election 2008

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Can he look himself in the mirror?

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, September 23rd, 2008 - 28 comments

John Key on August 30 “The appointment of a minister to Cabinet has to be done on the basis that as Prime Minister I can look that person in the eye and have confidence that I can rely on their word.” Also, I know it’s small change to Key but to those of us who aren’t […]

Defining dirty politics

Written By: - Date published: 5:47 pm, September 22nd, 2008 - 12 comments

Dirty politics and personal attacks. They’re two of the phrases of the campaign so far. The Sunday Star Times took the time to investigate what dirty tricks might mean. According to Wanganui mayor and former National MP Michael Laws: “A dirty trick is a covert act “that you would be embarrassed about if you were exposed”. When he was […]

Questioning politicians

Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, September 22nd, 2008 - 16 comments

We’re keen to help you get active this election campaign. That’s why we’ve launched Campaign Hub 2008 and its Facebook group to give you info, access to materials, and tips on campaigning. It’s great to see so many people have downloaded leaflets and posters from the Hub or clicked through to Vote With Both Eyes […]

Roy Morgan has Winston on 5%

Written By: - Date published: 12:52 pm, September 19th, 2008 - 93 comments

If the latest Roy Morgan poll is to be believed, John Key’s big gamble of ruling Winston Peters out of any future coalition may well turn out to be one of the stupidest plays in New Zealand’s political history. According to the poll, NZ First has increased its hypothetical share of the vote to 5%, […]

Unacceptable

Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, September 19th, 2008 - 164 comments

From Newzblog: “Local activist James Sleep was today exercising his democratic right to protest when he was approached by an entourage of 4WDs carrying Wairapara MP John Hayes and John Key. Sleep attempted to get out of the way however he soon found himself being propelled backwards by the force of Hayes’ car. The car […]

Burned

Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, September 18th, 2008 - 33 comments

Under the headline “National MP ‘least prefered’ in own website opinion poll” the Kapiti News reports that Nathan Guy trails Darren Hughes 5% to 95% in his own Facebook poll. Comments on the poll include: I don’t trust Nathan Guy to work properly for all the people of Kapiti and Horowhenua. I’ve heard nothing from […]

Greens good for workers

Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, September 18th, 2008 - 75 comments

Work rights should be a big issue this election. National is proposing to strip workers of their rights to undermine wage increases. The Greens’ work rights policy, on the other hand, rocks. – Lift the minimum wage from $12 an hour to $15 an hour immediately. That will restore the minimum wage relative to the […]

Key still wishes we had invaded Iraq

Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, September 18th, 2008 - 158 comments

Helen Clark made foreign policy judgement a campaign issue today when she told a Grey Power meeting that if New Zealand had invaded Iraq with the US as John Key wanted we would have lost up to 60 soldiers*. Through a spokesman, John Key said “the claim of 60 dead is hysterical and desperate”. I […]

Poor

Written By: - Date published: 11:26 am, September 17th, 2008 - 39 comments

I’ve just come across Labour’s tragic new campaign website, Labour08.co.nz, and I’m of the firm opinion that someone needs to get their shit together very quickly. Let’s recap here. Labour, according to the polls, is anywhere from 6 to 18 points behind National. Even accounting for the quirks of MMP it’ll be a bloody hard […]

More slippery attacks, still no solutions

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, September 17th, 2008 - 70 comments

Yesterday, John Key “attacked Labour’s economic record, which he said amounted to overtaxing voters so it could put money into its pet projects” So, what are these ‘pet projects’ and which of them National would cancel? Well, Labour’s major spending projects have been increasing the health budget, spending more on transport (including roads, unfortunately), more […]

Billboard ideas for Left and Right

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, September 17th, 2008 - 46 comments

I see the National billboard on the corner of Dixon and Victoria in Wellington is already down. Are they pulling them all because they have been unanimously ridiculed or were the hilarious extra comments* that kept appearing on this one making it a liability? Either way, perhaps they will consider replacing it with something like […]

Jessica Alba says “Declare Yourself”

Written By: - Date published: 4:26 pm, September 16th, 2008 - 12 comments

Some commentators have pondered whether an election in NZ so close to the election in the States should be a concern for Labour. Helen Clark has already said: “… Obviously we all take a great interest in the American election but our election is what determines our immediate future”. But there’s also an upside in […]

How would Nats cut tax? Where would the money come from?

Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, September 16th, 2008 - 22 comments

Bill English has confirmed that National still intends to give the average worker a $50 tax cut. That’s $18 a week more than they will get in Labour’s tax cuts after 2011. If National’s would increase the cut for all taxpayers by around $18 a week it would cost nearly $3 billion a year. In […]

Nats’ dirty tricks exposed?

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, September 16th, 2008 - 53 comments

Cameron Slater, aka Whaleoil, is a nasty piece of work. If you’re a leftie and you get into the media, he’ll dig whatever dirt he can find on you from the ‘net and what he can’t find he’ll make up in an attempt to intimidate you and others into silence. But the intertubes flow both […]

Old battles

Written By: - Date published: 9:29 am, September 16th, 2008 - 64 comments

When John Key responded to the PM’s announcement of the election date on Friday he stated: This election is not about the past. It’s not about the old political battles of the past 20 or 30 years. And I got to thinking, what exactly are these “old political battles of the past 20 or 30 […]

Nothing to Hide? + more moaning

Written By: - Date published: 3:50 pm, September 15th, 2008 - 46 comments

Prime is running a series of interviews every Sunday until the election with the leader of each party in Parliament, starting with Rodney Hide last night. It was surprisingly good. Hosted by Bill Ralston with a panel of Barry Soper, Audrey Young, and Colin Espiner, some good questions were asked and Hide himself was good […]

