political parties

National’s Jami-Lee Ross problem

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:59 am, January 23rd, 2019 - 56 comments

Jami-Lee Ross has written a somewhat conciliatory facebook post which essentially confirms that he is not going to resign as an MP.

National starts political year beneficiary bashing

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:14 am, January 22nd, 2019 - 70 comments

National has kicked off the year by reverting to type and engaging in a classic example of beneficiary bashing based on a distortion of official statistics.

Housing affordability and urban form

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 3:07 pm, January 21st, 2019 - 35 comments

Hugh Pavletich thinks that Auckland’s housing crisis is because of restrictions on urban sprawl and that loosening up would be a good thing. I disagree.

Sroubek; Richie Hardcore Text Released

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 3:12 pm, January 18th, 2019 - 54 comments

The text sent by Karel Sroubek supporter Richie Hardcore has been released. Is it the knock out blow we were promised?

National shafted us with the MOM privatisation

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:20 am, January 17th, 2019 - 318 comments

Five years on how are the benefits from the Mixed Ownership Model privatisation process the last Government engaged in working out?

Beware the Ides of May

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 11:09 pm, January 15th, 2019 - 41 comments

It’s D Day for Theresa May’s Brexit plan. Will Jeremy Corbyn finally put her out of our misery?

David Seymour can’t handle criticism

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:21 am, January 14th, 2019 - 112 comments

ACT MP David Seymour has lashed out on Facebook at Dianne Khan apparently for successfully fact checking him.

National has lots of questions

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:30 am, January 12th, 2019 - 38 comments

National asked 40,000 questions of Ministers last year. This seems excessive.

New Zealand needs a Government that understands climate change

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:58 am, January 10th, 2019 - 47 comments

In an opinion piece in Stuff National Spokesperson on climate change Todd Muller has cast doubt on National agreeing to a political consensus on climate change.

Drug testing at music festivals

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:00 am, January 7th, 2019 - 18 comments

Police Minister Stuart Nash has said publicly that he wants to see all New Zealand music festivals to have drug testing kits by next summer.

National just wants to have some friends

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:55 am, January 6th, 2019 - 63 comments

National clearly needs new friends if it is to regain power. Could the nutty New Conservatives be a possibility?

Farrar criticises Genter for not solving National’s transport safety mess quickly enough

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:17 am, January 5th, 2019 - 119 comments

David Farrar has accused Julie Anne Genter of saying she can do nothing about the road safety when she said nothing of the sort.

Political punditry in 2019

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:57 am, January 4th, 2019 - 79 comments

The media has recently reviewed its predictions from last year and made a few new ones. How did it go? And what is going to happen in the next 12 months?

Matt King goes full nut job

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:00 am, December 29th, 2018 - 77 comments

National MP Matt King has claimed that Stuff has been censoring comments that are critical of the Government and that an article expressing concerns about the run down of health infrastructure, the increase in child poverty, the use of private contractors to spy on us and the inability of NZTA to properly regulate WOF inspections is “left wing claptrap”.

National’s brave new world of MOAR ROADS!

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:35 am, December 27th, 2018 - 132 comments

National has taken to criticising the Government for not building roads that had no coherent business case and no proposal to build.

An ex-insider rating of our politicians

Written By: darien fenton - Date published: 1:11 pm, December 23rd, 2018 - 26 comments

MSM and blogsters are in an orgy of “rating” and marking politicians at the moment. It seems to be based on headlines, fuck ups or not fuck ups and what those inside the Beltway deemed news. It’s not new of course. Trans-Tasman sold its ratings yearly, until they went bust last year. Every year, when […]

National’s varied response to the Thompson and Clark report

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:33 am, December 20th, 2018 - 26 comments

Simon Bridges and Gerry Brownlee have offered diametrically opposed versions of how to respond to the crisis presented by the report into Thompson and Clark’s activities.

New Zealand First or America First?

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 9:41 pm, December 19th, 2018 - 37 comments

In Washington last week Winston Peters urged America to involve itself more in the Pacific, in a speech the Prime Minister was apparently unaware of. Referring to Africa, John Bolton outlined what that involvement would mean – American interests first and only. Dangerous with the neocons in charge of the playpen.

The Eminem decision and National’s electoral return

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 4:20 pm, December 19th, 2018 - 27 comments

The Court of Appeal has determined that National should pay Eminem $225,000 for use of his music. This may create rather large legal problems for them.

Unhappy Gilmore loses to well known Union Socialist lawyer

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:31 am, December 18th, 2018 - 22 comments

Former National MP and in his imagination potentially the next Prime Minister Aaron Gilmore has reached the headlines for not paying compensation to a former employee of his company as agreed and for describing her lawyer as a well known union socialist.

The SPOTY’s 2018

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 1:10 pm, December 15th, 2018 - 39 comments

Here’s your chance to vote in the Standard’s Politician of The Year awards. The SPOTY’s are recognised worldwide as the leading indicator of political success in NZ and have been awarded annually for over two hundred years.

Now it’s your turn to prick the Thorndon Bubble, dear reader. Who’s your Politician of the Year?

Labour’s budget wellbeing objectives

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 6:46 am, December 15th, 2018 - 12 comments

The Government has announced that the next budget will include well being objectives as well as fiscal objectives.

National’s Sroubek fizzle

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:40 am, December 13th, 2018 - 159 comments

National are trying to manufacture a conspiracy out of revelations that someone who knows Karel Sroubek and has met Jacinda Ardern sent her a text.

Let it Be

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 8:44 am, December 12th, 2018 - 56 comments

Letting fees are a thing of the past. Labour’s Phil Twyford has outlawed the practice of charging tenants an upfront fee for a non existent service. It’s about fairness and it’s about time.

You’ve got to lively up yourself …

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:18 am, December 12th, 2018 - 44 comments

National have responded to the Government’s medicinal cannabis law by suggesting hordes of cancer sufferers will hang around schools smoking joints.

The Air New Zealand Industrial dispute

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:49 am, December 11th, 2018 - 53 comments

Air New Zealand has provoked industrial action from its workers by trying to wind back wages and conditions at a time it is making near record profits.

On the first day of leakmas …

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 8:30 am, December 10th, 2018 - 46 comments

Overheard at a Press Gallery BBQ …

Labour’s education reforms

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:08 am, December 9th, 2018 - 58 comments

The Government has released a discussion paper proposing radical change to our education system, including the establishment of regional hubs to improve cooperation between schools and provisions to strengthen the proposition that kids should attend their local well resources and well run school.