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Elucidate

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:15 am, July 3rd, 2009 - 28 comments

The woman has dropped her criminal complaint over Worth. Says she is satisfied now the scumbag has lost his career. Police are expected to drop the investigation. Now, can we (pretty please) know why a minister in our government lost his job? Can Key, just for a day, pretend to give a damn about transparency […]

Bill sez: ‘pay cuts for youse’

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:20 am, July 3rd, 2009 - 91 comments

Yesterday in Question Time, Bill English sent a message loud and clear to teachers, police, doctors, nurses, and all other public servants (‘frontline’ or not): under National, you’ll be getting pay-cuts, don’t expect cost of living adjustments, watch as your pay-packet buys less and less. Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Government has stated a number of […]

Tax Payer funded hypocrisy

Written By: rocky - Date published: 4:14 pm, July 2nd, 2009 - 48 comments

Remember the hip-hop tours ‘scandal’ the National Party used over and over and over again to attack the previous Labour-led government? They went as far as to put it in their 2005 election billboards. It was a minuscule amount of money, yet National used it as one of their prime examples of wasteful spending. Now […]

Jam tomorrow

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 9:30 am, July 1st, 2009 - 24 comments

I see John Key is promising new ideas to stop job-losses: We’ve got an economic strategy … and I intend over the next few weeks to spell out my thinking in that area It strikes me as another one of his vague PR-driven promises. Like the promise he made in March about the initiatives that […]

No more Mr Nice Guy

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 3:04 pm, June 30th, 2009 - 23 comments

John Key has a carefully constructed image as a “nice guy”, with a self professed “sunny nature” no less. There is ample reason to believe that the image is far from the reality. In his previous work Key appeared proud of his ability to fire, without emotion, hundreds of people (earning himself the nickname of […]

Two birds with one stone

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 10:50 am, June 30th, 2009 - 11 comments

In 2007, in election mode, John Key was talking up National’s commitment to the environment and the Enviroschools programme: Without a trace of irony, the video ends with ‘join the conversation’. It’s clear now that you can converse all you want with Key. He won’t listen. They’ve cancelled Enviroschools. Undermining education and the environment with […]

A rolling maul or treading water?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 5:58 am, June 30th, 2009 - 33 comments

In the face of widespread criticism that his government is asleep at the wheel, John Key has boldly relaunched some tired old spin. See, we’re meant to believe the reason why our government, alone amongst the developed countries, has done bugger-all to save and create jobs is that, rather than a ‘big-bang’, Key has adopted […]

Emperor’s new clothes?

Written By: Dancr - Date published: 6:41 pm, June 28th, 2009 - 3 comments

I was in relaxed, Saturday mode, perusing the Dom Post at my leisure. Then I read this from Tracey Watkins and checked that the world had not shifted in alignment: Has the Government lost its mojo? How else to explain the uncanny quiet that has descended on the Beehive in recent weeks? It may be […]

National’s successes

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 3:30 pm, June 27th, 2009 - 72 comments

National’s 2008 election victory was undoubtedly a great success for the Party. Just two terms after humiliating defeat under the leadership of Bill English, National rose from the ashes to claim a convincing win. Forming a broad coalition that brought the Maori Party into the fold, thus simultaneously broadening National’s coalition options and lessening the necessity to […]

Crossing the line

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 2:16 pm, June 25th, 2009 - 38 comments

Tuesday’s post, A Rankin headache started: There must be an automatic recoil on the Government benches when Christine Rankin’s name is mentioned. In the comments, “gobsmacked” makes the observation [abridged]: John Key has decided to respond by indulging in some very nasty mud-slinging. This what he said in the House on Tuesday: ‘When National was in […]

The truth will out

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:11 am, June 24th, 2009 - 28 comments

Key’s excuse for not telling Parliament why he lost confidence in Richard Worth is that it isn’t in the public interest to say. So let’s think about this â€˜public interest’ excuse. â€˜Public interest’ is very rarely used; Trevor Mallard said he can think of two other times it has been invoked during his time in […]

What is campaigning?

Written By: rocky - Date published: 10:38 am, June 23rd, 2009 - 45 comments

As widely predicted, Christine Rankin is continuing to cause embarrassment for the government. She is now succeeding in making the Prime Minister look weak, as despite blatantly ignoring his warnings, he seems unwilling to sack her. From John Key’s post-cabinet press conference just last week (15th June): Question: The families commission’s come out in support […]

1 million Aussies? Don’t get too excited

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 8:43 am, June 23rd, 2009 - 17 comments

So 1,001,880 Australians visited New Zealand in the year to May, up 3.7% over the last May year despite the recession Yay? Well don’t pop the bubbly just yet. The total number of visitors fell 2.6% from 2,482,881 to 2,418,647. The decrease from other countries wiped out the gain from Australia. And here’s the important […]

One hand giveth, the other taketh away

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 2:25 pm, June 20th, 2009 - 1 comment

Last night at the Gen-i Public Sector Excellence Awards the New Zealand Police and Porirua City Council won the Prime Ministers Award for Public Service Excellence for their collaborative ‘Safer Porirua’ project. John Key himself announced the winners at the awards dinner, and congratulated the Police and Porirua City for the success of the project. However, […]

Answers still needed from Key

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 2:12 pm, June 19th, 2009 - 20 comments

For some reason, Tracey Watkins’ blog is hidden away deep within the Stuff website, far from the other blogs. Which is a pity because it’s where she writes her best stuff. Like this: One part of me thinks it’s bleedingly obvious why John Key lost confidence in Worth so why get in a stew about […]

Thursday theorisin’

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 12:01 am, June 18th, 2009 - 15 comments

