Search Results

  1. Reviews of Nats’ tax cut/Kiwisaver cut/R&D cut policy

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 7:27 pm, October 8th, 2008 -  37 comments
    Categories: election 2008, kiwisaver, national, tax
    Tags:

    Just a quick note at the start for our press gallery friends who live in central Wellington on high incomes. 50% of New Zealanders have an income below $27,000 and 50% of workers earn less than $37,000 a year (all of which is heaps higher than it was under National). The point is this: National’s […]

  2. Key still hopping on Hobsonville

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 10:27 am, October 7th, 2008 -  22 comments
    Categories: flip-flop, housing, john key, slippery
    Tags:

    At the first Helensville candidates’ debate last night, John Key reversed his position on state housing once again. Despite using the years he lived in a state house as “a great marketing ploy”, Key called the plan to build state houses along with more up-market homes on the site of Hobsonville airbase “economic vandalism”.  Then he […]

  3. GO Wellington lockout: Day One

    Written By:  Tane -  Date published: 5:21 pm, September 25th, 2008 -  19 comments
    Categories: workers' rights
    Tags: , ,

    A reader sent in this photo from the Wellington bus drivers’ picket line at the Kilbirnie bus depot. The workers are said to be staunch in their claims and are refusing to be intimidated by the company locking them out without pay. The Council of Trade Unions and the International Transport Workers’ Federation have now […]

  4. MSM columns – clueless about fact checking

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 5:33 pm, September 14th, 2008 -  30 comments
    Categories: Media
    Tags: , , , , , , ,

    This week the election was announced and the third question to the PM (asked by Colin Espiner) was about whether The Standard possibly knew the date (Helen doesn’t tell us either). Colin thinks we’re being sensitive about the mainstream media’s attitudes to The Standard as shown in a comment he made on his own blog […]

  5. Look. Over there!

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 3:26 pm, September 5th, 2008 -  49 comments
    Categories: same old national, spin
    Tags: ,

    A friend has just rung to excitedly inform me that National’s conservation policy has now also been released by Trevor Mallard. That means there is officially a leak in the National Party caucus. I expect in the next hour or so the Nats are going to start their misdirection campaign and I expect it will […]

  6. Why didn’t NZF use Nats’ donations playbook?

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 2:22 pm, September 4th, 2008 -  56 comments
    Categories: election 2008, election funding, national, nz first
    Tags:

    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 […]

  7. Clark cuts the thread

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 1:43 pm, August 28th, 2008 -  192 comments
    Categories: election 2008, election funding, nz first
    Tags:

    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 […]

  8. Policies for the wrong time (again)

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 8:40 pm, August 10th, 2008 -  40 comments
    Categories: economy, same old national
    Tags:

    We’ve heard a lot about the ‘private’ opinions of some senior National MP’s this week. What we haven’t heard much about is the policy direction National was putting out in public during the conference. Rod Oram has a very interesting commentary on that topic in Sunday Star Times “National needs a shake-up”. Rod Oram always […]

  9. I despair

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 12:56 pm, July 27th, 2008 -  67 comments
    Categories: john key, Media
    Tags:

    Our national political debate is in a sad sad state. Agenda is meant to be our premier political interview and analysis TV show. Today, they had John Key on for the main interview. In twenty-odd minutes he was not asked a single question about the policies his party has released over the last three weeks. […]

  10. NZIER poll

    Written By:  Tane -  Date published: 4:04 pm, July 14th, 2008 -  37 comments
    Categories: polls
    Tags: ,

    Buried away in the NZIER’s recent TNS survey on the Emissions Trading Scheme was this political poll showing a surprisingly high number of people still undecided on who they’d vote for. You should be aware it’s based on some pretty shonky methodology (basically it’s a weighted online survey), but it’s interesting to see what happens […]

  11. Geek’s view

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 9:40 am, June 28th, 2008 -  24 comments
    Categories: articles, blogs, humour, interweb
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

    On the odd occasion I have time to read outside of the confines of The Standard and its ever increasing brawl of entertaining comments. I noticed we don’t have a external reading list, and it is within the range of my writing skills, so here are my oddities for the slow weekends…. From quote of […]

  12. You call that policy? This is policy

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 2:45 pm, June 23rd, 2008 -  90 comments
    Categories: greens, national, slippery, workers' rights
    Tags: ,

