Posts Tagged ‘polity’

Polity: Meanwhile, in Bomber-land

Written By: - Date published: 10:38 am, June 3rd, 2014 - 169 comments

Last week’s developments around Internet MANA have caused much conversation on the left in New Zealand. Some of that conversation has been constructive, strategic, and forward-thinking. And then there is Bomber:…. Whose analysis is designed to split the left, not unify it; and the recommendations would help the left lose, not win. Top work.

Polity: Dotcom’s $3 million donation

Written By: - Date published: 12:25 pm, June 1st, 2014 - 132 comments

Kim Dotcom has shaken up the election with a claim his new Internet Party will have a $3 million war chest. The big questions are: is this kind of donation good for democracy, and are left-leaning campaigners hypocrites for accepting it? The answers are respectively yes and no. A politician’s job is to campaign within the rules as they currently stand. They owe no duty to provide their opponents with advantage by pre-emptively limiting their own campaigns.

Polity: The young ones

Written By: - Date published: 7:27 am, May 21st, 2014 - 7 comments

Rob Salmond at Polity looks at what our young have to look forward to in 2019  with National’s hands-off housing screwup. How an average family would fare under National’s do-nothing approach to the housing crisis then?

Polity: Madness: Our house

Written By: - Date published: 1:18 pm, May 20th, 2014 - 24 comments

How an average family would fare under National’s do-nothing approach to the housing crisis? Not very well. Even at the Treasury forecasts in the budget (which seem highly optimistic), this median New Zealand family, is projected by Treasury to have their disposable income go backwards over the next five “rock star” years. That is a disgrace

Polity: Key: Pathological liar about tax

Written By: - Date published: 3:05 pm, May 18th, 2014 - 30 comments

John Key is clearly lying about tax again. He claims that most of “all nett tax” is paid for by the wealthy. As usual he ignores the 15% GST tax, the various sales taxes on things like petrol, and the many other sales and consumption taxes. GST and other consumption taxes are largely paid for by the not wealthy. Which is why they were raised to pay for National’s tax cuts for the wealthy.

Polity: House of Cards

Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, May 16th, 2014 - 20 comments

Rob Salmond from Polity on how Budget 2014 figures show that the housing crisis will get much, much worse under National’s do-nothing approach.

Polity: Budget 2014: Over-promise. Under-deliver.

Written By: - Date published: 3:18 pm, May 15th, 2014 - 40 comments

Earlier this week I predicted the Budget would be Labour-lite. I was right, but only in part. By far the biggest disappointment is in housing. The government signalled help for home buyers would be a highlight in the Budget. A few pathetic morsels isn’t a highlight. This will make next to no difference to the housing affordability crisis. First home buyers aren’t $3,500 short of a house. They are hundreds of thousands short, because there aren’t nearly enough homes.

Polity: Key – “Meh. Maybe I lied to Parliament.”

Written By: - Date published: 11:38 am, May 14th, 2014 - 39 comments

Misleading parliament is serious. If it happens, MPs are supposed to make a stand-alone statement to the House about what they said, why it was wrong, and what they should have said instead. Key didn’t do that at all. He just inserted a pathetic “meh” concession into an answer to a question. And the speaker diminished parliament by letting him get away with it.

Polity: Economic plans compared

Written By: - Date published: 7:08 pm, May 12th, 2014 - 9 comments

Labour looks at increasing jobs, wage growth, and having the government run surpluses. National looks at a 1% wage growth after inflation after years of falling real wages and no drop in real unemployment as being a sign of a healthy economy? Yeah right. Most of the growth in the economy is simply passing wage-earners by. It is going elsewhere. That is National’s legacy: strong growth for the fortunate few, lagging and insipid growth for everyone else

Polity: Trevett wrong on polls

Written By: - Date published: 6:13 pm, May 11th, 2014 - 33 comments

The activists and very often the geeks of the local political system hang around blogs. They crunch numbers and sample opinions. Like Rob at Polity, we’re always kind of amazed when we read the type of misinformation and outright bullshit that Claire Trevett wrote this weekend about internal polling inside parties. That the subsequent events virtually never seem to back up the claims of the gullible political press gallery people who make them, also never seems to get them to realize that they have been suckered again for political advantage. They must just like biting the hooks.

