Search Results

  1. Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Government: Style over substance or a guiding light for progressive politics?

    Written By:  nickkelly -  Date published: 8:42 am, August 10th, 2020 -  33 comments
    Categories: abortion, bill english, Christchurch Attack, education, election 2020, electoral systems, First Past the Post, greens, housing, jacinda ardern, Judith Collins, labour, law, law and "order", leadership, MMP, national, nz first, polls, terrorism, tertiary education
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    Critics have dismissed the Jacinda Ardern government as being one of style over substance. This is unfair given the challenges this government has faced and the policy achievements it has had. However, it is a government that has much work to do if it wins a second term. And its over-reliance on Jacinda as party leader is a huge strategic risk, especially when the governments front bench is perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be lightweight.

  2. Covid recovery and bouncing forward

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 6:05 am, August 10th, 2020 -  21 comments
    Categories: climate change, community democracy, covid-19, Economy, sustainability
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    Central to the Transition movement from the outset has been the idea of resilience. Usually framed as the ability to ‘bounce back’, it is seen in the Transition movement as being better imagined as the capacity to ‘bounce forward’, i.e. to use it as the opportunity to move forward to something better. How then to ‘bounce forward’ from COVID-19 in such a way that we also move to a way of doing things consistent with the scale of the climate crisis?

  3. July 2020 Roy Morgan Poll

    Written By:  te reo putake -  Date published: 7:11 pm, August 8th, 2020 -  45 comments
    Categories: act, class war, Dirty Politics, greens, Judith Collins, labour, MMP, nz first, political parties, Politics, same old national, vote smart
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    The latest Roy Morgan poll is out.

    Crusher?

    Crushed!

  4. The test of MMP

    Written By:  weka -  Date published: 12:20 pm, August 5th, 2020 -  123 comments
    Categories: election 2020, greens, labour, MMP, national, nz first, winston peters
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    With the left’s political fortunes having changed greatly in the past three years, and with more change on the way, does the left still want MMP?

  5. Taxpayers’ Union promoting Green Party policy

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 6:10 am, August 4th, 2020 -  26 comments
    Categories: greens, Satire
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    Learning to love the tax.

  6. National’s week from hell

    Written By:  mickysavage -  Date published: 6:01 pm, August 2nd, 2020 -  34 comments
    Categories: Amy Adams, Judith Collins, national, Nikki Kaye, polls, prisons, same old national, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, uncategorized
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    A review of National’s week which is as bad as any week I can remember.

  7. Mea culpa

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 12:48 pm, August 2nd, 2020 -  33 comments
    Categories: Andrew Little, election 2020, greens, jacinda ardern, labour, national, Politics, Simon Bridges, todd muller, uncategorized
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    Back in 2017 I was upset, we had a leadership vote only in caucus – just before the election. I didn’t realise at the time that Andrew Little was actually stepping down in favour of Jacinda Ardern. She’d had the potential, but I hadn’t realised that Little thought she was up for the task. I’m delighted with the result. Thank you Andrew.

  8. Hong Kong principles

    Written By:  Mike Smith -  Date published: 9:49 pm, July 28th, 2020 -  38 comments
    Categories: afghanistan, China, democratic participation, exports, Free Trade, iraq, jacinda ardern, law and "order", Propaganda, socialism, Spying, surveillance, terrorism, us politics, war, winston peters
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    According to our Prime Minister, today’s announcement that New Zealand is suspending extradition arrangements with Hong Kong is because of our principles. But it is not immediately clear what these principles are, other than falling into line with our Five Eyes spying partners. Some history is important.

  9. National’s Internal Polling Leaked

    Written By:  te reo putake -  Date published: 6:46 pm, July 28th, 2020 -  40 comments
    Categories: act, David Farrar, Dirty Politics, election 2020, greens, labour, Politics, same old national, you couldn't make this shit up
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    Yet another leak from Judith Collins’ Strong Team™. This time it’s their own polling … and it’s grim news.

  10. Trade Unionism: Does it have a future

    Written By:  nickkelly -  Date published: 10:36 pm, July 27th, 2020 -  19 comments
    Categories: health and safety, Living Wage, minimum wage, Unions, workers' rights
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    There is no blueprint for building a stronger more effective trade union movement. There are many, who each and every day wake up and do exactly that.

  11. Never argue immorality with a Tory *

    Written By:  mickysavage -  Date published: 8:01 am, July 24th, 2020 -  53 comments
    Categories: Dirty Politics, Iain Lees-Galloway, jacinda ardern, Judith Collins, uncategorized
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    *they will drag you down to their level and beat you through experience.

