The Standard Week – 06-13 June
Another week of shadow boxing, as National tried to keep its policy secret and hints leaked out. But it gave us the chance […]
Steve Pierson
Why is reported violent crime up?
As you know, crime is down in New Zealand, which is not surprising – crime is a symptom of social deprivation and we’ve […]
The dark side of the Right
Trotter is on the money today: …[A]ll of you young, confident women of the 21st century urgently need to pause and reflect upon […]
Treating the voters like children
Keith Holyoake used to say “tell the people, trust the people”; be honest about the benefits, trade-offs, and costs of policies and trust the people […]
The wage gap and the Nats’ crediblity gap
Remember when National was all about the wage gap, whinging about it every day? Heard them talk about it lately? The last mention […]
With friends like these
One thing that puzzles me about righties is that half the people on their side of the fence are racists, bigots, misogynists, homophobes […]
GWOT comics
Ah, Iraq invasion satire. thank god that war is over, eh John? [GWOT – Global War On Terror, official acronym. You can’t make […]
Why Key really wants super-fast broadband
Remember National’s broadband ‘plan’ that reads like it was drawn up on the back of a napkin? Notice how the only gains they […]
Centre party? Yeah, right
Why is it that UnitedFuture is branded a centre party? We all know they’re socially right wing, in bed with the Christian fundamentalists, and […]
Mythbusting: Labour’s just had golden economic weather
The amazing economic run we’ve experienced under the Labour-led governments is just down to international forces, so National would have us believe. Of […]
The vision thing
No sensible analysis could conclude that the Labour-led governments of the last 8 years have been anything but excellent for New Zealand. As […]
Which is the waste of money?
Every now and then a ‘commentator’ pops up who is so hilariously incompetent you don’t know whether to ignore them or mock them. […]
Spinbusting: the biggest party must govern
A National line that is doing the rounds goes that if National wins more votes than Labour but can’t govern alone it would […]
Spin-busting: ‘Hardworking kiwis’
‘Hardworking kiwis’ is National’s new ‘mainstream New Zealanders’. Referenced by Key ad nauseam, it is the population at which National purports to target […]
Mythbusting: The govt gets rich off high petrol prices
We regularly hear calls (not backed by any major party, including National) for the taxes on petrol to be lowered or removed because […]
Peters refuses to answer your questions
In the final of our ‘Interview the Leaders’ series, we asked Winston Peters three questions submitted by readers. Damian Edwards from his office […]
Introducing the Standard Week
We know that if you miss a couple of days of The Standard you can have 15 posts to read. Even though we try […]
Into the void: examining National’s ‘policies’
National’s so-called policies are laughable. National says it has released ’14 policies’ (14! wow! anyone would think they were planning to run a scout […]
Many liberals, many drinks at Drinking Liberally
Drinking Liberally last night was another raging success. The crowd was about 80, lots of new faces and good fun had by all. […]
OCR unchanged
The Reserve Bank has left the Official Cash Rate unchanged; no-one expected a rate cut this early. It’s encouraging that Bollard has firmly […]
A World Environment Day Carol
Garth George surprised me today, and a welcome surprise it was. Here’s an extract from his article – I decided that in this […]
Drinking Liberally tonight
Just a reminder that Drinking Liberally is on again this evening. See youse there. WHAT Drinking Liberally WHEN From 5.30pm, Wednesday June 4th. […]
Food Police State fails to eventuate
Remember the tories and the Kiwiblog Right getting all flustered about the ‘Food Police’, when guidelines were announced to control junk food in […]
Ward sees sense
Good on Mike Ward for finally seeing sense and stepping aside, allowing Greens co-leader Russel Norman to enter Parliament replacing Nandor Tanczos. Norman […]
How much did Key pay for his seat?
It’s funny the stories you hear when you’re out in the provinces. I was up in Auckland over the long weekend and came […]
Foreign media owners slash journo numbers, again
The New Zealand Press Association, owned by APN and Fairfax, has announced it is slashing its journalists from 55 to 48. In election […]
Treasury dreams of cheap oil
This is the graph of the oil price forecasts Treasury used to underpin its fiscal model for the Budget. It assumes that oil […]
Polling companies confirm reputations
Another pair of TV polls, another embarrassment for Colmar Brunton as their poll goes widely out of line with the others even as […]
What’s National’s real assets policy?
Isn’t this the one issue where we truly know what National will do? Didn’t John Key say ‘there will be no asset sales […]
Cullen to speak at Drinking Liberally
Drinking Liberally’s Facebook group has just sent out the invitation to their second event. I don’t know how they’ve swung it, but they’ve […]
Butting out
The Government has announced that the percentage of kiwi adults who smoke has fallen to 19.9%. The number of daily smokers is down from […]
Ryall: disgraceful
National’s Tony Ryall has made a disgrace of himself, yet again. This time, by labelling a Government initiative to hasten improvements in the […]
On the perils of polls
We’re used to hearing that a poll has a margin of error but what does it mean? A margin of error of 3% […]
Notional Policy: Kiwisaver
Tracy Watkins reported yesterday that National’s weakening of the employer contribution to Kiwisaver may take a different path to the one we envisaged. […]
Gosche to retire
Mark Gosche has announced he will retire from politics at the election. Gosche has represented the people of Maungakiekie for 12 years and, […]
Why didn’t Kate know Nats’ Kiwisaver policy?
The most surprising thing to come of the National’s Kiwisaver fiasco is not that they want to undermine the scheme and get employers […]