election 2008

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Wages still growing strongly

Written By: - Date published: 1:48 pm, November 3rd, 2008 - 31 comments

Despite the recession, wages have continued to grow at a record rate and, crucially, faster than inflation. The average hourly rate was up 5.5% over the past year. The percentage of the economy that goes to workers (rather than to the capital owners) continues to increase. This is the outcome of running a low unemployment […]

Advertising, getting it right and getting it wrong

Written By: - Date published: 10:56 am, November 3rd, 2008 - 62 comments

Labour’s new ad is one of the best political ads I’ve seen. It’s just a really well written script: acknowledging the success of the Right’s ‘time for a change’ meme and undercutting it, getting in some positive points on Labour that are forward-looking, and getting in the sting on Key. ‘Mary’ is what National calls […]

Dunne’s deal?

Written By: - Date published: 9:58 am, November 3rd, 2008 - 37 comments

The revelations in today’s Dompost that Peter Dunne’s United party took a donation from the Vela family shows again what a messy business donations can be. The Vela family opposed New Zealand following a new UN fishing agreement. Ross Meurant, acting for the Velas met with Dunne, days later he issued a press release opposing […]

PSA tackles the stats

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, November 3rd, 2008 - 38 comments

The PSA have put together some interesting numbers on the size of the public service. They appear to tell a different story to the one we’ve been hearing about from Mr Key who wants a” razor gang of cabinet ministers to trim state sector fat”. For example: We’re on par with Australia: Australian public service […]

Closing arguments

Written By: - Date published: 4:07 pm, November 2nd, 2008 - 58 comments

Six days to go. Here are the five big issues that I am finding can turn swing voters to the Left. There are others as well (see our Standard line series) but these have been effective points in my experience. Over the next few days, you’re bound to find yourself talking to people who are […]

Public politics

Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, November 2nd, 2008 - 46 comments

In today’s Herald six prominant NZer’s nail their political colours to the mast: Sir Paul Reeves: electorate vote Maori party, party vote Labour; “Labour will still get his party vote, and he would prefer that the Maori Party formed a government with Labour, rather than National” Graham Lowe: “ending a 40-year relationship with Labour to […]

Vote smart: The Maori seats

Written By: - Date published: 2:26 pm, November 2nd, 2008 - 33 comments

Each of the Maori seats presents an opportunity for tactical voting for a left-wing voter. If you favour the Maori Party candidate in your seat, and you think you can trust them to support working with a Labour-led government, then go ahead and vote for them. But give your party vote to the Greens or […]

SSTimes finds more $ in the pocket

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, November 2nd, 2008 - 22 comments

From this mornings SSTimes: New research has revealed a dramatic reversal in financial fortunes for the average Kiwi family, which is now $60 better off each week than it was six months ago. Falling mortgage costs teamed with the government’s October 1 tax cuts and a beefed up Working for Families package are the main reasons […]

Vote smart: The micro parties

Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, November 1st, 2008 - 101 comments

Last election, 7,000 people gave their votes to very small left-wing parties that never had any chance of winning a seat in Parliament. That’s 0.3% of the vote; a small but not insignificant amount. If those votes to the Alliance and Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis had gone to the Greens instead (who, after all, have 99% […]

What a rag

Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, November 1st, 2008 - 56 comments

A week out from the election, Granny Herald has still yet to do any proper coverage of the effects on individuals and the economy of National’s four flagship policies: privatising ACC, gutting Kiwisaver, reducing work rights, and weakening the RMA and ETS.  Yet, they can find the space to tell us which politicians would make the […]

Side-show

Written By: - Date published: 6:12 pm, October 31st, 2008 - 32 comments

I see the media are now comparing the ‘redundancy’ packages on offer with all of the horse race vigour they applied to the tax cuts. That’s understandable as the media like quantifiable measures so they can make simple graphs and X is greater or less than Y soundbite statements. But what they have forgotten is […]

