political parties

Andrew Little: The working futures plan

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 3:02 pm, January 31st, 2016 - 283 comments

The text of Andrew Little’s state of the nation speech delivered this afternoon.

New Day Rising

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 12:38 pm, January 31st, 2016 - 80 comments

Goff and Shearer’s disloyal and self serving support for the TPPA has backfired. They’ve shown that the ABC faction are now a spent force and that Andrew Little has the overwhelming support of caucus. The sun has set on the splitters and there is a new day rising.

Andrew Little’s State of the Nation Speech

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 2:30 pm, January 30th, 2016 - 241 comments

All good progressives are invited tomorrow afternoon to Albert Park in Auckland to hear Andrew Little’s state of the nation speech. Update: because of possible bad weather the speech will start at 1 pm. Bring an umbrella!

Good money after bad into the bottomless pit of charter schools

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 10:37 am, January 29th, 2016 - 73 comments

Yesterday the Nats confirmed the closing of a failed Northland charter school. Turns out we’ll be paying an extra $400,000 for the first quarter of this year, even though the school will not open. Brilliant.

Message from Andrew Little about TPPA

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 9:00 am, January 29th, 2016 - 278 comments

The text of an email Andrew Little has sent to members.

Anyone seen the rockstar economy lately?

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 10:30 am, January 28th, 2016 - 56 comments

Record debt, a higher than expected deficit and a credit rating downgrade on our economic outlook. All thanks to National’s genius economic management!

New Zealand drops down World corruption free index

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:14 am, January 28th, 2016 - 21 comments

New Zealand used to be rated as the least corrupt country in the world. Over the past couple of years we have dropped to second and now to fourth. The cynical way that the Government handles OIA requests is the main reason for this occurring.

Little on TPP: “I don’t support it, we don’t support it”

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 6:15 am, January 28th, 2016 - 352 comments

The news that the TPP is likely to cost 5 to 6,000 jobs in NZ seems to have been the last straw.

The great big list of John Key’s big fat lies (UPDATED)

Written By: BLiP - Date published: 7:00 am, January 27th, 2016 - 79 comments

How many more lies will John Key tell today in his so-called State of the Nation address? Virtual chocolate fish to whomever guesses the closest number.

Metiria Turei: The state of the Nation

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 11:30 am, January 26th, 2016 - 45 comments

Metiria Turei is due to deliver her state of the nation speech today at 12:30 pm. This post contains links to the livestream of the speech and the speech notes will be added when they are available. Updated with speech notes.

Ratana – LIVE

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 3:05 pm, January 24th, 2016 - 46 comments

Te Reo Putake is live blogging the visits of politicians to Rātana pā during the weekend celebration of the life of church founder Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana. The shadow of the TPPA hangs over the weekend; how will our political leaders address this latest attack on Te Tiriti o Waitangi?

Fisiani Gets it Right

Written By: RedLogix - Date published: 6:41 pm, January 23rd, 2016 - 211 comments

Let’s get this straight. Fisiani’s on-going sycophantic love-in with John Key may be nauseatingly embarrassing to read, but this does not make him necessarily wrong. Unforeseeable circumstances aside, John Key will see out five or six terms in office. He will then likely hand over to his carefully anointed National party successor. National will govern […]

Another housing policy screwup?

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 1:39 pm, January 22nd, 2016 - 38 comments

Bennet’s proposal to incentivise / coerce state housing applicants to leave Auckland for housing elsewhere seems to have hit a snag…

Tertiary fee drop – excellent proposal from Labour

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 9:02 am, January 22nd, 2016 - 139 comments

Education is a public good, but tertiary education in NZ has been undermined by high student fees and debt. So it’s very encouraging to see a proposal from Labour for reducing fees (and not ruling out free education!).

Robin Grieve does not understand the IPCC report

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:11 am, January 17th, 2016 - 82 comments

The Herald has printed an opinion piece by ex ACT candidate Robin Grieve Robin Grieve which claims that the IPCC has said we have nothing to worry about climate change when a cursory reading of the report suggests otherwise. What is it with the quality of Herald opinion pieces presented by former ACT candidates?

