The Labour/Greens electoral pact spells the end of the line for Parliament’s most self serving MP, Peter Dunne. National have a choice to make; stand down in Ohariu or stab him in the back. And then there’s the equally supine Maori party. Te Ururoa Flavell’s hold on his seat is also shaky. No Flavell, no Maori Party.
No Mates National. The Brighter Future just arrived!
Donald Trump has finally got the last Republican delegates need to secure his candidacy. Bernie Sanders has lost his race (but is being pressured to stand as an independent). Now that the candidates are all but confirmed, the sideshow is over. It’s Clinton vs Drumpf in the most entertaining election in a generation.
In a guest post, regular commenter Tony Veitch takes some learnings from Noam Chomsky’s latest documentary Requiem for the American Dream. The neo-liberal plan has been in place for over thirty years. How come we’re only just starting to understand it?
Prime Minister John Key has today announced a radical plan to solve the housing crisis. The homeless are now welcome to go flatting with him in his Parnell bach. The plan includes draining the swimming pool and subdividing it into flats, putting hammocks in the palm trees and making soup in the pool cabana’s kitchen. Max Key may have to move out to make way for the homeless, but the PM described that as a painful sacrifice he was now willing to make in the light of his son’s most recent social media posting.
Despite the PM’s assurances, it turns out the his lawyer had direct links to Mossack Fonseca. And so did everyone else in the room when Todd McClay was successfully convinced to drop the IRD review into foreign trust. Someone’s been telling porkies …
The Standard is broken. We are not a safe place for women. How do we fix that?
Domestic abuser Tony Veitch has written a self absorbed piece about how domestic abuser Tony Veitch is better now. Good on domestic abuser Tony Veitch!
UPDATE: Veitch’s victim’s father calls for a real apology.
The Labour Party have made their objections to the TPPA clear in a minority report to Parliament. As this guest post from Jenny Kirk makes clear, the fight for our future isn’t over. TPPA? No Way!
Voting in the UK council, mayoral and assembly elections has just closed. The first results are coming in and there appears to be a big protest vote. In Scotland, the question is who will come second, Labour or the Tories. In London, Sadiq Khan was a shoo in for mayor until Ken Livingstone had a brain fart. In Wales, the Greens and UKIP are hoping to make significant gains.
Ultimately, all eyes are on Jeremy Corbyn. This is make or break for the Labour leader.
MediaWorks CEO and mate of the PM, Mark Weldon, has quit his job. Is it too late to save MediaWorks? Should we care?
EDIT: Staff get in the champers shock!
So Key’s lawyer reckons the PM directly requested that trust industry leaders lobby the Revenue Minister. On the other hand, PM DunnoKeyo reckons he did no such thing. That leaves some really big questions …
The truly awful Talley’s group have just taken NZ employment relations back a century or two by trying to get the Employment Court to gag the Meat Workers Union. Talley’s regard freedom of speech as a breach of good faith. They also want the union’s Darien Fenton barred from doing her job. Is it too soon to take Sir Peter Talley’s knighthood away from him?
Our Glorious Leader John Key Il is considering a formal extradition treaty with China. No doubt some genuinely bad people will be sent back, but China’s definition of ‘criminal’ is very, very broad. Why are we sucking up to a country lacking both democracy and a legitimate judicial system? Could it be the money? Could it be the pandas?
We used to be better than this. And not so long ago. Where did we go wrong?
Labour List MP Clayton Cosgrove has announced he is to leave Parliament.
Young Labour member and regular TS reader TheSocialDemocrat has drawn up a manifesto for change. As neo-liberalism enters its twilight phase, now is the time to redefine the debate about what makes a society great.
Three news items stand out from the long weekend. Actor Robert De Niro being inoculated against anti-vaxxers, ISIS being driven out of Palmyra and the free part of Ireland celebrating the centenary of the Easter Rising. All are milestones of sorts, markers of positive change.
Recent polling makes it clear that neither National or Labour can win power without the support of NZ First. So should the left be worried that Winston Peters will take his party back over to the blue team?
It’s been an intense day or two for Andrew Little. But he’s still feeling better than John Key. Why? Because Key’s got the fear.
Labour is calling for an urgent summit of the dairy industry players to avoid the looming bankruptcy of one in ten farmers. National’s response? Crisis, what crisis?
In the wake of the shooting of four police officers in Kawerau, it’s time NZ had a cold, hard look at our gun culture. We need an inquiry that addresses both legal and illegal gun ownership. But there’s a related matter that also needs looking at …
Fairfax journalist Stacey Kirk has published a vicious smear against a group of cancer sufferers. Is this the nastiest lie ever published in the NZ media?
Lying, incompetent or duped. One of these descriptions applies to Transport Minister Simon Bridges. He’s been sprung allowing Kiwirail to mothball a rail line he has repeatedly said was not under threat. What did he know and when? If he didn’t know, why the hell didn’t he know?
Next week the voting on part two of the Key Legacy Project © begins. We’re being given a choice between the outdated and the bland. The Butcher’s Apron or the Tea Towel. Do you care?
The National Party Caucus is split and divided over John Key’s vanity project, the flag referendum. For the first time, there have been leaks to the media directly from within Team Key. The signs are ominous for the PM.
As if the second round of booing in a week wasn’t bad enough, John Key got royally trolled by a young BGO attendee on Instagram. Then the Herald bizarrely decided her selfie of the PM with his hand tantalisingly close to her hair was a genuine BGO good news story. But wait! There’s more!!!
It’s over fifty years since JFK, MLK and RFK died. Is this the year America finally gets their message?
The Green’s Gareth Hughes delivered a blistering speech in reply to the PM’s statement to the House. It begs the question ‘what will Key’s lasting legacy be?’. A failed flag referendum? Poverty? Inequality? Corruption? Selfies with AB’s?
As Key’s star fades, the less he seems to have left us to remember him by. What was the point of him anyway?
Winston Peters has stitched John Key up again, this time hook, line and sinker. When Key lied in Parliament about the Northland MP’s supposedly leisurely lifestyle, Peters offered a challenge: provide some evidence or donate $100k to charity. Will cowardly Key take the bait?
The Talley’s owned meatworks in Rangiuru is threatening to discipline workers and sue their union if workers choose to observe the Waitangi Day holiday tomorrow. How’s that Brighter Future working out, people?
NOW UPDATED! Hear what Talleys have to say.
The coward John Key will not now be going to Waitangi. He’s far too scared to find out directly how his sovereignty sell out has been received by Kiwis.
The return of the X Files has got me thinking. Just how hard is it to keep a big conspiracy secret? Happily, a British scientist has the answer; it’s bloody hard. More or less impossible, actually, according to his new formula. It seems the truth really is out there.
Goff and Shearer’s disloyal and self serving support for the TPPA has backfired. They’ve shown that the ABC faction are now a spent force and that Andrew Little has the overwhelming support of caucus. The sun has set on the splitters and there is a new day rising.
The Sheepgate scandal rolls on. PM John Key has just confirmed we will be celebrating the Saudi Arabian government’s recent execution of 47 political opponents by gifting them a portable abattoir.
Today is Australia Day, the federal celebration of the invasion of the big island to the west of us. Journalist Stan Grant lays bare the Australian Dream in a stunning contribution to the recent IQ2Oz debate. Clearly, as the video shows, saying sorry isn’t enough.
Te Reo Putake is live blogging the visits of politicians to Rātana pā during the weekend celebration of the life of church founder Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana. The shadow of the TPPA hangs over the weekend; how will our political leaders address this latest attack on Te Tiriti o Waitangi?
