, the Prime Minister announced a slate of government plans on housing affordability. New land will be freed up for housing but it will not a National-style free-for-all where land would be gobbled up by wealthy individuals and private developers for over-priced, up-scale housing that will exclude most people. Rather, areas will […]

Solution to wage-gap in hands of business

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 10:48 am, February 8th, 2008 - 61 comments

Larger (but still small) numbers of kiwis are leaving for Australia and higher incomes are part of the attraction. At the same time unemployment here is at a record low, which is good but employers are complaining about a lack of workers. To keep skilled workers in New Zealand higher wages are needed. The government […]

Cullen puts tax cuts in context

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 2:38 pm, February 7th, 2008 - 53 comments

In a speech today to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce Cullen has further differentiated the role of tax cuts under National and Labour. What was interesting about Cullen’s speech is that it wasn’t really a speech about tax cuts. It was a speech about (much broader) economic sustainability. Essentially it pitted National’s vaporware ‘tax cuts’ […]

Clare Curran takes Dunedin South

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 4:01 pm, February 2nd, 2008 - 39 comments

News just in reports that Clare Curran has won the Labour nomination in Dunedin South over former cabinet minister David Benson-Pope, Don Pryde, president of the Engineers Union and Keith McFadyen of the PSA. More as it comes to hand.

Substance, not style

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 1:37 pm, January 31st, 2008 - 46 comments

I don’t know if this is breaking some cyber protocol (oh, but I don’t much care if I am) but I want to put Jordan Carter‘s post on Helen Clark’s speech up here on The Standard. The reason is that while I agree with a lot of what IrishBill said – mainly that her speech […]

Dull

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 10:58 am, January 30th, 2008 - 78 comments

I haven’t had time to do a thorough analysis of Clark’s speech but from a quick once-over I can say with certainty that it is underwhelming. Let’s face it, this was her chance to take the front foot and show the government had a policy agenda fit for a new term. Instead her speech is […]

A photo finish

Written By: Tillerman - Date published: 4:50 pm, December 21st, 2007 - 45 comments

I have glimpsed the future. I know how Election 08 will play out. It will be a thriller, going down to the wire. The election home straight, like that at Flemington in Melbourne, is a test of champions. In the end it is about class and staying ability. Helen Clark starts the year well off […]

Mallard pleads guilty to fighting charge

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 4:47 pm, December 18th, 2007 - 6 comments

The Dom reports that: Cabinet minister Trevor Mallard has escaped an assault charge over his altercation with National MP Tau Henare by pleading guilty to the lesser charge of fighting in a public place. Appearing in Wellington District Court this afternoon, the Environment Minister was convicted and agreed to pay $500 to a Salvation Army […]

Renewal, renewal, renewal in Palmy

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:03 pm, December 16th, 2007 - 22 comments

Today the hotly contested four horse race to become the candidate for Palmerston North (the position being left vacant by the tenth hottest man in NZ – Steve Maharey – can’t remember who ran that poll, a late night TV show no doubt) was won by Iain Lees-Galloway, the Campaigns and Media Advisor for the […]

Two new faces for Labour line up

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:47 pm, December 15th, 2007 - 9 comments

Yesterday two more bright young things were confirmed as Labour candidates for the 2008 general election: Kate Sutton in Epsom and Hamish McDouall in Whanganui. Twenty six year old Kate Sutton is already a proven political player – she’s a two term Tamaki Community Board Chair, she’s on the University of Auckland’s ruling council and […]

Dole figures at 28-year low

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 10:16 am, December 11th, 2007 - 32 comments

From the Beehive site: Social Development Minister Ruth Dyson said that in December 1999, when Labour came to power, there were 161,000 people receiving an unemployment benefit. “Over 141,000 have come off this benefit since then, with just over 20,000 people receiving it now,” she said. “These numbers haven’t been this low since 1979. In […]

KiwiSaver enrolments pass 300,000

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 4:46 pm, December 10th, 2007 - 23 comments

I wonder if the Nats still want to bin it? Remember it was only last May that John Key told Morning Report “Oh, no. No guarantees over KiwiSaver Mark II.” Here’s the press release.

2007 Trans-Tasman MP rankings

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 10:42 am, December 10th, 2007 - 76 comments

So DPF’s given his predictable take on this year’s Trans-Tasman MP rankings (PDF – 150K). Now averages are one thing but more interesting is a trend that DPF conveniently ignores – While many of National’s high profile MPs are static or slipping in the rankings, Labour’s heavy-hitters seem to be lifting their game. LABOUR Clark […]

Weekend selection meetings

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 7:01 pm, December 9th, 2007 - 40 comments

Two more electorates have confirmed Labour candidates. Rimutaka was on Saturday – Chris Hipkins was selected. Christchurch Central was today – Brendon Burns was selected. I’ll post some biographical details tomorrow. UPDATE: Here’s a story from The Press on Brendon Burns. Here’s Chris Hipkins’ blog with selection speech and some personal details.

Speech: Labour is the Party of Ideas

Written By: Tane - Date published: 10:14 am, November 14th, 2007 - 10 comments

The other day we published an extract from Evan Thornley’s speech to the Labour Party conference. We’ve finally managed to get hold of a digital copy, so here it is in full. It’s quite long, but well worth a read: LABOUR IS THE PARTY OF IDEAS NZLP National Conference Keynote Speech – Auckland 4 Nov., […]

Robertson to win Wellington Central candidacy

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 9:02 pm, November 11th, 2007 - 74 comments

Charles Chauvel has withdrawn his nomination for Wellington Central. This leaves Grant Robertson the uncontested Labour candidate, likely to be confirmed on November 17th. Chauvel will instead seek to re-enter Parliament by means of the Party list.

Benson-Pope won’t run as an independent

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 11:38 am, November 11th, 2007 - 3 comments

The Herald reports that “Dunedin South MP David Benson-Pope says he will not stand as an independent if he is not selected as the Labour Party’s candidate in the seat.” There was speculation following the nominations of Clare Curran, Olivier Lequeux, Don Pryde, and Keith McFadyen that if B-P failed to gain the candidacy he […]