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Work life balance

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:22 am, July 20th, 2014 - 172 comments

David Cunliffe is now being criticised for having a short holiday with his family. It is strange that it should be thought of as a bad thing for the leader of the party interested in improving ordinary people’s quality of life to try and get some work life balance.

90 Minutes, Extra Time, Then Penalties.

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 1:26 pm, July 17th, 2014 - 51 comments

If there is evidence that Key lied about when he first heard of Dotcom, then that strengthens Dotcom’s defence against extradition. He can then rightly say he has not had a fair go; that the parties trying to send him to the States to stand trial do not have clean hands. The potential personal gain for Kim Dotcom is obvious. The effect on the election may not be quite as positive.

Dotcom – Who applied the political pressure?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:46 am, July 16th, 2014 - 219 comments

National is claiming that Immigration NZ’s decision to allow Kim Dotcom to stay was made without any political pressure being applied. But it was the decision of the SIS to remove its block on Dotcom’s application that let the approval be granted. Why did the SIS remove its block and who applied the political pressure?

The FBI also wanted DotCom to stay in New Zealand

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 6:25 pm, July 15th, 2014 - 38 comments

The FBI had been working with the New Zealand authorities for a year before he was arrested. They wanted to arrest him on his birthday “because it would be a big party and all the assets would be there.”A Department of Justice official revealed this to ex-Senator Dodd, chief lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America. The FBI is a Justice Department agency. The “party assets” were why he had to be kept here.

National wanted Dotcom to stay in NZ

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:30 am, July 15th, 2014 - 202 comments

The Herald is reporting that direct political pressure was applied on Immigration NZ to grant Kim Dotcom and his family residence in New Zealand. And the SIS tried to block the application but dropped their objection after being told there was “political pressure”.

Updated with more links

National and Pasifika

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:30 am, July 12th, 2014 - 86 comments

National’s desire of increasing its support among Pasifika is understandable in an MMP world. But John Key’s and National’s selection of socially conservative candidates in South Auckland in an attempt to be attractive to some socially conservative voters is more than a little disingenuous.

Polity: The ENV debate: Some more data

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 10:27 am, July 11th, 2014 - 14 comments

Rob Salmond presents the David Farrar / Steven Joyce / John Key argument that 2011 non voters are a National-leaning bunch. Then he shows that a better look at their own data undermines their claim. This matters because it helps us understand which bloc has more to gain from voter mobilization efforts in 2014. This means the left has a lot more to gain than the right from mobilization in 2014.

Murray McCully must go

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 12:17 pm, July 10th, 2014 - 65 comments

Tania Billingsley’s public comments and her suggestion that Murray McCully should resign as Minister of Foreign Affairs are cogent and compelling. For his failure to look after New Zealand’s interests and for his inept handling of issues for Tania he should resign as Minister.

The education debate

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:00 pm, July 7th, 2014 - 58 comments

Education has become a major election issue. And after Labour’s announcements at this weekend’s congress there is a stark divide, between the enrichment of the few or the advancement of the many.

A quick note to John Key

Written By: karol - Date published: 9:59 am, July 7th, 2014 - 44 comments

Remember when John Key explained why he sends his children to private schools….. and now the Nats and Parata are saying that such advantages don’t work for all Kiwis.

NRT: John Key pisses on public service independence

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 3:23 pm, July 4th, 2014 - 30 comments

One of the core principles of our public service is that Ministers have no role in staffing decisions. This is not the era of Seddon, where a Minister could stack “their” department with cronies and time-servers. For over a century, public sector heads have been statutorily independent in such matters. John Key appears to not understand that independence or just likes stupidly shooting from the hip. In the process he is opening taxpayers up to paying for his mistakes.

Let’s play blame the public servant

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:55 am, July 4th, 2014 - 50 comments

John Key has announced an inquiry into how the ambiguity in New Zealand’s position relating to the Malaysian diplomat was created. And he has already blamed the Public Servant involved while refusing to criticise Murray McCully. Clearly we now have a situation where instead of there being Ministerial Responsibility for the performance of their Department the Government is now entitled to attack a public servant in an attempt to divert political blame.

