Written By: - Date published: 5:33 pm, September 21st, 2008 - 42 comments
The Business Roundtable held another in their series of forums on political issues targeted at young people on Thursday. The aim is obviously to get along the type of kid who goes to his (sorry for the gendering but they were 90% male) commerce classes in a suit that he can’t yet fill and give him an […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, September 19th, 2008 - 164 comments
From Newzblog: “Local activist James Sleep was today exercising his democratic right to protest when he was approached by an entourage of 4WDs carrying Wairapara MP John Hayes and John Key. Sleep attempted to get out of the way however he soon found himself being propelled backwards by the force of Hayes’ car. The car […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:15 am, September 18th, 2008 - 24 comments
Thanks to the wonders of Scoopit I’ve just come across this old TVNZ footage of John Key’s first day as National’s finance spokesman. It’s interesting to see where his economic priorities lay: The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh? [It’s worth noting that this isn’t some aberration limited to John Key […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, September 18th, 2008 - 158 comments
Helen Clark made foreign policy judgement a campaign issue today when she told a Grey Power meeting that if New Zealand had invaded Iraq with the US as John Key wanted we would have lost up to 60 soldiers*. Through a spokesman, John Key said “the claim of 60 dead is hysterical and desperate”. I […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, September 17th, 2008 - 70 comments
Yesterday, John Key “attacked Labour’s economic record, which he said amounted to overtaxing voters so it could put money into its pet projects” So, what are these ‘pet projects’ and which of them National would cancel? Well, Labour’s major spending projects have been increasing the health budget, spending more on transport (including roads, unfortunately), more […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 16th, 2008 - 17 comments
When the EPMU released its investigation notes on Shawn Tan it was obvious that some right-wing bloggers would seize on the fact that Tan had been employed on a probationary agreement and stupidly claim that, therefore, the union was hypocritical for opposing National’s fire at will policy (which creates a 90 day no-rights period for […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, September 16th, 2008 - 22 comments
Bill English has confirmed that National still intends to give the average worker a $50 tax cut. That’s $18 a week more than they will get in Labour’s tax cuts after 2011. If National’s would increase the cut for all taxpayers by around $18 a week it would cost nearly $3 billion a year. In […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, September 16th, 2008 - 53 comments
Cameron Slater, aka Whaleoil, is a nasty piece of work. If you’re a leftie and you get into the media, he’ll dig whatever dirt he can find on you from the ‘net and what he can’t find he’ll make up in an attempt to intimidate you and others into silence. But the intertubes flow both […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, September 15th, 2008 - 79 comments
I just have to say, it’s incredibly disappointing that a simple prank, a google bomb, gets three newspaper articles and coverage on TV3 and when talkback radio suggests The Standard was tipped off on the election date that is an issue worth following up with the PM. But when John Key is quoted in a […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:11 pm, September 14th, 2008 - 20 comments
A reader just sent us the screenshot below with the attached explanation: Thought I should start to read up on some of the content from parties involved – from their own websites of course. Mainly to educate myself as a voter. National party site – loaded up, but then Firefox tells me the flash script […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, September 11th, 2008 - 79 comments
One of the great things about the EFA is that donations over $20,000 must be declared within 10 working days. Because of that, we have today learned National received $30,000 from something called the Road Transport Trust on August 27. The Trust is clearly a front – there is no record of it on the […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:29 am, September 11th, 2008 - 7 comments
Is this our first real Youtube election? 08wire is doing its bit with another new video:
Written By: - Date published: 9:20 pm, September 10th, 2008 - 10 comments
Having just read the National health policy and background paper released by Labour, a few things stand out to me. 1) There is no commitment to primary health-care. In fact, in 25 pages all it says is ‘we’ll do what’s already happening but we’ll re-name PHOs ‘Family Health Centres’, got ‘family’ in the name, don’t […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:11 pm, September 10th, 2008 - 60 comments
Jim Anderton is releasing elements of National’s health policy at Question Time: – Pharmac’s independent decisions could be overruled by politicians. – Private health insurance would be subsidised by the taxpayer. – No more money for public health National’s Jonathan Coleman also reportedly said that he doesn’t think GP fees are high enough.
