Naming the game
It’s been interesting to watch the nats and their busy little helpers working away at branding the election campaign as a nasty one.
It’s been disappointing to watch the media falling for it so hard.
Zetetic
Focusing on the issues that matter?
Everyone’s favourite National Party blogger Cam Slater has posted a sneaky candid shot of Metiria Turei in which he mocks her for *gasp* wearing a hat.
Vernon Small jumps the shark
There’s lies, damn lies, and statistics. And then there’s writing a beat-up story and providing none of the numbers needed to back it up at all.
Updated: Other bloggers commenting on the ‘maths’
Take action against the Herald’s lies
The Herald needs to explain why they think they can print anti-democratic lies and get away with it.
Make them answer. Make a complaint.
Hamstrung
David Cunliffe forgets an eleven year old pro-forma letter. John Armstrong calls for him to resign. Then it turns out this was a […]
Key on Iraq
John Key on Iraq in the Herald today:
“We are not a country out there looking for a fight.”
John Key in Iraq in 2003…
The over-sold Budget
You could tell it was coming.
When, about two days out from the Budget. English started trying to downplay expectations, you knew there wasn’t enough in it.
All Down to Dunne
In the next few hours Peter Dunne could stand by his word and help Kiwi Families.
The question is, will he do it?
Update: No he didn’t. So much for his principles.
Cabinet Club
It’s called “Cabinet Club” but National claims Ministers aren’t actually acting as Ministers when they use it to raise money.
Which is why they called it “Cabinet Club” and not something with Ministerial connotations like… um… “Cabinet Club”
Dinner money
The reason we know about John Key’s Antoine’s dinner donations was that they were grouped into a single donation that had to be declared.
But what about all the other dinners where each seat is considered a separate donation?
Give us the names or pay the money back, John
John Key has taken at least $165,000 in anonymous donations through secret dinner donations.
Will he follow David Cunliffe’s example and either name names or pay the money back? Or is Key too tricky for that?
Key hides advice, Collins goes to ground
Radio New Zealand has reported that John Key is refusing to release the advice he claims clears Judith Collins over her conflict of interest. And is now claiming that the Cabinet rules are ” just a guideline anyway”
Lying Key
Martyn’s got a post up over at the daily blog documenting some of the blatant lies Key has told that have been repeated […]
Collins and Oravida
Judith Collin’s endorses a company, Orivida, that her husband is a (presumably paid) director of. That same company has previously made political donations to the National Party.
That’s a conflict of interest.
Rotten
Stuff has an astounding interview with John Key where he reveals he has regular catch-ups with Cameron Slater.
We’ve always known that there were close ties between National and the abomination that is Whaleoil but now we know that the ties go right to the top.
Note to Media – check your facts.
Sometimes I despair for our media. I mean, the latest parroting of Key’s line on Best Start is the stuff of black comedy. […]
Useless and venal
Following David Cunliffe’s announcement of Best Start New Zealand’s right wing took it upon themselves to show how useless and venal they are. […]
Rent freezes in disaster zones
You need little more evidence of how Gerry Brownlee’s lazy-faire approach to the Christchurch rebuild has failed than the story of the (working) single mother forced to live in a tent with her 3 kids because there’s no affordable rentals. One of the automatic moves in a large scale disaster should be to freeze rents in the disaster zone. The Human Rights Commission agrees.
Hypocrisy-watch
After today’s platitudes, it’s worth remembering where Key stood on apartheid when it mattered.
A knighthood I would back
I don’t support knighthoods. I especially don’t support knighthoods being handed out to people who have just done their jobs at the end of their careers. You know, the gongs for ministers and CEOs. But if you are going to have honours, they should go to ordinary people who have truly gone above and beyond and acted where others failed. Arise, Sir Graham McCready.
Everything you need to know about National, in two paragraphs
Andrea Vance reports: “Foreign minister Murray McCully returned from the Tamil-led north of Sri Lanka last night and indicated he believes New Zealand should not support an independent investigation into war crimes.
Shortly after his return to Colombo, McCully signed a dairy co-operation agreement with his counterpart Professor GL Peiris, worth about $2 million.”
