political parties

On Auckland and Leningrad

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 3:36 pm, May 24th, 2009 - 17 comments

The modern blitzkrieg [lightning war] was first tested in the Spanish civil war, refined in the invasions of European states that marked the beginning of WWII, and applied successfully in more recent invasions in the Middle East. A blitzkrieg’s success comes from the speed of its prosecution, from which it gets it name. The speed of a blitzkrieg gives attackers […]

Smoke ’em out

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 8:00 am, May 24th, 2009 - 24 comments

Let’s give Brash his inquiry. The poor demented shell of a man thinks there’s some great conspiracy against him. He’s so deluded he even thinks the Police are biased against National. That’s why they couldn’t find who ‘stole’ his emails. I’ll tell you why no-one can find who ‘stole’ his emails. They weren’t stolen. Say what […]

Caption competition

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 4:30 pm, May 22nd, 2009 - 40 comments

Nat MPs distancing themselves from Super City

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:20 pm, May 22nd, 2009 - 29 comments

Remember – March against National’s undemocratic supercity Monday 25th, noon, Queen St [More info] National’s Paul Hutchison, whose Hunua electorate lies in Franklin, has written a piece with Mark Ball, the mayor of Franklin, in today’s Herald. The sum of it: Supercity yes, but leave Franklin out of it. Funny because ‘leave me out of […]

Less firing, more hiring

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 11:58 am, May 22nd, 2009 - 8 comments

The Herald reports today that TVNZ fired 90 employees following a letter from Broadcasting Minister Johnathan Coleman demanding that it raise its profitability. This follows similar cuts at the Ministry of Social development, Ministry for the Environment, Tertiary Education Commission. There look likely to be hundreds or thousands of job losses as a result of […]

National’s “supercity” policy lies

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 9:38 am, May 22nd, 2009 - 8 comments

Remember – March against National’s undemocractic supercity Monday 25th, noon, Queen St Interesting to look back at National’s local government and Auckland policy before the election. Their 2005 policy was still up on their web site in early 2008: National will advance local government reorganisation on a case-by-case basis. We do not subscribe to the view that big […]

On the back foot

Written By: Dancr - Date published: 4:07 pm, May 19th, 2009 - 1 comment

When a Government are having to defend their actions they are not setting the agenda, Given it is a week before National’s first budget the ‘Rankin’ situation is not what they will be wanting. But as the previous Government illustrated, it’s not getting into a mess that matters – it’s how you get out: NZ Herald […]

Teflon off: Key gets a mauling at Press Conference

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 4:32 pm, May 18th, 2009 - 33 comments

John Key’s performance at this afternoon’s 4pm Press Conference was impressive. I’ve never heard so many, ‘don’t knows’, denials, ‘I can’t tell yous’, prevarications and equivocations in a press conference before. You wonder why he bothered to even turn up, he could’ve just sent along a billboard with ‘No Comment’ on it for all the […]

1600 Dead Again

Written By: RedLogix - Date published: 1:52 pm, May 17th, 2009 - 34 comments

Each year and every year, around 1600 New Zealanders die prematurely because we live in cold damp houses. This “excess winter death rate” is four times higher than the road toll. They die, most especially the young, unwell, disabled and elderly, of respiratory illnesses, strokes and heart attacks because far too much of our housing […]

The Maori Party’s commitment to democracy

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:46 pm, May 16th, 2009 - 60 comments

In an epic last-ditch defence of Aucklanders’ right to be consulted on the removal of their democracy, Labour and the Greens are currently filibustering the government’s enabling legislation in Parliament by forcing a vote on thousands of new amendments. Their objective is simple, they want to get the bill off to a select committee and […]

One of these things is not like the other V

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 8:44 pm, May 15th, 2009 - 14 comments

One of these things is not like the other One of these things is not quite the same. Can you guess which one is not like the other Can you tell me before I finish the game?

The Green New Deal

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:58 pm, May 15th, 2009 - 12 comments

The Greens have released their Green New Deal (PDF), which they hope the Government will pick up in part or in whole. It looks like a comprehensive plan to boost employment and the economy in the short-term and, just as importantly, build a green economy for the future. It leaves everything we’ve seen from this lazy do-nothing […]

Has anyone asked them what they think now?

Written By: lprent - Date published: 12:46 pm, May 15th, 2009 - 7 comments

Moana Mackey has been looking at old Hansards in a post on Red Alert. The topic was the Local Government Act changes in 2002. It is a revealing look at the change of attitude by National MP’s on the process of consultation for local government changes. A couple of examples: Phil Heatley: I was disturbed […]

Few sandwiches short of a picnic

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:42 pm, May 14th, 2009 - 20 comments

This, I swear, is a complete and unedited press release from Roger Douglas. A Recipe To Grow The Economic Cake -Hon Sir Roger Douglas Thursday, May 14 2009 Yield: An equitable serving for all Ingredients 2½ cup Productivity 1½ cup Fiscal Responsibility 1 cup Sound Infrastructure Investment 6 eggs Full of Savings 3/4 cup Free […]

Kiwibob-each-way on Melissa’s video

Written By: John A - Date published: 7:33 pm, May 14th, 2009 - 13 comments

Interesting comment on Melissa from Kiwiblog’s Farrar: There is also the issue of the video produced by her before the election, placed on You Tube. I haven’t covered that in detail yet because so far I can’t see anywhere what Melissa has done wrong – my stance will change if such details emerge. Not exactly […]

I can see South Auckland from my house! An interview with Melissa Lee

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 5:44 pm, May 14th, 2009 - 16 comments

Did your company use NZ On Air money to produce a National Party promotional video? Look, I didn’t keep records of who was working on what when and it doesn’t work like that the only people who have a problem are disgruntled employees but they were volunteers and we were having fun so it doesn’t […]

“An indecent assault on numeracy”

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 3:05 pm, May 14th, 2009 - Comments Off on “An indecent assault on numeracy”

Over at Public Address Keith Ng has a great post up on Labour and National’s tax regimes. Pretty graphs, accessible analysis and a DPF slap-down – what more could you ask for?

