election 2008

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Roy Morgan shows Left ahead

Written By: - Date published: 5:14 pm, September 4th, 2008 - 89 comments

John Key’s impatience to get the election over and done with makes a lot more sense in light of today’s Roy Morgan poll. The poll has Labour up 4 to 38%, the Greens up to 8% and National down 3.5 to 44.5% – well out of their comfort zone given their lack of viable coalition […]

Why didn’t NZF use Nats’ donations playbook?

Written By: - Date published: 2:22 pm, September 4th, 2008 - 56 comments

This business with donations from the Spencer Trust going to New Zealand First but not being declared. I find it hard to credit that this was an accident. It seems beyond belief that no-one in the party would have seen the donation declaration at some point and said ‘hey, what about that $50K from the […]

Video: Nats wave goodbye to blue sky

Written By: - Date published: 2:01 pm, September 4th, 2008 - 14 comments

Newly up from 08wire There’s something very powerful about that music and image combination….

ACC privatisation costs National support?

Written By: - Date published: 12:27 pm, September 4th, 2008 - 18 comments

A reader just sent us this poll from NZ Doctor magazine (offline): If there was a snap election tomorrow, 38 per cent of GPs would vote National and 36 per cent for Labour, the latest New Zealand Doctor / IMS Health Fax poll shows. Labour’s comeback might be attributed to National’s ACC stance. The poll […]

Why the rush?

Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, September 4th, 2008 - 51 comments

We are, at a legal maximum, 72 days away from the election. The tradition is that the date is announced at least six weeks before election date (that’s the timeframe the Electoral Office needs). So, we would expect to have the election date announced by the start of October, no more than four weeks from now. […]

Key, leadership, and the audacity of hope

Written By: - Date published: 3:31 pm, September 3rd, 2008 - 24 comments

Perhaps Mr Key is feeling a little regretful about comparing himself to Barack Obama. Certainly the chutzpah inherent in such a comparison has been noted – including these comments in the ODT today from Simon Cunliffe: “it’s quite natural that a political leader such as the “young, smart and rich” John Key might think about […]

Beyond parody

Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, September 3rd, 2008 - 57 comments

National’s new billboard. It’s like when your Dad tries to rap.

Are you positive?

Written By: - Date published: 12:43 pm, September 3rd, 2008 - 5 comments

Talking about the Nat billboard campaign on Wammo’s show this morning, Key said it was going to positive and on message*. Umm, when’s the positive bit coming? Because ‘wave goodbye to higher taxes, not your loved ones’ is not a positive message. It’s negatively framed and intentionally so. If the Nats wanted to be positive […]

It just gets worse

Written By: - Date published: 11:06 am, September 3rd, 2008 - 35 comments

Just when you thought National’s billboard campaign couldn’t possibly get any weaker, reports emerge that their next one will say: “Get youth into training, not into trouble” Honestly guys, just cut your losses and start again. [UPDATE: Apparently the first of this run is going up in Vivian Street today.]

Dissection

Written By: - Date published: 1:13 pm, September 2nd, 2008 - 19 comments

OK, so there are limitless ways to mock the Nat’s ‘WW2 bombers flying to Chile’ billboard (send us yours to add to these ones) but I want to quickly examine it seriously as a piece of political argument. First, the premises: a) our taxes are high: No, they’re not. Tax as a percentage of GDP […]

Break open the trusts

Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, September 2nd, 2008 - 25 comments

As we’ve discussed earlier, it would be highly surprising if the investigations into NZF’s finances find any serious illegality. At worst, a failure to declare donations might be found, an offence for which charges cannot be laid more than 6 months after an alleged offence. Now, TV3 was shown accounts by the Spencer Trust which show that […]

Weak

Written By: - Date published: 3:35 pm, September 1st, 2008 - 101 comments

Perhaps I’ve overestimated the National Party’s PR machine. I mean I’ve seen them run their C/T strategy pretty well and, as much as I hate to admit it, Ansell’s billboards were pretty bloody good last time. But then I opened the PDF with their latest billboard on it. It’s busy, the message is confusing, and […]

New York Times praises NZ on nukes

Written By: - Date published: 2:31 pm, September 1st, 2008 - 6 comments

‘Let’s hear it for New Zealand’ exclaims the New York Times editorial. Why? Because New Zealand is leading a group of countries that opposes a Bush Administration plan to supply nuclear technology to India. Supply of nuclear technology to India is banned because it used its civilian nuclear programme to develop an atomic bomb, contrary […]

Causes and effects

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, August 30th, 2008 - 47 comments

A series of graphs from the Social Report. First off, the unemployment rate When the unemployment goes up or down, the practical effect is a decrease or increase in household incomes as the country got poorer under National, unemployment rose, incomes fell, and and the poverty rate rose, compounded by National’s cut benefits and its choice […]

Peters stands down

Written By: - Date published: 5:49 pm, August 29th, 2008 - 145 comments

Peters has stood down. Clark has taken over his portfolios. It’s good that Peters appears to have accepted that this is a necessity and hasn’t turned on the Government. Clever of Clark to take the portfolios herself too. [we nearly had the scoop on this too but it took too long for me to get […]

Nats, Farrar fail again in attempt to muzzle Kiwis

Written By: - Date published: 11:05 am, August 29th, 2008 - 26 comments

For the third time, National’s attempt to get a legal decision to block the EPMU and its sister unions from participating in the election campaign as registered third parties as failed. So pathetic were National’s arguments that they lost their last case even though the EMPU submitted no arguments of its own to the Court. […]

