Written By: - Date published: 12:11 pm, November 11th, 2011 - 21 comments
When people say ‘there’s no difference between the two big parties’ or ‘where are the policies’, it’s shorthand for ‘I haven’t been paying attention’. We had a great example of the contrast yesterday. National would subsidise expansion of dairy by selling our assets; Labour would get modern equipment to poor schoolkids by cutting sports subsidies to rich schools.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, November 11th, 2011 - 34 comments
hattip: the jackal
Written By: - Date published: 7:25 am, November 11th, 2011 - 44 comments
Labour is down in two recent polls (albeit margin of error), but over all the news is good!
Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, November 9th, 2011 - 19 comments
The first of the CTU’s online election ads.
Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, November 8th, 2011 - 30 comments
Yes, that’s an actual quote [sans ‘serfs’] from David Farrar lying about his master John Key’s lies about not raising GST.
hattip: frank macskasy
Written By: - Date published: 3:03 pm, November 7th, 2011 - 113 comments
Interesting to see a high profile, popular celebrity come out and speak her mind on John Key. Nothing like calling a shovel a shovel…
Written By: - Date published: 12:05 pm, November 7th, 2011 - 51 comments
We’re three weeks out from the election, and there’s something funny going on. National has hardly any policy out. Parties typically go into an election with a pretty comprehensive lineup of policy covering a very wide range of issues. Do the Nats really not have any plans, or are they just keeping them quiet to win a second term?
Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, November 7th, 2011 - 67 comments
We live in a time of inter-related crises of the environment and the capitalist economic system. So, I guess it’s not surprising to see Labour becoming more environmentally aware at the same time as the Greens propose economic policies that would normally be out of Labour’s playbook. Don’t worry about them becoming too alike, welcome the solid platform for a new government.
Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, November 7th, 2011 - 46 comments
hattip William Joyce
Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, November 5th, 2011 - 49 comments
hattip: tumeke
Written By: - Date published: 8:43 pm, November 4th, 2011 - 44 comments
John Key was really revving the crap out of his denimic environment generator today trying to discredit Labour’s costings for its policies. Either Key really is shit at math or he’s no clearer on Labour’s policies than he is on National’s.
hattip: a very prescient Jackal
Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, November 4th, 2011 - 69 comments
National likes to take Labour proposals and extend them to the point of absurdity. Labour needs to fight fire with fire. Here’s a few examples…
Written By: - Date published: 8:35 am, November 4th, 2011 - 53 comments
Two polls out yesterday show no significant changes, with National well in front. Don’t panic! The campaign has only just started. Events always take a while to show up in the polls. The Left needs to see movement soon – time’s running out fast – but it isn’t a surprise not to see it yet.
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, November 3rd, 2011 - 80 comments
There’s a TVNZ poll out tonight and a Herald poll tomorrow morning but, ahead of them, here’s some other new polls results that point to trouble for the Nats. 27% of young people want to leave New Zealand. 82% of people oppose farm sales to foreign buyers. 24% of people will change their vote over the Rena.
Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, November 3rd, 2011 - 12 comments
In the TVNZ debate on Monday, John Key claimed that he had cut ‘back office’ jobs and increased health services.That wasn’t true. The fact is, funding cuts have reduced the capacity of many health services. ‘Front-line’ staff are doing ‘back office’ work as well and everything else is getting squeezed to put more money into ‘sexy’ elective surgery numbers.
Written By: - Date published: 8:45 am, November 3rd, 2011 - 222 comments
Written By: - Date published: 9:07 pm, November 2nd, 2011 - 179 comments
Goff had Key in all sorts of trouble on the Christchurch recovery, on Key’s economic record, on asset sales, on the GST lie. Goff was passionate on equality and got across both Labour’s vision and how that will be made real. It was notable that Key’s only strong point was when he got off his own record and his own promises and on to making up numbers about Labour’s policies. Goff didn’t have a strong rebuttal. He’ll need one before the next TV debate.