Polity: Key lies to Parliament: The proof

Written By: - Date published: 1:24 pm, May 8th, 2014 - 127 comments

Yesterday, John Key lied to Parliament. He made a very specific claim about a set of official documents, and those same documents show clearly that the claim was false. If Key is anywhere near Wellington today, he simply has to come to the House to correct his answer. Deeply embarrassing that may be, but he cannot allow such blatant untruths to stand uncorrected.

Polity: Why Joyce is full of it on monetary policy

Written By: - Date published: 11:11 am, May 5th, 2014 - 33 comments

Rob Salmond at Polity just saved me from having to write something like this post explaining economic basics to Steven Joyce. Joyce demonstrated again why his tenure at MoBIE has been a failure for the overall economy. He fixates on one thing like the business selling milk powder to the exclusion of the overall picture. In part that is why we have neither expanding innovation or employment in our economy at present. He is a good tactical politician. But he is a fool on strategy.

Polity: Shane Jones speaks out

Written By: - Date published: 8:56 am, April 24th, 2014 - 116 comments

If you are going to demand that everyone else be a team player within Labour, accommodating in the caucus views they do not agree with, you can’t then turn around and refuse to be a team player in a Labour-led government with another party whose views you may not agree with. Either everyone is a team player, or nobody is. Shane Jones included.

 

Polity: I am still holding out for a three-way

Written By: - Date published: 12:38 pm, April 22nd, 2014 - 110 comments

I think the pundits misjudge Peters. I think he wants a major, polity-based legacy in the 2014-2017 term, as well as baubles. Only the left can offer this. With the left, Peters can be The Man who Saved the Power Companies. National cannot compete with that. Which gives everyone on the left, including the Greens, some leverage. So count me out of the consensus that Winston in Cabinet means no Greens in Cabinet. I see a feasible three-way deal on the horizon.

Polity: Boundary changes

Written By: - Date published: 5:16 pm, April 18th, 2014 - 20 comments

Rob Salmond’s take on the boundary changes announced last week. In a MMP election system the actual electoral boundaries usually only really matter to a few MPs. It isn’t likely to make much of a difference unless National manages to have a cup of tea with a party with enough electoral muscle to get more than a single MP into the house and an electorate’s voters think this matters. After the John Banks/Act debacle who’d be moronic enough to think that electorate seats in a list do matter? Apart from our silly first-past-the-post stand-in-man for David Farrar of course…

Polity: Labour’s manufacturing plan

Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, April 18th, 2014 - 10 comments

This is very good stuff. Having a tax break for R&D work has always been a no-brainer, and it is great to see it reconfirmed. Adding an accelerated depreciation scheme for new plant is a helpful addition. And partnering with more local firms for more locally-sourced government procurement makes perfect sense, too. Another no brainer for parties – like Labour – that actually care about local employment.

Polity: Maori Party / Key fundraiser

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, April 15th, 2014 - 35 comments

The Political Anorak News is full of the $5,000-a-plate fundraiser for the Maori Party hosted by John Key at the Northern Club in Auckland… Nothing illegal about this at all, or really anything immoral either. Key wants to help the Maori Party help Key, so he’s putting in an appearance. No problem. These kinds of events make it crystal clear that a vote for the Maori Party is a vote for a National government.

Polity: The Greens’ proposed pre-election deal

Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, April 10th, 2014 - 58 comments

Last night, via One News, the public became aware that the Greens had proposed a pre-election coalition with Labour, but Labour had rejected it. While the Greens’ offer is nothing unusual internationally, New Zealand’s comparatively fair electoral system doesn’t provide Labour much incentive to accept it. Which, I think, makes Labour’s rejection of the proposal much less noteworthy.

Polity: Armstrong on National on Labour

Written By: - Date published: 1:20 pm, April 7th, 2014 - 13 comments

It isn’t a new ploy from National or its supporters. “Mortgage rate rises under National: Good. Mortgage rate rises under Labour: Dreadful!”. I’ve seen David Farrar argue both that a recession is the perfect time to cut taxes because it stimulates the economy, and a recovery is also the perfect time to cut taxes to provide a dividend. It reminds me of that old chestnut, most recently applied to Don Brash: “The answer is tax cuts. What is the question again?”