“Why did you not ask?” – Apologies & culture

Written By: karol - Date published: 7:00 pm, July 2nd, 2014 - 56 comments

In its handling of the case of the Malaysian diplomat accused of attempted rape in NZ, the government has marginalised the concerns and sensitivities of the victim. Their own arse covering was given a higher priority. Jan Logie argued for the victim in the House today – government MP’s attacked her for it. [Update#2: the survivor of the attempted rape, spoke to Jan Logie]

Polity: Who do the “missing million” like?

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 1:16 pm, July 2nd, 2014 - 17 comments

National appear to have been indulging in wishful thinking for some time based on dubious analysis of voter turnout. Their latest round of silliness comes from kiwiblog. Sure there were some National supporters who chose not to vote in 2011 out of complacency. But it is probably a minority, and that most of the new non-voters (who voted up to and including 2008, and then stopped) are lefties. The survey evidence points that way, and so does the E9 evidence when looked at properly.

Was John Key telling the truth about the Malaysian Diplomat?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 5:34 pm, July 1st, 2014 - 209 comments

John Key has claimed that New Zealand asked Malaysia to waive diplomatic immunity for the Diplomat charged with breaking and entering and assault with intent to rape. But news is breaking that Malaysia was willing to waive diplomatic immunity but decided to take up New Zealand’s offer to invoke diplomatic immunity. So who is right? And if the offer was made why did John Key say otherwise?

Update: From a McCully email it appears Malaysia thought that refusing to waive immunity would be acceptable to New Zealand. Details of the “informal communications” need to be released so that we can judge for ourselves what was actually discussed and agreed to.

Is Bill English’s ‘big data’, Big Brother & privatisation of govt?

Written By: karol - Date published: 11:00 am, June 30th, 2014 - 135 comments

Bill English has stated that a third term Key government would majorly reform the government’s budgeting & spending. It’s a major move towards privatisation of public services, & full spectrum digitally-enhanced monitoring of individuals’ lives: especially those of the already demonised and harassed single mothers on benefits.

Polity: ROPS – Roads of Political Significance

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 8:51 am, June 30th, 2014 - 131 comments

National’s announcement yesterday of $212 million for 14 roading projects around regional New Zealand hits a lot of bad notes. I think it is a strategic mistake. New Zealanders are not used to pork-barreling as naked as this. All but two of the projects are in National-held areas, and those other two are on National’s target list in September. And some are complete clunkers. For instance Nick Smith rerouting SH6 from the rich houses on to the kids going to schools

The #teamkey personality cult

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:48 am, June 29th, 2014 - 120 comments

National has unveiled aspects of its 2014 campaign with John Key being a cult like figure and a slogan that makes it sound like National cares for ordinary New Zealanders.

It’s the season of books & posters: write your own

Written By: karol - Date published: 7:27 am, June 29th, 2014 - 7 comments

It seems to be the season of books and faux movie posters. Mary-Ellen O’Connor has published a Nats’ cook book. Proceeds of the sales will apparently be donated to the “centre left”.

John Key: the unwanted gift

Written By: lprent - Date published: 2:26 pm, June 28th, 2014 - 69 comments

On Trademe.

“As new, unwanted gift from a smartarse.

John Key Portrait of a Prime Minister by John Roughan.

Essentially a love letter.

Utter rubbish but may get you out of a jam if you run out of toilet paper.

Proceeds from sale go to fighting poverty.”

Irascible: The Herald and Key duck, scuttle and run as Donghua Liu story loses credibility

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 2:19 pm, June 28th, 2014 - 35 comments

It looks like the powers that be on the Herald’s editorial board are starting to realise that being a paid shill for the Key owned National Party is not as wise a move as they thought. Particularly as the realisation that the allegations fed from John Key and those around Donghua Liu are proving to be a quicksand that is sucking the already doubtful credibility of the paper as a crusading, principled record of fact away from it.

