political parties

Invisibill

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:46 am, November 26th, 2017 - 50 comments

The media have noticed that Bill English has recently been missing in action. And pretenders to his throne are starting to play up.

Doofus of the week – Nick Smith

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 3:58 pm, November 25th, 2017 - 60 comments

No competition in this one, Nick Smith for showing that despite the 27 long years he has spent in Parliament he still has no idea how our electoral system works and for claiming there is an electoral convention that simply does not exist.

Labour to seek consensus over child poverty

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:03 am, November 25th, 2017 - 111 comments

Jacinda Ardern intends to reach out to National to try and furnish a bi partisan approach to dealing with child poverty. It is a good idea, but I don’t like her chances.

The Pike River Supreme Court decision – Helen Kelly would be pleased

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:41 am, November 24th, 2017 - 19 comments

Helen Kelly blogged four years ago why the deal that allowed Peter Whittall to walk free following the Pike River disaster was unjust and flawed. Yesterday the Supreme Court agreed.

Friggit!

Written By: Bill - Date published: 8:01 pm, November 23rd, 2017 - 155 comments

Frigate. Send one. Now.

Latest Roy Morgan Poll – Labour and Greens surge as National flounders

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:03 am, November 23rd, 2017 - 156 comments

The first post election Roy Morgan poll result has been released. Labour and the Greens have surged and National has gone backwards.

National on the Manus Island crisis

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:14 am, November 22nd, 2017 - 82 comments

Gerry Brownlee has surfaced on Radio New Zealand to criticise Labour’s handling of the Manus Island refugee issue. But he seems to have forgotten that the proposal offered by Labour is the proposal originally offered by National.

Labour accelerates action on Pike River re-entry

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:31 am, November 21st, 2017 - 182 comments

National is trying to spin that Labour has adopted its position on re-entry of the Pike River mine. But the Pike River families are having nothing of this.

Labour’s home.

Written By: Bill - Date published: 5:06 pm, November 19th, 2017 - 13 comments

Scottish Labour leadership election concludes. And kangaroos.

The UK Social media political arms race

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:56 am, November 19th, 2017 - 8 comments

Robert Peston in the Spectator has analysed the social media performance of the two big parties in the United Kingdom and has concluded that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour had a significant advantage over Theresa May’s conservatives.

Ardern’s Manus Island offer

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:36 am, November 18th, 2017 - 298 comments

The Australian Government has this week been attempting to undermine Jacinda Ardern’s humanitarian request that the refugees on Nauru Island should be treated humanely.

Tampa, Ardern and positioning small countries

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:30 am, November 16th, 2017 - 41 comments

There are major similarities between Helen Clark’s decision to accept into New Zealand refugees from the Tampa boat and Jacinda Ardern’s pushing for New Zealand to accept refugees based on Manus Island.

Green Maiden Speeches

Written By: Matthew Whitehead - Date published: 7:20 am, November 16th, 2017 - 17 comments

Green backbenchers Chlöe Swarbrick and Golriz Ghahraman just gave their maiden speeches recently.

Minister puts sustainability, and government’s reputation at risk

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 7:45 am, November 15th, 2017 - 33 comments

A guest post by Christine Rose on Fishing Minister Stuart Nash’s strange decision to delay the implementation of video surveillance on fishing ships and the implications for endangered Maui’s dolphins.

NRT: “Daddy leave” and the parental leave bill

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 6:06 am, November 15th, 2017 - 7 comments

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn looks at the Paid Parental Leave Bill and how National are trying to wreck it.

United has no future

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:56 am, November 14th, 2017 - 54 comments

United Future has announced that it will be wound up.

Labour maidens – Greg O’Connor

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 4:37 pm, November 13th, 2017 - 22 comments

Greg O’Connor talks about how his time with police led him to Labour.

Greens oppose rebranded TPPA

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 12:33 pm, November 13th, 2017 - 150 comments

The Green Party will vote against the TPPA.

TPP: A slight improvement but deservedly still a zombie

Written By: lprent - Date published: 9:23 am, November 13th, 2017 - 124 comments

Fortunately the TPP is still the dead walking. Now that the immediate rush for ‘momentum’ is over (a scam phrase), it is time to do some real analysis of the project. This government, if it wants to convince its own supporters to support it, needs to discard that hucksterism fostered by the John Key government. Because to me TPP is a still a crock.

Labour maidens – Willow-Jean Prime

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 5:27 pm, November 12th, 2017 - 29 comments

“It means protecting and growing our rights as people, not just as economic units, health clients, “clients” of any kind.”

A strong start by Willow-Jean Prime.

The TPP11 negotiations: ISDS provisions are gone – almost

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 1:08 pm, November 12th, 2017 - 113 comments

David Parker has confirmed that the TPP11 negotiations have resulted in a considerable minimising of the ISDS provisions. But will this be enough?

Can Ben Mack please make his mind up

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:35 am, November 12th, 2017 - 84 comments

Herald lifestyle columnist has published two recent opinion pieces, the first wondering if Jacinda Ardern will be able to address the many and varied problems the country faces and the second suggesting that the Government is under the control of the extreme right. Can he please make up his mind.

The House’s Man

Written By: Matthew Whitehead - Date published: 6:50 am, November 11th, 2017 - 60 comments

How is Trevor Mallard doing as speaker? Early signs are good.

Fair trade

Written By: weka - Date published: 6:12 am, November 11th, 2017 - 37 comments

Did the TPPA-11 negotiations just collapse? A breathing space to look at global economics in the context of sovereignty, democracy, fairness, social justice and ecological limits.

Doofus of the week

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 4:15 pm, November 10th, 2017 - 45 comments

The award for doofus of the week this week goes to David Bennett for one of the most nonsensical speeches Parliament has ever seen.

Green Party portfolio list

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 2:48 pm, November 10th, 2017 - 2 comments

The Green Party have confirmed their newly assigned MP responsibilities.

This TPP…

Written By: Bill - Date published: 11:19 am, November 8th, 2017 - 68 comments

Some aspects of the TPP no-one’s mentioning.

The Missing Noun.

Written By: Bill - Date published: 10:09 am, November 8th, 2017 - 88 comments

When they said they wanted to eradicate poverty, I didn’t suspect they simply meant to expunge the word.

Justice for Teina Pora

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:02 am, November 8th, 2017 - 13 comments

Andrew Little has announced that the Government will increase the payout to Teina Pora by adjusting for inflation and by paying costs on Pora’s successful judicial review of the previous Government’s decision.

Suck it up political sleazers.

Written By: lprent - Date published: 8:22 am, November 8th, 2017 - 113 comments

Winston Peters has launched a legal fishing expedition to identify who exactly breached privacy on his superannuation over payments. A problem that he shares with about 50 thousand other pensioners. Unlike them, his problem wasn’t trying to find money to repay it. It was that the breach was deliberately timed to be a classic dirty politics ploy, almost certainly by National, in the leadup to the recent election. I wish him good fishing.

Build a bridge and get over it

Written By: Matthew Whitehead - Date published: 2:32 pm, November 7th, 2017 - 227 comments

Finally conceding the government’s majority, Bridges is complaining that Labour has struck back on his boss’ plan to obstruct the government on select committees by following through on his own plans to reduce their size.