Granny Herald yearns for good old days but democracy alive and well

Written By: - Date published: 2:59 pm, October 31st, 2008 - 16 comments

The Herald is once again trying to convince us that everyone is so scared of the EFA that there is no poltiical participation going on. Once again, they cite some rich right-wing organisations that don’t want to have to identify themselves when advertising, and so haven’t advertised at all. It seems the Right’s view is […]

Tories’ crack at socialism a poor substitute

Written By: - Date published: 1:39 pm, October 31st, 2008 - 5 comments

National’s redundancy package would effectively continue Working for Families payments for some people who would otherwise lose them after redunancy. Only people who have been in the same job for six months would get it, cutting out labourers, temps, and contract workers. For about the same cost, it would deliver more money to fewer people […]

Arseneau: Election too close to call

Written By: - Date published: 1:26 pm, October 31st, 2008 - 64 comments

In her blog column Teresa Arseneau discusses the polls overall, and what happens if the largest party doesn’t form the government: Several of these polls suggest that while National is likely to “win” the election – receive both the most votes and seats – it may not govern….But in an MMP election it is important […]

Whose record is better?

Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, October 31st, 2008 - 6 comments

I found it weird that National’s attack ad is a series of newspaper headlines. Everyone knows newspaper headlines are sensationalist and everyone knows that things were much worse under National in the 1990s, as this new youtube vid illustrates: Meanwhile, the upbeat jokers at 08wire have a positive reponse to the Nat attack ad:

The Standard line: Nanny State

Written By: - Date published: 10:11 am, October 31st, 2008 - 32 comments

So, you’re talking with someone about politics and they say something really dumb and wrong and you know it’s wrong but you don’t have the arguments and facts at your fingertips to make a decisive point. That’s where our election series, The Standard line, comes in. The info you need in bite-size form. Today: Nanny State  […]

The Standard line: Tax cuts

Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, October 30th, 2008 - 23 comments

[update: download this (tax-and-kiwisaver-calculator) simple excel table that will calculate tax cut and Kiwisaver losses under Labour and National, and the difference, for you and your family. No other calculator has included Kiwisaver losses] So, you’re talking with someone about politics and they say something really dumb and wrong and you know it’s wrong but you don’t […]

The DL Debates – Rangitikei

Written By: - Date published: 10:36 am, October 30th, 2008 - 7 comments

The good fellas and fellaresses of Drinking Liberally Palmerston North have organised three debates for the Rangatikei electorate. These will be the only candidate debates in the electorate, so really great to see DL making it happen. The debates are: 2 November, 7pm Feilding – Senior citizens hall, Bowen street 3 November, 7pm Marton – […]

The H-fee explained

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, October 29th, 2008 - 161 comments

A little more detail to flesh out Tane’s post. The core of the H-fee story is this: In 1987, head of Equiticorp Allan Hawkins illegally helped Elders Merchant Finance in New Zealand with the takeover of another company. In return, Elders paid Hawkins $66m through a series of sham foreign exchange transactions. There were two so-called […]

Vote Smart: Wellington

Written By: - Date published: 2:16 pm, October 29th, 2008 - 40 comments

In Wellington Central and Ohariu-Belmont, left-wing voters have the opportunity to use their candidate votes wisely to help good left-wing candidates to victory, and keep out two conservative dinosaurs. Wellington Central is a two-horse race between Labour’s Grant Robertson and National’s homophobic former ACT MP Stephen Franks. Wellington Central was a firmly Labour seat last […]

Gone Flippin’

Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, October 29th, 2008 - 21 comments

Slippery John’s flip-flops keep on coming. Here he is just three weeks ago in the Listener: “you either have a conflict of interest or you don’t; it doesn’t matter whether you hold one share or a million” and, today, on Breakfast: ‘it’s a very small number, no-one thinks a Member of Parliament with 500 Contact […]

A clear choice on ACC

Written By: - Date published: 9:59 am, October 29th, 2008 - 48 comments

If you vote National, United Future, or ACT, you will be voting for the ACC system to be privatised. Consequences of this include: – $200 million in profits flowing offshore, according to John Key’s former employers Merril Lynch – higher levies on most workers, as private insurers cherry-pick the most profitable for themselves, leaving the […]

