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Key linked to Pullar claim

Written By: - Date published: 7:22 pm, March 29th, 2012 - 153 comments

Close Up tonight led with the allegation, based on a leaked document, that John Key (and other prominent Nats) were listed as supporting a $14 million dollar insurance claim by Bronwyn Pullar.

Come back, we were just measuring GDP wrong!

Written By: - Date published: 12:34 pm, March 28th, 2012 - 10 comments

100 jobs a day were lost in January and 1000 people a week left New Zealand for Australia last year but it turns out it was all a mistake! David Farrar has discovered that we measure GDP slightly differently from Australia and if we use their measure then the purchasing power parity-adjusted difference in GDP per capita is close to zero. Hooray!

Lazy thinking

Written By: - Date published: 8:10 am, March 5th, 2012 - 70 comments

Anyone saying there are plenty of jobs, people are just to snobby (ie lazy) to take them, has to explain why 90,000 people suddenly got lazy between 2008 and 2009 as 80,000 jobs disappeared.

Righties cutting themselves on Occam’s razor

Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, March 1st, 2012 - 113 comments

The Left has its fair share of conspiracy theorists – who think that, for reasons tenuously explained at best, various, often opposing, organisations are secretly carrying out massive cons and not being discovered. But we’ve got nothing on the Right. Belief that climate change is world’s most enormous conspiracy, engineered for no good reason, is an article of faith for these guys. If it weren’t so serious, it would be hilarious.

Nats try to confuse between churn & real job growth

Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, February 29th, 2012 - 17 comments

There are quarter of a million jobless people. In a typical quarter, about 250,000 people start new jobs. Does that mean we can eliminate joblessness in a quarter? Of course fucken not, but that’s what National is telling you when they rabbit on about ‘10,000 jobs on Trademe’. To get joblessness and benefit numbers down you need a net increase in jobs,not just churn.

Selling asset sales to [insert region here]

Written By: - Date published: 11:09 am, February 13th, 2012 - 19 comments

Not everyone in the Beehive is thrilled that National is throwing away its chance at a third term for the sake of asset sales which make no sense, economically or politically. The Standard has obtained a copy of the generic column that National MPs are meant to add some ‘local flavour’ to and have published in their regional papers. It shows how cynical and shallow their position really is.

A reply to Steven Joyce

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, February 9th, 2012 - 9 comments

Steven Joyce’s piece on Tuesday was a transparent and hypocritical attempt to frame political opponents negatively, and soften us up for more asset sales, mining, deep sea drilling and the like. Thing is, it’s the Nats with their misguided austerity cuts who are the real nay-sayers holding the country back.

Steven Joyce and the ‘can’ts’

Written By: - Date published: 9:57 am, February 8th, 2012 - 44 comments

Steven Joyce reckons that the ‘can’ts’ are holding us back. I agree, just look at these facts:

  • National can’t create growth
  • National can’t create jobs
  • National can’t grow wages
  • National can’t get people to live here
  • National can’t get debt under control
  • National can’t reduce poverty

You’ve got to be kidding me

Written By: - Date published: 10:38 pm, January 29th, 2012 - 76 comments

Pike River boss Peter Whittall, the guy facing charges after 29 of his employees died working in his unsafe, ‘profit-over-people’ mine, has set up a mining safety consulting company. What’s next? A Minister of Tourism who always holidays overseas? A Finance Minister who wants to sell highly profitable assets in a down market? … oh … This country is nuts.

Port’s paid propagandist says cut workers’ pay

Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, January 11th, 2012 - 400 comments

They say that the nice thing about Cameron Slater is he’ll believe whatever he’s paid to believe. Yesterday, I asked whether Slater is being paid to run dirt stories for Ports of Auckland. He didn’t deny it. So what is the Port’s propagandist up to? Yesterday, he was calling for the workers’ pay to be slashed while defending the directors’ massive fees.
Update: Ports of Auckland denies paying Slater anything.

ImperatorFish: A Plea To Jim Hopkins

Written By: - Date published: 7:32 pm, December 21st, 2011 - 14 comments

Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here

Did you realise Jim Hopkins abolished Climate Change last Friday? It was awfully good of him and his craaaaaaaazy red-rimmed glasses.

Countering the Tories’ bait & switch

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, December 14th, 2011 - 89 comments

Congratulations David Shearer, you’re leader of the Left now, and the prime target for the Right’s smear machine. The Right’s strategy is obvious: bait and switch. Having proclaimed Shearer’s virtues to high heaven, they (and their useful idiots) will now say ‘who is this man?’, try to frame unreasonable expectations, and try to beat up leadership rumours.

Bugger the polls

Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, November 28th, 2011 - 141 comments

Pundit’s poll of polls tracked 57 individual polls this year, four of them appearing just a day or so before the election.  Every single poll predicted National with the seats to govern alone.  Didn’t happen.  The polls over estimate Nat support to the tune of about 4%.  They need to rethink their methods.

[insert tea-related pun here]

Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, November 16th, 2011 - 65 comments

The teapot tapes story (seems that’s the name that’s been settled on, despite the story involving neither teapots nor tapes) has evolved two distinct strands: the contents of the Key-Banks conversation, which is gradually coming out through the media, and the very aggressive, poorly conceived response of National which is making it worse for them.

Update: According to Fairfax reporter Danya Levy on Twitter, Key has just “stormed out” of a press conference after further questioning on the tapes.  He’s losing it.  Now The Herald has the story.

Three lies in one

Written By: - Date published: 7:38 am, November 14th, 2011 - 4 comments

Wave goodbye to higher taxes. Not your loved ones.

