Dirty Politics does not work any more
Egged on by a shock horror smear campaign on Cameron Slater’s latest post Judith Collins has attacked Dr Siouxsie Wiles by fat shaming her.
Politics
Posts on government and governence at national and local level, political parties,politicians, and political participation
Until all of us are safe none of us are safe
On Monday of this week David Seymour received a roasting after posting a confidential Health code that was to be used by Waitakere Whanau to receive priority vaccination slots. He has now doubled down on his effort and claimed that prioritisation is wrong.
Seymour undermines vaccine roll out for Maori
David Seymour has publicised a code designed for West Auckland whanau to try and improve poor vaccination rates amongst Maori.
Can The Terror-Injured Citizens Hold the New Zealand Government To Account?
While Prime Minister Ardern is an empathic Prime Minister, good for the country in a crisis, and is genuinely caring, there’s also a time for citizens to say that the state must pay to right wrongs.
The politics of the New Lynn attack
Early days so far but the New Lynn attack will spark a debate about the adequacy of the country’s terrorism suppression laws and about citizenship rights.
Terrorist attack in New Lynn
News broke this afternoon of an attack at Countdown Lynnmall where the assailant was shot and six people injured, three critically. Jacinda Ardern and Police Commissioner have just given a stand up conference and have advised that the assailant was ISIS inspired.
National’s next leader?
As the damage caused by Judith Collins’ leadership of the National Party intensifies it is inevitable that there will be internal discussions about who should replace her, and soon. And I think the best candidate is clear.
Judith’s very bad two days
Judith Collins’ insistence that Parliament be reconvened even at a time that the country was in lockdown level 4 has backfired spectacularly.
MPs should not only follow the rules but follow them with stars
Judith Collins has insisted on travelling from Auckland to Wellington so she can stand and shout in an empty Parliament Chamber.
Covid and the media
This week there has been some argy bargy between the Twitterati including the Waitakerati and the media on coverage of Covid in Aotearoa with elements of the media complaining that the criticisms are unjustified. A brief review of some of the offerings this week would suggest otherwise.
Gumming up the works
Last night it was revealed that National and Act had refused to agree to a proposed virtual Parliament sitting where questions could be asked, and instead wanted face to face meetings, even though this would mean a third of the country’s MPs travelling regularly to Wellington from a Covid delta hotspot.
Ardern Needs to do More Than Manage Crisis
For a country that has sought to form advantage for itself with strong and hard COVID-19 lockdowns, we’re not gaining any more advantage than yet another binge-purge cycle of supply tension and shortages, rapid economic downturn softened by tens of billions of subsidy, followed by unsustainable booms, over and over again.
The mysterious socialist hermit kingdom
Various commentators including Nigel Farage have claimed that New Zealand’s Covid elimination strategy is a failure. Our death rate and the possibility that we can again return to a normality that other nations can only aspire to suggests they are wrong.
Matt King caught blowing anti vaccination dog whistle
Former National MP Matt King has been publicly posting anti vaccination propaganda under the ruse of only wanting a conversation.
The importance of Jacinda’s 1 pm press conferences
Jacinda Ardern has resumed the 1 pm briefings where she communicates effectively the country’s current situation and what the plan is. But National and some elements of the media are complaining, presumably that she is doing too good a job.
The Covid vaccine may not be the nirvana
Claims that a comprehensive vaccination scheme will allow life to get back to normal ignores the experience of Israel, which despite having a large proportion of its population vaccinated is having a surge of new infections of Covid that is stretching its health system.
Farewell Dr Michael Cullen
Dr Michael Cullen has died, and with him goes a real standard-bearer for Labour for three decades.
RIP Michael Cullen
Former Labour Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen has died.
The antidote page for all those chickens
This is the page that I read at least once a week. With a clean brevity it gives me almost all of the strategic summary information about the progress of the vaccinations in NZ. Even it’s title is clean and clear. COVID-19: Vaccine data. But I’m trained in operations and rather more interested in reality rather than the average untrained pundit or politician who run around like a Chicken Little saying the equivalent of “the sky is falling” every other week. Thankfully they were ignored.
The importance of political leadership in dealing with Covid
Political leadership in the time of Covid is important. As the Government urgently swung into action and imposed a level 4 lockdown after news of a community case of Delta Covid who lived in Auckland and had spent time in Coromandel while infectious, Thames-Coromandel District Mayor and former National MP Sandra Goudie admitted to not scanning regularly.
The strange story about the fake news poll results
The Politik website’s inadvertant publishing of fake news of a drop in Labour’s support shows how fragile the system of relying on two sources for a story is.
Women, the Taliban and sex based rights
What is being done to women in Afghanistan by the Taliban is sex-based oppression.
The United States Retreat from Afghanistan
President Biden is about to get a Jimmy Carter-scale shellacking with tv footage coming of Afghani Taleban going through Kabul and in short days rifling through the U.S. Embassy as they finally take over the entire country. You don’t win re-election with defeats and withdrawals, and you won’t be thanked for it in the mid-term Senatorial races either.
The latest battle in the culture wars
This week National agreed to the bill allowing gender self identification to proceed to select committee which was a stark contrast to their position on the bill banning gay conversion therapy. I wonder what happened?
The Churchill picture
National, the party that claims to be focussed on the issues that matter decided to get upset when the Greens requested the replacement of a picture of a former UK leader who had a reputation for engaging in crimes against humanity.
We are stuck
New Zealand has one of the most concentrated and oligopolistic economies in the world, and also one of the least commercially protected societies. […]
When We Needed Electricity, it Was Shut Off
Minister Woods and Prime Minister Ardern have been reduced to asking a series of questions about why Transpower got major electricity providers to drastically cut power last night.
Advice from Oz for the anti-China media
There’s so many of them here – Guyon Espiner, Anna Fifield, Lucy Craymer, Sam Sachdeva, Laura Walters, John Daniell, Emile Donovan, Paula Penfold, reef fish with the same few sources. Australian Paul Strutynski provides the textbook in his “Guide for budding foreign policy journalists wanting to work for the Nine Network or Newscorp.”
National’s civil war continues
In an extraordinary move National’s board has reselected Peter Goodfellow as Party Chairperson and this has caused former MP David Carter to resign as board member and express no confidence in the leadership or in National’s chances at the next election.
National used to be better than this
Back in the day National used to have a strong urban liberal wing that gave the impression that it was sympathetic to LGBTQI issues. Yesterday that impression was trashed.
Judith’s last stand?
Judith Collins has decided to attack the Government on the use of the Te Reo name for New Zealand even though the last National Government regularised its use.
The latest Reid Research Poll result
Last night’s Reid Research poll result suggests that the electorate is reverting back to a more conventional dynamic after the stratospheric heights that Labour enjoyed immediately post Covid elimination.
Women’s Space
A dedicated space on The Standard for women’s debate, and introducing the new feminist online space of Women’s Liberation Aotearoa.
Lies damned lies and Crime statistics
It should be an offence for political parties to deliberately misrepresent law and order statistics as National has done this week. It should be an aggravating feature if the party is a conservative party that champions law and order issues. After all fraud is an offence and if we don’t punish it appropriately then everyone will do it.
Are we really ready to escalate to war with China over Taiwan?
“What will the role of New Zealand be should China invade Taiwan?” was by far the most popular question for Jacinda Ardern after […]
Citizenship is a human right
National has responded to the impending return to New Zealand of Suhayra Aden by hinting that they may follow Australia and breach human rights by bringing in laws allowing countries to arbitrarily remove rights of citizenship.