phil goff

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Williams and Trotter on Carter’s expulsion

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 pm, October 12th, 2010 - 13 comments

RNZ’s Kathryn Ryan talks to Mike Williams and Chris Trotter about Chris Carter’s expulsion.

The leadership vacuum

Written By: - Date published: 1:32 pm, October 5th, 2010 - 41 comments

Paul Henry has a racist rant to the Prime Minister and what does John Key do? He laughs along and tries to make a joke. A PM that is afraid to be a leader. A Leader of the Opposition who is afraid of ticking off racists. A Green Party that is afraid of making a claim for the Left vote when Labour fails. Come back, Helen, all is forgiven.

Take him up on the offer, Phil

Written By: - Date published: 7:52 am, August 19th, 2010 - 28 comments

John Key said yesterday: “the gap with Australia is definitely closing … If [Phil Goff] wants to pop up for a coffee I will take him through the numbers, and I can take him through a few others.” I say go for it, Phil. I’m dying to see what numbers Key is talking about. Because the reality is that we are falling behind Australia on every measure, while Key just smiles and waves.

Up for the challenge

Written By: - Date published: 11:05 am, August 15th, 2010 - 57 comments

The Herald is carrying this piece by Phil Goff – I’m sure Phil won’t mind if we reproduce it here. If you have any constructive suggestions or comments for Phil, make them below. I’ll collate them and email them to him on our behalf.

Can Labour win in 2011?

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, August 1st, 2010 - 82 comments

Chris Carter’s bumbling attempt at a coup has pushed the question onto the tip of everyone’s tongue – can Labour win the 2011 election? And can Phil Goff be the one to lead them to victory? But 24 hours can be a long time in politics, and a year is a very long time indeed. The biggest mistake Labour could make now would be to get into leadership battles.

Labour can win led by Phil Goff

Written By: - Date published: 5:28 pm, July 31st, 2010 - 146 comments

Chris Carter is wrong. Labour can win the next election led by Phil Goff. The objective conditions make it possible, and there is enough time. That’s true even if Key calls an early election to gain the financial benefits of National’s new electoral law, as some have predicted on this site. First the objective conditions. […]

Just plain stupidity

Written By: - Date published: 5:28 pm, July 29th, 2010 - 242 comments

It sounds like Chris Carter has shot himself in the foot, or rather in the handwriting.

Phil Goff and the caucus look like they have taken the required quick and decisive action.

Key proud to have imaginary Kiwis’ support

Written By: - Date published: 10:38 am, July 1st, 2010 - 30 comments

John Key wilted yesterday as he attempted to cover for the fact that most Kiwis will be worse off thanks to his GST hike and cuts to public services like early childhood education, which don’t eliminate costs, just pushes them on to families. He went wrong pretty quickly, claiming a couple called ‘Bill and Mary Smith’ had called to thank him, then admitting he had made them up.

Edwards: Goff totally loses the plot

Written By: - Date published: 7:51 am, June 24th, 2010 - 125 comments

A government whose raison d’etre is furthering corporate interests can be pretty damned incompetent and still do okay, because corporate msm do the PR for them. And in return for this government favouring corporate interests over all else we’ve seen countless examples of NACT committing howling errors of judgement, if not outright illegalities, only to […]

Assets the big issue for 2011

Written By: - Date published: 12:07 am, June 22nd, 2010 - 15 comments

The post-Budget bump for National in the Roy Morgan polls was there but was small and it’s already evaporating. Fundamentally, National’s policies just aren’t popular,as the poll showing 80% opposition to asset sales proves. National is still pursuing privatisation by stealth (whanua ora, PEDA, water etc), giving the Left an opportunity make public assets the big issue of 2011.

Roy Morgan poll

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, June 5th, 2010 - 70 comments

Latest Roy Morgan poll shows support for John Key’s National-led Government has strengthen considerably to 57.5% (up 3.5%)

Garner sez ‘take the fight to Key’

Written By: - Date published: 9:02 am, May 13th, 2010 - 15 comments

Phil Goff has put some good solid (if rather moderate) left-wing substance on the table in his pre-budget speech yesterday. Duncan Garner says that was the right move, but wonders if Labour now needs to focus on the questions surrounding John Key. Garner says in the wake of several questionable moves Key’s integrity is now on the line and Labour should exploit it.

Goff speech on Labour’s vision

Written By: - Date published: 1:47 pm, May 12th, 2010 - 72 comments

Phil Goff has delivered his speech on Labour’s economic vision ahead of the Budget. It’s a good one, filled with core Labour values and ideas that will get New Zealand moving ahead. Goff talks about fairer tax rather than tax cuts for the rich, better monetary policy, and investing in New Zealand’s future.

Bold economic leadership… from the Opposition

Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, May 6th, 2010 - 61 comments

I’m glad to see Labour is stealing a march on the lazy Nats and building an alternative economic vision ahead of the Budget. It looks to be just the vision New Zealand needs, built on the twin planks of economic sovereignty and a fairer distribution of wealth.

Not a time for mixed messages

Written By: - Date published: 1:34 pm, May 3rd, 2010 - 26 comments

This is not a time for mixed messages. Phil Goff is quoted today as saying: “They [the Government] have got to back down from both Great Barrier Island and the Coromandel”. No! Labour’s position, and the position of the biggest single protest march since 1938, is no mining in any Schedule 4 land! Don’t dilute the message…

Goff stands up for democracy in Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 11:34 am, April 27th, 2010 - 70 comments

Fresh from promising to restore the top tax rate that National is set to abolish and give the revenue to the poor, Phil Goff has outlined his vision for fixing National’s undemocratic Supercity. National and Act have ridden roughshod over Auckland democracy in the interests of their corporate allies. Phil Goff has made it clear that Labour will restore local democracy.

