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Political punditry in 2019

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:57 am, January 4th, 2019 - 79 comments

The media has recently reviewed its predictions from last year and made a few new ones. How did it go? And what is going to happen in the next 12 months?

Discussion on political leader PR.

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 1:06 pm, January 1st, 2019 - 66 comments

A comment from veutoviper has a go at the prevelant myth that Jacinda Arden has been using her family for PR points. As veutoviper points out by looking at the NZ Womens Weekly that Simon Bridges appears to have a much higher profile with his family washing. For some reason our political misogynists appear to have a double standard.

National’s brave new world of MOAR ROADS!

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:35 am, December 27th, 2018 - 132 comments

National has taken to criticising the Government for not building roads that had no coherent business case and no proposal to build.

Public Service meltdown

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:33 am, December 21st, 2018 - 55 comments

How much Wellington-political-economy damage can the Government sustain while pushing reform across so many Ministries?

National’s varied response to the Thompson and Clark report

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:33 am, December 20th, 2018 - 26 comments

Simon Bridges and Gerry Brownlee have offered diametrically opposed versions of how to respond to the crisis presented by the report into Thompson and Clark’s activities.

A tale of two Christmas speeches

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:15 am, December 20th, 2018 - 31 comments

The last sitting day in Parliament yesterday gave stark evidence showing how Jacinda is wiping the floor with Simon Bridges.

New Zealand First or America First?

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 9:41 pm, December 19th, 2018 - 37 comments

In Washington last week Winston Peters urged America to involve itself more in the Pacific, in a speech the Prime Minister was apparently unaware of. Referring to Africa, John Bolton outlined what that involvement would mean – American interests first and only. Dangerous with the neocons in charge of the playpen.

The Eminem decision and National’s electoral return

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 4:20 pm, December 19th, 2018 - 27 comments

The Court of Appeal has determined that National should pay Eminem $225,000 for use of his music. This may create rather large legal problems for them.

COP24

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:59 am, December 17th, 2018 - 23 comments

Nearly 200 nations agreed to the accord in Poland over the weekend. And the goal is to seek to limit global temperature rises to below two degrees Celsius.

The SPOTY’s 2018

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 1:10 pm, December 15th, 2018 - 39 comments

Here’s your chance to vote in the Standard’s Politician of The Year awards. The SPOTY’s are recognised worldwide as the leading indicator of political success in NZ and have been awarded annually for over two hundred years.

Now it’s your turn to prick the Thorndon Bubble, dear reader. Who’s your Politician of the Year?

Labour’s budget wellbeing objectives

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 6:46 am, December 15th, 2018 - 12 comments

The Government has announced that the next budget will include well being objectives as well as fiscal objectives.

Trump’s smocking gun

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:09 am, December 14th, 2018 - 82 comments

This week in America former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen admitted electoral finance violations by using campaign money to pay off two hookers to stop them going public during the last election campaign with news about Trump’s infidelity. And Russian national Maria Butina was convicted of conspiring to infiltrate the NRA.

A Right Shambles

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 9:48 am, December 13th, 2018 - 34 comments

With the UK Tories self imploding, the US President contemplating jail time, Angela Merkel moving on and the conservative parties on both sides of the Tasman looking increasingly irrelevant, what should the left do to fill the gap?

National’s Sroubek fizzle

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:40 am, December 13th, 2018 - 159 comments

National are trying to manufacture a conspiracy out of revelations that someone who knows Karel Sroubek and has met Jacinda Ardern sent her a text.

Let it Be

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 8:44 am, December 12th, 2018 - 56 comments

Letting fees are a thing of the past. Labour’s Phil Twyford has outlawed the practice of charging tenants an upfront fee for a non existent service. It’s about fairness and it’s about time.

US turnout – the single advantage of having a stupid elected monarch

Written By: lprent - Date published: 7:27 am, December 12th, 2018 - 19 comments

The voter turnout in the US mid-terms was the highest that it has been in a hundred years. For the first time that I think Donald Trump, the elected monarch of the strangest “democracy” on the planet actually achieved more than boasting and meaningless hand-waving. Of course that appears to have been an unwelcome accident to him.

