political parties

Time for the Goffice to step up to the plate

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:36 am, January 29th, 2011 - 137 comments

We face a stark choice this year: a Labour-led government, which will create fairer tax and invest in jobs and innovation, or National-led government, which will govern for the kleptocracy, giving them tax cuts, then selling our assets and slashing our public services to pay for them. So why is the Goffice doing such a bad job making the case?

Contact Energy: A Case Study

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 6:01 am, January 29th, 2011 - 65 comments

We could look at bailed-out TranzRail and Air NZ, with privatisation leading to risk-free pay-outs for the temporary owners of infrastructure that couldn’t be allowed to fail. Or Telecom that doesn’t look out for NZers interests, and needs us to pay for it to build us a fibre network. But let’s look at the “success” story of Contact, the closest privatisation to National’s new plans.

Hone and the lawyers

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 5:45 pm, January 27th, 2011 - 21 comments

The Maori Party has budgeted $22,000 for legal advice regarding the complaint made against Hone Harawira for stating the obvious, and hired Mai Chen to boot, to coin a phrase. Chen has pointed to the decision in Peters v Collinge where Justice Fisher stated that disciplinary matters were political issues and all that was required […]

Pride cometh

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 7:41 am, January 27th, 2011 - 17 comments

Senior Maori Party staffers have been deserting the party in droves in recent months, including chief of staff Harry Walker, repulsed by the leadership selling out to National. It’s gotten so bad that they’ve had to out-source their spin doctoring to the Tories. You think I’m joking? I wish. This illuminates Hone Harawira’s fight with the leadership.

National’s Impending Swingeing Cuts

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 2:42 pm, January 26th, 2011 - 31 comments

Whilst John Key’s raising of privatisation is the first focus of his State of the Nation speech, perhaps equally as important is his intention for swingeing cuts to public services. Health and Education will have to pay higher wages from the same budget, but the likes of Police, Justice, Conservation and Social Services can expect cuts of more than 10%.

States of the nation

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:40 am, January 26th, 2011 - 29 comments

It’s not radical, it’s not revolutionary but Phil Goff has laid out a positive, progressive, and affordable vision that contrasts with John Key’s directionless, lazy leadership. It seems to be popular. The PM’s state of the nation is expected to contain an interesting savings policy but always the question is: cue bono?

Phil Goff’s State of the Nation

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 3:22 pm, January 25th, 2011 - 203 comments

Phil Goff has just delivered an excellent speech to start a year of laying out Labour Policy. $100/week tax free, stopping tax-dodging bludgers, support for R&D and exporters, correcting housing market anomalies and encouraging investment in the productive sector. There was a lot to like.

Why are Turia & Sharples cuddling up to Key?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:53 am, January 25th, 2011 - 22 comments

At this stage in the electoral cycle, government support parties are usually looking to try to differentiate themselves from the main governing party. They need to do this to show they still hold true to their own values and have a separate identity that is worth voting for. The Maori Party is doing to opposite.

Good day at Ratana

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 6:21 pm, January 24th, 2011 - 40 comments

A good day at Ratana today with the Labour party delegation led by Phil Goff and Annette King. For me personally, it was good to see and chat with many old friends. I and others also received a very warm welcome from Tariana Turia on the paepae. Labour and Ratana go back a very long […]

Nats’ Botany Selections

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 1:45 pm, January 21st, 2011 - 60 comments

The National Party head office have culled the eight people they don’t like and left five to contest Botany.

It’s Maggie Barry vs Jami-Lee Ross and three others.

Hone’s motives grow murkier

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:37 am, January 21st, 2011 - 17 comments

Why did Hone Harawira pick a fight if he wasn’t prepared to see it out? One News last night had him saying he wants to stay with the Maori Party. Patrick Gower reckons Hone’s assault on the leadership is all about building cred to take over next year but Hone’s saying he would support Te Ururoa Flavell for male co-leader. Curiouser and curiouser.

Granny sez: f**k the kids

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 7:23 am, January 21st, 2011 - 151 comments

It’s always so wonderful to load up Granny Herald and see some wealthy late middle-aged grump (I’m picking this one is John Roughan) taking a swipe at the poor in the editorial. Today, Granny says we can’t afford to give mums more paid leave or more Working for Families for young kids. Hmm. But we can still afford those tax cuts for the rich?

Privatising Infrastructure by Stealth

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 3:07 pm, January 20th, 2011 - 16 comments

Government IT projects are easy to take aim at, but this isn’t a hit at their lack of thinking or actions on UFB.

This is about them privatising their entire computing systems, preferably without being noticed; paying the least they can to a corporation to take care of your most personal data.

Hone the victim or the playmaker?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:44 am, January 20th, 2011 - 106 comments

Hone Harawira is many things but stupid isn’t one of them. He has cleverly created a situation where Tariana Turia and her lackeys have had to attack him for daring to speak truth to power. It’s Hone who has been the protagonist. It’s he who has fronted to the media while Turia has hidden. He’s been planning this and he knows how it will play out.

Maori Party MPs turn on Hone

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:56 am, January 19th, 2011 - 101 comments

On Sunday and Monday, Hone Harawira gave very cogent and candid assessments of where the Maori Party has gone wrong by losing connection with its ideals and base. By the standards of mainstream parties it was extraordinarly blunt and appeared to be a challenge to Tariana Turia. But the Maori Party can be and should be different, eh? Seems not. Hone’s four fellow MPs have laid a complaint against him.

New Zealand’s Electoral Wild Card

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 10:34 am, January 18th, 2011 - 26 comments

Will New Zealand First get back into Parliament after the election? If they do, it changes everything. A range of new governing coalitions become possible – both National and Labour-led. Can the Left trust Winston Peters to side with Labour over National? Could a Left+NZF government work? Jenny looks at the issues.

