The Standard

Author Archive

National’s urban wing moves against Collins

Written By: - Date published: 8:17 pm, September 15th, 2021 - 106 comments

Events this afternoon have confirmed that Judith Collins is indeed toast.

What should we call the Vaccination bus?

Written By: - Date published: 8:29 am, September 15th, 2021 - 82 comments

The Prime Minister has sparked another national debate.  What should we call the new mobile vaccination vehicles that will be rolled out over the next week or so.

Delta Covid – the battle so far

Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, September 14th, 2021 - 65 comments

As Tamaki Makaurau enters week four of lockdown things are at an interesting stage.

Dirty Politics does not work any more

Written By: - Date published: 9:53 am, September 11th, 2021 - 83 comments

Egged on by a shock horror smear campaign on Cameron Slater’s latest post Judith Collins has attacked Dr Siouxsie Wiles by fat shaming her.

Until all of us are safe none of us are safe

Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, September 9th, 2021 - 78 comments

On Monday of this week David Seymour received a roasting after posting a confidential Health code that was to be used by Waitakere Whanau to receive priority vaccination slots.  He has now doubled down on his effort and claimed that prioritisation is wrong.

Terrorist attack – Law changes may not have helped deal

Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, September 7th, 2021 - 15 comments

A proposed urgent change in the law concerning preparing to commit a terrorist attack may not have stopped the New Lynn attack from happening.

Seymour undermines vaccine roll out for Maori

Written By: - Date published: 1:53 pm, September 6th, 2021 - 81 comments

David Seymour has publicised a code designed for West Auckland whanau to try and improve poor vaccination rates amongst Maori.

The politics of the New Lynn attack

Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, September 4th, 2021 - 111 comments

Early days so far but the New Lynn attack will spark a debate about the adequacy of the country’s terrorism suppression laws and about citizenship rights.

National’s next leader?

Written By: - Date published: 8:28 am, September 3rd, 2021 - 60 comments

As the damage caused by Judith Collins’ leadership of the National Party intensifies it is inevitable that there will be internal discussions about who should replace her, and soon.  And I think the best candidate is clear.

Judith’s very bad two days

Written By: - Date published: 8:12 am, September 2nd, 2021 - 50 comments

Judith Collins’ insistence that Parliament be reconvened even at a time that the country was in lockdown level 4 has backfired spectacularly.

MPs should not only follow the rules but follow them with stars

Written By: - Date published: 9:16 am, August 31st, 2021 - 68 comments

Judith Collins has insisted on travelling from Auckland to Wellington so she can stand and shout in an empty Parliament Chamber.

Covid and the media

Written By: - Date published: 10:42 am, August 29th, 2021 - 54 comments

This week there has been some argy bargy between the Twitterati including the Waitakerati and the media on coverage of Covid in Aotearoa with elements of the media complaining that the criticisms are unjustified.  A brief review of some of the offerings this week would suggest otherwise.

Gumming up the works

Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, August 28th, 2021 - 53 comments

Last night it was revealed that National and Act had refused to agree to a proposed virtual Parliament sitting where questions could be asked, and instead wanted face to face meetings, even though this would mean a third of the country’s MPs travelling regularly to Wellington from a Covid delta hotspot.

Fuck-knuckles, cock and piss, balls does not breach BSA guidelines

Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, August 26th, 2021 - 14 comments

The Broadcasting Standards Authority have ruled that the use of the words “Fuck-knuckles, cock and piss, balls” by student radio station 95bfm does not breach standards of good taste and decency.

The mysterious socialist hermit kingdom

Written By: - Date published: 9:55 am, August 25th, 2021 - 111 comments

Various commentators including Nigel Farage have claimed that New Zealand’s Covid elimination strategy is a failure.  Our death rate and the possibility that we can again return to a normality that other nations can only aspire to suggests they are wrong.

Matt King caught blowing anti vaccination dog whistle

Written By: - Date published: 11:15 am, August 23rd, 2021 - 22 comments

Former National MP Matt King has been publicly posting anti vaccination propaganda under the ruse of only wanting a conversation.

