How did Nats know parents’ addresses?
You’ll recall that last week National spent $200,000 of taxpayer dollars on a proganda drop defending its national standards. This was a targeted […]
Politics
Posts on government and governence at national and local level, political parties,politicians, and political participation
Commentators damning of Key’s visionless speech
Bernard Hickey: He had a chance to follow up all the talk of real reform to create a ‘step change’. He had all […]
Key: we’re a less than half-decent govt
Good spotting by Jake Quinn: during the 2008 election, John Key ruled out raising GST, as the Herald reported back in October of […]
Goff’s response to Key
Even National Party pollster, David Farrar, could only give Key’s speech a B Goff says that it’s ‘Alan Bollard 1, John Key 0’. […]
Key’s statement to Parliament
Very little specific so far. According to Stuff, National will increase GST to ‘up to’ 15% – which I take to mean 15%. […]
Great expectations
“This is his most important speech since he entered Parliament in 2002.” That’s Duncan Garner on Key’s speech today. Other political commentators have […]
Key: Look over here! Please, look over here
Well, wages are stagnating, unemployment is just shy of its all-time high, crime is up, and there is no chance of the Government […]
Policy roulette
I don’t recall the date or anything, but I remember the exact moment I decided to get politically active. Rob Muldoon was called […]
Quick thoughts
It’s obvious to anyone with a brain that a government that spends half its time on holiday and the rest on PR stunts […]
When was the last time Key mentioned the ‘underclass’?
I was thinking the other day about John Key’s underclass speech. It was always pure gimmickry, as was the whole exploitation of Aroha. But how long would he keep up the facade once the PR value had worn off?
Nats lying over firing Aroha’s mum?
In yesterday’s Herald Jackie Blue told us she’d sacked the mother of young Aroha because she had to merge offices with Sam Lotu-Iiga. But some investigative work at The Hand Mirror suggests otherwise…
National, time to put your dog on a leash
As surely an endorphin high fades, Cameron Slater was going to do something to get his name back in the media. He’s been […]
The victims of Brand Key
Remember the struggling Auckland family that John Key used in 2007 to help build his brand? Well, according to the Herald: The mother […]
Paula, John, seriously, put away the champagne
Paula Bennett and John Key have been, once again, prematurely popping the bottle of champagne to celebrate the end of rising unemployment. […]
The 59,000 failures of John Phillip Key
Nearly a year ago, John Key, shaken by the first whispers of disquiet over his government’s month-long holiday at the height of an […]
Unemployment? Blame someone else – Key
A panicked, chaotic series of excuses poured forth from John Key’s mouth yesterday as he attempted to shift the blame for the shocking […]
The Government is to blame for record unemployment numbers
Andrew Campbell It should come as no surprise that unemployment hit 7.3% today. That’s what happens when a government does virtually nothing to […]
Translating Tories: “Creeping political correctness in our schools”
I wasn’t expecting to do another in this series so soon, but then I’m much too polite to decline a clear invitation like […]
Do nothing and loving it
Saw this in the new culture/humour page in the Dom: Glad to see the “do-nothing PM” as Rodney Hide called John Key doing […]
More jobs lost, govt does nothing
Telecom is threatening to throw up to 1,500 workers out of their jobs so it can increase profits by offshoring. A good government in this situation is […]
Not a good look
So, John Key and Pita Sharples put Hone Harawira in charge of deciding which flag will fly to represent Maori on government buildings […]
Wages dropping under Key, as promised
Remember how John Key said he “would love to see wages drop“. You might remember the big corporate media refused to run it, […]
DPMC: The “Key” to increasing the PM’s power
Last October I posted on National’s plan to fold the State Services Commission into the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Yesterday, Labour’s […]
Banks gets bitten
In a sure sign that the political phone is off the hook for John ‘Mayor for Remuera’ Banks, the deputy mayor of Rodney […]
Werewolf on the Defence White Paper
Gordon Campbell has written in Werewolf an excellent pre-review about the Defense White Paper due for release in March. Needless to say whatever it returns with will be controversial because it helps to define the direction of the next few decades of expenditure and focus for our military.
Then we will not have some of the remarkably stupid ‘debate’ by the ossified that happened in the early 2000’s as the Labour government implemented the Quigley review of the armed forces. This pushed the army to the fore, and relegated the other two services to a support role.
It was clear that many in that debate never bothered to read the Quigley report.
Don’t go, oh mighty Atlas. We’ll give you tax cuts
So, I’m at a cafe having lunch and there’s some fat middle-aged businessmen having lunch at the table beside me. One of them […]
Nats soft on crime
Oh, sure, the Nats will lock a person up longer after they commit a crime, if they get caught. But what they won’t do is prevent them […]
Speak up, Pita. We can’t hear you
TVNZ reports: “Associate Education Minister Pita Sharples has labelled the National Standards policy as damaging to Maori but later refused to comment after […]
Colin James on Labour’s election record
Dancr linked to Colin James’ piece in the Press the other day, in which he writes: Here’s Labour’s record for the five decades […]
That made my Auckland anniversary day
Peter Dunne on his record against Jeanette Fitzsimmons is really an exercise in ego instead of substance
Goff on Q+A
A good appearance from Phil Goff on the first Q+A of the year. I liked this part especially: Guyon Espiner: You spoke in your […]
Colin James on Labour 2010
I know Standard readers follow politics closely almost by definition, but for those who don’t here’s Colin James’ observations on the year ahead […]
Government by knee-jerk
John Key has told us that his government’s unrelenting focus this year will be the economy. He has also said his government will […]
Nats’ polling
Fran O’Sullivan wrote about how she was called by David Farrar’s Curia, National’s polling company, recently. What she was asked is revealing. She […]
Goff: no GST hikes or tax cuts for rich
In his speech yesterday Phil Goff articulated Labour’s position on tax in no uncertain terms and came out very strongly against wealthy tax dodgers […]
Turei pushing me back to RAM
Check out this exchange between Trevor Mallard and Metiria Turei on his Facebook page (great how the new media allows these spur of […]