    National has released a brochure, laying out all its policies. They take up two A4 pages of double-spaced bullet points. That’s incredibly lightweight. Contrast that with the policy files of another party outside government, the Greens. National has 14 vague policies. The Greens have 51 policy area pages, each containing dozens of actionable policies. There […]

  13. He would say that wouldn’t he

    Written By:  all_your_base -  Date published: 12:11 pm, June 16th, 2008 -  21 comments
    Categories: same old national
    Tags: , ,

    Stuff reports that  National Party energy spokesman Gerry Brownlee has labelled the government’s inquiry into petrol pricing a cynical move that would not make a difference to prices. A similar inquiry in Australia resulted in a decision to provide increased transparency for consumers by stipulating that the petrol was to be set and notified by petrol companies […]

  14. Body image gone bad

    Written By:  Dancer -  Date published: 5:51 pm, June 10th, 2008 -  7 comments
    Categories: culture, International
    Tags:

    We’re used to the importance of presentation in the world of politics, but no-one does it quite so blatently as the fashion world. We’ve seen it in the waif-like size of girl/women models, an acknowledged under-representation of ethnic diversity on the cat walk and now male models are also under pressure to down-size. In the Melbourne […]

  15. Bloody Marys for breakfast

    Written By:  all_your_base -  Date published: 5:09 pm, May 26th, 2008 -  8 comments
    Categories: humour, Media, youtube
    Tags:

    Nevermind has this: “Our favourite National Party Hack unbiased political commentator weighs in on rat hygiene when the Bloody Marys it seems he had for breakfast appear to catch up with him ” Classic stuff, but enlightening too.  

  16. Where’s the beef John?

    Written By:  all_your_base -  Date published: 10:57 am, May 23rd, 2008 -  5 comments
    Categories: budget 2008, john key, slippery
    Tags:

    Key kicks off this Close Up interview by trying to dampen down rising expectations of National’s tax package and make himself some wiggle room by emphasising that his comments from earlier in the week about tax cuts “north of $50” relate to voter expectations rather than what National may eventually be able to deliver. Presumably […]

  17. Budget 2008: Analysis

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 3:00 pm, May 22nd, 2008 -  69 comments
    Categories: budget 2008, election 2008
    Tags:

    The tax cuts are smaller up front than Labour had been hoping to deliver but the economic position at present means there is simply not the money in the coffers to give huge cuts right now. Labour is bringing forward the cuts and the boost to Working for Families to October 1, instead of April […]

  18. Let political animals run free

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 11:43 am, May 21st, 2008 -  11 comments
    Categories: Media
    Tags: , , , ,

    Good on Breakfast for following our lead by playing the full clip of Goff’s AltTv interview this morning and saying ‘make up your own mind’. Bit of a change that, asking people to judge for themselves. Most political reporting treats politics as if it’s some mystical art or complicated science that must be analysed by […]

  19. An unfair advantage?

    Written By:  all_your_base -  Date published: 10:47 am, May 20th, 2008 -  8 comments
    Categories: articles, interweb
    Tags: , ,

    Oscar Pistorius now the chance to become the first amputee to compete on the track at the Olympics. The 21-year-old who runs on artificial carbon fibre legs has been cleared to compete at the Beijing Olympics if he can make the qualifying time (he needs to take about a second off his personal best).  Initially Oscar was barred from […]

  20. Mythbusting: Winning a fourth term is impossible

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 4:24 pm, May 11th, 2008 -  50 comments
    Categories: election 2008, history
    Tags:

    It has become a media mantra that winning a fourth term of government is nigh on impossible, but is that claim actually based on the record of past governments or just a political myth?  The first government formed along party lines in New Zealand was the First Liberal Government, which took office in 1891. Since […]

  21. Clarkson not standing in Tauranga

    Written By:  all_your_base -  Date published: 9:37 am, May 9th, 2008 -  59 comments
    Categories: election 2008, national
    Tags:

    Clarkson has jumped before he was pushed – he won’t be standing in Tauranga. Peter’s hasn’t confirmed yet whether he will stand or not. It’s always slightly irritated me that the media seem intent on refering to Clarkson as “colourful”. It kind of sounds like it might be a complement until you realise that the […]

  22. Key: National’s great white hype

    Written By:  all_your_base -  Date published: 1:39 pm, May 5th, 2008 -  21 comments
    Categories: john key, national
    Tags: , , , , ,

