political parties

Key hides advice, Collins goes to ground

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:36 pm, March 6th, 2014 - 76 comments

Radio New Zealand has reported that John Key is refusing to release the advice he claims clears Judith Collins over her conflict of interest. And is now claiming that the Cabinet rules are ” just a guideline anyway”

So smart. Green senator Ludlam ‘welcomes’ Abbott to WA

Written By: lprent - Date published: 10:27 pm, March 6th, 2014 - 30 comments

One of the most effective political videos that I have seen from a country that is coming to specialise in them. I’m unsurprised that it went completely viral. It was a great description of all of the ways that Tony Abbott is beholden to the interests of those made insane by idiotic greed – and welcoming him to Western Australia. All expressed in a polite quiet voice enumerating exactly how much of a arsehole Abbott is. He even makes John Key look sort of rational – in a traditional junior partner kind of way

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.

Oravida: Collins, Goodfellow, Key.

Written By: karol - Date published: 4:34 pm, March 5th, 2014 - 38 comments

John Key claims Judith Collins was not guilty of conflict of interest re-her visit to Oravida in China. Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins, in the General Debate today claimed that Peter Goodfellow met with an Oravida sponsored group of businessmen to discuss “bi-lateral collaboration.” They claim Key also played golf with an Oravida bigwig.

Taxpayers Union attacks Prince George

Written By: susannact - Date published: 12:00 pm, March 5th, 2014 - 15 comments

[satire] The Taxpayers Union has hit out at Prince George for wasting taxpayers money by accompanying his parents, The Prince and Princess of Cambridge on their Royal Visit to New Zealand. Jordan Williams lashed out at the Prince saying “We expect that he will cost the New Zealand tax payer approximately $550 in nappies, baby food and sundry expenses while he is here; although since he is an infant, we understand he will not have to pay airfares. Even so, we are astounded at this blatant misuse of taxpayers money ”.

Craig launches defamation case against Key

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:49 am, March 5th, 2014 - 18 comments

[Satire] In a surprise move Colin Craig has threatened John Key with defamation proceedings for saying that he is weak and thin skinned, and may believe Elvis is alive and the moon landing was faked.

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.

National’s ICT failures.

Written By: lprent - Date published: 10:55 pm, March 4th, 2014 - 23 comments

After having the past five and bit years with National’s negative policies about anything to do with new technologies, it is really nice to see some partially formed red-tinged morning ideas about how to encourage local usage of the net appearing on the sky’s horizon. National’s ICT strategy seems to see how uselessly slow they can do everything and how much they can slow down the development of ICT in NZ.

Colin Craig does not want to disclose his view on gays

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:51 am, March 4th, 2014 - 70 comments

Colin Craig has announced that he is off to Court to sue someone called Russell Norman who I think is the same person as Greens leader Russel Norman. And he is going to leave documents relating to his views of gays in the closet by only suing Norman for his comments about women. One wonders what he has to hide?

How short are memories?

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 11:39 pm, March 3rd, 2014 - 216 comments

John Key is attacking David Cunliffe for using a trust to obscure some donations – whilst repeating the word ‘tricky’ about Cunliffe as many times in one sound-bite as humanly possible. It’s an astonishingly brazen stone to throw given National’s glass house. Do no reporters remember John Key, Hollow Man, or anything about National’s funding […]

Taxpayers Union – concentrating on the banal and ignoring the big issues

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 1:56 pm, March 3rd, 2014 - 45 comments

Mojo Mathers has been criticised by the Taxpayers Union for the travel costs associated with attending a recent interview in Masterton. Attacking her for doing her job is completely mean spirited. But the means of generating the story, where details are fed to the media and then the Taxpayer’s Union are offered up for comment, are of concern. And surely there are bigger issues to worry about.

UK Labour goes OMOV

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 8:35 pm, March 2nd, 2014 - 9 comments

UK Labour’s special conference yesterday changed the Party’s rules for leadership selection, and the basis for affiliate involvement. One-person-one-vote is the general rule, and block voting for leadership and selection by affiliates including unions is replaced by individual and intentional involvement.

NRT: Treasury, National, and child poverty

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 2:18 pm, February 28th, 2014 - 10 comments

In many ways what is even more irritating about this screwup by treasury is that it isn’t likely to be the children living below the poverty line that has an impact. It is the large numbers of elderly that Treasury has now discovered getting worse off and falling into poverty. After all they have a vote. Whereas children don’t so the future accumulated costs of their poverty aren’t something that this government will concern itself about.

Tony Ryall standing down

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 12:00 pm, February 27th, 2014 - 64 comments

Tony Ryall has announced that he will not seek re election at this year’s general election. He brings to ten the number of sitting National MPs who will not be contesting the election this year.

LB: Executive Principals and National’s Education Dystopia

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 8:34 am, February 27th, 2014 - 18 comments

When John Key announced the Government’s plan of spending a whopping $359 million on education it was received with a sort of stunned incredulity. The problem is that few conservative governments understand education and the value of professional knowledge and the treatment of the Christchurch schools revealed a total disregard of the importance of communities.

The Genesis share float has problems

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:21 am, February 27th, 2014 - 17 comments

The Government has effectively conceded that the Genesis share float will not meet expectations and is softening New Zealand up to the prospect that only 30% of the shares may be sold. It makes you wonder why they are still going a head with the sale.

