The Eminem decision and National’s electoral return
The Court of Appeal has determined that National should pay Eminem $225,000 for use of his music. This may create rather large legal problems for them.
Politics
Posts on government and governence at national and local level, political parties,politicians, and political participation
Review into Thompson and Clark finds widespread breaches of Citizens’ rights of privacy
A State Services Commission investigation review has released a damning report into the use of private investigator Thompson and Clark’s services by a number of Government agencies.
Unhappy Gilmore loses to well known Union Socialist lawyer
Former National MP and in his imagination potentially the next Prime Minister Aaron Gilmore has reached the headlines for not paying compensation to a former employee of his company as agreed and for describing her lawyer as a well known union socialist.
COP24
Nearly 200 nations agreed to the accord in Poland over the weekend. And the goal is to seek to limit global temperature rises to below two degrees Celsius.
How To Get There 16/12/18
Welcome to TS’s Sunday think piece. It’s a blank sheet, a tabula rasa, waiting for your thoughts on the future and How To Get There.
The SPOTY’s 2018
Here’s your chance to vote in the Standard’s Politician of The Year awards. The SPOTY’s are recognised worldwide as the leading indicator of political success in NZ and have been awarded annually for over two hundred years.
Now it’s your turn to prick the Thorndon Bubble, dear reader. Who’s your Politician of the Year?
Labour’s budget wellbeing objectives
The Government has announced that the next budget will include well being objectives as well as fiscal objectives.
Trump’s smocking gun
This week in America former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen admitted electoral finance violations by using campaign money to pay off two hookers to stop them going public during the last election campaign with news about Trump’s infidelity. And Russian national Maria Butina was convicted of conspiring to infiltrate the NRA.
A Right Shambles
With the UK Tories self imploding, the US President contemplating jail time, Angela Merkel moving on and the conservative parties on both sides of the Tasman looking increasingly irrelevant, what should the left do to fill the gap?
National’s Sroubek fizzle
National are trying to manufacture a conspiracy out of revelations that someone who knows Karel Sroubek and has met Jacinda Ardern sent her a text.
Let it Be
Letting fees are a thing of the past. Labour’s Phil Twyford has outlawed the practice of charging tenants an upfront fee for a non existent service. It’s about fairness and it’s about time.
US turnout – the single advantage of having a stupid elected monarch
The voter turnout in the US mid-terms was the highest that it has been in a hundred years. For the first time that I think Donald Trump, the elected monarch of the strangest “democracy” on the planet actually achieved more than boasting and meaningless hand-waving. Of course that appears to have been an unwelcome accident to him.
You’ve got to lively up yourself …
National have responded to the Government’s medicinal cannabis law by suggesting hordes of cancer sufferers will hang around schools smoking joints.
The Air New Zealand Industrial dispute
Air New Zealand has provoked industrial action from its workers by trying to wind back wages and conditions at a time it is making near record profits.
On the first day of leakmas …
Overheard at a Press Gallery BBQ …
Labour’s education reforms
The Government has released a discussion paper proposing radical change to our education system, including the establishment of regional hubs to improve cooperation between schools and provisions to strengthen the proposition that kids should attend their local well resources and well run school.
Safe from prying 5Eyes
I like my Huawei phone. Apparently the US National Security Agency can’t break its encryption. That’s presumably the “security” issue why Spark is being blocked from using Huawei, and why Meng Wanzhou is held hostage in Canada at the behest of US neocons.
Three years on, will Wairoa AFFCO workers finally be paid?
Meat company AFFCO has lost yet another court case over their unlawful lockout of workers in 2015. Will the penny ever drop for the Talley family?
Pete Shelley: History is Made by Those Who Turn Up
Pete Shelley, lead singer of ground breaking punk band Buzzcocks has died. And Ed Sheeran still walks among us. Where’s the justice?
Nutjobs and the UN Global Migration Pact
National and ACT have alleged that a United Nations Pact supported by New Zealand in 2016 will take away sovereign rights even though the pact itself says that it is not legally binding.
The Reserve Bank Reform Bill
The Government is planning changes to the Reserve Bank Act to require it to seek full employment. Maybe it is time for a dramatic change to its powers so that it has the regulatory powers to properly deal with the Australian banks.
National’s dead cat strategy
National has attempted to drown out news of further leaks, bad poll results and a reference of Maggie Barry’s behaviour to the Auditor General by staging a big stink in Parliament.
Double down – protect parliament – ban Bridges for a month
Simon Bridges appears to have deliberately maligned the position of the speaker of the house of representatives, and did it before he had any cause to do so. While he may think that it is in the public interest to do so, he isn’t special. He should expect what every other social activist knows will happen. You suffer the consequences..
Caption contest
Keep it seemly.
Child poverty reduction
It’s likely that Labour’s new Child Poverty Reduction Bill will get through its third reading by the end of this year.
Memo from Crosby Textor – National’s leak problem
The Standard has been leaked an internal memo from Crosby Textor to the National Party concerning its current situation.
National; Leaking Like a Sieve
Another day, another leak from the National Party. If it’s not JLR, just who is poking the borax inside the Tory caucus?
Jesse Mulligan deserves a medal
Maggie Barry is facing fresh allegations of staff bullying. And Jesse Mulligan has responded to her criticism of him by saying it shows he was doing his job properly.
“For the good of all, the poor come first.”
Those were the words spoken by Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) during yesterday’s Presidential inauguration where he promised to end Mexico’s disastrous neo-liberalism.
Latest Colmar Brunton poll
The latest Colmar Brunton poll result is out suggesting a slight rebound in National’s fortunes.
Schools Out?
…in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Australia, Canada….
Another National MP accused of bullying
The Herald has reported this morning on allegations of bullying being made by staff against Nati0nal MP Maggie Barry.
New Privacy Law for 2019
A new Privacy law is in the process of being enacted. But in a world where privacy breaches are rampant and the consequences potentially devastating will it be enough?
National wants there to be no unions
Dan Bidois this week in Parliament confirmed what we have always known, that National want there to be no unions around.
TERFed Out: UPDATED
Labour MP Louisa Wall has written an opinion piece in response to Herald columnist Rachel Stewart’s attack earlier in the week on the trans community and their LGBTIQ+ allies. It’s very good.
UPDATE: Rachel Stewart, as predicted, has blocked me on twitter. But not before going full on racist.
Spooked!
The GCSB ban on Spark’s use of Huawei technology means this government has gone from “honest broker” to poodle in a very short time. Pressure has been applied by the US and others, apparently fearing we are the “soft underbelly” of the Five Eyes spy network. Maybe its time we got out of that too – it was designed for war.