political parties

Car crushing fist of the State

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 12:45 pm, February 3rd, 2009 - 32 comments

Despite being remarkably quiet throughout a spate of serious police controversies, Police Minister Judith Collins has finally risen to the challenge of leadership over the so-called Boy Racer issue. Collins has suggested crushing the impounded cars of those deemed to be acting like ‘Boy Racers’ in reaction to a Christchurch incident last week when a […]

No room for Roger

Written By: Tane - Date published: 11:45 am, February 2nd, 2009 - 8 comments

Roger Kerr from the Business Roundtable is full of advice for the Government’s upcoming jobs summit in today’s Dom Post. Which is unfortunate for Rog’, because according to my sources he won’t be getting an invite. Neither will Alasdair Thompson, the mildly unhinged chief executive of EMA Northern who famously lost his rag against Trevor […]

New Left blog

Written By: Tane - Date published: 10:50 am, February 2nd, 2009 - Comments Off on New Left blog

Dread Times, a new blog by former Green MP Nandor Tanczos. Hat tip: No Right Turn.

So what’s the plan again?

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 5:15 pm, February 1st, 2009 - 15 comments

Labour got a fair amount of mileage during the election campaign out of harassing National about its lack of distinct policy. I guess that’s kind of forgivable of National in some ways, for reasons we won’t go in to again. But now National are in Government I still can’t help thinking their policy direction is […]

Identity Politics

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 1:15 pm, January 31st, 2009 - 10 comments

In 2007 Te Ata Tino Toa applied to Tranzit New Zealand to have the Maori Sovereignty flag flown on the Auckland Harbour Bridge on Waitangi Day. Tranzit declined permission on the grounds that it wasn’t a UN recognized national flag, despite having previously flown the Team New Zealand flag, which would have failed the same […]

Fonterra’s Corporate Accountability

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 6:00 pm, January 29th, 2009 - 33 comments

Despite very serious allegations from former Sanlu CEO Tian Wenhua that an unnamed Fonterra board member influenced her decision to not cease production of milk powder known to be contaminated, on RNZ’s Checkpoint Fonterra Chairman Henry van der Hayden was adamant Fonterra would not be disclosing documentation to prove it advised Sanlu only a 0% melamine content […]

Thank God somebody’s awake at Granny Herald

Written By: John A - Date published: 11:12 am, January 29th, 2009 - 32 comments

Surprise, surprise, it’s Garth George. “The economic situation is without a doubt the most urgent of predicaments to be dealt with, but so far this year all John Key and Co have offered is a talkfest scheduled for next month. Now we all know that the one thing that one does these days when one […]

The Neo-Liberal Front

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 3:00 pm, January 28th, 2009 - 76 comments

National’s two main internal factions consist of the Conservatives, and the Neo-Liberals. Overall the Conservatives want to keep things pretty much as they are, and with such an inspiring reason for being it’s hardly surprising their star has waned over the last couple of decades. The Neo-Liberal camp has a different agenda. Like the Conservatives […]

Conservatism and Progressivism

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 3:30 pm, January 27th, 2009 - 99 comments

Conservatism is all about maintaining the status quo. It assumes that the status quo is essentially ok, while change is best avoided. The idea comes from philosophers like Edmund Burke who figured the reason conventions and structures get to endure in the first place is because they work. Of course if you’re in the middle […]

Worrying, or what I did with my holidays

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 12:47 pm, January 26th, 2009 - 59 comments

I’ve meaning to write a wee post thanking Young Labour for inviting me along to speak at their Summer School the other weekend. I’m told it’s a bit of a tradition at these summer schools to have some speakers from outside the party to give a different perspective, which is a bloody good idea. Falling […]

A topic for the NACT talk-fest. Needs a slogan for success.

Written By: lprent - Date published: 7:43 am, January 15th, 2009 - 13 comments

My favourite indicator for a deep recession is showing up. The applications and enrollments for colleges and graduate programs appears to be significantly up in the east, west, and south of the US and Canada. Probably something similar is happening here but we are unlikely to know until later this month. The reason that this […]

Imperfect but far better than the alternative

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 3:55 pm, January 14th, 2009 - 11 comments

It’s good to see Kiwipolitico taking a critical view of the Left from the Left – it’s certainly better than any critiques we see from the Right. And, naturally, within the Left we disagree at times, which is all good and healthy. In that spirit, I thought I would respond to two posts on Kiwipolitico […]

National’s first hundred days of (in)action

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 8:29 am, January 14th, 2009 - 22 comments

Splits and divisions

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 1:53 pm, January 7th, 2009 - 57 comments

Which MP only got his job by 39 votes? Which former State house kid and brand-new Tory MP already has ambitions to be the next John Key? Which National MP from a working-class background is going around telling people he opposes the 90 Day Fire at Will law and thinks rushing it through was a […]

A real alternative

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 5:15 pm, December 24th, 2008 - 21 comments

One of Bruce Jesson’s constant bugbears during the New Right revolution of the 80’s and 90’s was that the Left allowed itself to be positioned as conservative. That we were simply fighting for the status quo rather than providing a proper progressive alternative to the imported market ideology that was being foist upon us. He […]

Labour’s maiden speeches

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 10:35 am, December 23rd, 2008 - 8 comments

Rather than decorating their tree, some committed Labour Party staffer seems still to be hard at work posting maiden speeches to YouTube. The Greens have theirs up too [link].

