national
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- same old national (1,617)
Keeping it in the family
Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, June 16th, 2008 - 10 comments
The ODT reports that Bill English’s brother, Conor English, has been picked as the new CEO of Federated Farmers. Once the press secretary to National Government Lands Minister John Luxton, Conor replaces ex-National MP Annabel Young as CEO.
National ‘bereft of compassion’
Written By: - Date published: 4:44 pm, June 16th, 2008 - 36 comments
That is the reported view of the secretary of the Sikh Council of New Zealand in response to some attention grabbing behaviour from National Manakau East candidate in the wake of the tragic shooting of Natjev Singh. Specifically the article says: Mr Verpal Singh said they were “utterly disappointed at a singular lack of understanding […]
Facing up to peak oil
Written By: - Date published: 1:25 pm, June 16th, 2008 - 38 comments
The Government’s independent report on petrol prices is bit of a sop to be the public, really. The world oil price is driving petrol prices; any efficiencies that could be gained in New Zealand would be small and would not change the upward trend. Nor is a Fuel Watch website like Australia’s going to do […]
He would say that wouldn’t he
Written By: - Date published: 12:11 pm, June 16th, 2008 - 21 comments
Stuff reports that National Party energy spokesman Gerry Brownlee has labelled the government’s inquiry into petrol pricing a cynical move that would not make a difference to prices. A similar inquiry in Australia resulted in a decision to provide increased transparency for consumers by stipulating that the petrol was to be set and notified by petrol companies […]
Kremlinology: National on ACC
Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, June 16th, 2008 - 41 comments
In most countries, accident insurance is big business. Insurers and lawyers make billions off premiums, claims, and court cases but many people don’t actually get any cover if they are injured. The Third Labour Government set up ACC to ensure everyone would have cover if they were injured. It also freed up the court system […]
Key’s slippery promises on waste
Written By: - Date published: 3:27 pm, June 14th, 2008 - 50 comments
National has staked it all on delivering bigger tax cuts than Labour. To remain credible, they need to deliver $20 a week on average more than Labour. That’s $3 billion a year. The operating surplus is gone, so where will the money come from? John Key has been repeatedly referencing the fact that the government […]
The dark side of the Right
Written By: - Date published: 11:56 am, June 13th, 2008 - 118 comments
Trotter is on the money today: …[A]ll of you young, confident women of the 21st century urgently need to pause and reflect upon what is happening especially all you young, confident women thinking of voting for the National Party. Why? Because behind National, hidden by all those glossy placards depicting the handsome John Key, marches […]
Treating the voters like children
Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, June 13th, 2008 - 30 comments
Keith Holyoake used to say “tell the people, trust the people”; be honest about the benefits, trade-offs, and costs of policies and trust the people to judge you in an adult manner. Central to Brand Key, however, is playing to voters’ baser desires, especially greed, and fomenting juvenile beliefs, including that it is possible to have ones cake and eat it. For […]
The wage gap and the Nats’ crediblity gap
Written By: - Date published: 5:01 pm, June 12th, 2008 - 32 comments
Remember when National was all about the wage gap, whinging about it every day? Heard them talk about it lately? The last mention we can find is three weeks ago. Has the issue suddenly gone away? No, there is still a wage gap and solutions to it require serious debate. But National wasn’t talking about […]
Behind the secrecy
Written By: - Date published: 2:06 pm, June 12th, 2008 - 8 comments
Reading a_y_b’s piece on National’s policy talks with the Real Estate Institute I’ve got to say it struck me as having shades not so much of the Brethren fiasco as the leaked Insurance Council memo from the last election. According to a letter given to Labour’s Clayton Cosgrove by a member of REINZ, the real […]
I did not have policy relations with REINZ
Written By: - Date published: 11:53 am, June 12th, 2008 - 23 comments
With tones of the Brethren debacle we’re getting conflicting reports from the National Party as to whether or not they have haven’t have met with the Real Estate Institute of NZ. Simon Power says unequivocally that National hasn’t met with REINZ since the Real Estate Agents Act Bill [cheers lemsip, typo] went for public submissions. Yet […]
With friends like these
Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, June 12th, 2008 - 85 comments
One thing that puzzles me about righties is that half the people on their side of the fence are racists, bigots, misogynists, homophobes or religious zealots and, yet, this doesn’t seem to make the rest of them re-evaluate own their beliefs. If, for example, I were a National MP and in the same caucus as […]
National’s policy vacuum
Written By: - Date published: 5:13 pm, June 9th, 2008 - 52 comments
From the editorial in the ODT today we learn that Bill English is keen to dampen down concern within the party at the lack of policy, telling delegates at their southern conference: “We pick the timing [for policy release] – not Labour, not the media, not the public.” He signaled it may be released very late and […]
Spin-busting: ‘Hardworking kiwis’
Written By: - Date published: 2:11 pm, June 9th, 2008 - 180 comments
‘Hardworking kiwis’ is National’s new ‘mainstream New Zealanders’. Referenced by Key ad nauseam, it is the population at which National purports to target it’s policies. As with ‘mainstream New Zealanders’, ‘hardworking kiwis’ has a inherently divisive implicit message: ‘not everyone is a hardworking kiwi’. The term creates an ‘other’; a type of person in this […]
Anyone for more pork pies?