You’ve got to lively up yourself …

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:18 am, December 12th, 2018 - 44 comments

National have responded to the Government’s medicinal cannabis law by suggesting hordes of cancer sufferers will hang around schools smoking joints.

The Air New Zealand Industrial dispute

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:49 am, December 11th, 2018 - 53 comments

Air New Zealand has provoked industrial action from its workers by trying to wind back wages and conditions at a time it is making near record profits.

Safe from prying 5Eyes

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 10:22 pm, December 8th, 2018 - 62 comments

I like my Huawei phone. Apparently the US National Security Agency can’t break its encryption. That’s presumably the “security” issue why Spark is being blocked from using Huawei, and why Meng Wanzhou is held hostage in Canada at the behest of US neocons.

Nutjobs and the UN Global Migration Pact

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:35 am, December 7th, 2018 - 137 comments

National and ACT have alleged that a United Nations Pact supported by New Zealand in 2016 will take away sovereign rights even though the pact itself says that it is not legally binding.

The Reserve Bank Reform Bill

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:23 am, December 7th, 2018 - 11 comments

The Government is planning changes to the Reserve Bank Act to require it to seek full employment. Maybe it is time for a dramatic change to its powers so that it has the regulatory powers to properly deal with the Australian banks.

National’s dead cat strategy

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:41 am, December 6th, 2018 - 56 comments

National has attempted to drown out news of further leaks, bad poll results and a reference of Maggie Barry’s behaviour to the Auditor General by staging a big stink in Parliament.

Double down – protect parliament – ban Bridges for a month

Written By: lprent - Date published: 10:30 pm, December 5th, 2018 - 104 comments

Simon Bridges appears to have deliberately maligned the position of the speaker of the house of representatives, and did it before he had any cause to do so. While he may think that it is in the public interest to do so, he isn’t special. He should expect what every other social activist knows will happen. You suffer the consequences..

Caption contest

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 9:16 am, December 5th, 2018 - 34 comments

Keep it seemly.

Child poverty reduction

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:00 am, December 5th, 2018 - 65 comments

It’s likely that Labour’s new Child Poverty Reduction Bill will get through its third reading by the end of this year.

Memo from Crosby Textor – National’s leak problem

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 7:34 am, December 5th, 2018 - 23 comments

The Standard has been leaked an internal memo from Crosby Textor to the National Party concerning its current situation.

National; Leaking Like a Sieve

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 1:02 pm, December 4th, 2018 - 60 comments

Another day, another leak from the National Party. If it’s not JLR, just who is poking the borax inside the Tory caucus?

Latest Colmar Brunton poll

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 6:21 pm, December 2nd, 2018 - 189 comments

The latest Colmar Brunton poll result is out suggesting a slight rebound in National’s fortunes.

Spooked!

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 2:52 pm, November 29th, 2018 - 29 comments

The GCSB ban on Spark’s use of Huawei technology means this government has gone from “honest broker” to poodle in a very short time. Pressure has been applied by the US and others, apparently fearing we are the “soft underbelly” of the Five Eyes spy network. Maybe its time we got out of that too – it was designed for war.

Stuff is banning climate change deniers from articles and comments

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:12 am, November 29th, 2018 - 261 comments

Stuff have adopted a policy of banning opinion pieces and comments from climate change deniers on the basis that the science is settled and allowing space for deniers is a dangerous waste of time.

The dinosaurs are clinging on

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:42 am, November 28th, 2018 - 32 comments

The Trump administration has produced an official report outlining the perils of climate change which the POTUS has rejected. And in Australia the dinosaur Liberal Party has suffered a huge loss in Victorian State elections, the loss of their Parliamentary majority and ScoMo has criticised school students taking direct action against the Government’s totally inadequate policies.