Posts Tagged ‘david farrar’

Taxpayers Union – concentrating on the banal and ignoring the big issues

Written By: - Date published: 1:56 pm, March 3rd, 2014 - 45 comments

Mojo Mathers has been criticised by the Taxpayers Union for the travel costs associated with attending a recent interview in Masterton.  Attacking her for doing her job is completely mean spirited.  But the means of generating the story, where details are fed to the media and then the Taxpayer’s Union are offered up for comment, are of concern.  And surely there are bigger issues to worry about.

Easy Vote or Voter Intimidation?

Written By: - Date published: 9:19 pm, February 17th, 2014 - 123 comments

Good to see Labour has stood up against National’s “harder-to-vote” revisions to the Electoral Amendment Bill, especially making voters now have to state their name to get a voting paper. The reason for this is to allow scrutineers to more easily challenge a voter’s credentials, and is similar to voter intimidation practices in conservative States in the US. Expect  National Party scrutineers questioning more voter credentials in the 2014 election.

Sick

Written By: - Date published: 11:41 pm, January 18th, 2014 - 48 comments

The anti-democrats NZ tea party

Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, October 30th, 2013 - 82 comments

Jordan Williams and Simon Lusk

From the ranks of those working in the murky depths of dirty, disgusting and despicable politics, comes a piss take of a “union” of “taxpayers”, to lobby against a fair, democratic, caring and inclusive state and for the already greedy and powerful.

Prwoperty rwights!

Written By: - Date published: 7:36 pm, May 13th, 2013 - 130 comments

Over at Kiwiblog David Farrar’s having a big cry about the Greens indicating they’d legislate against the dodgy contract this government has struck with Sky city. To David, the property rights conveyed by contract law are paramount above all other rights. Including the rights of the people of a sovereign nation to direct a government to exercise their will.

The right’s fear of democracy

Written By: - Date published: 7:12 pm, March 13th, 2013 - 174 comments

Four hundred thousand people don’t want asset sales. In fact they don’t just not want asset sales they want every voter in New Zealand to have the chance to cast a vote for or against asset sales. And National wants to discredit them.

Best stick to the polling, Farrar

Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, March 19th, 2012 - 103 comments

David Farrar has had a go at David Clark for supposedly blaming (or crediting, Farrar can’t make up his mind) National for the revenue loss resulting from Labour’s 2008 tax cuts after Clark said that National’s tax cuts have sucked 2.5% of GDP out of the Crown’s revenue, widening the deficit by $5b a year. Either Farrar can’t read or he’s desperately spinning.

Nats preparing to impose Chch dictatorship

Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, January 26th, 2012 - 15 comments

David Farrar is calling for the Christchurch City Council to be sacked on the bizarre pretext that some of them have objected to the council CEO’s obscene pay rise. Apparently it’s a crime not to express confidence in your CEO if you’re an elected representative (Farrar seems to have missed the Collins-Matthews affair). But this is all a softening up exercise.

Show me the money!

Written By: - Date published: 5:59 pm, January 24th, 2012 - 138 comments

Farrar, Slater and their POAL masters are getting all antsy about how much port workers get paid.

Maybe it’s time they came clean about their own rorting, eh?

National’s Little smears and the big issue of market greed

Written By: - Date published: 6:40 pm, October 21st, 2011 - 42 comments

A good interview from Andrew Little on the Nat’s failed attempt to smear him over facebook comments. Nice comments about David Farrar and strong support for the occupy movement. Good to see.

By the way, is it just me or is National’s obsession with opposition social media starting to look less like straight research and more like creepy stalking?

Farrar poll sounds ACT’s death knell

Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, October 8th, 2011 - 40 comments

National Party pollster David Farrar has been polling in Epsom and the results are not good for the Right. Epsomites are pissed off with their seats being used as a backdoor for ACT into Parliament. They don’t like the gall of the Nats taking out Hide, slotting in Banks and expecting nothing to change. They don’t like dopey Brash.

(Another) Tory astroturf fail

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 pm, June 28th, 2011 - 42 comments

The latest anti-MMP outfit is already unraveling with Pundit’s Rob Salmond uncovering the fact it’s basically the Peter Shirtcliffe club.

It’s a surprisingly clumsy effort. Especially given David Farrar provided strategic advice.

I guess he’s not learned any lessons from his previous PR fiascos…

Broadcasting allocations

Written By: - Date published: 3:20 pm, June 1st, 2011 - 21 comments

No Right Turn asks an interesting set of questions about the state allocation of  broadcast media time.

“..if we think TV and radio broadcasting is so influential that it must be restricted to produce a level playing field between parties – which I agree with – why do we allocate it so it produces the opposite?”

“Politics of envy”

Written By: - Date published: 10:03 pm, April 20th, 2011 - 77 comments

National Party blogger David Farrar is whining about the “politics of envy”.

He seems to think we shouldn’t be mean to Key because he’s rich and making us poor.

Cry me a river.

Whambulance needed for P North Nats

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, April 16th, 2011 - 23 comments

National’s Palmerston North candidate, Leonie Hapeta, is having a cry because the Labour MP, Iain Lees-Galloway, and supporters had an anti-asset sales demonstration that happened to be outside her hotel. It’s one thing for a n00b like Hapeta to cry about politics but surprising that Farwhaa and Wail-oil joined her.

Farrar’s pike river smears

Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, January 15th, 2011 - 136 comments

The National Secretary of the miners’ union has warned important evidence may be lost if Pike River mine is sealed.

