election 2008

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The parties’ climate change policies

Written By: - Date published: 4:44 pm, March 31st, 2008 - 11 comments

‘Tis the season for surveys of the parties. Greenpeace sent a questionnaire to each of the parliamentary parties asking for their polices on 20 climate change issues. They’ve published the answers and rated the policies for effectiveness tackling climate change. The results are summarised below. Parties could score up to two ticks per answer if […]

Interview the leaders II: The Greens

Written By: - Date published: 1:26 pm, March 31st, 2008 - 51 comments

Well, we’ve made our decision on the two questions you wanted asked of Jim Anderton and one of the decisions we made was that we needed three questions. So we’ve picked the following: For the question that will be asked of all leaders we’ve chosen Wat Tyler’s question as tidied up by Billy: Of which […]

The Kingmaker Debate

Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, March 31st, 2008 - 150 comments

TV7’s Kingmaker debate was an opportunity for the leaders of the smaller parties to promote themselves without being overshadowed by Clark and Key. It’s shallow to give out points for a debate like this or announce winners but the debate did highlight the leaders’ strengths and weaknesses. Anderton did bloody well. He pointed to where his […]

Herald Digipoll

Written By: - Date published: 10:44 am, March 29th, 2008 - 56 comments

The New Zealand Herald reports that Labour has almost halved National’s lead in its latest DigiPoll survey, following a month “memorable for slip-ups and lacklustre performances by leader John Key.” Labour’s managed to claw its way up towards the 40% mark and that’s good news for the Left, which is now back within striking distance of […]

Interview the leaders

Written By: - Date published: 11:12 am, March 28th, 2008 - 51 comments

We’re going to interview the leader of each party but we’d like to give you the chance to ask the questions. Starting next week we’ll submit two questions to a leader each Monday, one of which will be the same for each of them to allow you to compare those answers; the second question will […]

National’s tax cut dilemma

Written By: - Date published: 10:45 am, March 28th, 2008 - 14 comments

If National are so keen to cut taxes and so critical of the Government for not doing so earlier, why are they being so tight-lipped about how they would cut taxes and even the size of their cuts? Because the Budget has them trapped. Labour plans to announce its tax cuts in the Budget, probably […]

If I were the Greens’ campaign strategist

Written By: - Date published: 11:21 am, March 27th, 2008 - 28 comments

This should be the Greens’ time in the sun. For decades, the Green movement has been concerned about the future impacts of climate change, peak oil, and resource depletion. The future is now. These once far-off concerns are having impacts today and people are finally becoming aware of the importance of sustainability and demanding government […]

The 50 cent tax cut

Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, March 26th, 2008 - 16 comments

This morning on Breakfast, John Key repeated his line that capping the size of the core public service (that includes planning staff for health, prison guards, and the human rights commission) at current levels would ‘save $500 million over three years that could be used for more ‘frontline’ staff and tax-cuts’. Leaving aside that it’s not […]

Creative pitch

Written By: - Date published: 9:31 am, March 26th, 2008 - 15 comments

With John Ansell now flat out with ACT and the Free Speech Coalition it suddenly stuck me that there might be an opening on the creative front with National. Putting my prejudices to one side, I’ve decided to pitch for their billboard contract.

Kiwisaver breaks half a million

Written By: - Date published: 4:37 pm, March 25th, 2008 - 17 comments

Congratulations to Kiwisaver’s 500,000th member, baby Remy Van Cruysen, whose parents, Jules and Megan, signed him up today. By the time Remy is an adult he will have a nest-egg worth $49,000 in today’s money. Kiwisaver has been enormously popular. People have signed up at twice the expected rate 500,000 have joined in less than eight months, […]

Policy Summary: Labour v National

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, March 25th, 2008 - 24 comments

The Sunday-Star Times has an interesting list of the policies the election will be fought on and where the two major parties stand on them. Here’s the article in summary, see if you can spot the pattern:  KiwiSaver Labour: Set up KiwiSaver, added government and employer contributions. Half a million Kiwis have now joined. National: No final policy yet. […]

It’s your fault I keep saying contradictory things

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, March 25th, 2008 - 9 comments

Regular readers will remember that one of John Key’s excuses for he ‘we would love to see wages drop‘ quote was that the reporter had misquoted him. Now, Key has once again shown a disturbing trait of attributing his own mistakes to others. When asked about the possibility of moving National’s tax cut programme forward […]

Obama faces challenging times

Written By: - Date published: 10:17 am, March 23rd, 2008 - 12 comments

Some commentators have been drawing parallels between John Key and Barack Obama’s style of appeal. That was all very well when it appeared to be going Obama’s way but now in this recent article in the Guardian suggests that Barack Obama is also facing challenging times. Barack Obama looks at his wireless device in Beckley, […]

John’s quick act sets up another flip

Written By: - Date published: 1:24 pm, March 21st, 2008 - 19 comments

Two days ago we ran a piece called ‘If I were ACT’s campaign strategist‘ which suggested ‘ACT needs to lay claim to the true right, without going so extreme that National has to disown them, by articulating a series of classic right-wing policies including: tax cuts, spending cuts, asset sales, and deregulation’. I didn’t realise […]