Hone: Maori Party has lost its way

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:30 am, January 18th, 2011 - 61 comments

Wow. The first edition of Hone Harawira’s new opinion column in the Sunday Star Times is a jaw-dropping read. He frankly states the party has sold out it values for cabinet seats – put coalition before kaupapa. It’s a brazen attack on Tariana Turia, and confirmation he intends to stay with the Maori Party and, some day, lead it back to its roots.

Labour’s Greatest Challenge for 2011 – consistency

Written By: Campbell - Date published: 7:45 pm, January 16th, 2011 - 23 comments

Recently, I did a post on how Labour should be focused on creating an over-arching narrative that embodies its broad set of policies. This should make Labour’s vision loud and clear in election year. While Labour continues to rebuild policy, I have a number of ideas on how Labour could best deliver a new narrative […]

Old guard moving on, really?

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:35 am, January 16th, 2011 - 34 comments

A strange little article in the Sunday-Star Times praises National’s ‘rejuvenation’ project. Well, excuse me but 3 MPs out of 53 announcing their retirement and 2 quitting under clouds of corruption during a term hardly equals rejuvenation. In fact, National faces the same problem that Labour did – too little turnover.

Botany & Titbits

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 1:26 pm, January 14th, 2011 - 28 comments

The New Citizen Party is going to contest Botany, and aims to get at least 6 MPs in the general election. They will be the surprise force in Botany, with no-one knowing quite where to place them.

Also, Sandra Goudie is to retire.

English Confident Voters Gullible

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 1:05 pm, January 10th, 2011 - 34 comments

Blinglish is confident that voters understand the economy and back the government’s (lack of) direction. In fact he better hope that voters don’t understand the economy, or notice National’s lack of help to an economy shedding jobs and headed into double-dip recession, or he won’t get voted back in.

Labour’s greatest challenge for 2011?

Written By: Campbell - Date published: 12:04 pm, January 9th, 2011 - 59 comments

The Sunday Star-Times has produced an interesting article on the role of emotion in people’s voter choices leading into this year’s General Election. While the results are not great news for Labour supporters, it’s the first poll of its kind to be made public in NZ. There’s a lot of controversy over whether we ought […]

How bad’s the poll?

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:12 pm, January 8th, 2011 - 59 comments

Farrar and Slater are trying to knee-cap a poll in the SST tomorrow. They know the numbers because Key’s office told them. Obviously jittered. Slater says it has NZF at 8.9%. Movement of ipredict stocks suggest its bad news for Nats and Labour. If Nats are in mid-40s then they’re in danger territory. Very hard for them to find a majority.

The state is MY servant

Written By: lprent - Date published: 1:14 pm, January 2nd, 2011 - 25 comments

Why in the hell should I carry a passport or a birth certificate for the benefit of the state? There is no reason that I can see, but at least one DHB thinks that I should because it makes their life easier. If they want proof of citizenship or resident status then they should be prepared to pay for it themselves rather than throwing the onus to prove status onto us. If the government wants to introduce a requirement to carry identity papers then they should debate this in the political arena rather than trying to sneak it in through the back door.

More Government Christmas Crackers

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 2:59 pm, December 23rd, 2010 - 2 comments

The government’s hoping-to-be-ignored Christmas announcements continue. They’re shockingly cancelling payouts to care-giving relatives of disabled adults, diverting the dodgy PEDA funding and investigating the Auckland central rail tunnel. Look over there – there’s Santa!

Last Roy Morgan of the year

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:00 pm, December 22nd, 2010 - 37 comments

It’s First Past the Post thinking to look at the polling gap between National and Labour and conclude National will romp home. MMP is here and set to stay – it means the coalition with the support of a majority of MPs governs, not necessarily the largest party. The final Roy Morgan of the year lets us look at the trends in support for Left and Right.

Straw Men

Written By: Bunji - Date published: 11:40 am, December 22nd, 2010 - 11 comments

On ACC, National are running out their favourite tactic again – the Straw Man.

We see it regularly with every highly-paid “Working Group” they establish. They choose the participants to make sure they get the ideas they want to implement, plus a bit more. Then they cleave off the extra bits to look “moderate”.

Student freedom

Written By: r0b - Date published: 8:34 am, December 22nd, 2010 - 109 comments

National and Act are attacking student unions. The cover story is freedom of association, but it’s bollocks, freedom of association is already protected. Without the unions students will still have to pay. But they will lose the rich social and cultural heritage of the unions, lose the learning experiences that the unions provide, and lose their independence. Hey students – does that sound like a good deal to you?

State asset for sale

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 8:30 am, December 21st, 2010 - 39 comments

Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee has waited, until after the year-end press gallery drinks, to announce that the state owned Whirinaki power plant will be sold by tender process. The Government talks about having our interests at heart, but the truth is that it is selling off the family silver again. And slippery John Key is doing it while we’re focussed on Christmas.

Wikileaks NZ cables

Written By: r0b - Date published: 10:03 am, December 19th, 2010 - 53 comments

Odd timing as everyone powers down for Christmas, but The Herald has published the NZ Wikileaks cables. A rather far fetched attack on Clark (covered by Eddie yesterday), the Nats breaking promises and misleading Parliament. But if that’s the worst in the cables then I’m guessing that politicians on both sides, past and present, will be vastly relieved.

NIWA vs the nutters

Written By: lprent - Date published: 7:32 am, December 19th, 2010 - 19 comments

NIWA has had some of their data, methodology, and results checked by the aussies. As expected by anyone who knows something about the subject, they came back with substantially the same result. For the others like the nutters at the CSC and their political allies – well I can just see another conspiracy theory arising…