Send a JAFA to Wellington….

Written By: - Date published: 9:52 pm, April 26th, 2010 - 12 comments

To paraphrase Muldoon – send a JAFA to Wellington, and we can only increase the average intelligence of both parts of the country. Needless to say, TV news chose to focus on a minor story in Goffs speech. If a future mayor of Auckland, Brown, can sit at the cabinet table on decisions related to […]

When did telling the truth become a mistake?

Written By: - Date published: 1:09 pm, April 15th, 2010 - 71 comments

Phil Goff is being attacked by John Key’s apologists because he won’t pledge to reverse National’s GST hike given he can’t yet know the state of the government’s books when he becomes PM. How ironic to see the Right, who supposedly want accountable government, pillory a politician for being straight up with the public, rather than telling them what they want to hear.

Goff slams Nats’ record

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, April 15th, 2010 - 8 comments

This is a government that has failed to do anything apart from favours for its rich mates. But it’s still startling to see it all laid out. In his speech to the Grey Power AGM, Goff went through the failures of Key and co after less than a year and a half – an amazingly long list for such a short time. Goff is on the money when he points to the cause: National governs for the few, not the many.

Confidence in Key govt falls off a cliff

Written By: - Date published: 12:42 am, April 12th, 2010 - 20 comments

Smile and wave is easy enough in the first year, people are willing to give you a chance. But at some point, the public expects a government to get to work tackling the big problems. National displays no will or ability to do so. In just two months, 1 in 8 Kiwis has switched from thinking the country is heading in the right direction under Key to thinking things are getting worse.

Wage gap is the John Key credibility gap

Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, March 13th, 2010 - 46 comments

There’s a nickname for John Key that’s picking up currency from both Left and Right around the blogosphere: ‘smile and wave’. The one thing Key can be depended on is to turn up grinning in some cheesy photo op. All his promises fall by the wayside. Meanwhile, 276,000 Kiwis are jobless, the wage gap with Australia keeps widening, and so does Key’s credibility gap.

Axe the tax

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, March 2nd, 2010 - 60 comments

Labour’s ‘Axe the Tax’ campaign has hit the road. Phil Goff is travelling around New Zealand explaining why Labour opposes National’s plan to hike GST on everyone to pay for tax cuts that will primarily go to the well-off. National are worried. They’re not promoting their package anymore, they’re lashing out at Goff.

Another Nat lie on GST

Written By: - Date published: 12:27 pm, February 28th, 2010 - 51 comments

You have to double-check every ‘fact’ the Nats tell you. Bill English, for example, has been caught out lying on Labour’s growth record.
For the last couple of weeks, John Key has been claiming that when Labour increased GST from 10% to 12.5% in 1989 there was no compensation for taxpayers. That too is a lie.

Trev nails Tolley, other Lab MPs fail

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, February 24th, 2010 - 27 comments

Success for Opposition frontbenchers largely consists of embarrassing their opposite number by forcing them to answer questions they would rather not. Labour showed both how to do that and how not to do it in the House yesterday.

Phil Goff trips up Sloppy Key

Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, February 19th, 2010 - 8 comments

Click through to see Phil Goff take John Key down a peg. Sloppy home insulation. Sloppy, broken cycleway promises. Sloppy, unfilfulled Youth Guarantee. Sloppy & uncaring on unemployment. Sloppy abuse of the people of McGehan Close. A sloppy, do nothing PM.

Columnists slam Key’s lack of plan

Written By: - Date published: 4:14 pm, February 13th, 2010 - 110 comments

Tracy Watkins awards the first week of Parliamentary politics this year to Phil Goff, and points out that it’s as much due to his and Labour’s much improved performance as it is to Key and National’s shambolic, over-promise, under-deliver governance. (more…)

Goff’s response to Key

Written By: - Date published: 2:53 pm, February 9th, 2010 - 79 comments

Even National Party pollster, David Farrar, could only give Key’s speech a B Goff says that it’s ‘Alan Bollard 1, John Key 0’. There’s talk of a step change but no actual plan that will close the gaps. ‘No bold plan, no plan at all’ ‘Big Tuesday? More like tip-toe Tuesday’ Rubbishs the notion that […]

Quick thoughts

Written By: - Date published: 11:06 am, February 8th, 2010 - 36 comments

It’s obvious to anyone with a brain that a government that spends half its time on holiday and the rest on PR stunts is never going to get New Zealand to catch Australia by 2025 but having the Reserve Bank Governor say its impossible, that’s hugely embarrassing. Of course, Key is refusing to acknowledge the […]

Nats soft on crime

Written By: - Date published: 10:36 am, February 2nd, 2010 - 38 comments

Oh, sure, the Nats will lock a person up longer after they commit a crime, if they get caught. But what they won’t do is prevent them commiting the crime in the first place. National will spend a fortune on counter-productive vengence after you’ve become a victim of crime but not a fraction of that on saving the crime from happening in […]

Goff on Q+A

Written By: - Date published: 7:49 am, February 1st, 2010 - 38 comments

A good appearance from Phil Goff on the first Q+A of the year. I liked this part especially: Guyon Espiner: You spoke in your speech a lot about tax as well, and again you returned to that equity and fairness argument, and I want to quote from that, you said “too many people on good incomes […]

Colin James on Labour 2010

Written By: - Date published: 8:46 pm, January 31st, 2010 - 2 comments

I know Standard readers follow politics closely almost by definition, but for those who don’t here’s Colin James’ observations on the year ahead for Labour, and for Phil Goff (Press, 30 Jan ’10). He asks: Phil Goff cooks sausages to a turn on the barbecue. But can he cook up a strategic future for Labour? […]

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