Written By: - Date published: 6:30 pm, September 9th, 2008 - 109 comments
Multiple spies, whom National has been unable to catch, and a series of ‘gaffes’ and accidents involving sensitive papers? Or a bitter faction led by the man who was deposed by Key’s vote?
Written By: - Date published: 4:55 pm, September 9th, 2008 - 48 comments
Boosting their green credentials is not proving as straightforward as National would like, as this video that’s doing the rounds shows.
Written By: - Date published: 2:29 pm, September 9th, 2008 - 68 comments
Can’t put it any better than Jafapete has: Seems that John Key has done it again. Announced policy off-the-cuff and back tracked later. TV3 reports that, speaking to an Auckland families forum yesterday, Key ‘veered away from a written speech appearing to announce in off the cuff remarks that National would axe the commission.’ ‘He […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, September 9th, 2008 - 44 comments
This is really getting pretty serious now – a fourth National party policy has been leaked to Labour, who have made it public. In the last week we’ve seen National’s environment, conservation, biofuels, and, now, research, science, and technology policies leaked from within National. This is unprecedented – so many policies being leaked this close […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:42 am, September 9th, 2008 - 1 comment
Apologies if you’ve seen this before – but I had a reader request a replay.
Written By: - Date published: 10:56 am, September 9th, 2008 - 58 comments
God, another leak from National, this time their research, science and technology policy. From Mallard’s press release: “Mr Key should not only be embarrassed, he should be very worried about the shambolic show he is running. Contrary to his desperate claims last week, I did not find any of these policies in any café. Or […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:09 am, September 9th, 2008 - 45 comments
John Key is running a line that first emerged in the rightwing blogs a few months ago: ‘Labour doesn’t have any policy, either’. It was a moron’s line when it was on the blogs and Key has only taken it up in a desperate attempt to divert from National’s policy leaks. It’s meant to be a response […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:28 pm, September 7th, 2008 - 33 comments
If you’ve caught yourself asking why the Nat’s billboards are so bad, then Jafa Pete has the answer. Their adman, Glenn Jameson, is an objectivist. For those of you not familiar with objectivism it’s kind of like a cross between neo-liberalism and Nietzschen fascism (as long as the Nietzsche is read without irony). Here’s a […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:14 pm, September 7th, 2008 - 78 comments
The Greens billboards have shown how it’s done – striking and simple without being dishonest or simplistic. Maybe National could imitate them: Maybe not.
Written By: - Date published: 6:32 pm, September 6th, 2008 - 55 comments
Lord Ashcroft is a worry. Not just to John Key, who had to admit that he didn’t know why Ascroft had met him at Key’s home: it just happened to be in his diary. According to an article in the Daily Telegraph, he is also a worry to many in the Conservative Party. Ashcroft “does […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:26 pm, September 5th, 2008 - 49 comments
A friend has just rung to excitedly inform me that National’s conservation policy has now also been released by Trevor Mallard. That means there is officially a leak in the National Party caucus. I expect in the next hour or so the Nats are going to start their misdirection campaign and I expect it will […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:20 pm, September 5th, 2008 - 39 comments
OK. They were laughably bad before but now they don’t even have the grammar correct. If you can count it, you use fewer: less water, fewer litres of water; less bureaucracy, fewer bureaucrats. Simple. This from the bunch promising to magically raise education standards? Wait though – since when did National have a policy to reduce the number […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:50 pm, September 5th, 2008 - 3 comments
Today, we have National’s Judith Collins attacking the Government because the number of Kiwis on the unemployment benefit rose from 17,710 to 20,465 between June and July. Never mind the fact that 17,710 was a 30 year record-low and even 20,000 is 120,000 fewer Kiwis on the unemployment benefit than the best National could manage. […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:35 pm, September 5th, 2008 - 18 comments
The National Party are once again trying to make political capital over the Trans-Tasman wage gap, even though they created it in the first place and have no policy to fix it. Like I’ve pointed out a dozen times before: 1. Yes, we have a wage gap with Australia and it needs to close. 2. […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, September 5th, 2008 - 29 comments
The leaks from within the National camp just keep on coming. Last night Trevor Mallard had the privilege of releasing National’s environment policy on 3 News thanks to a leak from the inside, destroying National’s planned policy launch on Saturday and exposing serious divisions within the party. From this leak we can tell there’s either […]
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