Stand up for pay equity

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 11:21 am, May 14th, 2009 - 2 comments

Green MP Catherine Delahunty is running an e-card campaign to support public sector pay equity after National announced it would be cancelling pay equity reviews and sacking the team responsible for them. It’s a stark reminder that nothing has really changed since National dumped pay equity legislation immediately after taking office in 1990. You can […]

Will your house get bulldozed?

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 10:49 am, May 14th, 2009 - 15 comments

Labour’s just launched an interactive Google map showing National’s plans for the Waterview connection. Click the map below to check it out.

Lee down, under; about to be reborn

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 9:10 am, May 14th, 2009 - 34 comments

Melissa Lee’s recent interviews on Q+A, TV1, TV3 and RNZ proved once and for all that being able to read an autocue doesn’t mean you’re any good at handling the media. When Lee put her hand up to rob the hapless Ravi Musuku of any chance of ever being rewarded for standing in Mt Albert, I […]

Why so afraid?

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:21 pm, May 13th, 2009 - 30 comments

Labour asked for an urgent debate in the House today on the Waterview announcement. Smith denied it because the announcement hadn’t then taken place. A minute later Joyce made the announcement. Labour then asked leave of the House for an urgent question to Joyce, Brownlee denied leave. What are they so afraid of? When did […]

Melissa keeps on digging

Written By: John A - Date published: 8:31 pm, May 13th, 2009 - 15 comments

Here’s Melissa Lee explaining on Checkpoint how her staff volunteered their time to produce a video for National Party list candidates: LEE: Well we were doing a launch, you know, for the Asian campaign and I thought it might be a good, fun thing to actually have a video to put onto Youtube or Facebook, […]

The Nats’ campaign vid that you and I paid for

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 2:14 pm, May 13th, 2009 - 54 comments

I figure the very least the Nats could do after spending our money on their asian-voter campaign video is to share it with us. Strangely, I couldn’t find it on the National Party website as referenced by last night’s Campbell Live piece. Fortunately the YouTube user “NationalAsianTeam” still has their copy up – it’s embedded […]

Melissa’s election expenses returned?

Written By: John A - Date published: 10:28 am, May 13th, 2009 - 50 comments

An interesting story on TV3 last night about potential for conflict of interest relating to Asia Down Under, a broadcasting company owned by Melissa Lee which produced a political documentary during the last election. Even more interesting was what was revealed about a video about Asian candidates made for the National Party and published on […]

Hopeless

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 2:31 pm, May 11th, 2009 - 25 comments

Anyone remember Helen Clark’s announcement during Labour’s election campaign that there would be no new significant spending promises: “We have judged it not prudent at this present time to make those sort of commitments.” We’ve now got Key justifying his inevitable-looking betrayal of his campaign tax cut promises: “There’s no getting away from the fact that […]

Garrote them for shagging sheep

Written By: lprent - Date published: 9:41 am, May 10th, 2009 - 39 comments

The strange Sensible Sentencing Trust three-strikes bill put up by ACT’s David Garrett aka ‘Garrote‘ has some strange implications. Scott at Imperator Fish points out this one. Even if lawmakers could accept the principle that after three serious offences you’re a goner, getting them to agree on what those offences should be would be next […]

New Left blog

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 10:30 am, May 8th, 2009 - 19 comments

Red Alert, a blog by Labour MPs. A good idea – the blog format allows for a lot more freedom than the press release, and will hopefully them a chance to express their own personal views rather than just the official line of the party. It’ll be interesting to see how it works out. So […]

Act creates Wanganui fashion police

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:33 am, May 7th, 2009 - 54 comments

Last night, Chester Burrows’ bill allowing the council of Wanganui to ban people from wearing the insignia or symbols of any organisation they decide to call a gang was passed. No-one seriously believes banning patches will hurt gangs so we’ve just given a council tremendous unchecked power for no good reason. As Idiot Savant puts it: […]

Not my Leaders

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 1:14 pm, May 6th, 2009 - 2 comments

Hide and Banks do not strike me as the kind of men you feel safe about having too much power. They never have been and they never will be. Yet so far the ongoing review of the so called ‘Supercity Plan’ has suggested it’s only weakness is that the Lord Mayor wouldn’t have enough power. Instead, […]

Oh dear.

Written By: Tane - Date published: 4:30 pm, May 4th, 2009 - 36 comments

A while back we heard a rumour that National had already printed its billboards for the Mt Albert campaign – with Melissa Lee as the candidate. We decided not to run it. It was too implausible to think they would run the risk of doing that before they have their selection process tonight and name […]

Greens go grey

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 3:00 pm, May 4th, 2009 - 62 comments

I see Russel Norman is now describing Labour’s Mt Albert Candidate, David Shearer, as the “grey” man. Now I haven’t been around as long as I have without being able to spot a “line” and that is certainly a line, and one of the attack variety. Thing is, the Greens don’t do lines. And they […]