national
Categories under national
- same old national (1,617)
English and Key uncertain of Budget’s focus
Written By: - Date published: 7:46 pm, May 27th, 2009 - 35 comments
If there was ever a phrase that this Government keeps reminding me of, it’s “couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery”. Today, on the eve of what will be a particularly important Budget for our country, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance aren’t entirely sure just what it is they’re trying to achieve. […]
History repeats for Mark Thomas
Written By: - Date published: 1:40 pm, May 27th, 2009 - 19 comments
The irony is that Melissa Lee’s campaign manager, Mark Thomas, is no stranger to campaigns that start off with a hiss and a roar only to collapse when abandoned by National’s leadership. Thomas was National’s candidate for Wellington Central in 1996, the first MMP election, in a three way contest with Act’s Richard Prebble and […]
On Auckland and Leningrad
Written By: - Date published: 3:36 pm, May 24th, 2009 - 17 comments
The modern blitzkrieg [lightning war] was first tested in the Spanish civil war, refined in the invasions of European states that marked the beginning of WWII, and applied successfully in more recent invasions in the Middle East. A blitzkrieg’s success comes from the speed of its prosecution, from which it gets it name. The speed of a blitzkrieg gives attackers […]
Smoke ’em out
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, May 24th, 2009 - 24 comments
Let’s give Brash his inquiry. The poor demented shell of a man thinks there’s some great conspiracy against him. He’s so deluded he even thinks the Police are biased against National. That’s why they couldn’t find who ‘stole’ his emails. I’ll tell you why no-one can find who ‘stole’ his emails. They weren’t stolen. Say what […]
Nat MPs distancing themselves from Super City
Written By: - Date published: 3:20 pm, May 22nd, 2009 - 29 comments
Remember – March against National’s undemocratic supercity Monday 25th, noon, Queen St [More info] National’s Paul Hutchison, whose Hunua electorate lies in Franklin, has written a piece with Mark Ball, the mayor of Franklin, in today’s Herald. The sum of it: Supercity yes, but leave Franklin out of it. Funny because ‘leave me out of […]
Less firing, more hiring
Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, May 22nd, 2009 - 8 comments
The Herald reports today that TVNZ fired 90 employees following a letter from Broadcasting Minister Johnathan Coleman demanding that it raise its profitability. This follows similar cuts at the Ministry of Social development, Ministry for the Environment, Tertiary Education Commission. There look likely to be hundreds or thousands of job losses as a result of […]
National’s “supercity” policy lies
Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, May 22nd, 2009 - 8 comments
Remember – March against National’s undemocractic supercity Monday 25th, noon, Queen St Interesting to look back at National’s local government and Auckland policy before the election. Their 2005 policy was still up on their web site in early 2008: National will advance local government reorganisation on a case-by-case basis. We do not subscribe to the view that big […]
On the back foot
Written By: - Date published: 4:07 pm, May 19th, 2009 - 1 comment
When a Government are having to defend their actions they are not setting the agenda, Given it is a week before National’s first budget the ‘Rankin’ situation is not what they will be wanting. But as the previous Government illustrated, it’s not getting into a mess that matters – it’s how you get out: NZ Herald […]
Teflon off: Key gets a mauling at Press Conference
Written By: - Date published: 4:32 pm, May 18th, 2009 - 33 comments
John Key’s performance at this afternoon’s 4pm Press Conference was impressive. I’ve never heard so many, ‘don’t knows’, denials, ‘I can’t tell yous’, prevarications and equivocations in a press conference before. You wonder why he bothered to even turn up, he could’ve just sent along a billboard with ‘No Comment’ on it for all the […]
One of these things is not like the other V
Written By: - Date published: 8:44 pm, May 15th, 2009 - 14 comments
One of these things is not like the other One of these things is not quite the same. Can you guess which one is not like the other Can you tell me before I finish the game?
Kiwibob-each-way on Melissa’s video
Written By: - Date published: 7:33 pm, May 14th, 2009 - 13 comments
Interesting comment on Melissa from Kiwiblog’s Farrar: There is also the issue of the video produced by her before the election, placed on You Tube. I haven’t covered that in detail yet because so far I can’t see anywhere what Melissa has done wrong – my stance will change if such details emerge. Not exactly […]
I can see South Auckland from my house! An interview with Melissa Lee
Written By: - Date published: 5:44 pm, May 14th, 2009 - 16 comments
Did your company use NZ On Air money to produce a National Party promotional video? Look, I didn’t keep records of who was working on what when and it doesn’t work like that the only people who have a problem are disgruntled employees but they were volunteers and we were having fun so it doesn’t […]
“An indecent assault on numeracy”
Written By: - Date published: 3:05 pm, May 14th, 2009 - Comments Off on “An indecent assault on numeracy”
Over at Public Address Keith Ng has a great post up on Labour and National’s tax regimes. Pretty graphs, accessible analysis and a DPF slap-down – what more could you ask for?
Lee down, under; about to be reborn
Written By: - Date published: 9:10 am, May 14th, 2009 - 34 comments
Melissa Lee’s recent interviews on Q+A, TV1, TV3 and RNZ proved once and for all that being able to read an autocue doesn’t mean you’re any good at handling the media. When Lee put her hand up to rob the hapless Ravi Musuku of any chance of ever being rewarded for standing in Mt Albert, I […]
Why so afraid?
