political parties

Beached as bro

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 11:59 am, March 30th, 2012 - 57 comments

Within minutes of Simon Lusk’s name being linked to the leaking of the Boag email, a message came through on the tip line – Slater is going feral over Lusk’s name being mentioned. And well he might, Lusk is Cameron Slater’s meal ticket. After a stunned silence on Whaleoil for a few hours – Slater/Lusk were back with all the dirt they could sling.

Key people

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 10:02 pm, March 29th, 2012 - 50 comments

The people named as Bronwyn Pullar’s support team seem to be the same people that helped John Key into the National Party and then into the leadership.

Like they say – it’s not what you know…

NRT – Unqualified crony Isaac gets charter schools job

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 11:55 am, March 29th, 2012 - 20 comments

ACT-crony Catherine Isaac will head the implementation of the government’s unmandated charter schools programme. Isaac has no relevant expertise to justify this appointment. She has been given the position (and a generous public salary) solely on the basis of ideology and party affiliation. That is not how our public service is supposed to work.

Joyce for National leader?

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 10:23 am, March 28th, 2012 - 36 comments

Ipredict reckons there’s 60% odds Key won’t be National leader in 3 years. Whether you think that’s too low or high, it brings an important fact into resolution – the next National leader is in Parliament, probably a minister right now. People talk about Parata but she’s a lightweight. Collins and Joyce are the options. Mike’s just had a look at Collins’ style, let’s examine Joyce’s.

Russian roulette with Collins

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 2:25 pm, March 27th, 2012 - 14 comments

“Ms Collins strenuously denies hints by opposition parties that her office was involved in leaking Bronwyn Pullar’s information to the media. She says only herself, one staff member, chairman John Judge and ACC’s chief executive had the information”. Hmm. 4 people, at least 1 head to roll. Not hard to see where this going. Playing Russian roulette with Collins is where she pulls the trigger but aims the gun at you.

Meanwhile the economy…

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 10:54 am, March 23rd, 2012 - 15 comments

Plenty of high-profile bad news headlines for the Nats. At least it takes the focus of the boring old economy.

Why Labour is not shifting to the centre

Written By: Jimmy Reid - Date published: 7:59 am, March 20th, 2012 - 55 comments

Surprising title given the discussion of here and elsewhere? Yeah, I know.

But I want to contribute two things to the discussion. First, Shearer’s speech did not signal a shift in policy to the centre. Second, Labour does not need to shift to the centre in policy.

Nats back down from ACC privatisation why not asset sales?

Written By: James Henderson - Date published: 10:56 am, March 16th, 2012 - 16 comments

National has backed down from privatising ACC’s work account. To make it work, they were going to have to pump up ACC levies and make it pay a dividend to the Crown to make prices high enough for the private sector to compete. A sign of how weak the government is that they couldn’t push this through. Problem is, the same logic applies to asset sales.

Shearer’s speech exceeds expectations

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 7:50 am, March 15th, 2012 - 211 comments

You all know that many of  us authors at The Standard have been critical of David Shearer. Well, I’ve just read Shearer’s speech. It’s brilliant. It talks about the big issues head on and unapologetically. There’s no party line pap and some nice stylistic points. It damns Key without ever mentioning him or his government and is an even more devastating critique of Key for it.

ImperatorFish: A Political Appointment To The Law Commission?

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 9:38 am, March 14th, 2012 - 2 comments

Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here.

National appointing one of their own as member without any proper consultation – will people take the Law Commission seriously any more?

NRT: Judith Collins’ brazen cronyism

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 10:05 am, March 13th, 2012 - 19 comments

Seems Judith Collins has been cutting corners in the appointment of Wayne Mapp to the Law Commission. NRT has the story.

Shearer taking shape

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 2:54 pm, March 12th, 2012 - 45 comments

It’s been encouraging seeing a bit more of David Shearer recently. His leadership is slowly taking shape

Postcards from the “brighter” future

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 11:32 am, March 10th, 2012 - 24 comments

Hey John – where’s our “Brighter Future”? Hey National voters – was this what you voted for?

Excuses excuses

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 9:41 am, March 7th, 2012 - 32 comments

Tax revenue is down, blowing a big hole in all the government’s financial projections. The Nats are in trouble and instead of looking for solutions, they’re looking for excuses.

Villain or hero

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 4:09 pm, March 5th, 2012 - 158 comments

The Nats have announced their asset sales legislation. Mum and dad aren’t at the front of the queue. No provisions to ensure 85-90% stays in Kiwi hands. Nothing to stop the companies being sliced up and sold after partial privatisation. No real way to stop one company owning more than 10%. There’s 1 vote that can stop this. It’s all down to Dunne now. Will he be the hero or the villain?