Written By: - Date published: 2:47 pm, November 2nd, 2011 - 55 comments
The Press Leaders’ Debate. Phil Goff and John Key. 7pm tonight. Not televised, but streamed live. The format can only be better than TV1! Check it out.
I don’t know about you but the streaming is failing on me. What I did catch was Key trying to back out of his promise that redzoners wouldn’t be left out of pocket. Goff responded: “If you’re not going to do something, for heaven’s sake don’t promise it” and got loud applause. Twitter consensus is Goff is winning big from the get go.
Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, November 2nd, 2011 - 62 comments
Today’s Fairfax poll shows a rise in support for Labour of 3.2%. What is particularly interesting about this poll is that the sampling period began the same day that Labour announced its “bombshell” retirement policy.
Written By: - Date published: 7:13 am, November 2nd, 2011 - 61 comments
National says it’ll get 57,000 more people off benefits and into work over 4 years. That would require 50% more job creation than Treasury projects. Unless you do something about the lack of jobs, you won’t get benefit numbers down. Promising the latter without doing the former is a fraud on New Zealand. Just another broken Nat promise waiting to happen.
Written By: - Date published: 1:08 pm, November 1st, 2011 - 29 comments
Watching Goff and Key last night was a bit like watching Graham Henry arguing with Paul Henry…
Written By: - Date published: 12:05 pm, November 1st, 2011 - 70 comments
Here are my top moments from the first Leaders’ Debate. When you write them down, it’s pretty clear that Goff won all the major exchanges.
What were the top moments for you, what else did you want to see?
Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, November 1st, 2011 - 51 comments
Oh dear. This is not what National needed on the back of Goff besting Key in the first debate. National’s new TV ad is on the world-class infrastructure they claim to have built. But it was all planned, funded, and mostly built by Labour. Have National accidentally revealed their real achievement: taking credit for others work?
Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, November 1st, 2011 - 94 comments
According to John Key in the Leader’s Debate, it’s OK to break your promises because the world is “dinnamic”. I’ll have to try that next time I’m out late on the piss:
‘Sorry, I’m late love, yeah sorry I didn’t cook dinner like I promised. I went out with the boys and things got dinnamic … Whadaya mean I have to sleep on the couch?’
Written By: - Date published: 3:35 pm, October 31st, 2011 - 145 comments
The first debate between Phil Goff and John Key is on TV1 at 7pm. Don’t miss it!
Update: See the website www.keyholes.co.nz for looking at the claims that Key makes in the debate.
Goff getting all the hits in. Got his policies across well. Key defensive and angry. www.keyholes.co.nz running hot.
Written By: - Date published: 12:28 pm, October 31st, 2011 - 2 comments
It’s been an extraordinary few weeks. It started with the double downgrade/DJ Key fiasco and Rena. Then Labour started dictating the play: its policies setting the beat of the campaign; its framing dominating. National took its only asset, Brand Key, and trashed it with its phony, weird opening address. And, then, National’s launch was over-shadowed by the rail loop announcement.
Written By: - Date published: 9:03 am, October 31st, 2011 - 32 comments
So, that was National’s ‘big announcement’tm? Allocating money they’ve already banked into a fund which is just an accounting fiction for capital spending that was already budgeted for. A billion of it over five years to ‘transform’ schools? $80,000 a year per school … of already budgeted spending. Talk about tired and bereft of ideas.
Written By: - Date published: 7:11 am, October 31st, 2011 - 68 comments
The latest 3 News / Reid poll has National down 5.1%, their largest drop (in this poll) since becoming the government. Labour is up 3.6%. A long way to go yet, but it’s an encouraging start to the election campaign for the Left.
Written By: - Date published: 12:19 pm, October 30th, 2011 - 130 comments
Labour has just over-shadowed Key’s big smile and wave show today – where he is expected to reannounce spending – with another big policy. Labour will cancel National’s Holiday Highway. With the money saved, they will make the existing road safe, and go 50-50 with the Auckland council to fund the CBD rail-loop and get Auckland moving sustainably.
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