Video: Slippery as a snake

Written By: - Date published: 2:16 pm, September 15th, 2008 - 30 comments

08 wire are staying on the case – coming to a screen near you:

Govts do keep promises, some more than others

Written By: - Date published: 12:40 pm, September 15th, 2008 - 24 comments

It’s an old saw among those who think knee-jerk cynicism is a replacement for healthy skepticism that politicians always break their promises. That’s challenged by an interesting study out of Canterbury University about whether governments keep their election promises. In the 11 terms from 1972 to 2005, each government kept at least half its election […]

To ask the real questions, you have to know the details

Written By: - Date published: 6:02 pm, September 14th, 2008 - 32 comments

Agenda this morning showed, in several ways, that if you want to ask difficult questions, you have to know your topic. Guyon Espiner gave a comprehensive lesson in the dangers of only knowing the media hype on a topic, not the actual detail. Defence Minister Phil Goff, frankly, made mince meat of Guyon’s attempts to […]

Negative vs dirty

Written By: - Date published: 7:13 pm, September 13th, 2008 - 69 comments

There’s an important difference between negative campaigning and dirty tricks but it already seems the two are getting confused in the media. Negative campaigning is saying bad things about your opponent that are at least arguably true (eg Clark saying Key was like a tourist at the South Auckland markets). Dirty campaigning is knowingly telling […]

Election date to be announced

Written By: - Date published: 11:57 am, September 12th, 2008 - 75 comments

So, Helen Clark is expected to announce the election date at 12.30. $20 says it’s November 8. UPDATE: The 8th it is. I’ll be collecting my $20 off each of you in due course. Full text of the speech over the break: PM’s announcement on the 2008 General Election I have called this press conference […]

National: for a more confused future

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, September 12th, 2008 - 14 comments

On Sunday, John Key, apparently off-the-cuff, announced he would dismantle the Families Commission and give the money to church groups, who just happened to be the people he was speaking to at the time. Then, he had to speak to UnitedFuture Leader Peter Dunne. The Families Commission is his baby and Key will probably need […]

Introducing Campaign Hub 2008

Written By: - Date published: 3:37 pm, September 11th, 2008 - 69 comments

Helena Catt, head of the Electoral Commission, says the EFA has had a ‘chilling effect’ on democratic participation. I’m convinced that that is a foolish position based on a belief that ‘democratic participation’ is rich lobby groups paying for ads and billboards, trying to market to us. What the EFA has actually done is democratise […]

Nats’ leaked health policy full of holes

Written By: - Date published: 9:20 pm, September 10th, 2008 - 10 comments

Having just read the National health policy and background paper released by Labour, a few things stand out to me. 1) There is no commitment to primary health-care. In fact, in 25 pages all it says is ‘we’ll do what’s already happening but we’ll re-name PHOs ‘Family Health Centres’, got ‘family’ in the name, don’t […]

The truth behind the Shawn Tan affair

Written By: - Date published: 1:27 pm, September 10th, 2008 - 43 comments

For the last several weeks the EPMU has had to weather an extraordinary series of attacks from ACT, ACT candidate and EPMU employee Shawn Tan, and right-wing activist/Herald journalist Lincoln Tan. The union has been accused of breaching Tan’s human rights and racism but it has had to respond to these attacks with one hand […]

End of the line for Peters

Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, September 10th, 2008 - 152 comments

Winston Peters will be wondering why he has let his political legacy be destroyed by not simply declaring donations that came from legal sources and being open in his role in soliciting them. All those MPs and other hangers-on who have ridden on the coat-tails of one of New Zealand’s most successful politicians*  must be […]

What I want from a 4th term Labour-led Govt

Written By: - Date published: 1:59 pm, September 8th, 2008 - 140 comments

With the election fast approaching, here’s a non-exhaustive list of policies I would like to see from a 4th term Labour-led Government. Hopefully, other Standardistas will have time to make their own wish-lists too: – Serious investment in low-oil/low-carbon infrastructure. If we’re not to let peak oil catch us unprepared, we have to get serious […]

What are National up to?

Written By: - Date published: 1:05 pm, September 6th, 2008 - 17 comments

A puzzled reader sent me this question – what is National up to? Their environment policy is leaked, and John Key says that one of his staff must have left it lying around in a café (and now their Conservation policy too?) Their transport spokesperson muses about $50 a week tolls and putting tolls back […]

Fewer bureaucrats

Written By: - Date published: 3:20 pm, September 5th, 2008 - 39 comments

OK. They were laughably bad before but now they don’t even have the grammar correct. If you can count it, you use fewer: less water, fewer litres of water; less bureaucracy, fewer bureaucrats. Simple. This from the bunch promising to magically raise education standards? Wait though – since when did National have a policy to reduce the number […]

The hypocrisy of the Right

Written By: - Date published: 2:50 pm, September 5th, 2008 - 3 comments

Today, we have National’s Judith Collins attacking the Government because the number of Kiwis on the unemployment benefit rose from 17,710 to 20,465 between June and July. Never mind the fact that 17,710 was a 30 year record-low and even 20,000 is 120,000 fewer Kiwis on the unemployment benefit than the best National could manage. […]

Shambles

Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, September 5th, 2008 - 29 comments

The leaks from within the National camp just keep on coming. Last night Trevor Mallard had the privilege of releasing National’s environment policy on 3 News thanks to a leak from the inside, destroying National’s planned policy launch on Saturday and exposing serious divisions within the party. From this leak we can tell there’s either […]