The reality is we’re pretty relaxed about fixing Christchurch

Written By: James Dann - Date published: 9:53 am, June 28th, 2014 - 28 comments

For so many of the people in this still-broken city, they feel that this is a journey which they have been left to walk alone. Too often they find themselves fighting against the state, rather than working with them. One gets the impression that for all the visits and photo ops, Key just doesn’t get the situation down here.

The people respond to the Herald Editorial on Donghua Liu

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:53 am, June 27th, 2014 - 66 comments

Further to lprent’s post this morning there is an avalanche of responses on the Herald website to its Donghua Liu editorial. People are obviously furious and the anger is palpable. And there is a trade me sale of John Key’s book with a very funny series of questions and answers

Dear John Armstrong

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 6:45 pm, June 26th, 2014 - 82 comments

A dear John letter to Herald Columnist John Armstrong.

John Roughan: NZ Herald’s white elephant

Written By: lprent - Date published: 1:33 pm, June 26th, 2014 - 70 comments

There is one thing that shines through in the coverage of the biography of John Key today. It is by a veteran arselicker of the right – John Roughan, veteran editorial writer and columnist for the NZ Herald. He is someone that have have no respect for because his writing has a short-term approach to Auckland that is more characterised by stupidity and a rabid adherence to National’s partisan campaign needs. Both as an anonymous editorial writer and in his columns.

John Key: the mumbo-jumbo man

Written By: lprent - Date published: 1:12 pm, June 26th, 2014 - 52 comments

I think that this poster from the Greens about the debate on the maui dolphin says it all about the shallowness of National and its leader. The guy is simpleminded fool and generally a dickhead. Rather than understanding an issue and dealing it, he prefers to act like a mumbo-jumbo clown.

Key and Herald embarrassed as Liu statement changes

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 12:19 pm, June 25th, 2014 - 113 comments

The Herald has now published details of a further statement from Donghua Liu which directly contradicts previous claims. So what did it do to ensure the accuracy of the original claims and why did it print those allegations without verification? And who is the mysterious person who prepared a statement that with the benefit of hindsight was clearly inaccurate?

Reverse ferret bites PM on arse.

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 2:46 pm, June 24th, 2014 - 83 comments

PM John Key has performed a backflip by now suggesting Donghua Liu should front up with evidence to support the NZ Herald’s unsubstantiated claim that he donated substantial sums to Labour. This is a world away from his previous position that it was up to Labour to show that no donation was made. It’s increasingly looking like it simply not true and the Herald has been played like a fiddle. And two, the fiddle planter is Cameron Slater, the PM’s bestie from way back.

Polity: TPP deal on rocks. Surprise!

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 11:41 am, June 24th, 2014 - 10 comments

John Key is abandoning hope of a TPP deal. As it stands at present there is nothing in it for New Zealand. Of course the usual ugly swamp that is US internal politics is making the deal descend into a mire.

Expect nothing to happen for another year or two, and maybe the damn thing will never happen.

Polity: Colin Craig confused

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 1:30 pm, June 23rd, 2014 - 27 comments

This morning’s news from the Fairfax/Ipsos poll is that 81% of New Zealanders hate coat-tailing and want it gone. I agree with them. So does Labour. So do the Greens. So do Internet MANA. National, of course, relishes coat-tailing. So – to the 81% – if you want 2014 to be the last election with any coat-tailing, vote for a change of government. In the meantime of course, we have Crazy Colin Craig who thinks that Key’s job is to give just him a seat, entirely of his own accord, with no “insipid” discussions about the quid pro quo. Good luck with that.

John Key: a tale of two ‘truths’

Written By: karol - Date published: 9:08 am, June 23rd, 2014 - 34 comments

John Key claimed he didn’t know about the big shift in the US-NZ surveillance relationship in 2009. Now he claims he always likes to be fully briefed on intelligence matters. Robert David Steele points the way from such anti-democratic governance & misinformation, to an open source everything revolution.