Polity: The impact of Labour’s GOTV efforts

Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, April 3rd, 2014 - 10 comments

David Farrar often bullshits on numbers. Does he have what appears to be a maths block that makes him so wrong so often (like Bill English)? Or is it just that he obeys orders like the good National puppet tools that he and Cameron Slater appear to be? Anyway, Rob Salmond pulls him up on a few obvious and significiant flaws in his ‘analysis’. DPF didn’t allow for people lying – just like he does

Polity: Key in self-parody about lying (mk 2)

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, April 2nd, 2014 - 52 comments

There was an Audrey Young piece in the Herald yesterday, in which John Key talks about Labour’s plan to increase eligibility for free Early Childhood Education. So Key thinks this policy will cost at least ten times as much as Labour does. That’s a very big claim. But Andrey did not appear to ask for his sums, she just printed Key’s figures without comment. That was a pity because John Key’s figures are a bare-faced lie and are quite impossible.

Polity: The new TV polls

Written By: - Date published: 7:13 pm, March 31st, 2014 - 24 comments

The TV1 and TV3 polls yesterday show roughly the same situation, which also mirrors Polity’s poll of polls. National retains a smallish polling lead over the left bloc of around four points. But Winston Peters and New Zealand First are starting their surge toward the 5% threshold. If they cross that threshold it would complicate the post-election picture enormously.

Polity: The Internet Party launch

Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, March 28th, 2014 - 88 comments

Rob Salmond looks at the Internet Party’s launch and rather shallow vision. But is this politics?

“So the Internet Party had a good launch short term, but its longer term problems with policy and vision remain.”

Polity: The Internet Party is born… temporarily

Written By: - Date published: 11:15 am, March 27th, 2014 - 14 comments

Rob Salmond’s view on the Internet Party launch today.
“Today is the day the Internet Party, which amusingly abbreviates to IP, will actually launch. More importantly, today marks 146 days until Kim Dotcom winds up the Internet Party because it isn’t polling near 5% and has no deals with others to secure itself an electorate seat.”

 

Polity: The buck stops with Hekia

Written By: - Date published: 9:59 am, March 26th, 2014 - 29 comments

Just when you think that Hekia Parata couldn’t make more of a shambolic mess of the Kohanga Reo review, it turns out that she could and did. Rob Salmond at Polity (and Audrey Young of the Herald) has a look at it.

Polity: Buy low, sell high. Except National.

Written By: - Date published: 1:06 pm, March 24th, 2014 - 27 comments

Rob at Polity points out National’s intensely unstrategic view about investments and asset sales. In a down market where all the indications said “buy,” National sold our assets for a pittance, and refused to invest in the Super Fund. The Super Fund has been making returns of 21%, far exceeding the Crown’s cost of borrowing. And National will only start investing in the Super Fund when equities are expensive again.  It is almost as if they wanted to waste taxpayers funds eh?

Polity: Looking behind the Kohanga finger pointing

Written By: - Date published: 9:11 am, March 21st, 2014 - 8 comments

The news this morning has all kinds of finger pointing between Hekia Parata, Derek Fox, John Key, the Kohanga Reo trust board, and others.

Why are so many people pointing fingers all over the place? Because everyone involved has screwed up one way or another.

Polity: National cuts charity funding because charity criticises National

Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, March 21st, 2014 - 79 comments

You’d have to ask if skycity asked the government to get rid of this turbulent critic? After all their brief is to reduce problem gambling.

Polity: Losing count of Judith’s lies

Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, March 19th, 2014 - 58 comments

“Justice Minister Judith Collins’ “cup of tea on the way to the airport” at her friend Stone Shi’s company in Shanghai involved a 30km detour in the opposite direction…”. That’s pretty embarrassing for Collins. Caught, red-handed, again, lying in the Parliament and misleading your boss. I wonder what he will do now?

Polity: The Greens’ draft list

Written By: - Date published: 12:37 pm, March 17th, 2014 - 107 comments

Rob Salmond at Polity looks at the draft Green party list. “The Greens have released their draft party list today, in advance of a party member STV vote. The top 20 is…”

Polity: Endangered! Polls without cell phones

Written By: - Date published: 5:07 pm, March 13th, 2014 - 28 comments

Here’s a pretty astounding graphic from the US about cellphone vs landline use. The US is a few years ahead of New Zealand on mobile adoption and decoupling from landlines, but Rob Salmond thinks that within 5 years we will see these kinds of proportions in New Zealand. This will make current pollsters’ policies of refusing to call cell phones hugely problematic…