Garrett resigns from ACT

David Garrett has resigned from ACT and has indicated he will almost certainly resign from Parliament. Good, He is a scumbag, a liar, […]

Key: No Surprises?

Under National & Act’s power-sharing agreement there is a ‘No Surprises’ clause.  So Rodney Hide should have told John Key about David Garrett’s assault conviction and dead baby identity stealing, as well as his own drunk and disorderly conviction in 2008.

Did he?

Hide’s dilemma

Rodney Hide can either ditch Garrett and likely lose his leadership.

Or he can back him and likely kill off Act.

It’s a classic individual versus collective dilemma.

Day of the Jackoff

So ACT’s nutcase extraordinaire, the man whose only talent is to make John Boscawen look stable, has done it yet again. Forever getting attention […]

Right wing tantrums

The mind set of your typical far RWNJ (Right Wing Nut Job) reminds me of nothing so much as a spoiled greedy baby.  Never more so than after reading a couple of notable tantrums from right wing politicians lately.

Roy calls Rodney’s bluff

From John Armstrong: He [Hide] stared at the ornate ceiling. He stared at the wood-panelled walls. And when he wasn’t staring at those things, he just stared into the void in front of him. The only direction Rodney Hide was not looking was two seats to his left….

ACT infighting continues

The ACT Party’s in-fighting continues, with ACT member Peter Tashkoff announcing he will contest Rodney Hide for the party’s selection in Epsom. Someone pass the popcorn.

Roy enounters changeable Mr Hyde

Is Heather Roy to depart the ACT caucus? According to TVNZ, Act Party leader Rodney Hide is signalling his dumped deputy Heather Roy will find it extremely difficult to stay on as an MP, despite saying last week that she would be welcomed back into the caucus.

Kudos to “The Veteran”

Reading about Act ritualistically disemboweling themselves this week has been interesting, and has quite a few implications for the political landscape at the next election. The factor that has been attracting my attention was highlighted by Fran O’Sullivan this morning – where did those defense papers wind up. Apparently with The Veteran at No Minister, who wins kudos from me by acting responsibly to the leak.

ACT’s demise bad news for neo-liberals

No wonder Winston Peters is smiling. His personal vendetta with Hide must be at on the forefront of his mind as he watches his nemesis sink.

But what does ACT’s impending demise actually mean for other parties? It’s not good news for National.

Key backs the bully, loses a good minister

John Key allowed one of the ministers he appointed to be bullied out of her job and replaced by a man chosen by Rodney Hide, and he didn’t even ask Hide why. As more details emerge, it looks like Hide is the one in the wrong. Will Key now discipline Hide and invite Roy, who has been acclaimed as a good minister in a bad bunch, back on board? Not likely. The guy’s barely awake these days.

An Authoritarian Act

So Rodney can’t keep 4 other people on side. The liberal and authoritarian split in Act has had its blood-letting and the authoritarians have won. Where will the neo-liberal idealogues go? And how will Epsom react to this change in philosophy in a year’s time?

Boscawen new ACT deputy

Clad in traditional climate change denier headwear, John Boscawen today assumed the role of ACT Deputy Leader, vowing to use his new powers to launch a crusade against NIWA. Standing beside him, Rodney Hide told reporters “Don’t give me that look. At least he’s not David Garrett”

Final ACT for Roy?

Infighting within ACT seems to have come to a head, and pundits are predicting that Heather Roy will be sacked today, with John Boscawen to replace her as deputy. Will Roy split off and form a new party of the right? Fight ACT for that 1.5% of the vote?

Attacking NIWA

What do you do when you find science inconvenient to your ideology? Why, you strike it down! Burn the heretics! Or in the modern equivalent, you set the lawyers on them, and try and have the facts declared illegal.

Climate change deaths

Worldwide it is the hottest Jan-Feb-March-April on record. Heat waves have already killed tens of thousands in the last few years. In India 2010 is believed to be the hottest summer in the country since records began in the late 1800s, and hundreds are dead. While ACT and Federated Farmers bitch and moan about the costs of the ETS, the deaths will keep coming.

