political parties

Twyford and the idiocy of pacifism

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 11:30 am, October 5th, 2009 - 17 comments

I have to agree with Tim Selwyn in his criticism of Phil Twyford’s peace about Moriori pacifism. Twyford writes on Red Alert: Moriori elders told us the story of chief Nunuku who made the covenant of peace, renouncing warfare and cannibalism. Hand to hand fighting with a wooden staff was allowed but only until first […]

Bill vs Greens

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:09 am, October 5th, 2009 - 55 comments

I love that, after studiously ignoring Bill English’s housing rort, Farrar’s now got unending questions for the Greens. Pretty desperate stuff too – ‘sure, you paid the money back of your own accord after you yourselves discovered you had over-claimed but why did it take so long? huh?! huh?!’. Hilariously, he claims that the superannuation fund […]

English could learn from the Greens

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 5:18 pm, October 4th, 2009 - 116 comments

The Greens have a superannuation fund. That’s fine. It has investments in a couple of houses. That’s fine. The Green MPs have to rent somewhere to live when they’re in Wellington. They claim the out of town allowance to cover those costs, which is what the allowance is for. So, that’s fine. Three of the […]

Caption Competition

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 3:53 pm, October 1st, 2009 - 57 comments

Talk about politics

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 8:47 pm, September 29th, 2009 - 28 comments

RNZ’s Kathryn Ryan talks to Matthew Hooton and Andrew Campbell about the failures of Key’s trip to NYC, English’s terminal status and contenders to replace him, and Green leadership. Hooton’s dispirited ‘defences’ of Key and English speak volumes. From yesterday but still relevant for a while yet.

Legal vs. Moral

Written By: r0b - Date published: 8:48 am, September 28th, 2009 - 66 comments

There’s an old lawyer joke: “When the facts are on your side, bang the facts. When the law’s on your side, bang the law. When you’ve got neither, bang the table”. National have a similar tactic, of banging on legal vs. moral tests as it suits them. When sacking Richard Worth, Key was at great […]

Billalice in Wonderwelly

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 8:04 am, September 27th, 2009 - 4 comments

Things must be getting decidedly trippy for Deputy PM Bill English about now, and not in a good way. While his glorious leader is off overseas playing the Jester Statesman, back home Bill’s future is looking gloomier by the day. With the Auditor General looking into English‘s Krishna-like claims of being able to exist in […]

David Clendon

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:00 pm, September 25th, 2009 - 14 comments

Following Sue Bradford’s resignation, next into Parliament on the Greens’ list is David Clendon, an Auckland business advisor and lecturer in resource management of Pakeha and Ngapuhi me Te Roroa descent. As the Greens’ candidate in Helensville last year, Clendon won more candidate votes (6%) than the Greens won party votes (4.9%) . Not a […]

Stupid hypocritical ACE cuts

Written By: r0b - Date published: 11:16 am, September 25th, 2009 - 8 comments

Night classes – Adult and Community Education (ACE). An incredibly cost effective and valuable part of the NZ education sector for decades. The ACE budget has been eviscerated by National, cut from $16m to $3m. Effectively a death blow, most of the infrastructure and expertise will go. Right from the start reaction has been strong […]

Secret ballots for strikes

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:47 am, September 25th, 2009 - 60 comments

Tau Henare has put a private members’ bill in the ballot that would require ballots by union members on strike action to be held in secret. Henare draws on his memories from the 1980s as a union organiser and reckons that open ballots are used to intimidate workers into toeing the line. Well, maybe it […]

Chauvel on the ETS

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 4:54 pm, September 24th, 2009 - 35 comments

In his speech as Labour climate change spokesperson, Charles Chauvel confirmed the new information on the ETS that Jeanette Fitzsimons revealed today. It was a pretty good speech, especially the conclusion: “Labour will have no option but to repeal these changes when next in power. We could have had a broad-based, bipartisan, sustainable ETS but National […]

Building constituencies

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:31 pm, September 24th, 2009 - 5 comments

On Tuesday, both Sue Kedgley and Sue Moroney tabled petitions in Parliament with over 15,000 signatures, on food standards in schools and pay equity respectively. That’s an incredible achievement. Most petitions get a few hundred, maybe a thousand signatures. Generally, not a lot of organising energy goes into getting signatures for them because, frankly, they […]

Banning smoking

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:44 am, September 24th, 2009 - 69 comments

I have a lot of respect for Hone Harawira. The voting for a Tory government thing has lessened it but his hatred for the tobacco companies balances things out. Harawira wants smoking banned. Says he would love to whip or worse the smoking company bosses (you know they cut the price of cigarettes during the recession so […]

Get it in writing

Written By: r0b - Date published: 11:05 pm, September 23rd, 2009 - 49 comments

Watching the Maori Party get done over by National is getting painful. The MP thought they had a good faith dialogue on the issue of Maori seats on the Auckland Council, but before the select committee process was even finished Key announced that there would be no seats. The MP abandoned all its environmental principles […]

Understanding political behaviour

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 11:30 am, September 22nd, 2009 - 34 comments

It seems political scientists could learn a thing or two from anthropologists after all. “Neanderthals were not the gentle, almost-human creatures portrayed in the media over the last 50 years…“ No surprises there mate.

