political parties

The Cabinet reshuffle

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:52 am, June 14th, 2022 - 64 comments

There was some drama yesterday in the Beehive where Kris Faafoi and Trevor Mallard announced that they will be resigning from Parliament and Jacinda Ardern took the opportunity to reshuffle the Cabinet.

Gang Control Policy Is Back Big Time

Written By: advantage - Date published: 6:08 pm, June 12th, 2022 - 16 comments

We are about to have a proper gang control policy contest. It’s about time.

National’s anti gang policies and the Bill of Rights

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 4:09 pm, June 12th, 2022 - 33 comments

This weekend National threw out a few hunks of red meat to some of its more rabid supporters by going to its old favourite of gang bashing.

An appeal to Putin’s Apologists

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 10:10 am, June 12th, 2022 - 121 comments

Guest with a life of anti-fascist and anti-war activism in their rear-view mirror, alarmingly finds at fifty that they are staring at the green shoots of fascism in their headlights.This is not where any progressive expected to be. But for the left, there is also no discounting fascist action by offering up the reasoning of the aggressor.

He Waka Eke Noa?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:02 am, June 10th, 2022 - 16 comments

The He Waka Eke Noa report recommends the introduction of farm-level split-gas levy on agricultural emissions. The anticipated savings are very small and reliant on Government proposals for the sector to reaching the Government target of 10% methane reduction. Are we really all in this together?

National needs better lawyers

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 12:06 pm, June 8th, 2022 - 68 comments

Christopher Luxon this morning called for the police getting warrantless search powers for arms. But the law already allows for warrantless searches where Arms Act violations are suspected.

Climate politics

Written By: weka - Date published: 9:10 am, June 2nd, 2022 - 5 comments

Quick quiz on which New Zealand politicians led well on climate action in the past 15 years. Which New Zealand town is in a climate emergency today? And how our focus and voting matters if we want to avert climate disaster.

Ardern is apparently to blame for National having racist supporters

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:58 am, June 2nd, 2022 - 273 comments

Yesterday on Morning Report Chris Luxon pivoted from a question about National supporters expressing distaste for Te Ao Maori to blaming Jacinda Ardern for not burning up political capital on co governance.

National’s policies don’t add up

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:21 am, May 31st, 2022 - 48 comments

In 21 tweets Clint Smith has set out why National’s tax cut policies and its rhetoric are absurd and how the media is doing us a disservice by not asking the hard questions like what will be cut and how the promised tax cuts will be paid for.

How to get the progressive government we want

Written By: weka - Date published: 9:59 am, May 23rd, 2022 - 95 comments

What if instead of waiting for a new left wing party to arise, the left worked with the three progressive parties we already have in parliament?

The time that Roger Douglas was right

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:30 am, May 21st, 2022 - 39 comments

Roger Douglas may have caused New Zealand a lot of harm through his policies and actions but there was one occasion where if a policy he had helped to introduce had been retained New Zealand would be a much better place.

The Goldilocks budget

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:25 am, May 20th, 2022 - 24 comments

How was the 2022 budget? Was it the worst since Ruth Richardson’s mother of all budgets or the best since the first Labour Government gave everyone a Christmas bonus in 1935?

Budget Day!

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:15 am, May 19th, 2022 - 50 comments

Today is budget day. What surprises will Grant Robertson announce to address the country’s many and varied problems. Will Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis be able to sound like they actually understand what is in the budget? Stay tuned for 2 pm …

Has Business NZ been telling porkies?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:08 am, May 17th, 2022 - 18 comments

Business NZ has claimed that the proposed Fair Play legislation breaches International Labour Law and that the International Labour Organisation agrees with it. But its claims appear to be on the wrong side of what we could politely describe as the truth.

The Emissions Reduction Plan we voted for

Written By: weka - Date published: 6:05 am, May 17th, 2022 - 33 comments

what kind of climate action do we want?

Shane Jones’ weird premature budget take

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:02 am, May 14th, 2022 - 11 comments

Former Labour MP Shane Jones has criticised the 2021 budget even though he has no idea what is going to be in it.