The importance of Jacinda’s 1 pm press conferences

Written By: - Date published: 11:50 am, August 22nd, 2021 - 130 comments

Jacinda Ardern has resumed the 1 pm briefings where she communicates effectively the country’s current situation and what the plan is.  But National and some elements of the media are complaining, presumably that she is doing too good a job.

The Covid vaccine may not be the nirvana

Written By: - Date published: 12:47 pm, August 21st, 2021 - 151 comments

Claims that a comprehensive vaccination scheme will allow life to get back to normal ignores the experience of Israel, which despite having a large proportion of its population vaccinated is having a surge of new infections of Covid that is stretching its health system.

RIP Michael Cullen

Written By: - Date published: 10:41 am, August 20th, 2021 - 15 comments

Former Labour Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen has died.

The importance of political leadership in dealing with Covid

Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, August 18th, 2021 - 66 comments

Political leadership in the time of Covid is important.  As the Government urgently swung into action and imposed a level 4 lockdown after news of a community case of Delta Covid who lived in Auckland and had spent time in Coromandel while infectious, Thames-Coromandel District Mayor and former National MP Sandra Goudie admitted to not scanning regularly.

The strange story about the fake news poll results

Written By: - Date published: 8:21 am, August 17th, 2021 - 52 comments

The Politik website’s inadvertant publishing of fake news of a drop in Labour’s support shows how fragile the system of relying on two sources for a story is.

Bowker may be a dick but he has not breached the draft hate speech legislation

Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, August 15th, 2021 - 42 comments

Troy Bowker has bowled out of Hurricanes Rugby but has claimed free speech martyrdom after the response to his well publicised criticism of the word “Aotearoa”.  But his claims of martyrdom like his recent attacks on lefties would appear to be hopelessly overbaked.

The latest battle in the culture wars

Written By: - Date published: 8:49 am, August 15th, 2021 - 79 comments

This week National agreed to the bill allowing gender self identification to proceed to select committee which was a stark contrast to their position on the bill banning gay conversion therapy.  I wonder what happened?

The Churchill picture

Written By: - Date published: 8:13 am, August 12th, 2021 - 165 comments

National, the party that claims to be focussed on the issues that matter decided to get upset when the Greens requested the replacement of a picture of a former UK leader who had a reputation for engaging in crimes against humanity.

National’s civil war continues

Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, August 9th, 2021 - 25 comments

In an extraordinary move National’s board has reselected Peter Goodfellow as Party Chairperson and this has caused former MP David Carter to resign as board member and express no confidence in the leadership or in National’s chances at the next election.

National used to be better than this

Written By: - Date published: 8:28 am, August 6th, 2021 - 59 comments

Back in the day National used to have a strong urban liberal wing that gave the impression that it was sympathetic to LGBTQI issues.  Yesterday that impression was trashed.

Aotearoa New Zealand approaches full employment

Written By: - Date published: 8:28 am, August 5th, 2021 - 84 comments

Yesterday Statistics New Zealand announced a dramatic drip in the unemployment rate as well as solid increases in wage rates and average weekly earnings for workers.  While the Government celebrated Employers thought it was a crisis.

Judith’s last stand?

Written By: - Date published: 8:04 am, August 4th, 2021 - 43 comments

Judith Collins has decided to attack the Government on the use of the Te Reo name for New Zealand even though the last National Government regularised its use.

Youtube punishes Murdoch’s Sky News for pedalling Covid misinformation

Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, August 3rd, 2021 - 38 comments

This will have the conspiracy theorists spinning.  Youtube have stopped Murdoch’s Sky News Australia from uploading videos for the next seven days after the channel uploaded videos questioning Covid and advocating for the use of alternative medicines including Donald Trump’s favourite hydroxychloroquine

The latest Reid Research Poll result

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, August 2nd, 2021 - 134 comments

Last night’s Reid Research poll result suggests that the electorate is reverting back to a more conventional dynamic after the stratospheric heights that Labour enjoyed immediately post Covid elimination.

Lies damned lies and Crime statistics

Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, August 1st, 2021 - 13 comments

It should be an offence for political parties to deliberately misrepresent law and order statistics as National has done this week.  It should be an aggravating feature if the party is a conservative party that champions law and order issues.  After all fraud is an offence and if we don’t punish it appropriately then everyone will do it.