Written By: - Date published: 11:06 am, January 29th, 2010 - 30 comments
In his speech yesterday Phil Goff articulated Labour’s position on tax in no uncertain terms and came out very strongly against wealthy tax dodgers : “Too many people on good incomes avoid and evade paying taxes. It’s not right that some top earners pay a lower percentage of their income in tax than those on the […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:54 am, January 29th, 2010 - 32 comments
One of the great pleasures I get from writing for The Standard is making the trolls scream. There’s no better sign that you’re on the right track than when you sit down and think through a post, do the research and try to put forward your argument in a clear and concise manner and the […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:33 am, January 29th, 2010 - 41 comments
Goff and his advisers knew that the wage cap on public service CEOs would be the headline grabber of his widely praised speech. It succeeded beautifully and has drawn greater attention to the rest of his message. It also maneuvered National into the position of having to advocate for higher wages for public servants on […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:16 pm, January 28th, 2010 - 104 comments
Phil Goff has just delivered his first major speech of the year to state what Labour stands for and where it is going. I have to say, I’m impressed. You really should read it. It sets out a clear agenda for Labour and that agenda is firmly rooted in Labour’s deepest principles – decent pay […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:38 pm, January 16th, 2010 - 70 comments
Phil Goff has picked up on the point I made yesterday: while unemployment is falling in Australia due to the $42 billion stimulus package implemented by the Rudd Government, in New Zealand unemployment is still rising while this do nothing government sits on its arse, and unemployment here is now higher than in Aussie for […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, December 10th, 2009 - 39 comments
Check out Phil Goff’s general debate speech yesterday on In The House, a handy new site paid for by the Office of the Clerk (can’t work out how to embed from it yet). The speech is excellent and it focuses where Labour should be focusing: National’s complete unwillingness and inability to do anything for hardworking […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, December 9th, 2009 - 42 comments
By Andrew Campbell Shame on the Labour caucus. If it’s true that they back Phil Goff’s Nationhood speech without reservations and therefore his strategy to use dog whistling racist tactics to win back the white male vote then they deserve the long period in opposition such an approach will bring. The closing of the ranks […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:12 am, December 8th, 2009 - 44 comments
Helmetless Hone: Keen to continue the Hone Harawira saga, One News reported that complaints had been laid over Harawira not wearing a helmet when he rode the motorcycle of a visiting anti-violence campaigner on Parliament’s forecourt. I hope the Police have better things to do than investigate an MP for taking a 50m spin on […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:26 pm, December 3rd, 2009 - 25 comments
We all know the 2025 Taskforce is a farce and a waste of taxpayers’ money. The Government has disowned it, the critics have panned it. Even Garth George has come out calling for its first report to be recycled into toilet paper. It genuinely appears to serve no function but to subsidise the wacky right-wing […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:58 pm, November 28th, 2009 - 39 comments
Below Omar of Socialist Aotearoa gives his impressions of Phil Goff at Drinking Liberally in Auckland earlier this week. On an unrelated note, isn’t it funny (in a non-‘ha, ha’ way) how 4,000 pro-smackers gets lots of coverage but a blind eye is turned when the Left is out in bigger numbers? The protests yesterday by low-paid public servants […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:12 pm, November 27th, 2009 - 110 comments
Phil Goff’s speech on ‘nationhood’ was always going to be seen as an attempt to pull a Brash, regardless of what it actually said. The narrative was set from the start, and it’s fair to suspect that Goff’s people knew that and thought they’d take the risk anyway. You don’t make a speech on the […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, November 22nd, 2009 - 24 comments
Phil Goff has managed to defy the critics and make himself relevant. His speech on ACC and his criticisms of National’s backroom deals with the Maori Party got praise and draw a contrast between Labour and Key’s government, with Labour on the right side of popular opinion. It’s a nice piece of timing too. The […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, November 20th, 2009 - 41 comments
Reproduced with permission from No Right Turn for a viewpoint on the process of policy formation. This morning, Labour leader Phil Goff announced that he was abandoning the NeoLiberal consensus on monetary policy, with the aim of getting a monetary policy that works for the many rather than the rich few. But specifics were few […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, November 19th, 2009 - 33 comments
It’s great news that Phil Goff is urging a rethink of the way monetary policy is conducted in New Zealand. For too long interest rates (and hence inflation, unemployment, and house prices) have been the blunt tools of monetary policy. And for too long workers, householders, and exporters have borne the brunt. Labour leader Phil […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:59 am, November 18th, 2009 - 29 comments
If you had told me a year ago that, just a third of a way through its term, this government would have lost a minister in secret circumstances, had a minister openly acknowledge that the Prime Minister “doesn’t do anything”, muddled its way through legislative debacle after debacle of policies that over-promise and under-deliver, and […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, November 17th, 2009 - 23 comments