Written By: - Date published: 5:47 am, June 9th, 2008 - 39 comments
On TV3 last night John Key was continuing to tell outright porkies about how advanced National is with its “policy” development compared with Labour in 1999. Key’s figure of 14 policies is derisory – as John Armstrong wrote in the Herald on Saturday, some of the 14 are assurances of what National would not do, […]
National policy vacuum becoming a joke
Written By: - Date published: 11:14 am, June 6th, 2008 - 24 comments
A reader just alerted us to this. When John Key went missing in action on Sunrise what did the “Allstars” suggest he was up to? Watch to find out…
Into the void: examining National’s ‘policies’
Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, June 5th, 2008 - 107 comments
National’s so-called policies are laughable. National says it has released ’14 policies’ (14! wow! anyone would think they were planning to run a scout troop not a country) but six are just to adopt the existing policy. And the others, well – * Setting national standards in reading, writing and numeracy – shown to have no positive effect […]
Regrets? I’ve had a few
Written By: - Date published: 11:57 am, June 3rd, 2008 - 24 comments
Is Don Brash trying to help or hinder John Key? A revealing couple of articles (a news story and a feature) in the Sunday Star Times in which the former leader – full of self pity and self loathing in equal measures by the sound of it – says his two biggest regrets were supporting […]
PC scourge claims another victim
Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, June 1st, 2008 - 9 comments
A recent newsletter from anti-PC campaigner Murray McCully led with this comment supporting the right of the Burmese people to decide for themselves what their country is called: The US State Department asserts the preference for ‘Burma’ ‘due to consistent, unyielding support for the democratically elected leaders’, and the UK Foreign Office notes that ‘Burma’s […]
Ryall: disgraceful
Written By: - Date published: 1:28 pm, May 30th, 2008 - 34 comments
National’s Tony Ryall has made a disgrace of himself, yet again. This time, by labelling a Government initiative to hasten improvements in the detection of colon cancer (which kills 1200 people a year) ‘a political stunt’. Here is Health Minister David Cunliffe and Ryall on National Radio: CUNLIFFE: I’m not doing this because of votes, […]
Notional Policy: Kiwisaver
Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, May 30th, 2008 - 24 comments
Tracy Watkins reported yesterday that National’s weakening of the employer contribution to Kiwisaver may take a different path to the one we envisaged. Rather than limiting employer contributions to a lower level Watkins reports businesses want to be able to dock or cut wages to compensate for the Kiwisaver contributions they make. This is currently […]
Why didn’t Kate know Nats’ Kiwisaver policy?
Written By: - Date published: 12:48 pm, May 29th, 2008 - 34 comments
The most surprising thing to come of the National’s Kiwisaver fiasco is not that they want to undermine the scheme and get employers out of paying their part (this is the party of big business, after all). No, the real shock is to learn that Kate Wilkinson, National’s Industrial Relations spokesperson, is not involved in […]
Nats to journos: say what we want or shut up
Written By: - Date published: 12:59 pm, May 28th, 2008 - 19 comments
Here’s Barry Soper on ZB on the ‘Kate-gate‘ Kiwisaver debacle: What I found interesting was the way it was handled. I was the only person this time yesterday at this particular breakfast and it was a question from the floor. Kate Wilkinson quite clearly said that employer contributions to KiwiSaver was not going to be compulsory. Now, […]
Kremlinology: National and Kiwisaver
Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, May 28th, 2008 - 15 comments
National’s refusal to say what it stands for is becoming so ridiculous we have resorted to the Cold War art of Kremlinology. Today, we look at Kiwisaver. National has had a tortured relationship with Kiwisaver. When it was first introduced in 2005 John Key described it as a “terribly designed system” and spent the next […]
The status of KiwiSaver
Written By: - Date published: 3:03 pm, May 27th, 2008 - 34 comments
Tracy Watkins reports: “National has been forced into an embarrassing u-turn on KiwiSaver after its industrial relations spokeswoman Kate Wilkinson appeared to put the kibosh on a major component of the scheme. Ms Wilkinson was forced to retract comments made earlier today suggesting National would do away with the compulsory employer contribution.” On his blog Vernon […]
Getting blood from a stone
Written By: - Date published: 2:20 pm, May 27th, 2008 - 5 comments
A reader has just written in as a followup to IrishBill’s post earlier today on National’s plans to line the pockets of oil tycoons with a four land highway stretching the length of the North Island. Our reader notes that it’s not just us who think getting policy out of the Nats is like getting […]
ToryAid: The Standard resurrects Wastewatch
Written By: - Date published: 1:35 pm, May 27th, 2008 - 66 comments
Remember wastewatch.co.nz? It’s National’s site listing all the ‘government waste’. From six years of Labour government it managed to find a grand total of $1 billion in waste (0.32% of Government spending or a 10 cent a week tax cut) and most of that wasn’t ‘waste’ it included the entire $400 million for the new […]
Grueling
Written By: - Date published: 12:31 pm, May 27th, 2008 - 6 comments
Nats announce launch release consider rural doctors bonding scheme. Here’s the link, but honestly, don’t bother.
Ambitious for big oil
Written By: - Date published: 11:41 am, May 27th, 2008 - 74 comments
We’ve all heard John Key bang on about his ambitions for New Zealand’s infrastructure and now one of my sources within the National Party has tipped me off that as part of their infrastructure policy they are planning to announce a plan for a four lane highway between Wellington and Auckland. As I recall this […]
Predictions on Parliament
Written By: - Date published: 10:29 pm, May 26th, 2008 - 9 comments
We’ve seen many of the commentators suggest that National is coming up short on policy proposals after the Budget last week. What I’ll be looking for is whether Mr Key takes his attack to the PM and Michael Cullen in the House tomorrow. The hints continue to be that tax cuts will be larger and […]
Show us ya policy
Written By: - Date published: 3:57 pm, May 26th, 2008 - 32 comments
Steve posted this morning that even Granny Herald’s patience appears to be wearing thin waiting for National and Key to announce some policy detail: “National must get a move on… we need to hear some serious policy soon”. Turns out they’re not alone. Rod Oram (SST): …for it to be a genuine debate, National needs […]
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