Context
Yesterday morning on Sunrise, John Key was moaning that there is no context to the latest secret agenda tape, where Bill English praises […]
Politics
Posts on government and governence at national and local level, political parties,politicians, and political participation
Democracy under attack
From Both Eyes Open: National Party candidate Stephen Franks’ campaign team has been systematically tearing down political posters put up by his opponents […]
The Nats on Iraq
The Nats have had two responses to English’s “pull the trigger” comments revealed last night: first the taping itself was branded a “dirty […]
Where are the polls?
I know, they’re inaccurate and out of date. And it’s only three days until the only poll that counts. But I’m curious! It’s […]
Pork barrelling from the Nats
One of the virtues of New Zealand government has long been that we avoid US-style pork barrel politics. The Government sets the direction […]
Key, still telling lies
Ahead of the final leaders’ debate tonight, 08wire has produced a video on John Key’s lies in the second debate. What strikes me […]
English “worried” about Obama
More from 3News tonight on the secret recordings taken at the Naitonal Party conference in August. This time it’s Bill English expressing concern over […]
Look! Over there!
The latest secret tape has come out and it’s a classic example of the face of the National Party that John Key doesn’t […]
Vote smart: Winnie cleared but too late
New Zealand First has now been cleared by the Police or any illegal behaviour. That’s three from three but too late. I’ve never […]
Last days to get active
It’s great to see people still downloading materials from the Campaign Hub. With just over three days of campaigning to go, you’re running […]
Another Nat secret agenda tape
The Herald campaign updates reports that Clark has just had a private interview with TV3, appearently getting her response to the latest secret […]
Fresh ideas
Part 3 in the CTU’s series of election vids. The best yet You can see the other two here
More vids from the campaign trail
We’ve just received these. The first is from Hollowman productions, who brought us the famous Porirua markets video. The second is a video […]
Hypocrite
Watching Key tour Progressive Enterprises today was bad enough but watching him claim to support those workers in the leaders debate was sickening […]
Clark takes round 2
A much better performance from Clark saw her best Key in tonight’s debate. As well as being on top of all the issues, […]
Text polls
Watching the TV3 debate and it seems they’re running another text poll. It’s too early yet to tell who’s going to win, but […]
Wages still growing strongly
Despite the recession, wages have continued to grow at a record rate and, crucially, faster than inflation. The average hourly rate was up […]
Advertising, getting it right and getting it wrong
Labour’s new ad is one of the best political ads I’ve seen. It’s just a really well written script: acknowledging the success of […]
How does ACT fit in?
I have my doubts about the veracity of Meurant’s statements as he is well known for bigging himself up as a hard man […]
Dunne’s deal?
The revelations in today’s Dompost that Peter Dunne’s United party took a donation from the Vela family shows again what a messy business […]
PSA tackles the stats
The PSA have put together some interesting numbers on the size of the public service. They appear to tell a different story to […]
Public politics
In today’s Herald six prominant NZer’s nail their political colours to the mast: Sir Paul Reeves: electorate vote Maori party, party vote Labour; […]
Vote smart: The Maori seats
Each of the Maori seats presents an opportunity for tactical voting for a left-wing voter. If you favour the Maori Party candidate in […]
Vote smart: The micro parties
Last election, 7,000 people gave their votes to very small left-wing parties that never had any chance of winning a seat in Parliament. […]
End of Winston?
The Dominion Post has published some pretty damning evidence indicating Winston Peters’ connections with the Vela family. According to the Dom Winston’s right-hand […]
Side-show
I see the media are now comparing the ‘redundancy’ packages on offer with all of the horse race vigour they applied to the […]
Greenpeace converts John’s office
Some great political theatre from Greenpeace yesterday. A bunch of climate activists got up at the crack of dawn, plastered ready-made lawn around […]
Granny Herald yearns for good old days but democracy alive and well
The Herald is once again trying to convince us that everyone is so scared of the EFA that there is no poltiical participation […]
Tories’ crack at socialism a poor substitute
National’s redundancy package would effectively continue Working for Families payments for some people who would otherwise lose them after redunancy. Only people who […]
Arseneau: Election too close to call
In her blog column Teresa Arseneau discusses the polls overall, and what happens if the largest party doesn’t form the government: Several of […]
Whose record is better?
I found it weird that National’s attack ad is a series of newspaper headlines. Everyone knows newspaper headlines are sensationalist and everyone knows […]
The Standard line: Nanny State
So, you’re talking with someone about politics and they say something really dumb and wrong and you know it’s wrong but you don’t […]
Not exactly Jon Stewart
A new facebook group has started up called “I am killing a kitten for every person who votes for the Green Party” (*) […]
More redundancy protection
It’s good to see Labour turning its focus back onto policy (and particularly the economy) today with its announcement of a “job search […]
The Standard line: Tax cuts
[update: download this (tax-and-kiwisaver-calculator) simple excel table that will calculate tax cut and Kiwisaver losses under Labour and National, and the difference, for you and […]
Ripping the stuffing out
The CTU has released a second great youtube vid. Well worth a watch and emailing around.