Great quote from Gordon Campbell: “Faced with the dying embers of the Richard Worth scandal at his press conference John Key reached for gasoline” By being secretive, Key has given members of the media a huge incentive to be the first to find out the secret and publish it. Journalists and media outlets get their kudos […]

Key chickens out

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:22 pm, June 17th, 2009 - 26 comments

What the hell’s going on with John Key’s leadership lately? He’s just chickened out of answering the traditional question from the Leader of the Opposition. He transferred his Prime Minister’s question down to the the Minister of Finance, making the whole thing rather absurd: Hon PHIL GOFF to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand […]

Trust me, I’m the Prime Minister

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:30 pm, June 17th, 2009 - 30 comments

Some thoughts on Key’s continuing refusal to tell us why he fired Worth. First, it’s tautological to say that a Prime Minister fired a minister because he lost confidence in him. The statement provides no new information. Second, it is completely irrelevant that Worth is no longer an MP. The questions are about Key’s decisions […]

Tiring of it?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 6:50 am, June 17th, 2009 - 52 comments

Duncan Garner said something interesting during the Mt Albert by-election special: “I’ll tell you why John Key came back from overseas… He came back to get the t-shirt that says ‘I’ve been Prime Minister’. It marries up with what failed National Party candidate Paul Henry said yesterday: “I have a slight nagging fear in the […]

Key’s female trouble

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:03 pm, June 16th, 2009 - 51 comments

Key is obviously lying about having an unavoidable commitment in Taupo keeping him from Melissa Lee’s election night do. He would tell us what it was if it were true. He would have told journos at the start that he wouldn’t be there if there really had been some long-standing commitment. Truth is he abandoned […]

Has John Key misled Parliament?

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:20 pm, June 16th, 2009 - 49 comments

On the day Richard Worth was forced to resign as a Minister, Key explicitly told Parliament the criminal investigation into Worth was the reason why he couldn’t say what had caused him to lose confidence. Hon Phil Goff: Why did the Prime Minister attempt to keep the reasons for the resignation secret this morning? Hon […]

Child beating lobby finished

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:30 am, June 16th, 2009 - 54 comments

Here’s a tip for the child beaters at Family Fist – if you’re going to whip up a storm of fear and misinformation about a piece of legislation you don’t like, don’t peg your hopes on waiting two years for a referendum to get your revenge. That’s just enough time for your entire dishonest campaign […]

Bullsh*t

Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 9:16 am, June 16th, 2009 - 45 comments

During his time in parliament Richard Worth has cost the taxpayer well over a million dollars yet John Key won’t even be straight with the public as to why he’s gone. First Key wouldn’t tell us because he claimed he didn’t want to contaminate a police investigation, now he won’t tell us because, having resigned […]

Key’s surprise for Aucklanders

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 6:47 am, June 16th, 2009 - 18 comments

Analysis by Rhema Vaithianathan, which hasn’t itself been critiqued but has seen her subjected to the typical vicious personal attacks from National, shows that the supercity will have big economic costs for the areas of most of the existing councils: â€¢ Rodney: annual regional GDP falls by up to $74 million and 270 job losses […]

Political capital

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 2:23 pm, June 14th, 2009 - 61 comments

John Key invested a lot of political capital in Melissa Lee. She was his hand picked candidate for the showcase Mt Albert by-election (unceremoniously pushing aside local veteran Ravi Musuku). Winning Helen Clark’s old electorate would have been a hugely symbolic victory for National, and for a while they and their pundits thought it was […]

Get ready for the spin

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 7:24 am, June 14th, 2009 - 64 comments

63% to 17%. That’s not a defeat. That’s a slaughter. An utter humiliation for the Tories. How will the Tories and their fanboys (Armstrong, Ralston, Laws, Farrar etc) spin it? Pretty obvious: It was Lee’s fault for the gaffes. It was Worth’s fault for the past fortnight. Mt Albert people are dole-bludging darkies (see Kiwiblog […]

Questionable

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 2:28 pm, June 13th, 2009 - 20 comments

I was shocked, shocked, when I pulled up Kiwiblog just now and there wasn’t a long post of quotes by political commentators on how St John had slain the evil Worth interspersed with ‘indeed’. Instead, there was a long post of quotes from the Herald on juries interspersed with ‘indeed’. I quickly discovered why. Worth’s resignation has not […]

Get a padded bicycle seat, save taxpayers money

Written By: lprent - Date published: 2:30 pm, June 12th, 2009 - 7 comments

No Right Turn has been investigating John Key’s baby: Back in February, Prime Minister John Key came up with a bold and radical plan to end the recession and create jobs: a cycleway the length of New Zealand. As it became apparent that the plan was not a joke, and was in fact being taken […]

A place in the sun

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 11:08 am, June 12th, 2009 - 14 comments

Another bad week is about to end for John Key with a mammoth defeat of his handpicked Mt Albert candidate. What’s that now, four disaster weeks in a row? And another one to come next week when the House resumes and he has to face all those unanswered questions about why he sacked Worth. Gee, […]

Media irresponsible to name her

Written By: rocky - Date published: 7:48 am, June 12th, 2009 - 165 comments

I haven’t really wanted to get involved in the whole debate surrounding Richard Worth. It’s horrible and messy, and makes me feel sick every time I see fuel added to the fire. It was no surprise to see the creep Cameron Slater (Whale Oil) publish her name, but it was a surprise to see the […]

Back to basics

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 5:07 pm, June 11th, 2009 - 50 comments

Radio NZ is playing John Key saying that, following the letter from the woman in the sexual harassment saga, he has “washed his hands” of Richard Worth. It seems likely he will move to have Worth expelled from caucus. Good to see he chose a sensible path rather than the ‘attack the woman’ strategy the […]