More dim bulbs

Yesterday I posted on John Key being named “Dim bulb of the week” by the San Francisco Examiner. Continuing with a dim bulb theme – let’s talk about Edison Hour, as it is explained to us by a budding genius from ACT…

Two faced too far

John Key is a two faced politician. He frequently says different things to different audiences. In the case of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Key may have taken this duplicitous tactic too far, setting two large bodies of public opinion on a collision course…

Send a JAFA to Wellington….

To paraphrase Muldoon – send a JAFA to Wellington, and we can only increase the average intelligence of both parts of the country. […]

Humour of the week

David Slack says..

“Qantas passenger threatened to bring down flight with the power of his mind. Ten bucks says he’s wearing an ACT T-shirt”

But it made me laugh after a hard weekend. as it perfectly reflects that way I feel about the breed.

The knives are out (again)

This image has been sitting around since October 2007 in a unposted post from all_your_base awaiting someone who deserves it.

I read Marty G’s post today about the infighting in Act.

I’m awarding it to Rodney Hide. He seems to deserve it….

More Act infighting

It’s getting nasty in the ACT party. Rodney Hide can’t last as leader. Heather Roy, Roger Douglas, and John Boscawen each have factions backing them to replace him. Disintegration is a real possibility. The consequence of ACT’s straying from it’s economically and socially liberal roots under Douglas and Prebble to reactionism under the nihilist Hide. If a collapse does take place, Key may have to call an early election.

Stand up against ACT attack on students’ associations

Andrew Campbell reports that Roger Douglas and the ACT party want to change the law so that student associations will be unable to provide the important services and representation that they currently offer by making their membership voluntary. This will put the clubs and services that many universities offer at risk.

What’s a decade between friends?

Deborah Coddington writes:
“In 1994, not long after Rodney Hide became leader of Act,…”
Umm, Hide became leader in 2004. To be fair, the rest of Coddington’s piece offers a pretty good examination of Act’s fundamental problems.

Where are Hide & Key on Garrett comments?

Colin Espiner reports that Rodney Hide has gone into his shell as outrage over David Garrett’s appalling sterilisation comments builds. Since Irish broke the story of Garrett’s comments yesterday, it has spread like wildfire through the blogosphere and the msm. And nowhere will you find a reaction from anyone in ACT or from their coalition partners.

ACT tearing itself apart

ACT policies are electoral poison, and the inevitability of that growing realisation seems to be creating strains that are tearing the party apart. Heather Roy’s speech to ACT’s conference suggests that last year’s failed leadership coup is far from over…

Garrett: Sterilise the poor

ACT MP David Garret has called for a programme to sterilise the “likes” of Chris Kahui and Maxine King. By which we can only assume he means poor, brown, people. Sack him.

Come Aucklanders – protest tomorrow.

The select committee on Rodney Hides vision of the Auckland Super-City sits in Parnell tommorrow. The National MPs complicit in foisting this idiotic vision of Auckland on us will be there along with the architect – the head of the lunatic Act party.

Spend your lunchtime demonstrating what a crock this version of the super-city is. Do it in Rodney Hide’s Epsom electorate.

ACT’s ugly racist face exposed

Former ACT Deputy Leader Muriel Newman has launched into a racist tirade that amounts to ‘bloody bludging Maoris’. Incredibly, Rodney Hide agrees, saying that Maori have a culture of dependency. To ACT, poverty isn’t the result of an unequal and unfair economic system, it’s a lifestyle choice. They say Maori are morally deficient and to blame for their poverty.

Why not a Maori minimum wage too?

The faulty logic behind Roger Douglas’ bill to cut the wages of young workers could just as easily be applied to any number of groups hit hard by the recession – Maori, students, men, dropouts, singles, people in Northland. What if we were to change a couple of key words in his bill?

Out with three strikes

The National / ACT “three strikes” policy on violent crime sentencing is the worst kind of law.

It has been thoroughly condemned by the Justice Ministry, who were blocked from giving advice to select committee.