Bullying the media

Written By: r0b - Date published: 6:21 am, September 22nd, 2009 - 15 comments

National are up to their old tricks again – bullying the media to try and shut down critical comment. This time the culprit is Bill English, lashing out* at those who are covering the story of his ongoing hypocrisy and greed: Radio New Zealand’s political editor reports that Mr English rang journalists from TVNZ and […]

Nats’ ETS a polluters’ charter

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:26 am, September 21st, 2009 - 6 comments

Rod Oram, as usual, has set the standard in commentary with his piece on the National-Maori Party ETS. The full article is here but I’ll lift the core points: Oram argues a climate change policy package needs three things: Put a price on emissions to incentivise change. We chose an ETS as the most effective […]

A long time between drinks

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 8:20 am, September 21st, 2009 - 22 comments

The latest Roy Morgan poll puts National down 5% and Labour up 4%. Still a big gap, but it seems at last New Zealanders’ patience is waning over this Government’s competence and honesty issues.

Lyndon on ACT

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 18th, 2009 - 19 comments

Found this gem at Fighting Talk. Lyndon Hood examines the act of leaking. Lyndon Hood: Act Doesn’t Feel Climate Heat Click to enlarge The Act party, in their minority report on the recent review of the emissions trading scheme, have argued that man-made global warming should not be considered a threat. Because they know better. […]

Nick Smith’s dirty dealing

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:33 am, September 18th, 2009 - 8 comments

Labour’s Charles Chauvel has released the paper records of Labour’s attempts to agree a bi-partisan ETS with National. In total, Labour presented three draft MOUs detailing possible agreements, each moving towards what they believed to be National’s position. Additionally, there was a letter from Phil Goff to John Key a month ago that clearly laid […]

“What else can I do?”, asks Blinky Bill.

Written By: John A - Date published: 8:20 am, September 18th, 2009 - 13 comments

We told him here months ago – acknowledge what everybody knows: that he lives in Wellington with his family, and he should claim the out-of-town allowance when he visits Dipton. That would be the honest thing to do. Bill says there is a perception problem, and he’s right – but the problem is entirely his. […]

The bigots beneath

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:38 am, September 17th, 2009 - 39 comments

Last night, Sandra Goudie, the big-mouth of the National Party caucus, said the words out loud that the Nats usually keep in their heads. During the debate on the Supercity, one of the Labour MPs was talking about the success of Maori seats in the Bay of Plenty and how other councillors didn’t object. Goudie […]

I don’t know if it hurts my eyes or my heart more

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 5:06 pm, September 16th, 2009 - 55 comments

WTF is this? I mean look at it. It’s got to be the worst website I have ever seen and I’ve been around since well before the web existed. More to the point, how did this get up? What kind of process could possibly have let this through? Who signed off on it? I wouldn’t […]

Short term thinkers

Written By: r0b - Date published: 1:30 pm, September 16th, 2009 - 27 comments

It never ceases to amaze me what short term thinkers National are. The plan (with the Maori Party) to gut the ETS highlights this issue very starkly. For the sake of short term appeasement of their backers in the polluting industries National are prepared to abandon the much more important long term considerations. Considerations like […]

Taxpayer shafted again

Written By: r0b - Date published: 3:53 pm, September 15th, 2009 - 52 comments

National seems to be making a bit of a habit of shafting the taxpayer. Before the election we were promised significant tax cuts, “North of $50” per week. We had John Key’s personal guarantee. Key said “New Zealanders will be able to believe our tax cuts, they will be able to trust our tax cuts…”. […]

Labour Grasps Nettle: Nettles Usually Sting

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 12:30 pm, September 15th, 2009 - 29 comments

By Rob Salmond It sounds like Phil G did a great job at Labour’s conference setting out where the party should go from here. Unfortunately, his KISS message didn’t get to all attendees. Labour apparently now wants to propose modifications to MMP, including more electorate MPs, fewer list MPs, a lower threshold, and getting rid […]

No deal

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 11:16 am, September 15th, 2009 - 22 comments

Hot Topic has obtained a copy of a draft memorandum of understanding for a meeting on the ETS that was meant to take place today. It shows that Labour was prepared to do more to help compensate polluters for the costs they would have faced while still paying a price for polluting, thereby still incentivising reductions […]

Kaupapa for sale

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 9:08 am, September 15th, 2009 - 6 comments

A few important passages from the special select committee report on the Emissions Trading Scheme: In the long term, price caps stand in the way of market development and shield business from the real price of carbon to the economy…[National and United Future] recommend to the Government that if a short-term price cap is introduced, […]

Maori Party to help Nats kill carbon emissions cap

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 5:15 pm, September 14th, 2009 - 78 comments

Nick Smith has just announced a deal with the Maori Party to replace the existing Emissions Trading Scheme with a do-nothing joke. The new ETS will allocate polluting rights (carbon credits) free to polluters for the first years and then at a low capped price thereafter. Agriculture, source of 50% of our greenhouse pollution, will not be […]

Condoms and democracy

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:30 pm, September 14th, 2009 - 36 comments

Have to disagree with Zet’s call for Labour to ‘just put it away‘ on the remit to conference calling for subsidised condoms in shops to help reduce unplanned pregnancies and our high rate of sexually transmitted diseases. Sure, if Labour were putting it up as a policy priority there might be an argument. I’m completely […]

Close the loopholes

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 11:30 am, September 14th, 2009 - 30 comments

I am heartened that Phil Goff is trying to work with the Government to address over-investment in residential property. However, I think a capital gains tax is the wrong way to go about it. In my view, the rush to get on the rental property bandwagon is the single biggest problem facing the New Zealand […]