The next Auckland Drinking Liberally features Labour Party leader Phil Goff discussing his political values and the challenges facing the Sixth Labour Government He’ll discuss what drives him as a politician and what values underpin his political beliefs. Phil will also talk about what challenges the Sixth Labour Government will tackle and what New Zealand […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, November 11th, 2009 - 30 comments
I don’t know if the two are related but this is my theory du jour. John Key keeps washing his hands of both his own ministers and MPs and his coalition partners’ MPs. It seems like no misbehaviour, from rorts to racism can make a dent in Mr Easy Going. Meanwhile, Phil Goff is having […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, October 24th, 2009 - 14 comments
So – Labour have stood up for ACC. Bravo! History repeats. In the last year of the last National government (1999) they flogged off the profitable parts of ACC cover to their mates in the insurance industry (“opened ACC to competition”). The incoming Labour government reversed those changes and re-instated ACC as the sole provider […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:27 pm, September 11th, 2009 - 44 comments
Phil Goff is quoted today as saying “we made mistakes” with policies that were perceived as “nanny state”: Asked if he would apologise to the conference for the nanny state policies, Mr Goff replied: “I think we want to draw a line under the past and say, yes, we made mistakes, we didn’t listen.” Mr […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:02 pm, August 19th, 2009 - 9 comments
Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, August 19th, 2009 - 12 comments
Apart from when it’s customary, at maiden speeches, valedictories, and the Budget, it’s a rare speech that warrants a standing ovation in Parliament. Phil Goff got one yesterday for his speech on the urgent debate into the deployment of the SAS to Afghanistan. The text is here but it’s the delivery that really makes it*. Competent, […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:43 am, August 15th, 2009 - 40 comments
John Armstrong quotes a man who ran into Phil Goff during Labour’s reconnection tour last week: “Listen, mate. You know we voted these guys in seven months ago. You don’t expect us to come up and say we did the wrong thing yet, do you?” Now, Armstrong takes that as dooming Labour but look at […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, July 31st, 2009 - 89 comments
I’ve been thinking about the different ways ministers from the Left and the Right approach governing. I think it goes back to where they come from, where their ideological roots are. Ministers from Labour and other leftwing parties tend to have backgrounds in serving a wider community. Teachers, professors, union officials, public servants. Those roles […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:35 am, July 26th, 2009 - 84 comments
Bill Ralston quotes me and some other Left bloggers on the Burgess debacle suggesting it means Goff’s neck is on the line and a leadership challenge might be coming. Well, sorry, but that’s just an old Tory’s daydream. Goff’s leadership is secure. There is no prospect of him being overthrown. His support in Labour is […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, July 22nd, 2009 - 83 comments
The ludicrous attacks by the media on Goff over the dole scheme show that this is not an even playing field. Key is allowed to lie again and again. Ministers are allowed to shirk their responsibilities. The fact that 1300 more people on the dole each week barely gets a look in. The journos are […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:17 am, July 19th, 2009 - 87 comments
After 9 months of watching the rich get richer, with their triple dip cuts, first in taxes, then in private school fees, and now in getting subsidies to upgrade insulation in rental homes, and the poor getting poorer with no wage rises and tax cuts cancelled for the next two years, where are Labour? Phil’s […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:39 am, July 2nd, 2009 - 26 comments
National is overseeing the most dramatic rise in unemployment on record (yep, 2000 a week is more than the 1980s, more than the 1990s). They’ve got no answers, no ideas. All they can talk about is what Goff said 20 years ago and laugh. Like 2000 people a week losing their livelihoods is some kind […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:54 pm, June 30th, 2009 - 38 comments
The last few Question Times, the Tories have been whipping out old Goff quotes. Patsies are set to bring them out. Key goes off on wild side-tracks as an excuse to use them. Labour asks serious questions like ‘what are you doing about jobs’ and get back: ‘In 1986, Goff said we have to get the […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:06 am, June 10th, 2009 - 108 comments
The Tories are throwing all the muck they can at Goff. Trying to get him to back off on the Worth thing. Their latest is that Labour is spinning out this presentation of texts to Key to drag the issue out. Thought I would take a leaf out of Eddie’s book and do a timeline. Clear it […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:24 pm, June 5th, 2009 - 31 comments
Will be fun to read the Armstrongs, Rolstons, Laws, Holmes, Hooton and the other assorted rightwingers that besmirch our weekend papers. See them desperately to turn Key’s handling of Worth’s philandering into an attack on Goff. There will be claims that Goff made the harassment issue public. When it was Key on Wednesday afternoon. They […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:46 pm, May 5th, 2009 - 40 comments
A much better performance from Goff today in the House today. Finally, after weeks of fluffing, he managed to score a direct hit on Key. Goff’s questions on the Auckland supercity had Key denying the obvious, that the people of Auckland do not like his government’s supercity and do not believe they have been adequately […]
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