Choose a Brighter Future. Derp de derp.

This is what John Key was promising last election – before he came to power, raised GST, and record numbers of kiwis left New Zealand permanently for a brighter future in Australia.

John Key puts truth on 90 day term deposit

Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, November 7th, 2011 - 46 comments

hattip William Joyce

That sinking feeling

Written By: - Date published: 10:07 am, October 21st, 2011 - 16 comments

More protests in Tauranga. Simon Bridges blames “out of towners”.

Nats’ Rena spin all at sea

Written By: - Date published: 1:19 pm, October 19th, 2011 - 40 comments

The Nats are clearly at panic stations. They’re trying to minimise the Rena disaster by comparing the number of dead animals to those killed by other means. As one emailer put it: “it’s like saying the Christchurch earthquake was no big deal because more people die of cancer”.  Meanwhile, Key visits oiled birds and says they’re the price of economic ‘progress’.

Petard, meet hoist

Written By: - Date published: 3:02 pm, October 14th, 2011 - 55 comments

Attentive readers may recall some time back, when talk about illegal police video surveillance was to the fore, that there was also mention of the existence of video surveillance of a politician having an affair with a P user. Now of course having an affair isn’t particularly dreadful by today’s standards, even if the person […]

You couldn’t make this sh*t up

Written By: - Date published: 10:22 pm, September 30th, 2011 - 16 comments

I missed it at the time but apparently John Key’s big plan for Christchurch was to have a yarn to Oprah.

What kind of weird fantasy world does this guy live in?

Their deaths, Key’s PR

Written By: - Date published: 8:22 pm, September 29th, 2011 - 22 comments

Key says we have to leave men in Afghanistan, killing and dying, to “honour” the ones we’ve lost. Typical chickenhawk bullshit. This isn’t about ‘tearism’ or ‘Afghanistanians’ or ‘honour’. It’s all about PR. All about politics. Before Smith’s even in the ground, this arsehole Key is spinning his death for PR. Just like Pike River. Just like the earthquake dead.

Farrar: Ironically being political and shallow

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, September 4th, 2011 - 66 comments

Reading the political spin from David Farrar (channeling Bill English) over the weekend, I have to keep reminding myself that he really has very little idea about the practicalities of business. Where he is concerned about political costs, I find from a perspective of an exporter that I’m far more concerned about reliability of services.

Need to know

Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, September 3rd, 2011 - 24 comments

See Small on Hager yesterday? He’s all like “of course I knew we’re working with US intelligence but I
didn’t tell you because, duh, it’s not important”. It was the same story with the Hollow Men and the secret tape revelations. Wonder what other “unimportant” stuff journos don’t tell us in the interests of maintaining access and being part of the elite.

Nats talk to locals in [insert region here]

Written By: - Date published: 6:32 am, August 25th, 2011 - 42 comments

John Hartevelt ran a piece yesterday about National’s paint by numbers press releases. The problem here is not with National MPs and candidates using the same words to describe their policies or government spin. It’s when they claim, in identical words, to have had information from the public when that isn’t true, it’s just a cookie-cutter line and a lie.

Return to [insert region here]

Written By: - Date published: 11:11 am, August 23rd, 2011 - 7 comments

Jackie Blue, MP for [insert region here], accidentally unmasked National’s media practices when she published a blog post called “Generic Column – Lifting Education Standards” and forgot to add the ‘personal touch’. Now, the Dimpost has shown that the Nats are still using these [insert region here] columns to spread the party line.

Future focus fizzer

Written By: - Date published: 10:45 am, August 9th, 2011 - 31 comments

Nats are skiting at getting some people off the dole. But what really happened. How much was really saved?

Climate of Deception at Fox News

Written By: - Date published: 11:42 am, July 22nd, 2011 - 98 comments

It has been long known that the name “Fox News” should really be known as “Faux News” because it doesn’t believe in reporting reality. It just makes crap up and spins everything to avoid dealing with reality. This video looks at their performance on climate change.

I never inhaled “inappropriately”

Written By: - Date published: 12:26 pm, July 21st, 2011 - 5 comments

When David Cameron was asked did he ever discuss the BSkyB bid with News International, he said “I never had an inappropriate conversation.” It would be interesting to know whether he had an “appropriate” conversation about it with Rupert Murdoch when  they met after the recent British election. Murdoch, who was asked by Cameron to go in the back door, said they had a cup of tea and no other conversation took place”. He was asked to go in the back door and they just chatted about the weather?

Were NACTs planning CGT themselves?

Written By: - Date published: 4:15 pm, July 16th, 2011 - 113 comments

After two weeks of contradictory, panicked lines from National, the Right’s official critique of Labour’s CGT is “it’s a hodge-podge”. The Right, including Bill English and Don Brash, aren’t saying CGT is bad, they’re saying Labour’s CGT isn’t comprehensive enough. Why, then, don’t they campaign on a more comprehensive one? Maybe they were going to.

Distasteful

Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, July 16th, 2011 - 47 comments

DPF thinks that comparing Lockwood Smith to a KKK member is “a pretty disgusting smear”.  Could this be the same DPF who ran a billboard campaign comparing Labour government politicians to brutal dictators?

Whenever you’re ready, John

Written By: - Date published: 6:57 am, June 21st, 2011 - 53 comments

Gerry Brownlee says an announcement on Christchurch’s land will be made “very, very soon” but testily refuses to give a date, or even a real timeframe. I have a sinking feeling this is all a PR exercise. Just as Brownlee has got everyone really agitated, that Nice Man Mr Key will unveil the information. When it fits into his diary, of course.