Prison tucker

Written By: Tane - Date published: 1:09 pm, December 19th, 2008 - 57 comments

When I saw this photo of Pita Sharples tucking into a prison meal in today’s Dom Post I was hopeful it was a stunt to try and put a stop to the mean-spirited howls from talkbackland over how prisoners have it too good at Christmas time. But what a difference a ministerial warrant and the […]

Gratitude

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 4:49 pm, December 17th, 2008 - 39 comments

I haven’t commented on the maiden speeches yet (we’re doing some analysis later) but I can’t let this stand. Aaron Gilmore, the bottom-ranked National List MP who got in by 39 votes, is having his maiden speech. He started by remembering growing up in a state house, going to school, a teacher giving him some lunch. […]

Shameful

Written By: Tane - Date published: 5:08 pm, December 15th, 2008 - 79 comments

And so the Maori Party’s sell-out of its own people continues. Hot on the heels of the party’s vote to take money out of the pockets of the poor to pay for tax cuts for the rich, this morning’s Dominion Post reports: Green Party MP Mitiria Turei has accused the Maori Party of disgraceful behaviour […]

Judith Collins – thoughtless idiot

Written By: lprent - Date published: 11:34 am, December 14th, 2008 - 28 comments

Nothing is quite as important to a democracy as activist groups that engage in peaceful protest for change. In the past these are the groups that have worked for extending the franchise (including to woman), establishing the rights of workers in employer/employee relationships, the abolition of slavery, campaigned for sewerage systems and clean water reticulation, […]

Keith Rankin: Controversy over National’s Tax Cuts

Written By: Dancer - Date published: 2:18 pm, December 12th, 2008 - 5 comments

If you’re feeling lost in the discussion around National’s tax plans there’s handy analysis from Keith Rankin who point out: … persons earning between $14,000 and $24,000 will receive annual tax cuts of less than $100. They will receive nothing before 2011. This contrasts with Labour’s already legislated for tax cuts, from 2010, which target this group […]

National’s abuse of Parliamentary process

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 2:24 pm, December 11th, 2008 - 7 comments

Audrey Young writes on her blog that National would do well to heed the opinion of the Human Rights Commission who have today spoken out against National’s decision to rush through a number of pieces of important legislation under urgency – denying them proper scrutiny. She points out that this is the very same Commission National […]

Tax increases into law

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 11:15 am, December 11th, 2008 - 46 comments

The tax bill has just been passed into law. The Maori Party voted for it. They also voted against the Cullen amendment that would have created a tax credit to cancel ou the tax increase on low income workers. Te Ururoa didn’t show up to Backbenches. I haven’t heard a single Maori Party MP defend […]

Maori Party does the right thing

Written By: Tane - Date published: 10:30 am, December 11th, 2008 - 4 comments

Well, it’s a relief to see that while the Maori Party might have voted to take money out of the pockets of the poor to pay for tax cuts for the rich, they’ve at least held the line on protecting our work rights by rejecting National’s fire at will bill. Pita Sharples hits the nail […]

The prideful cowards

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 3:00 pm, December 10th, 2008 - 24 comments

So far, the Maori Party has refused to take its opportunities to contribute to the debate on the tax bill before Parliament. They have just sat meekly and voted for National/ACT’s Bill. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see anything ‘mana-enhancing’ (to use a phrase from the National-Maori support agreement) about voting for a […]

Will Hone keep his oath?

Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 10:25 am, December 10th, 2008 - 22 comments

Yesterday, the MPs were sworn in. After the section ‘pledge true allegiance to Queen Elizabeth the Second, her heirs and successors, according to law’, some of the Maori Party MPs (reading the oath in Maori) inserted, ‘and the Treaty’. They were asked to repeat the allegiance without the reference to the Treaty. Hone Harawira went […]

Courting the ethnic vote

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 5:58 pm, December 9th, 2008 - 31 comments

I’ve just watched the first part of the Address in Reply debate which included maiden speeches by two new National Party MPs – Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga and Melissa Lee. They were impressive. This in itself should provide some cause for concern for Labour but more ominous should be the signal that while this year’s election […]

Kia kaha

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 1:55 pm, December 9th, 2008 - 34 comments

The Greens have joined in opposing National’s “Fire at Will” Bill which they say puts “jobs and democracy at stake”. They’re calling on the Maori Party to stand strong in its previous opposition to the bill. Only two years ago Hone Harawira said when voting against it: [O]ur journey with this bill has not been an […]

Treasury – Labour left us in good shape

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:23 pm, December 5th, 2008 - 17 comments

Treasury’s briefing to Bill English as the new Minister of Finance must’ve pissed him off big time. Aside from the expected ideological burp (already covered in depth by No Right Turn) it reads like a long list of Labour achievements and calls on National is reign in its irresponsible promises. Here’s a taste of some […]

ACT snaps up Hollow Men star

Written By: Tane - Date published: 1:50 pm, December 1st, 2008 - 5 comments

The Sunday Star Times reported yesterday that ACT had “snapped up” former Brash advisor Peter Keenan, one of the lead stars of Nicky Hager’s The Hollow Men. The Hollow Men revealed, among other things, that Mr Keenan counselled Dr Brash to campaign on populist issues such as law and order and the Treaty of Waitangi […]

Act lied and gets away with it

Written By: lprent - Date published: 2:21 pm, November 30th, 2008 - 11 comments

At the Media Law Journal, Wellington based media lawyer Steven Price has been looking at the recent decisions of the Advertising Standards Complaint Board (a self-regulatory body) related to the election. There are a series of them and the decisions are weird. More importantly they are ineffectual in the great tradition of industry self-regulatory bodies. […]