Act’s scorched earth proposal

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 12:29 pm, May 11th, 2022 - 41 comments

Act has publicly released its proposal to decimate the state should it have a say in the next Government. Its Real Change Alternative Budget may be wet dream inducing for Ayn Rand acolytes but for the rest of us the proposals should instill a deep sense of dread.

Paula Bennett’s rewriting of Pharmac history

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:29 am, May 9th, 2022 - 22 comments

Paula Bennett has forgotten history by advocating for a significant increase in spending on Pharmac while at the same time forgetting that under the National Government she was a senior member of Pharmac’s funding stagnated.

Latest poll result – all steady but the Herald needs an English lesson

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:11 pm, May 3rd, 2022 - 109 comments

The latest Reid Research poll result has been released. Basically it reflects other polls that have been recently conducted. But the Herald have chosen to suggest it shows a dramatic change.

National’s diversity problem

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:03 am, April 30th, 2022 - 71 comments

National’s short list of candidates for the Tauranga seat has been released. And it is clear that its gender and ethnic representation problems will be made worse after the selection process is completed.

What Can Be Saved?

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:12 am, April 29th, 2022 - 157 comments

The tide of this government is running out. There’s 18 months left in the term. What would you save?

According to National budget slashing is a man’s job

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:03 am, April 23rd, 2022 - 91 comments

National leader Chris Luxon has publicly declared full confidence in National Finance Spokesperson Nicola Willis by proposing that former PM Bill English, not currently an MP, and Willis, who is an MP would be jointly directing the Ministers of every department to find savings.

Luxon’s triple backward summersault on Labour Day

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:00 am, April 21st, 2022 - 72 comments

In the space of one day Chris Luxon called repeatedly for the scrapping of Labour Day as a holiday then confirmed that a future National Government would not do this and said that his earlier comment was facetious.

The battle lines for the next election

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:31 am, April 18th, 2022 - 79 comments

Despite Labour seeing the country through the biggest public health threat seen in the last century and despite improving numbers of houses and a reduction in child poverty some on the left are buying into National’s despair lines. And the issues on which the next election will be fought are becoming clearer.

Luxon’s strange Public Transport take

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:29 am, April 13th, 2022 - 66 comments

Yesterday Chris Luxon showed the sensitivity and sophistication of someone who owns seven properties and at one stage had 6.1 million Air New Zealand shares by stating that he believed that at least some public transport services should not be supported and that public transport needs to stand on its own feet.

Plant based foods

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:08 am, April 12th, 2022 - 122 comments

Worrying news has emerged that New Zealand officials sought along with other agricultural nations to remove references to the benefits of consuming plant based foods on climate change from the IPCC report summary.

Is Act buying social media followers?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:14 am, April 8th, 2022 - 14 comments

Hot on the heels of news that Act has recently received a number of significant donations comes news that it may have spent some of these funds on buying social media followers following news that Seymour’s Instagram followers jumped from 23,800 to 72,600 in one day.

Greens call for rent freeze

Written By: weka - Date published: 12:56 pm, April 7th, 2022 - 151 comments

The Green Party has published a reasonable plan to make renting more affordable for low income New Zealanders. There’s nothing extreme-communist-scary here, it’s well within the values of the NZ electorate.

Water and Money

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:26 am, April 7th, 2022 - 20 comments

If the 3 Waters reforms can survive its attacks and be implemented, a consequence will be that we are going to have a most enormous nationwide economic argument about the price of water and who pays for it all.

Change nothing

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:04 am, April 6th, 2022 - 15 comments

You get to a point – and Ardern must be close – where the most you can do is hang on.

Why in the middle of a pandemic an immediate change to Orange is magical thinking

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:27 am, April 5th, 2022 - 77 comments

National’s friends are in unison complaining that the Government should be announcing now when we will be back into Orange. But our exemplary performance compared to other nations suggests strongly that the Government should continue to respect the medical advice it is receiving.