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Three strikes law is not the answer

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 12:13 pm, November 29th, 2022 - 25 comments

National is proposing a return of the Three Strikes legislation, despite the Supreme Court ruling that the law went well beyond excessive punishment and would shock the conscience of properly informed New Zealanders, and was so disproportionately severe as to breach the Bill of Rights. And despite there being no evidence that it would actually work.

The politics of the voting age change

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:12 pm, November 21st, 2022 - 90 comments

The Supreme Court has just lobbed a grenade into New Zealand politics by ruling that denying 16 and 17 year olds the right to vote was not only discrimination on the basis of age but also had not been justified and was therefore a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

National’s Boot Camps announcement is deeply cynical policy recycling

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:27 am, November 21st, 2022 - 28 comments

There should be a law against the cynical recycling of dog whistle policies that everyone knows will not work. Last week’s announcement by National of a boot camp policy is as good an example as you can imagine.

Are Luxon’s days numbered?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:09 am, November 17th, 2022 - 66 comments

Yesterday was a bad day for Chris Luxon. It is increasingly clear that he is not up to the job of being leader of the opposition and National’s senior management must be worried.

What happened to National’s policy machine?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:34 am, November 16th, 2022 - 70 comments

Remember when a few leaders ago then National Leader Simon Bridges promised that National would be a 56 MP policy machine? Judging by its response to the Government’s release of two bills at the centre of RMA reform the machine has major problems.

National’s relentless negativity

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:33 am, November 5th, 2022 - 86 comments

National’s recent press releases show that its approach to politics will be relentlessly negative, with no idea of what it will do as an alternative or how it will fund changes.

Is it fair for the PM to get a weekly tax cut of $349 while a minimum wage worker would receive only $2.15?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:46 am, November 2nd, 2022 - 148 comments

Chris Luxon has avoided answering this question so far but he needs to be asked continuously about it. Is it fair that he as Prime Minister would receive under National’s proposed tax cuts a tax cut of $349 per week while a minimum wage worker would receive only $2.15 per week

National has gone full woke

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:39 pm, November 1st, 2022 - 22 comments

Remember this scene from the Tauranga by election? National has decided it will not be repeated by ensuring that it has no potential white male candidates for the Hamilton West by election.

Bruce’s Reckons: The increased speculation about Chris Luxon quitting

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:45 pm, October 25th, 2022 - 109 comments

Leader of the Opposition Christopher Luxon turned up to Parliament today and his media spin doctors will be hoping for some good photo opportunities to lift his popularity. But they will be asking a lot.

What are National’s constituent tribes?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:06 am, October 23rd, 2022 - 25 comments

Russ Jones has described the five tribes of the UK Conservative Party as including One Nation Conservatives, xenophobic English nationalists, wild-eyed libertarians, scatty populist bullshitters and machine politicians.

What conflict of interest

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:58 am, October 16th, 2022 - 19 comments

National’s attacks on Nanaia Mahuta for conflicts of interest have suffered a major blow after National MP Barbara Kuriger was forced to resign her portfolios for using official letterhead to harass MPI officials.

Climate change: I think that we are f&*ked

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:02 am, October 13th, 2022 - 88 comments

This week the Government announced plans to bring in a scheme for pricing farming emissions in 2025. National’s response suggests the prospects of political consensus are non existent.

Even more proof that Conservatives are not good economic managers

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:44 am, September 29th, 2022 - 61 comments

There has been this carefully crafted illusion that conservative politicians are somehow better with the finances than progressive politicians. Recent events in the United Kingdom suggest that this illusion is terribly misplaced.

Comrade Chris wants to solve Aotearoa’s housing crisis

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:05 am, September 28th, 2022 - 64 comments

Something unusual has happened. Chris Bishop, or as we should now call him Comrade Chris, has come out fully in favour of a vast expansion of the provision of social housing for kiwis.

Luxon’s mishandling of the Uffindell report

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:11 am, September 21st, 2022 - 65 comments

The only word that I can think of is clusterfuck. I cannot understand how badly Christopher Luxon has handled the Maria Dew report into what Sam Uffindell may have done when he was a younger person.

Has Uffindell been cleared?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:12 am, September 19th, 2022 - 98 comments

It appears that the Dew report may clear Sam Uffindell and he may be returned to National’s caucus.

The right’s last desperate throw of the dice in Auckland

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 12:50 pm, September 16th, 2022 - 18 comments

Even though her name is on the ballot paper and people can vote for her National aligned Mayoral candidate Viv Beck has purported to withdraw from the Auckland Mayoral race.

The right is weirdly gleeful about the end of the mask mandate

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 6:59 am, September 14th, 2022 - 40 comments

National MPs and their supporters have been celebrating the removal of the mandate with weird levels of glee.

Who pays the cost of an extra day off?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 12:45 pm, September 13th, 2022 - 50 comments

The Government has announced that we will all have a day off to commemorate the life of Queen Elisabeth. Act has come out against it on the basis that we are in a cost of living crisis, even though the adverse effect on workers and the poor is essentially nil and even though there is analysis that suggests that holidays are good for the economy.

Newshub’s incredibly bad gang take

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:40 am, September 6th, 2022 - 55 comments

Yesterday the Government announced a slate of new powers designed to address gang violence. Newshub chose that day to imply that Labour was soft on gangs because a gang member said on social media not to vote for National.

National’s PR support springs into action

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:19 am, September 2nd, 2022 - 52 comments

Yesterday National’s PR machine also known as Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB sprang into action to get the message out that National will not negotiate with Destiny Church over support. Even though eight days previously Chris Luxon pointedly did not rule this out.

Viv Beck going full Trump backfires

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:48 am, August 31st, 2022 - 28 comments

Recent leaks and publicity have caused huge damage to Viv Beck’s campaign to become Auckland’s next mayor. They also highlight the stark difference between the left and the right in terms of campaigning.

Mark Mitchell is Kim Hilled on National Radio

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:07 am, August 29th, 2022 - 35 comments

National should learn. They should never send an MP into an interview with Kim Hill unless they are completely prepared. As Mark Mitchell learned this morning.

Selling your soul to the bishop for power

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 2:36 pm, August 24th, 2022 - 52 comments

This morning Christopher Luxon refused to rule out working with Freedoms New Zealand, the Brian Tamaki entity which has held mock trials, alleged senior Government figures should be tried for treason and have professed a desire to make the country ungovernable.

Labour’s “tenant tax” is neither a tax nor for tenants

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:16 am, August 22nd, 2022 - 33 comments

National’s media spin team is at it again claiming that removing interest rate deductibility for landlords is a “tenant tax” when it is neither a new tax nor for tenants.

A week of sideshows

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 5:34 pm, August 21st, 2022 - 64 comments

But the past week has been a week of sideshows. One international as elements of the right try to smear Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin for dancing. And one local where rogue Labour MP Gaurav Sharma is running out of excuses for not backing up the extraordinary claims he has made about the Labour Party.