Written By: - Date published: 11:21 pm, May 13th, 2009 - 30 comments
Labour asked for an urgent debate in the House today on the Waterview announcement. Smith denied it because the announcement hadn’t then taken place. A minute later Joyce made the announcement. Labour then asked leave of the House for an urgent question to Joyce, Brownlee denied leave. What are they so afraid of? When did […]
Melissa keeps on digging
Written By: - Date published: 8:31 pm, May 13th, 2009 - 15 comments
Here’s Melissa Lee explaining on Checkpoint how her staff volunteered their time to produce a video for National Party list candidates: LEE: Well we were doing a launch, you know, for the Asian campaign and I thought it might be a good, fun thing to actually have a video to put onto Youtube or Facebook, […]
The Nats’ campaign vid that you and I paid for
Written By: - Date published: 2:14 pm, May 13th, 2009 - 54 comments
I figure the very least the Nats could do after spending our money on their asian-voter campaign video is to share it with us. Strangely, I couldn’t find it on the National Party website as referenced by last night’s Campbell Live piece. Fortunately the YouTube user “NationalAsianTeam” still has their copy up – it’s embedded […]
Melissa’s election expenses returned?
Written By: - Date published: 10:28 am, May 13th, 2009 - 50 comments
An interesting story on TV3 last night about potential for conflict of interest relating to Asia Down Under, a broadcasting company owned by Melissa Lee which produced a political documentary during the last election. Even more interesting was what was revealed about a video about Asian candidates made for the National Party and published on […]
Hopeless
Written By: - Date published: 2:31 pm, May 11th, 2009 - 25 comments
Anyone remember Helen Clark’s announcement during Labour’s election campaign that there would be no new significant spending promises: “We have judged it not prudent at this present time to make those sort of commitments.” We’ve now got Key justifying his inevitable-looking betrayal of his campaign tax cut promises: “There’s no getting away from the fact that […]
Not my Leaders
Written By: - Date published: 1:14 pm, May 6th, 2009 - 2 comments
Hide and Banks do not strike me as the kind of men you feel safe about having too much power. They never have been and they never will be. Yet so far the ongoing review of the so called ‘Supercity Plan’ has suggested it’s only weakness is that the Lord Mayor wouldn’t have enough power. Instead, […]
Oh dear.
Written By: - Date published: 4:30 pm, May 4th, 2009 - 36 comments
A while back we heard a rumour that National had already printed its billboards for the Mt Albert campaign – with Melissa Lee as the candidate. We decided not to run it. It was too implausible to think they would run the risk of doing that before they have their selection process tonight and name […]
Greens go grey
Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, May 4th, 2009 - 62 comments
I see Russel Norman is now describing Labour’s Mt Albert Candidate, David Shearer, as the “grey” man. Now I haven’t been around as long as I have without being able to spot a “line” and that is certainly a line, and one of the attack variety. Thing is, the Greens don’t do lines. And they […]
The interesting selection
Written By: - Date published: 5:56 pm, May 2nd, 2009 - 27 comments
The National selection in Mount Albert will be going down to the wire with the inevitable split between the locals and the regional/national organisations going to show on their monday selection. Patrick Gower had a good piece in the Herald yesterday – National torn over Mt Albert. The National Party is embroiled in a backroom […]
Entrenchment back on the agenda
Written By: - Date published: 5:18 pm, April 30th, 2009 - 44 comments
Good to see Labour pursuing a private member’s bill to entrench the Maori seats. Mita Ririnui, who’s lodging the bill, says it “will ensure that the Maori seats in Parliament will not be able to be abolished unless 75 per cent of MPs in any Parliament vote in favour of such a move. ‘The only […]
About time
Written By: - Date published: 10:26 am, April 22nd, 2009 - 14 comments
It’s good that Labour has rejoined good leftwing principles over the foreshore and seabed. Labour was spooked by the popularity of National’s race baiting into emulating them. They should never have denied iwi the right to go to court to try to establish their customary rights to sections of the foreshore and seabed. There are […]
Has National changed its policy on the super-city?
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, April 21st, 2009 - 23 comments
Yesterday I pointed out that the Local Government Act requires referenda on boundary changes such as are envisaged for Auckland. To not do so would be to use the parliamentary rights to amend legislation to remove a required consultation with the citizens of Auckland. It appears likely (from Graeme) that NACT will put forward a […]
Govt still refuses to act on youth smoking
Written By: - Date published: 1:53 pm, April 21st, 2009 - 42 comments
A couple of months ago you may remember Tony Ryall rejecting a health select committee recommendation that cigarettes and tobacco be kept out of sight in shops to help make them less inviting. On Sunrise this morning Oliver Driver wanted to know, in the light of fresh evidence, why Key’s government is still intent on […]
One of these things is not like the other III
Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, April 18th, 2009 - 20 comments
One of these things is not like the other… One of these things is not quite the same. Can you guess which one is not like the other… Can you tell me before I finish the game?
Higher education
Written By: - Date published: 4:40 pm, April 7th, 2009 - 32 comments
Turns out Richard Worth’s not the only one with a passion for flying. Tertiary Education Minister Anne Tolley has been joyriding in helicopters at the taxpayers’ expense.
Out of touch
Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, April 7th, 2009 - 32 comments
Vernon Small suggests that a further 60,000 workers may lose their jobs by next year. So it comes as a shock to read that John Key’s response to this latest news is to stick firmly to his: “optimistic and sunny” approach. It’s almost like he’s living in some alternative reality. While Bill is quietly crapping […]
Why won’t Key sack his Minister?
Written By: - Date published: 10:02 pm, April 6th, 2009 - 23 comments
The Herald is now reporting that John Key won’t sack Richard Worth, despite new information coming to light that an associated company to WSD Global (in which Worth was director while a Minister) was investigated by the Serious Fraud Office: Mr Key said today he had spoken to Dr Worth on Saturday. “I believe he […]
Recent Comments