The problem with free market capitalism

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:16 am, January 9th, 2016 - 249 comments

This morning’s Herald contains a story about a young man who with a family gift has managed to purchase eleven houses over the past five years and can afford to pay World of Warcraft all day.

Little: Labour to Defy TPPA

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 8:58 am, January 8th, 2016 - 717 comments

Labour Leader Andrew Little has announced that the next Labour led Government will defy the TPPA’s attack on our sovereignty. Good on Labour – that’s the leadership we need.

Well this is awkward

Written By: redfed - Date published: 7:30 am, January 8th, 2016 - 81 comments

Jamie Whyte yesterday wrote an article for the Herald claiming that child poverty does not exist in New Zealand. But he wrote essentially the same article in 2005 about child poverty in Great Britain.

Saudi Arabia and the free trade deal

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:47 am, January 6th, 2016 - 113 comments

David Shearer has disagreed with the Greens that New Zealand should suspend negotiations on the free trade agreement with Saudi Arabia until it improves its human rights record.

The myth of drug dependancy and poverty

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:39 am, January 2nd, 2016 - 306 comments

New research from Morgan Foundation suggests that poverty can be alleviated by increasing incomes and that the beneficiaries will be children of poor families not vendors of alcohol and cigarettes.

The great carbon credit swindle

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:47 am, January 2nd, 2016 - 56 comments

On December 17, 2015 the Government released a series reports suggesting that New Zealand is complying with Kyoto Protocol obligations. A dig into the reports confirms however that the compliance is in name only and is for spin purposes rather than a real attempt at addressing the world’s most pressing problem.

The media in 2015

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 12:25 pm, December 29th, 2015 - 88 comments

Some random musings on what happened in New Zealand’s media this year.

Treachery and silly season political snippets

Written By: BLiP - Date published: 7:41 am, December 23rd, 2015 - 61 comments

There’s still a few MPs “on duty”. Their function is to maintain the semblance of active government and to roll out a bunch of announcements they hope will escape full scrutiny.

Ladies and Gentlemen this is your Prime Minister

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 8:36 am, December 21st, 2015 - 177 comments

Video of John Key’s recent interview with The Rock.

Rachel Stewart eviscerates John Key

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:51 am, December 20th, 2015 - 211 comments

Rachel Stewart has penned an opinion piece highlighting John Key’s avoidance of serious media in preference to engaging in rude, crude and highly unattractive stunts on commercial radio.

What was National’s role in the police raid on Nicky Hager?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:35 am, December 18th, 2015 - 130 comments

Justice Clifford’s decision that the police raid of Nicky Hager’s home was illegal raises serious questions about what political pressure was applied on the police.

Obesity is a structural problem

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 9:20 am, December 16th, 2015 - 59 comments

Structural problems need structural solutions. Progress on this major public health issue has been set back by a decade because we elected a useless National government.

Rhetoric and reality: Nats on climate change

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 7:01 am, December 15th, 2015 - 55 comments

The Nats want to wallow in the feel-good rhetoric of COP21 action to address climate change. But it’s clear that they don’t intend to take the “ambitious action” they are heralding.

John Key is relaxed about COP21

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 3:09 pm, December 14th, 2015 - 34 comments

The Government has responded to the COP21 convention agreement with the suggestion that little will need to change. And John Key has put the likely annual cost of fulfilling our pledge at less than a tenth of the figure that Tim Groser has used.

COP21 and the implications for New Zealand

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:43 am, December 13th, 2015 - 56 comments

COP21 has set the benchmark, no greater than 1.5 degrees increase in global temperatures. But current national pledges suggest that the world is on track for at least 3 degrees. And if New Zealand’s effort was replicated throughout the world the increase would be more like 4 degrees or more. So what should New Zealand be doing?

CERT: the partial privatisation of the GCSB

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:00 am, December 13th, 2015 - 24 comments

A public private organisation with the acronym CERT was announced this week along with the new cyber security strategy. CERT’s role is to provide information to government so it can protect against cyber threats. Which is one of the roles of the GCSB.