    Tom Frewen’s latest column seems to have somehow slipped through the usually rigourous editorial process at the NBR. The sidebar reads: “John Key’s lyrics sound like the gobbledygook of Bushisms”. “Yeah, I mean look, the truth is, with the greatest respect to Rodney, he doesn’t understand the telecommunications sector very well if he can’t sort […]

  23. Repeating the mistakes of others

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 7:07 am, April 29th, 2008 -  13 comments
    Categories: crime, john key
    Tags: ,

    Remember National’s policy of charging a $50 levy on everyone convicted of or, maybe, charged with (Key keeps on mixing up the terms) an offence? Remember all the obvious problems with it enforcement, administration cost, natural justice issues, the pitiful size of the sum that would be collected? Well, it turns out we missed one. […]

  24. Flat-Earthers heart climate change deniers

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 3:19 pm, April 23rd, 2008 -  4 comments
    Categories: climate change, humour
    Tags: ,

    The Climate Science Coalition is the last of a dying breed; a rabid, climate change denying lobby group. Of late, they have been performing a desperate, last-ditch attempt to slow the introduction of a carbon trading scheme. And, now, it looks like they’ve received some heavy-weight support in the form of the venerable Flat Earth Society:

  25. Lies, damned lies, and statistics

    Written By:  all_your_base -  Date published: 1:26 pm, March 25th, 2008 -  32 comments
    Categories: dpf, im/migration, national, spin
    Tags: , , ,

    David Farrar appears to be throwing his weight in behind National Party’s “New Zealand Sucks” campaign with another misleading post on migration to Australia. Titled “The exodus grows”, DPF’s take on the most recent stats is that the rate at which people are “fleeing New Zealand” is accelerating. It’s perhaps disguised as one of David’s […]

  26. They know their man

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 11:04 am, March 18th, 2008 -  6 comments
    Categories: john key, Media, national
    Tags: , ,

    This week’s NBR editorial, titled “Smarten up, John Key”, frets that Key keeps showing himself to be a slippery, policy lightweight (can’t have people seeing that side of him until the election is safely won). They have three recommendations for how Key can smarten up: ‘First, is to keep his mouth shut when asked questions […]

  27. The Hawke’s Bay DHB report

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 4:52 pm, March 17th, 2008 -  34 comments
    Categories: health
    Tags:

    The report into the Hawke’s Bay DHB is out and, like everything to do with DHBs, it makes boring reading. That tireless muck-raker, Tony Ryall, won’t like it but the report reveals no corruption just sloppy work by DHB board member Peter Hausmann and the DHB Board. Hausmann worked for Healthcare NZ on a tender for […]

  28. Filth

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 3:15 pm, February 22nd, 2008 -  82 comments
    Categories: scoundrels
    Tags:

    It looks like the nasty little insecure creeps who inhabit the Kiwiblog Right are creeping into the mainstream. I mean, take a look at this from today’s Herald: This follows Cameron Slater’s description of a female columnist who pointed out how weird his obsession with Clark is as “a fat, lazy, pommy, leftist slag”, Clint […]

  29. John Key’s plan to cut your pay

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 10:46 am, February 20th, 2008 -  144 comments
    Categories: john key, national, tax, workers' rights
    Tags: , , ,

    “We would love to see wages drop”. You would think that given the simmering debate about our wage gap with Australia at the moment that would be the last thing you’d expect to hear from the leader of the National Party. Especially when he’d gone on record in the national media just a week ago […]

  30. National seeks to stop free speech

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 8:56 am, February 15th, 2008 -  100 comments
    Categories: election funding, workers' rights
    Tags: ,

    Vernon Small reports today that National party blogger David Farrar has taken out a complaint against the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union’s registration as a third party under the Electoral Finance Act. Now aside from the fact that the founder of the Free Speech Coalition is trying to use the very legislation he has so […]

  31. Greens/Maori Party cooperation good for the Left

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 4:05 pm, February 7th, 2008 -  31 comments
    Categories: greens, maori party
    Tags: ,

    The Maori Party and the Greens are discussing an informal alliance ahead of the election. This makes a lot of sense. The two parties vote together on most issues (more than they vote with any other parties) and have fundamental principles in common. Either major party will probably need the support of one or both […]

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