political parties

Ardern announces salary freeze for MPs

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 5:26 pm, August 20th, 2018 - 55 comments

Jacinda Ardern has announced a freeze of MP’s salaries while a review of the salary setting system is carried out.

Good luck Julie Anne Genter

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:00 am, August 20th, 2018 - 44 comments

Julie Anne Genter outdid Jacinda Ardern’s trip to hospital in her private car by riding to hospital to be induced on her bike.

The week of Limogate

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:30 am, August 18th, 2018 - 44 comments

Tracy Watkins and Tova O’Brien have both written articles criticising Simon Bridges’ handling of Limogate.

No Waimea dam

Written By: advantage - Date published: 2:35 pm, August 17th, 2018 - 26 comments

With the change in Government and ever increasing costs of construction it appears that the Waimea dam project in Tasman District is going to be scuppered.

Is Tova O’Brien really a closet leftie?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:01 am, August 16th, 2018 - 76 comments

Matthew Hooton has claimed that Tova O’Brien is an extreme left-wing, anti-National Party journalist intent in bringing Simon Bridges down. Hyperbole much?

Building Nations

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:15 am, August 16th, 2018 - 72 comments

This Government has probably one term to show progress in dealing with the country’s infrastructure deficit.

Memo from Crosby Textor – Simon Bridges limo expenses

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 7:53 am, August 15th, 2018 - 90 comments

The Standard has unearthed advice provided by Crosby Textor to the National Party concerning the leak of Simon Bridges’ travel information.

Simon says it’s all Labour’s fault

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:20 am, August 14th, 2018 - 102 comments

Simon Bridges has kept the story about his over the top spending on limos and hotels alive by making contradictory statements and by suggesting without proof that the leak of the information is all Labour’s fault.

What should ACT’s new name be?

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 3:29 pm, August 13th, 2018 - 42 comments

The authors at the Standard are proposing that readers suggest what ACT’s new name should be. Keep it seemly.

The end of ACT

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:03 am, August 13th, 2018 - 238 comments

With his proposal to reduce the effectiveness of Parliament David Seymour is clearly looking for relevance.

Who protects us from water companies?

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:00 am, August 10th, 2018 - 78 comments

New Zealand seriously needs a water regulator. Something that will show that each catchment can withstand having that much taken out of it, and that it is being sold for a fair price, and ensures everyone has access to beautiful-quality water.

Of course Judith should #DeleteTheTweet

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:00 am, August 9th, 2018 - 69 comments

The Project has called on Judith Collins to delete her tweet retweeting a link to a fake news story falsely claiming that France had legalised paedophilia at the behest of an international network of liberal activists determined to normalise paedophilia.

We need more radicals coming here

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:31 am, August 9th, 2018 - 68 comments

We need more radical voices again here. But it’s like MMP has turned us once again into the passionless people. It always looks like “hate speech” when you hate it.

Let him speak

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 3:04 pm, August 7th, 2018 - 308 comments

Don Brash should be allowed to speak at a University about politics.

Dan Bidois just wants to count cars

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:46 am, August 7th, 2018 - 26 comments

Rookie National MP Dan Bidois has chosen to get up early and count the number of cars using Northcote’s T3 traffic lane.

Pollwatch: 5th August, 2018

Written By: Matthew Whitehead - Date published: 8:30 am, August 6th, 2018 - 40 comments

The most likely result from Colmar Brunton's 5th august poll as a pie chart: 7 Greens, 51 Labour, 6 NZF, 1 ACT, and 55 National MPs.

The Return of the Pollwatch: Are Labour getting a baby bump? Are National in decline? Are the Greens in existential danger? And do all the previous questions have the same answer?

Colmar Brunton poll; Simon Who?

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 8:07 pm, August 5th, 2018 - 94 comments

The 1 News/Colmar Brunton poll is out. The Government sails on serenely while Simon meets the people.

VSM – why it needs to go.

Written By: nickkelly - Date published: 8:35 am, August 2nd, 2018 - 62 comments

In 2010 the ACT Party with the help of National managed to pass a piece of legislation that damaged student democracy, and blatantly ignored public opinion. Voluntary Student Membership or VSM sounds like a horrendous STI, and its impact has been to screw student democracy. Prior to 2010 students had a choice as to whether […]

Reason #73 why charter schools are wrong: they teach creationism

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:46 am, July 31st, 2018 - 78 comments

Newsroom has reported on claims that Villa Education Trust, which opened up National’s conference singing Hallelujah, has taught creationism in science classes as a preferred theory of evolution.

There’s nothing vague about National’s education policy announcement *

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:30 am, July 30th, 2018 - 30 comments

* according to Simon Bridges.

Bridges and his cheerleaders

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:46 am, July 29th, 2018 - 112 comments

National is pulling out all stops to suggest that Simon Bridges is not so bad as a leader.

National is jamming cannabis law reform

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:47 am, July 27th, 2018 - 82 comments

So National be getting pretty liberal with the Marijuana stuff.

Redeveloping Public Housing

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:07 am, July 26th, 2018 - 116 comments

The Government is getting ready to battle the most rapacious economic force in this country, real estate capitalism, for the good of people.

Sanctions for beneficiary bashers

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:00 am, July 25th, 2018 - 76 comments

Simon Bridges, who is clearly struggling for relevance, has decided to try and improve his political position by bashing beneficiaries.

A right, Left problem

Written By: Bill - Date published: 1:17 pm, July 24th, 2018 - 78 comments

A post suggesting that the traditional descriptive lens of “left and right” isn’t up to capturing current political realities.

Brexiting the EU

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:57 am, July 24th, 2018 - 75 comments

In the United Kingdom Theresa May is facing a confidence threatening Brexit crisis, the organisers of the Vote Leave campaign are facing prosecution, and an opinion poll suggests that a significant proportion of the electorate are willing to shift right to achieve a hard Brexit.

Scrap the spending cap

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:45 am, July 23rd, 2018 - 152 comments

Economist Ganesh Nana and Alan Johnson from the Salvation Army have urged the Government to relax the fiscal straight jacket imposed by its budget responsibility rules.

The UN is shocked by NZ’s child poverty rates

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:40 am, July 22nd, 2018 - 89 comments

Earlier this year the United Nations expressed shock and concern at New Zealand’s rates of child poverty, homelessness, incarceration and violence. What is this Government doing to address these issues?

Government with a plan

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:00 am, July 22nd, 2018 - 46 comments

Labour and New Zealand First Ministers under the first term of the sixth Labour government sitting in the Cabinet office.

The polls are great. Top work. But I’m getting worried about the entropy of this government already. Matthew Hooten and Karl Marx agree with me.

What has happened to Simon Bridges?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:40 am, July 19th, 2018 - 42 comments

You would think that while Jacinda Ardern takes time out to properly introduce baby Neve to the world opposition leader Simon Bridges would be striding throughout the country like a colossus and really make a name for himself. But of late he has been rather invisible.