  12. Winston Peters Names Alleged Super Leaker

    Written By:  te reo putake -  Date published: 4:44 pm, July 22nd, 2020 -  87 comments
    Categories: Abuse of power, accountability, act, class war, david seymour, Deep stuff, democracy under attack, election 2020, national/act government, Politics, same old national, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, winston peters, you couldn't make this shit up
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    Winston Peters has named the person he says leaked his super details. Has ACT joined National in doing Dirty Politics?

  13. Unthinkable Things

    Written By:  advantage -  Date published: 8:41 am, July 22nd, 2020 -  29 comments
    Categories: australian politics, China, Deep stuff, Economy, economy, exports, Globalisation, International, jacinda ardern, labour, Politics, uncategorized, us politics
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    With the government clearly watching the unravelling of Australia’s Covid-19 response and putting in place $14 billion in preparation for a second infection wave, we are clearly now in a history-in-making territory of the highest instability outside a world war.

  14. Local Government: crucial and undervalued

    Written By:  nickkelly -  Date published: 12:27 am, July 11th, 2020 -  4 comments
    Categories: Living Wage, Privatisation, Unions, wages, workers' rights
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    On the day of the council vote, we organised for the effected Citi-Ops workers to sit in the public gallery in the Council rooms wearing their High Viz’s and work gear. I was one of three speakers for the union, expressing opposition to axing these jobs. The Council debated the issue for about 30 minutes. Those councillors in favour of making the workers redundant argued that they should not interfere with management decisions. Those against the decision felt that management did not have the mandate to make this decision. The vote ended up being 7-7, so Green Party Mayor Celia Wade-Brown used her casting vote to uphold management’s decision to outsource these workers jobs. The Citi Operations staff were sitting in the room, so Celia and the councillors were looking at these workers as they made them redundant.

  15. Wellington buses now: how a local authority harmed public transport

    Written By:  nickkelly -  Date published: 7:27 am, July 6th, 2020 -  15 comments
    Categories: employment, public transport, transport, Unions, wages
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    Sure to form, Paul Swain along with Regional Council Chair and another former Labour MP Fran Wilde proposed tearing down the trolleybus wire and increasing the city’s carbon emission. This was to then promptly followed by re-tendering all the bus routes having redesigned all the bus network so that bus companies could then compete over routes and undercut each other. At one council meeting in mid-2016 Swain was questioned about the possibility of protecting drivers jobs and employment conditions. After a few questions, he lost patience, slammed in hand on the table and ended the meeting. This was the extent to which Swain and the Greater Wellington Regional Council considered supporting bus drivers during this process.

  16. National’s “intelligence unit” kicks into gear

    Written By:  mickysavage -  Date published: 9:01 am, July 5th, 2020 -  120 comments
    Categories: Dirty Politics, jacinda ardern, labour, national, same old national, uncategorized
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    A month ago a leak from National’s caucus said that they had set up an intelligence unit designed to dig up dirt on opponents.  Yesterday Newshub ran a story based on a candidate’s seven year old tweets.  It looks like the intelligence unit has been busy.

  17. The 2008 Go Wellington Bus Lockout

    Written By:  nickkelly -  Date published: 5:44 am, July 3rd, 2020 -  6 comments
    Categories: blogs, class war, local government, Privatisation, Unions, workers' rights
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    20 days after being elected President of the Wellington Tramways and Public Passenger Transport Employees Union (we just called it Tramways), drivers at Go Wellington were locked out. The City nearly ground to a halt with thousands unable to get to work and traffic congestion a nightmare. Certain journalists were quick to call this a communist conspiracy.

  18. National is relentlessly negative about the country’s Covid response

    Written By:  mickysavage -  Date published: 10:03 am, June 24th, 2020 -  95 comments
    Categories: national, Nikki Kaye, same old national, todd muller
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    You would think in the midst of a world pandemic that is threatening established countries everywhere that National would do the responsible thing and work constructively to resolve all of government issues. If you do think this you are wrong.

  19. Covid-19 still raging.

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 9:01 am, June 15th, 2020 -  25 comments
    Categories: covid-19, health, International, us politics
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    A quick look at rising second wave in the US as covid-19 digs deeper into the less populated states and counties. Because of its deliberate lack of governmental cohesion, the US is a rack of petri dishes testing different strategies. When that comes to disease control and covid-19, that strategy is a bit of a disaster.

  20. More Skripal bullshit

    Written By:  Mike Smith -  Date published: 10:03 pm, June 9th, 2020 -  37 comments
    Categories: China, Deep stuff, jacinda ardern, journalism, making shit up, newspapers, Russia, spin, Spying, uk politics, us politics, war, you couldn't make this shit up
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    Skripal’s relatives don’t believe it, Jacinda Ardern doesn’t believe it, Paul Buchanan doesn’t believe it, and I never believed it. But a story planted in the UK Sunday Times that the Skripals are here lets our media rerun the assassination attempt that failed, even though the most deadliest poison in the world was involved. Stuff website has a British Minister from Theresa May’s time rerunning the old lies,as does the NZ Herald. Fits in nicely with the SIS anti-Russian history.

