national

Power disconnections increase as hardship grants are cut

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:47 am, March 25th, 2014 - 38 comments

Radio New Zealand has reported that power disconnections have soared at the same time that WINZ hardship grants have plummeted. Simon Bridges has suggested that it is the power companies fault. The Government should be blaming increasing poverty and inadequate WINZ hardship grants instead.

LocalBodies: National Slumps in Polls As Ministers Struggle

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 9:19 am, March 24th, 2014 - 22 comments

There is danger of reading too much into polls months out from an election. Commentators were claiming that National was too strong to lose the next election based on a rogue poll. Few looked at multiple polls, accounted for the margin of error nor the trends over past months. The last fortnight has seen a National with the latest Roy Morgan Poll plummeting from the Colmar Brunton result of 51% to 45.5%. And it is based on a lack of ministerial performance…

his precious $

Written By: geoff - Date published: 8:20 am, March 22nd, 2014 - 41 comments

As reported on TV3 news a few nights ago, John Key said that “I have a very strong sense of how precious children are…” The children, that is, of Chinese consumers who are buying milk powder… As for kiwi kids, well…how precious are they, John? National cares so much for kiwi kids they were prepared […]

Parata replaces Collins and Adams as National’s weakest link

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:20 am, March 20th, 2014 - 57 comments

This week Hekia Parata has achieved what I thought was impossible. She has shown even worse judgment than Judith Collins and is threatening to replace Collins as National’s minister who is most in trouble. Hekia’s days as a Minister must be numbered …

Amy Adams has more explaining to do

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 3:01 pm, March 18th, 2014 - 12 comments

Further questions have arisen about Amy Adams’ involvement with decisions relating to Canterbury water and in particular the decision to extend the term of the existing commissioners.

Hekia Parata wants to punish poor schools

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:43 am, March 17th, 2014 - 46 comments

Yesterday Hekia Parata floated the idea that funding of schools should be based on measuring the periodic change in academic standards.  This is a retrograde proposal which almost inevitably would penalise poor schools and worsen educational standards for many.  Today she has been trying to dampen down the idea and has emphasised that it will not be considered until after the next election.  A better reason to vote this Government out I cannot imagine.

Guest Post – What is Shane Jones doing?

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 9:02 am, March 15th, 2014 - 149 comments

A guest post on Shane Jones and what effect his recent behaviour is having on Labour’s election chances.

Scandals

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 9:31 am, March 13th, 2014 - 8 comments

Just a wee list to try and keep track of the current scandals our dear friends in the National party are dealing with.

Amy Adams has some explaining to do

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 12:12 pm, March 12th, 2014 - 33 comments

Amy Adams is now facing questions of conflict of interest after details have been published that land and company shares she owns may increase in value because of the proposed Canterbury Irrigation Scheme.

Polity: “Promoting” vs “endorsing”

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 8:22 am, March 12th, 2014 - 16 comments

The Orivida mess smells worse by the day for National. Yesterday, it turned out the Cabinet Office’s advice clearing Judith Collins of any wrongdoing had failed to even look at the most important piece of the evidence – the Chinese text of Orivida’s website. It had to rush out new advice to cover that off, which Key still won’t release. That is why today John Key will spend much of question time dancing on the head of a pin…

Polity: Why announce the election date this week?

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 2:30 pm, March 11th, 2014 - 18 comments

Rob Salmond at Polity has a look at why National surprisingly announced the election date yesterday. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that it was a deflection from something. Rob thinks that National was worried about where a look at donations to National’s campaign would lead. He may be right, as in the past National has had some legally and morally dubious donation regimes

Beltway blues: serving the public interest?

Written By: karol - Date published: 12:00 pm, March 10th, 2014 - 32 comments

Gower’s one-dimensional, distorted, gotcha reporting, highlights the failings of TV3 news & The Nation.  Corin Dann and Qu &A are less one-dimensional, but speak within the B-Hive-Media Loop, that  speaks for the comfortable middle & Business classes, & manufactured a “problem” week for Cunliffe.

Give us the names or pay the money back, John

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:59 am, March 8th, 2014 - 157 comments

John Key has taken at least $165,000 in anonymous donations through secret dinner donations.

Will he follow David Cunliffe’s example and either name names or pay the money back? Or is Key too tricky for that?

Glen Innes ‘war zone’

Written By: karol - Date published: 9:08 am, March 6th, 2014 - 52 comments

A  photo/video documentary project in March Metro Magazine shows Glen Innes as a war zone.  The National Government’s war on the poor continues with the sales and removal of state housing.  Protest this evening at Glen Innes.

Collins and Oravida

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 7:01 am, March 5th, 2014 - 114 comments

Judith Collin’s endorses a company, Orivida, that her husband is a (presumably paid) director of. That same company has previously made political donations to the National Party.

That’s a conflict of interest.