Labour’s new Parliamentary chief of staff …

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 1:22 pm, February 26th, 2014 - 376 comments

David Cunliffe has announced his new chief of staff following Wendy Brandon’s resignation because of ill health. It is veteran strategist Matt McCarten.

Polity: X more thoughts on poll bias

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 11:36 am, February 26th, 2014 - 26 comments

Whenever the media report on polls, they get accused of all manner of biases by the blinkered commentariat. Most of it is nonsense, of course. But some criticism of the polling methods themselves may have more merit that Rob Salmond first thought. While he is not yelling “fire” at this stage, he does think there may be smoke. Something that he did not think that three years ago.

On polls and things

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:16 am, February 25th, 2014 - 106 comments

The periodic agony and ecstasy attached to opinion poll results has kicked in with a pessimistic TVOne poll result being released on the weekend. But how accurate are they and are we in danger of damaging an election campaign by focussing too much on them?

Polity: A bad week

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 9:11 am, February 24th, 2014 - 142 comments

There’s no skating around it – Labour didn’t have a good last week. And the biggest shame is that beltway errors have been allowed to eclipse real progress on issues that actually matter to New Zealand families. The lack of direct relevance in the errors does not matter, because these issues matter for perceptions. If Labour is perceived as bumbling, or as lacking self-awareness, that will certainly be reflected at the ballot box. But there were a few bright spots.

Labour’s Manukau East candidate selection

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 1:22 pm, February 22nd, 2014 - 42 comments

Today the Labour Party selects its candidate for the Manukau East seat. The seat is one of the safest Labour seats in the country and whoever wins could be in Parliament for a long time. There is a strong lineup of candidates and the selection is a wide open one. Update: and Jenny Selesa has been selected.

Home thoughts from abroad

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 7:19 pm, February 20th, 2014 - 55 comments

Porirua mayor Nick Leggett has put up a couple interesting posts about Labour’s prospects in the upcoming election in progressonline. I think his political message is timely and true: Labour’s approach to this election cannot be “just a list of things that you’re against,” rather it should focus on what it’s for, and what it will do for New Zealanders. That could be very popular with voters.

David Cunliffe’s home

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 2:56 pm, February 20th, 2014 - 227 comments

National is now targeting David Cunliffe and his family. Metiria Turei was attacked for living in a castle and wearing designer jackets, and now David Cunliffe is being attacked for being wealthy. The criticisms miss the point. There is nothing inherently wrong with being wealthy. But there is everything wrong in setting fire to the ladder of social support after you have had the opportunity to climb it.

Polity: Key practices 56% truth inflation

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 3:48 pm, February 19th, 2014 - 21 comments

John Key makes up the figures during a session of parliament for the expected unemployment in coming years when he took office. The apparent reason is to make his governments piss-poor performance running the economy look better. Of course there is that problem that Rob Salmond can link to the December 2008 projections from the Treasury which show John Key to be lying (yet again).

Poverty on the agenda

Written By: karol - Date published: 10:26 am, February 19th, 2014 - 81 comments

The documentary ‘Mind the Gap’ and an interview with a UNICEF advocacy manager focus on poverty and inequality. Zombie “neoliberal” policies have increased poverty & inequality, damaging the futures of too many children. We will all benefit from good government policies underpinned by a commitment to collective approaches and responsibility.

LB: Greens’ Solar Sense and National’s Nonsense

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 4:00 pm, February 18th, 2014 - 28 comments

Local Bodies looks at some (very cool) solar installations and the Greens solar policy. We are now seeing a stark contrast between a Government desperate to support the status quo of increasing charges and large company profits, while the future focussed Greens are truly progressive in their thinking.

Russel Norman to Colin Craig – Bring it on

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:28 am, February 18th, 2014 - 121 comments

Colin Craig has threatened Russel Norman with defamation proceedings unless he apologises for saying that Craig prefers women to be in the kitchen and gays should be in the closet. Norman has refused to apologise. At the risk of being thrown out of the Lawyers’ union shouldn’t they debate these issues publicly and let the public decide rather than fight it out in Court?

Easy Vote or Voter Intimidation?

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 9:19 pm, February 17th, 2014 - 123 comments

Good to see Labour has stood up against National’s “harder-to-vote” revisions to the Electoral Amendment Bill, especially making voters now have to state their name to get a voting paper. The reason for this is to allow scrutineers to more easily challenge a voter’s credentials, and is similar to voter intimidation practices in conservative States in the US. Expect National Party scrutineers questioning more voter credentials in the 2014 election.

Plausible deniability: Smoke & mirrors

Written By: karol - Date published: 12:56 pm, February 17th, 2014 - 79 comments

It’s puzzling why John Key diverted attention from who spied on Winston Peters, by implicating Cameron Slater. Following revelations about the 5 Eyes spying capabilities, & illegal surveillance of Kim Dotcom, there is much at stake for Key. Recapping some significant details in the surveillance saga.

National’s Herald shows its true colours

Written By: lprent - Date published: 8:04 am, February 17th, 2014 - 113 comments

The NZ Herald starts cuddling up even closer to the National party. I guess they have definitely dropped that shallow facade of being the “Newspaper of Record”. Mind you, it isn’t a good look when Paula Bennett, the minister meant to take care of children, cuddles up with the heartless hypocrite who laughs at dead children. National really must be worried about this election.