  21. The current National party.

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 3:06 pm, May 24th, 2020 -  62 comments
    Categories: australian politics, Dirty Politics, Economy, education, immigration, International, labour, national, political parties, Politics, Social issues, tertiary education, The Standard, todd muller, tourism
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    The change of leadership inside of National is essentially meaningless. All it seems to have started is exposing the kind of internecine factional warfare that is lurking below their party surface. I can’t see the inexperienced National team, even with Amy Adams back in it, being able to make the kinds of long-term decisions required in a modern world.

  22. On the Road with Todd and Ken

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 10:05 am, May 24th, 2020 -  57 comments
    Categories: james shaw, politicans, Politics, Social issues, todd muller
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    Catherine Delahunty recounts an impression of Todd Muller from her days as an Green MP. “The road to polite and personal good will is worth driving when there is no urgency and no deep changes required. It is good to arrive somewhere without personal damage and with genuine good will but it is not the base for addressing the most critical issues of our time.”

  23. Who wants to lead the National Party?

    Written By:  mickysavage -  Date published: 8:31 am, May 21st, 2020 -  93 comments
    Categories: national, Nikki Kaye, paula bennett, same old national, Simon Bridges, todd muller, uncategorized
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    Tomorrow the National Party caucus meet to decide on a leadership challenge mounted by Todd Muller and Nikki Kaye.  Both parties obviously think they have the numbers.  Which MPs are misleading them?

  24. What the Greens did

    Written By:  weka -  Date published: 12:06 pm, May 15th, 2020 -  39 comments
    Categories: Conservation, domestic violence, economy, Environment, greens, housing, housing insulation, jobs, nz first, violence against women
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    A round up of the Green Party’s achievements in the 2020 Budget: funding for nature, the commitment to ending violence, and public housing and insulation. And a look at the pragmatics of what the Greens can currently accomplish.

  25. Covid19 and the Stock Markets

    Written By:  mickysavage -  Date published: 8:30 am, May 12th, 2020 -  33 comments
    Categories: capitalism, Economy, uncategorized, unemployment, us politics
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    In this time of uncertainty when mass unemployment beckons you would expect that stock exchanges would be plummeting. But think again. Because they seem to be doing fine.

  26. UK: Too soon to end the lockdown

    Written By:  nickkelly -  Date published: 12:18 pm, May 9th, 2020 -  17 comments
    Categories: health, International, Social issues, uk politics
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    First Secretary of State Dominic Raab has said that lockdown changes being announced this coming Sunday will be ‘modest’ and ‘small’. This is hardly surprising when earlier in the week the national statistician Professor Ian Diamond said that COVID-19 infection rates could be increasing. In particular, the number of cases being reported in care-homes appears to be increasing. Adding to the pressure both the Scottish and Welsh ruled out any significant relaxation of the lockdown rules.

  27. Transmission Gully PPP

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 10:46 am, May 7th, 2020 -  56 comments
    Categories: corruption, Politics, Public Private Partnerships, Simon Bridges, transport, uncategorized
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    I’d agree with what No Right Turn says..
    “The entire project looks to be an expensive failure. Rather than transferring risk to the private sector, it turns out to be the usual scam of privatising profits and socialising losses.”

  28. Bridges pulls a stunt

    Written By:  mickysavage -  Date published: 7:46 am, May 7th, 2020 -  93 comments
    Categories: health, health and safety, national, same old national, Simon Bridges, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, uncategorized
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    Simon Bridges threw two stunts yesterday, firstly threatening to try and summons senior Public Servants to publicise confidential legal advice and then by attacking Dr Ashley Blomfield for not answering emails quickly enough despite the existence of a pandemic which the country appears to be handling pretty well.

  29. Top ten things we have learned already

    Written By:  advantage -  Date published: 7:49 am, May 6th, 2020 -  53 comments
    Categories: australian politics, health, health and safety, poverty, workers' rights
    Tags: ,

    The top ten things that the Covid pandemic has taught us as a country.

  30. Roger Douglas attacks economic privilege and inequality

    Written By:  mickysavage -  Date published: 10:18 am, May 5th, 2020 -  261 comments
    Categories: act, labour, political parties, roger douglas, workers' rights
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    Roger Douglas has reverted to his socialist roots by going back on his pro market mantra and criticising the economic privilege and inequality that he helped create.