For making that rational observation he’s been smeared by National Party blogger, David Farrar.

It seems the Nats don’t just want to seal the mine, they want to seal the whole issue and they’ll be quick attack anyone who raises any awkward points.

How bad’s the poll?

Written By: - Date published: 9:12 pm, January 8th, 2011 - 59 comments

Farrar and Slater are trying to knee-cap a poll in the SST tomorrow. They know the numbers because Key’s office told them. Obviously jittered. Slater says it has NZF at 8.9%. Movement of ipredict stocks suggest its bad news for Nats and Labour. If Nats are in mid-40s then they’re in danger territory. Very hard for them to find a majority.

Government Spending Ideology

Written By: - Date published: 7:45 am, December 16th, 2010 - 29 comments

The Right always advocates for less government spending as a percentage of GDP. Those with ideological blinkers cannot see the high correlation between being a free and stable country and paying for it. The most successful nations are willing to invest in quality public services. Government spending is low in poor, unequal, and unstable countries.

Phil Goff – Evil SuperGenius?

Written By: - Date published: 8:36 am, October 9th, 2010 - 22 comments

Is Phil Goff an Evil SuperGenius?  Is Labour still secretly running the country, controlling MPs, cabinet ministers and government departments?  Political sleuth David P Farrar makes a pretty strong case!  Or does he…

Some thoughts on ACT

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 18th, 2010 - 81 comments

One way or another ACT’s troubles are going to ripple through the entire political discourse.

So what’s likely to happen with Garrett?

And what does it mean for everyone else?

Good dictators

Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, September 16th, 2010 - 41 comments

Dictatorships are good.

Or at least that’s what Farrar is saying now his team has one.

Right tastelessly tries to deify Parker

Written By: - Date published: 10:26 am, September 6th, 2010 - 71 comments

It’s the stomach-churning way that some on the Right have decided to try to use the earthquake for political advantage by deifying Bob Parker. Even Parker himself looked sick when Paul Henry compared him to Rudi Giuliani. Update: Farrar, Whaleoil, Henry, and Matthew Hooton are trying to spread a lie that Anderton said only an earthquake could stop him winning the election. Danyl has the truth.

Nats’ smear machine steps up attack on Len Brown

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, June 13th, 2010 - 77 comments

The National Party smear machine is stepping up its attack on soon-to-be Auckland mayor Len Brown. Worried that Key’s handpicked candidate John Banks is falling behind, the right is resorting to smearing his left-wing rival. The National Party’s David Farrar is even suggesting a “cover-up” and “fraud” at the Manukau Council. Is panic setting in at the thought of losing Auckland?

Anatomy of a right-wing smear

Written By: - Date published: 7:01 pm, June 6th, 2010 - 51 comments

With Len Brown beating Banks in the polls the right have come out swinging.

Let’s take a quick look at the anatomy of this dirt digging beast.

Question over Banks’ polling

Written By: - Date published: 12:32 pm, May 13th, 2010 - 18 comments

Sam Cash has spotted a possible issue with Dodgy John “if I wear my policy on my sleeve, I won’t get elected” Banks’ most recent mayoral poll. Could it be Banks is just polling ratepayers to boost his numbers?

Straw clutching on mining

Written By: - Date published: 3:27 pm, May 4th, 2010 - 28 comments

In 2000, Labour gave permission for two companies to carry out traditional gold-panning for tourism purposes on Schedule 4 land. National seems to think this is a great scandal. As if zero-impact gold-panning in rivers is comparable to gold cast mines and massive tailings lakes. They’re really getting desperate, aren’t they?

Espiner on the right-wing smear machine

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, March 31st, 2010 - 16 comments

The Nats run orchestrated smear campaigns coordinated with ministers’ offices, bloggers, and tame journos. National doesn’t want to and can’t engage in real political debate on the issues. So it is reduced to mud throwing. Some brave journo needs to shine a light on what is going on here. It is not good enough for the government to get away with using its proxies to wage secret smear campaigns.

Cynical denialism will cost us all

Written By: - Date published: 1:21 am, March 18th, 2010 - 36 comments

David Farrar is not stupid. Like everyone with a brain, he knows that climate change is a real and dangerous threat caused by human greenhouse gases emissions. Yet he persists in making denialist dog-whistles to his readers, always being careful never to outright deny climate change himself. He and all the leaders of denialism are telling what they know to be lies to people they know to be idiots.

On the Chauvel beatup

Written By: - Date published: 1:53 pm, March 16th, 2010 - 132 comments

Stuff.co.nz’s decision to turn an anonymous, politically motivated smear from an ACT Party activist into a front page tabloid screamer is gutter journalism for sure, but it’s only the latest example of a worrying trend.

It’s what happens when the right-wing smear machine meets an increasingly tabloid news media.

Andrew Little eyes New Plymouth

Written By: - Date published: 4:42 pm, March 15th, 2010 - 19 comments

I didn’t actually realise that the fact that Andrew Little is considering standing for Labour in New Plymouth in 2011 was news to anyone. I would think that New Plymouth is a natural seat for him.

Farrar’s analysis makes the old mistake of looking at the party votes instead of the candidate votes.

Who were the Nat leakers?

Written By: - Date published: 2:09 pm, March 9th, 2010 - 40 comments

Michael is dead right. The most important thing about the Hollow Men is not how Nicky Hager got the information but what the information is. It reveals National’s modern politics in all its unprincipled ugliness. Nonetheless, which Nats gave Hager the information is a subject of legitimate interest. I have some theories.

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