Search Results

  1. Brownlee: Not an ardent follower of fashion. Merely obsolete.

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 2:35 pm, November 11th, 2009 -  15 comments
    Categories: energy, greens, national
    Tags: , ,

    One of the things that has surprised me about the government and Brownlee’s energy policy is that it is so mundane and 20th century. In every other area of their political electoral strategy we saw a pithy slogan, often pinched from overseas, substituting for policy and dumbed it down to the level of the dittoheads […]

  2. Politicisation of ACC continues

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 12:15 pm, November 11th, 2009 -  4 comments
    Categories: ACC, national/act government, spin
    Tags:

    Frogblog has another example of the continuing politicisation of the public service under National. I meant to post on this a while back, but you may have seen these ads in your local paper recently: Not only is the ACC’s message in this ad contrary to the Woodhouse principles it was founded on, but there’s […]

  3. Now for the spin

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 8:17 pm, August 10th, 2009 -  47 comments
    Categories: climate change
    Tags:

    It’s interesting to see how National’s spin doctors are trying to frame the Government’s pathetic and shameful emissions reduction target of 10-20% by 2020. Stuff has ‘Ambitious’ emissions target announced The NZ Herald has New emissions target ‘big ask for NZ’ – Key And 3 News has Sia Aston quoting long-discredited figures supplied to her by […]

  4. Crosby – Posturing with little substance

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 3:20 pm, June 9th, 2009 -  11 comments
    Categories: crosby textor, john key, national
    Tags:

    Lynton Crosby of the political spinners Crosby/Textor, who ‘advised’ both John Key and Don Brash, has finally given up on trying to pursue a unwinnable defamation case against Nicky Hager and Radio NZ.The case appears to me to have been started largely as intimidation by the Crosby (and maybe the National party) to find out […]

  5. Questions

    Written By:  Tane -  Date published: 12:24 pm, April 16th, 2009 -  27 comments
    Categories: election funding, labour
    Tags: , , , ,

    We should expect National as the political arm of business to surround itself with dirty money and conflicts of interest. As a self-proclaimed social democratic party Labour has no such excuse. So: – What is Labour’s education spokesperson Chris Carter doing accepting election donations from a private college? – Why is Shane Jones accepting money […]

  6. Four wheels good, two wheels bad

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 10:08 am, March 20th, 2009 -  34 comments
    Categories: climate change, economy, Environment, honeymoon, Media, national/act government, spin, transport
    Tags:

    The Government is taking nearly half a billion dollars out of public transport, cycling, walking, road maintance, and traffic policing to pay for more state highways. Transport Minister Steven Joyce’s reasoning for this – ‘86% of people go to work by car’. Doesn’t he get that people have to go by car because there aren’t […]

  7. Act lied and gets away with it

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 2:21 pm, November 30th, 2008 -  11 comments
    Categories: act, Media, spin
    Tags:

    At the Media Law Journal, Wellington based media lawyer Steven Price has been looking at the recent decisions of the Advertising Standards Complaint Board (a self-regulatory body) related to the election. There are a series of them and the decisions are weird. More importantly they are ineffectual in the great tradition of industry self-regulatory bodies. […]

  8. No, Bill.

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 8:29 pm, October 9th, 2008 -  27 comments
    Categories: same old national
    Tags:

    I felt a pang of pity for Bill English tonight as I watched TV3 roll out another secret tape. After all, “winning is everything” isn’t an unusual sentiment in politics. But when I considered the second part of his comment, “despite the highly principled statements”, my pity faded. It’s one thing to engage in “win […]

  9. Kiwis waking up to Nats’ secret agenda

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 10:29 am, August 26th, 2008 -  96 comments
    Categories: election 2008, national, slippery
    Tags:

    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 […]

  10. 3 more points on the secret agenda tapes

    Written By:  Steve Pierson -  Date published: 1:25 pm, August 11th, 2008 -  61 comments
    Categories: national, privatisation, slippery
    Tags: ,

    1) A secret agenda is not something that people talk about in public or when they know the information will get to the public. Therefore, the only way to expose a secret agenda with definite proof is by recording that evidence when the target does not know they are being recorded. The Police can’t just […]

  11. Break-in

    Written By:  Tane -  Date published: 1:03 pm, August 7th, 2008 -  18 comments
    Categories: crime, labour
    Tags:

    This just in from Radio NZ: Police are investigating a break-in at the electorate office of a senior Labour MP, David Cunliffe, in Auckland. Nothing was taken in the burglary but Mr Cunliffe’s computer was apparently tampered with. Mr Cunliffe’s office has confirmed a complaint has been made to the police about the incident. Meanwhile, […]

  12. The stolen emails defence

    Written By:  Tane -  Date published: 10:06 am, August 6th, 2008 -  31 comments
    Categories: national, spin
    Tags: , , ,

    So National has finally reverted to the ‘stolen emails’ defence to combat the damaging recordings from the weekend’s party conference. I’m only surprised it’s taken them this long – the misdirection tactic is classic Crosby Textor and it’s served the Nats well in the past. My guess is that National was hoping Bill’s humiliating charade […]

  13. Busted

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 10:59 am, June 29th, 2008 -  122 comments
    Categories: national, slippery, spin
    Tags:

    Nicky Hager’s piece in today’s Sunday Star Times has confirmed what we all suspected: Crosby Textor are the creators of Brand Key. For those of you unfamiliar with CT, they’re known as the dirtiest and most driven political PR firm in the game. CT specialises in dog-whistle racism, attack politics and pretty much every aspect […]

  14. Scum

    Written By:  IrishBill -  Date published: 9:54 pm, March 31st, 2008 -  95 comments
    Categories: scoundrels
    Tags:

    Cameron Slater’s co-blogger Steady Eddy is back to his creepy brownshirt tricks again and this time his target is Labour Party candidate Kate Sutton. I’ll say right now that I’m concerned about giving this filth any oxygen but considering Eddy’s previous attacks on Sutton have been approvingly linked to by National Party blogger David Farrar […]

  15. 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 […]

  16. Electoral finance: link roundup

    Written By:  all_your_base -  Date published: 3:45 am, November 15th, 2007 -  48 comments
    Categories: election funding
    Tags:

    Tony Milne’s got a good piece on the Electoral Finance Bill over at his blog I See Red – electoral finance reform is a way to safeguard democracy: “New Zealand history tells an interesting story about the battle for democracy. Whenever progressive forces have mobilised to extend the franchise or the ideal of ‘one person, […]

  17. Speech: Labour is the Party of Ideas

    Written By:  Tane -  Date published: 10:14 am, November 14th, 2007 -  10 comments
    Categories: labour
    Tags:

    The other day we published an extract from Evan Thornley’s speech to the Labour Party conference. We’ve finally managed to get hold of a digital copy, so here it is in full. It’s quite long, but well worth a read: LABOUR IS THE PARTY OF IDEAS NZLP National Conference Keynote Speech – Auckland 4 Nov., […]

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