Update on Brownlee

Written By: - Date published: 5:20 pm, October 28th, 2008 - 37 comments

There are substantive policy issues such as National’s privatisation plans for the prisons that need to be covered but, first, an update on Gerry Brownlee’s conflict of interest. According to the NZPA: Brownlee said his shareholding (496 shares, worth around $4,000 during 2002-2003) was too small to amount to a pecuniary interest. – Pecuniary interest is […]

A pattern of (mis)behaviour

Written By: - Date published: 1:41 pm, October 28th, 2008 - 87 comments

Over this year, we’ve seen John Key caught out lying on a number of occasions – the excuses for his “we would love to see wages drop” quote, his shares, numerous instances in the debate and other interviews. He has said things like ‘I’ve aways believed in climate change‘ when he had previously claimed to […]

Standard scoop: Another senior Nat failed to disclose conflicts

Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, October 28th, 2008 - 34 comments

Last month, Key lied when he was asked whether he had more Tranzrail shares, over which he had failed to declare his conflict of interest. On Sunday, it was revealed on The Standard that Key had also held shares in Fletcher Challenge Forests, which was campaigning for the Government to buy the rails off Tranzrail, […]

Horse racing

Written By: - Date published: 10:26 pm, October 27th, 2008 - 70 comments

Here are the results of the last four polls, released over the past four days. I’ve presented them in number of seats won and grouped the parties into Left and Right based on these facts: ACT is locked with National as the Progressives are with Labour, the Greens won’t go with National, UF won’t go […]

Labour’s labour policy good for labourers

Written By: - Date published: 7:50 pm, October 27th, 2008 - 19 comments

Labour has unveiled its work rights policy, and it’s a good one: – minimum wage increases at least at the rate of inflation or the average wage increase, whichever is higher. That would bring it to nearly $15 a year by 2011. Why they didn’t just commit to $15 like the rest of the Left, […]

Key – Undisclosed conflict of interest

Written By: - Date published: 1:40 pm, October 27th, 2008 - 31 comments

National’s response to my revelation on The Standard that John Key owned shares had undisclosed conflicts of interest with Fletcher Challenge Forests is to deny the conflict. Let me restate the core conflict suscinctly: John Key owned shares in Fletcher Challenge Forests. Fletcher Challenge Forests was a major user of Tranzrail, it depended on Tranzrail […]

Election dreams

Written By: - Date published: 12:56 pm, October 27th, 2008 - 5 comments

We received this by email and it’s so kafkaesque we just had to post it: I had a dream last night. I had, for some reason, been roped into going door to door in small town New Zealand delivering National Party pamphlets. I found myself knocking on the door of a grimy bedsit, and talking […]

Standard Scoop: Key exposed again on secret shares and Tranzrail

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 pm, October 26th, 2008 - 145 comments

When the Tranzrail shares came to light, Key was asked whether he had any other undisclosed shares entailing a conflict of interest. He said he didn’t. That was not true. National Party Leader John Key failed to disclose his conflict of interest arising from his share holding in Fletcher Challenge Forests while using his privileges […]

On moral mandates

Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, October 26th, 2008 - 69 comments

So, let me get this straight. The Right says that the minor parties have to support a National-led government if National gets more votes than Labour. Even if a National government would go against everything a party stands for, even if it is a complete betrayal of the people who voted for them, minor parties […]

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    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
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  • A giant Henry VIII clause
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    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    3 weeks ago
  • What media bias looks like
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    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    3 weeks ago
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    3 weeks ago
  • Resistance is Fertile.
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    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    3 weeks ago
  • Why isn’t the funding on the same fast track?
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  • Work begins on SH29 upgrades near Tauriko
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  • Fresh produce price drop welcome
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  • Speech to the 68th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68)
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  • Speech to Life Sciences Summit
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