Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, October 15th, 2009 - 14 comments
Answering the question you wish you were asked rather than the one you were is a common PR tactic (to a point) when speaking to the media. Watching a cabinet minister try the same trick in parliament really starts to unveil this government’s contempt for democracy (though this example is perhaps not quite as bad […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:49 am, October 14th, 2009 - 7 comments
How do you get someone to change their mind about something they like? Simple, find one negative element to it (nothing is perfect) and blow it into a major issue. Nick Smith knows how to do this, he’s built a career on it. Now, he’s trying to make compensation payments to criminals the issue in […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, October 13th, 2009 - 1 comment
Following my post yesterday, toad on g.blog raises some questions about Nick Smith’s expense claims: In the Dompost article, Nick Smith said “I had to spend $152,000 to make [his electoral office, which he owns] usable I don’t dispute that. But who paid the $152,000? Was it Smith personally? Or was at least some of it from a […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:39 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 19 comments
Nick Smith has taken a leaf out of the Double Dipton school of politics, calling journalists and swearing at them when the coverage isn’t to his liking. Now, to be fair to Smith, he’s got a point about the story the Dom published on Saturday. The story said Smith and six other MPs (all but […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:29 pm, September 24th, 2009 - 19 comments
Last night, non-government parties finally got a peak at the new emissions trading bill. Nick Smith still didn’t have it finished, it was in draft form, and by all accounts it’s a mess. As Jeanette Fitzsimons reports, however, the draft ETS did reveal something important. See, on Tuesday Smith tabled in Parliament a bizarre table […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, September 18th, 2009 - 8 comments
Labour’s Charles Chauvel has released the paper records of Labour’s attempts to agree a bi-partisan ETS with National. In total, Labour presented three draft MOUs detailing possible agreements, each moving towards what they believed to be National’s position. Additionally, there was a letter from Phil Goff to John Key a month ago that clearly laid […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, August 6th, 2009 - 11 comments
John Key has recently acted like a jerk to a young mother worried about what climate change is going to mean for her future and that of her child. Essentially he said that she should stick to what she knew. Bearing in mind the complete lack of understanding that both John Key and his NACT […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, July 29th, 2009 - 12 comments
Nick Smith is the front-man for this government on climate change, and it appears that he knows absolutely nothing about the numbers. The ones he has been using are not related to his claims. It is puzzling because he was an engineer who are usually accurate users of numbers. It is more likely he is […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, July 10th, 2009 - 15 comments
A Nelson man attempted to buy a gun to shoot Nick Smith. Details are scant. What could have been a nasty situation looks like is has been well-handled by the Police and DPS. It must be one of the gnawing worries of being an MP. You and your family are exposed to people who blame […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:56 am, July 8th, 2009 - 12 comments
A number of poor performing ministers like Paula Bennett, Kate Wilkinson, Anne Tolley, Pita Sharples, Tariana Turia, Rodney Hide, Pansy Wong, and Key himself, have tried to extradite themselves from sticky situations in the House by lying. It was only a matter of time until one of them lied so blatantly that a privileges complaint was […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:33 pm, June 23rd, 2009 - 39 comments
This is a classic. Media are reporting that National MP Nick Smith has had an assault complaint lodged against him by a Nelson man. Right on cue, Farrar puts up a quick post to downplay the whole thing. His choice of headline? “Sounds like a beatup” That’s one epic headline fail 🙂 [For what it’s […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:40 pm, June 3rd, 2009 - 3 comments
Here’s an exert from Nick Smith’s speech to the 2009 New Zealand Planning Institute Conference: I acknowledge, that while the bulk of submissions have been supportive of the Bill, there is considerable debate over the provisions that remove the non-complying activity class, that restrict blanket urban tree protection, that limit plan appeal rights and which […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, April 15th, 2009 - 8 comments
Remember when John Key used to say “New Zealand has a growth problem, not a debt problem”? He doesn’t say that anymore, which is a pity because we do have a growth problem, not a debt problem, but the Government is acting like we’ve got a debt problem that needs to be tackled first. Yes, […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:49 pm, March 31st, 2009 - 13 comments
Nick Smith announced National’s changes to the ACC board this afternoon. As expected they’ve kicked Wayne Butson and Ross Wilson off the board, meaning ACC no longer has any worker representation. In their place are a mixed bag of company directors and consultants headed by an affiliate member of the Business Roundtable. This isn’t just […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:03 am, March 20th, 2009 - 41 comments
Paula Bennett’s performance on Morning Report today didn’t just bring home how completely out of her depth she is as a Minister, it also exposed the limits of National’s strategy of government-by-PR. If you haven’t heard the interview yet, download it now. You won’t be disappointed. What’s clearly happened here is Bennett was sent into […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:25 pm, March 13th, 2009 - 7 comments
Over the last week or so the Government, and Nick Smith in particular, have run a dishonest PR campaign to undermine ACC and soften up the public for cuts and eventual privatisation. In response, the Council of Trade Unions has put together a helpful fact sheet to set the record straight and bust some of […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:27 am, March 12th, 2009 - 46 comments
The wheels are starting to come off National’s PR campaign to undermine ACC as more and more people notice the gap between their spin and the reality. This morning’s Dom Post has an interesting article [offline*] where the managing director of actuaries Eriksen & Associates refutes Nick Smith’s lies about the “cost blowout” and the […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:30 pm, March 4th, 2009 - 15 comments
I’ve been meaning to write something about National’s attempts to beat up ACC’s costs in order to soften the ground for privatisation (see Farrar’s latest post here as an example), but No Right Turn captures it perfectly: During the election campaign, National attempted to minimise concerns that it would privatise ACC, saying merely that it […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, February 2nd, 2009 - 6 comments
The Sunday-Star Times has an article on National’s proposed RMA changes. Unfortunately, it’s just Nick Smith describing the changes. And, surprise, he doesn’t mention changing the definition of environment, the crucial change (we discuss the consequences of the change here). Fortunately, it’s all online here. You can read not only the changes that National wants to […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:36 pm, December 17th, 2008 - 21 comments
Gerry ‘sexy coal’ Brownlee has spent today ripping apart more anti-climate change laws. Today, under urgency and without the opportunity for the public to contribute via the select committee process, National/ACT has repealed the Biofuels requirement and is now in the process of repealing the ‘ban’ on new baseload fossil fuel power plants. Disturbingly National/ACT’s […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:17 pm, December 17th, 2008 - 28 comments
National’s decides to hit workers in the pocket: ACC Minister Nick Smith yesterday said levies would increase from $1.40 to $1.70 for every $100 earned from next April. The employer and self-employed levy would rise from $1.26 to $1.31. Recommendations by officials to increase motor vehicles levies and lift registration fees by $50 would not […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:55 am, October 14th, 2008 - 90 comments
National’s Nick Smith has announced that they would cancel the $1 billion fund to insulate New Zealand houses, which the Greens won as part of the Emissions Trading Scheme. This massive programme would improve energy efficiency, create warmer, healthier homes and would provide useful employment during the downturn. A study, ironically carried out under National and mentioned to me […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:06 pm, August 22nd, 2007 - Comments Off on Phones in prisons
Contrary to what the National Party would have us believe, restricting inmates’ use of phones in prisons has always been a bit of a problem. Presumably the rise in the availability of mobile phones coupled with their shrinking size has made the job of controlling their use even more difficult for corrections staff. Check out […]
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