Clark cuts the thread

Written By: - Date published: 1:43 pm, August 28th, 2008 - 192 comments

Winston Peters’ stories around the Owen Glenn donation to his legal fund are dangerously convoluted and have stretched everyone’s credulity but without real evidence either way it has been impossible to fairly condemn him. Glenn’s letter yesterday provided strong evidence and left Peters ‘hanging by a thread’, as every hack in the country wrote. Now, Helen Clark […]

Social Report shows Kiwis better off

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, August 28th, 2008 - 31 comments

MSD released its Social Report today, an annual publication that collates a wide variety of standard of living measures, and produces this awesome graph. The circle represents the status quo in 1995-97 each spoke represents a different measure (income, crimes per capita etc). If the spoke is longer than the circle than the measure has improved between 1995-97 […]

Herald poll shows Nats’ lead collapsing

Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, August 28th, 2008 - 36 comments

Today’s Herald-Digi poll is the first to be released that was taken after the secret agenda tape scandal had fully emerged and had some time to sit in voters’ minds. Which makes it worrying reading for National. They have lost 5.4% support (54.4% to 50%) and Labour has benefited from that loss picking up 5.5% (30.8% […]

The more things change…

Written By: - Date published: 6:18 am, August 28th, 2008 - 18 comments

70 years ago (more or less) and The Standard was correctly predicting a Labour victory as the ‘Nationalists’ ramped up a hollow election campaign. In true Standard-style, there’s even some stats. Click on the image for the full article.

Whom to believe? (2)

Written By: - Date published: 12:26 pm, August 27th, 2008 - 63 comments

Owen Glenn’s letter to the Privileges Committee contradicts Winston Peters’ previous statements to the media, the Privileges Committee, and, presumably, the PM. Glenn says that Peters did personally approach him for a donation, contrary to what Peters has said. It’s important to remember that there’s nothing illegal or even unusual about what Glenn claims Peters did. […]

Greens win better ETS

Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, August 27th, 2008 - 21 comments

The Greens have won some very good improvements to the ETS in exchange for their support. The most important is $1 billion over 15 years to insulate low-income homes and subsidise upgrades to insulation of higher income homes. That’s a really positive development; all New Zealand homes will finally have decent insulation (Labour has done well […]

Kiwis waking up to Nats’ secret agenda

Written By: - Date published: 10:29 am, August 26th, 2008 - 96 comments

According to the TV3 poll last night, 46% of voters believe National has a secret agenda. And why wouldn’t they? We’ve had Bill English talking about a secret agenda to ‘sort out’ Working for Families and sell Kiwibank while being recorded, on the same recordings, we’ve had Lockwood Smith talking about the need to adopt popular […]

Adapting to the end of cheap oil

Written By: - Date published: 11:01 pm, August 24th, 2008 - 30 comments

On August 1, Transit NZ and Land Transport NZ were merged into the NZ Transport Authority. The new organisation’s first major publication shows a welcome shift in thinking and an acknowledgment that the age of cheap oil is over. Managing Transport Challenges When Oil Prices Rise contains a model built on the consensus of a number of international […]

TV3: Labour clawing back National’s lead in latest poll

Written By: - Date published: 6:50 pm, August 24th, 2008 - 31 comments

According to TV3 “Labour is on the move. The latest 3 News poll shows that less than three months out from the election, their support is heading upwards. And once you add the Greens and the Maori Party into the mix, a Labour-led coalition is not out of the running just yet.” Why will this […]

Open democracy?

Written By: - Date published: 11:56 am, August 24th, 2008 - 20 comments

According to the Sunday Star Times the Sensible Sentencing Trust and Family First have decided to refuse to comply with the Electoral Finance Act. While the Sensible Sentencing Trust is outrightly claiming they are going to use their breach of the Act as a publicity stunt, Family First are absurdly claiming they can’t register as […]

Greens call for public input on ETS

Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, August 22nd, 2008 - 22 comments

One thing you can always say for the Greens, they’re democratic to their core. Currently, they find themselves facing a tough choice – whether or not to support Labour’s Emissions Trading Scheme – and, true to their democratic principles, they’re asking for advice from the public on their decision. Jeanette Fitzsimmons outlines the following pros […]

Mythbusting: Half of new generation is thermal

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, August 22nd, 2008 - 16 comments

Reading National’s energy policy last week I was surprised to learn that of 1942MW of new generation that has come online since 2000 1073MW of that has been thermal*. Sure enough, John Key is going around using that as a ground for National’s policy of building more gas power plants and giving up on the […]

Kiwis don’t trust Nats

Written By: - Date published: 6:13 am, August 20th, 2008 - 38 comments

According to the Colmar/Brunton poll, 50% of Kiwis don’t believe National is being open about its plans vs 37% who believe the Nats are being upfront (presumably, the other 13% offered no opinion). That’s got to be worrying for National. As I’ve said time and again, the three grounds that politicians are ultimately judged on […]

Key and McCain: underdogs rising

Written By: - Date published: 2:48 pm, August 19th, 2008 - 6 comments

The US presidential race in the States took a new direction with the McCain and Obama both appearing at a Forum on faith, held over the weekend, moderatorated by pastor and author Rick Warren. Commentators and opinion leaders are now disecting the event, offering their views. For example in the Washington Post Michael Gerson wrote: It is now […]

Reviewing the weekend polls

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, August 18th, 2008 - 37 comments

As I said last week, the polls that came out this weekend can not reflect any impact of the secret agenda tapes. The Roy Morgan poll was 50% over before the first tape even came out, and remember it was not until mid-week that the story was really big. Similarly, the Fairfax poll was mostly […]