Obama vs Key

Written By: - Date published: 11:34 am, March 20th, 2008 - 21 comments

With Barack Obama doing so well in the Democrat primaries and being seen as the candidate of change, National wants to paint John Key as the kiwi Obama. And some in the media have lapped it up pointing to such amazing similarities as: ‘they were both born in 1961!’, ‘they both have two children!’, ‘they’re […]

Nats talk up crime, policy absent

Written By: - Date published: 5:04 pm, March 19th, 2008 - 20 comments

As part of its ‘New Zealand sucks’ campaign, National is on its high horse over an international survey that shows New Zealand’s crime victimisation rate is one of the higher ones in a group of 30 developed countries. Comparing crime levels across countries is bloody hard because of different laws, reporting practices, and reporting rates […]

If I were ACT’s campaign strategist

Written By: - Date published: 2:28 pm, March 19th, 2008 - 28 comments

What strategy should the parties pursue ahead of the election? This series of posts will attempt to answer that question, party by party, starting with ACT. ACT must gain support from hard-right voters who are dissatisfied with John Key’s wishy-washy centrism. They’ve made a good start of it by getting back Roger Douglas, the Dalai Lama of big […]

Colmar Brunton

Written By: - Date published: 3:39 pm, March 17th, 2008 - 11 comments

TVNZ had another Colmar Brunton poll last night. The gap between National and Labour remains substantial, but has closed by four points since last poll. UPDATE: In a comical twist that bodes poorly for Jim Anderton and Peter Dunne, it seems Colmar Brunton has the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party now polling as high as both […]

John Ansell’s reverse Midas touch

Written By: - Date published: 2:07 pm, March 17th, 2008 - 22 comments

Oh dear. It started with Roger Douglas and now political ad-man John Ansell has got on board the ACT train to electoral oblivion as well. Ansell’s most famous work to date is the National Party’s racist iwi/kiwi billboards of the 2005 election but our sources tell us his stocks dropped considerably with the party after […]

National’s bad fortnight

Written By: - Date published: 2:03 pm, March 14th, 2008 - 33 comments

A bad week last week from John Key got worse this week as other National MPs joined Key in a game of drop the ball. Last week, Key didn’t know his party’s Waitangi and Maori seats policies, and was slippery on the Auckland Airport issue before finally coming down on the unpopular side of the […]

Adapting to the oil endgame

Written By: - Date published: 10:53 am, March 14th, 2008 - 52 comments

Today oil broke US$111 a barrel. Two weeks ago the record price was $101. Just six months ago the price broke $80 for the first time. Oil prices are rising at an accelerating pace. That flows into New Zealand fuel prices, predicted to top $2 a litre this year. What can the Government do to […]

National confirms Landcorp would be sold (?)

Written By: - Date published: 4:46 pm, March 12th, 2008 - 22 comments

We have an interesting mixed message (once again) from National on asset sales. David Carter is quoted in the NZ Farmers Weekly as saying: David Carter: “As Minister of Agriculture I would sell Landcorp. I don’t see taxpayer money best invested in farms” (10 March, 2008). However after the example was raised in Parliament today […]

Which jobs would Key cut?

Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, March 12th, 2008 - 15 comments

It’s hard to get a straight answer out of John Key, so this is probably an exercise in futility, but Key’s announcement that National would not increase the size of the core public service raises some questions that need asking. So, Mr Key: Saying you would ‘get more value’ from the core public service isn’t a policy, […]

Reactions to New Zealand Fast Forward

Written By: - Date published: 10:32 am, March 12th, 2008 - 1 comment

Groups that issued press releases welcoming the Government announcement of the $700 million research and development fund for argiculture (press releases on Scoop): NZ Veterinary Association – Science funding just in the nick of time Science New Zealand – Science New Zealand welcomes science fund announcement Export New Zealand – Export NZ welcomes innovative funding […]

Dolla Dolla Bill, Y’all

Written By: - Date published: 5:17 pm, March 11th, 2008 - 14 comments

Days after saying ‘we’ve always said, we aren’t that worried about, um, whether the Crown needs to borrow a bit of money [for a] programme of tax cuts’ Bill English has accused Michael Cullen of ‘um, ah, borrowing for tax cuts’. What English’s researchers have discovered is that the amount of Government Bonds on issue […]

Expect National to back research funding boost

Written By: - Date published: 10:05 am, March 11th, 2008 - 18 comments

At lunchtime today it is expected that the government will announce a major funding boost to promote innovation in food science, agricultural research and production. So can we expect National to support the plan? At least Mr Key has been given the heads up to get an answer sorted out (unlike last week’s shakey non-answers […]

A blast to the past

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, March 10th, 2008 - 21 comments

Polling consistently around 1% ACT have decided that the only way forward is rejuvenation and fresh ideas.

Hitting a nerve

Written By: - Date published: 6:53 pm, March 5th, 2008 - 22 comments

In this afternoon’s debate Gerry Brownlee tried to have the word “slippery” ruled unparliamentary in relation to John Key. Proof, if any were needed, that Cullen had hit a nerve perhaps? Also interesting to see John Key leading off General Debate in the House – the Nats have done this before when Key’s been in […]