Insurance Council goes Galt
Well that didn’t take long. The Insurance Council has come out attacking Labour for KiwiAssure. Which is odd really, given the claim that […]
None so blind as those who invent their own reality
Is the Prime Minister John Key who claims to know what Labour has supposedly said in secret talks with SkyCity (talks that Cunliffe denies have happened) because it’s ‘all over town’ the same Prime Minister John Key who couldn’t be bothered to read a police report on one of his ministers who is now going to be tried for the offences investigated in said report? Asking for a friend.
The sick state of the right
The Herald reports today that John Palino’s campaign team were up to their eyeballs in the Len Brown dirty digging (or should that be “pantie sniffing”) with Bevan Chung releasing evidence that it was a calculated political move.
Useless
So John Key goes out into the world to represent our interests and what does he get? His good mate David Cameron tells […]
The cleaner & the ugly face of National
Imagine that your job was to clean 130 toilets every day. Imagine the grinding unpleasantness of it. Imagine the horrors some disgusting person would regularly leave for you to deal with. Imagine you do that for just above the minimum wage, barely enough to support your family, far from enough to live a real life. And imagine seeing one of the people whose shit you clean sneer at you.
Spendthrift Key objects to cost of democracy
Key’s big whine today is that the referendum on asset sales, which over 10% of Kiwis have requested as required by law, will be ‘extremely costly’ at $9m. This guy’s joking, right? Mr ‘2-billion-of-tax-cuts-in-the-middle-of-a-recession’ is whining about $9m on democracy? All up, Key’s squandered well over a hundred million on asset sales so far.
Liar
Nearly 60% of New Zealanders think John Key is a liar according to the latest Fairfax-Ipsos poll. That shouldn’t be surprising given the number of times he’s been caught out being less than honest
Choose wisely
I’m sure we’ll be doing comparisons between the candidates for the Labour leadership in the coming days. Any of the really contenders would at least be credible and a credible PM is the thing Labour has been lacking. What I would caution against is listening to Espiner/Garner/Gower fantasy candidate – Jones. Those same guys said ‘choose Shearer’ and Labour listened.
David Bennett’s successor?
Rumour has it that David Bennett has decided to retire at the next election. It’s been made clear to him that he’ll never be allowed anywhere near a ministerial portfolio. Who will take on his role? Well, how about this guy – Mark Sabin – who yesterday told Parliament that, thanks to St Key, New Zealand has the highest growth rate on Earth, when it’s actually 117th?
Key rules out Peters?
“He is completely and utterly wrong as per normal,” Mr Key said. – The PM responds to Winston Peters’ allegations that the Police considered seizing his phone records in Key’s teapot tape witch-hunt with his usual sophistication and class. Key’s comments raise an important question: ‘would Key have in his government a man who is normally “completely and utterly wrong?’
Dodgy as hell
The government selling off prime real estate to the governing party. It sounds like something out of a banana republic. But it’s here. The National Party (via several fronts) has bought the former Prime Ministerial/ministerial residence at 41 Pipitea St from the Crown. Peters says there should have been an auction. Not far enough. National should never have put up itself on both sides of a property deal. It’s dodgy as hell.
Questions for Key
Why is it acceptable to his government that, under the current law, Kiwi families can be outbid for Kiwi houses by overseas speculators who have no intention of living here? What good to the New Zealand economy is created by non-resident foreigners buying existing New Zealand houses? In the new sprawl suburbs he wants to create, how many houses being bought by foreign speculators would be acceptable to him?
Xenophobia – a Nat guide
Journos need to get serious on spy Bill
Key’s new spying law will mean our own spooks can legally spy Kiwi journos. Experience shows it will happen. Time for that ‘democracy under attack’ Herald campaign. Time for journos to start taking this seriously. In a democracy, we don’t give the State powers that it doesn’t need and/or that are open to abuse. We don’t create a turn-key totalitarian state just because it’s ‘convenient for the spies’.
Key demeans Korean War veterans
The New Zealand veterans of the Korean War got a sharp lesson from John Key yesterday as to what they and their comrades […]