Written By: - Date published: 5:34 pm, August 21st, 2022 - 64 comments
But the past week has been a week of sideshows. One international as elements of the right try to smear Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin for dancing. And one local where rogue Labour MP Gaurav Sharma is running out of excuses for not backing up the extraordinary claims he has made about the Labour Party.
Written By: - Date published: 1:24 pm, August 19th, 2022 - 24 comments
The polls are out and the internal revolt last month to remove James Shaw as Greens co leader hasn’t made a ripple.
Written By: - Date published: 1:59 pm, August 16th, 2022 - 184 comments
The Labour Caucus will meet this afternoon to discuss what to do about Gaurav Sharma.
Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, August 15th, 2022 - 101 comments
Recent incidents involving Labour MP Gaurav Sharma are evidence of poor relationships with staff and not anything more sinister.
Written By: - Date published: 10:53 am, August 12th, 2022 - 47 comments
This post was written before Gaurav Sharma’s Herald article and should not be taken as validation of his comments. There are necessary bastards in political life, and in developed democracies compared to everywhere else ours are gentle as lambs
Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, August 11th, 2022 - 44 comments
The three strikes legislation, the brainchild of dead baby identity stealing former ACT MP David Garrett, is no more.
Written By: - Date published: 9:50 pm, August 1st, 2022 - 13 comments
The latest attempt to construct a sensible political donations regime will likely again prove to be full of holes. Going back to basics would be much better. The good news is that the basics were comprehensively assessed 36 years ago by the 1986 Royal Commission on Electoral Reform. It recommended state funding.
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, August 1st, 2022 - 54 comments
Labour announced earlier in the year that it would give a $350 cash transfer to all New Zealanders earning less than $70,000.
Except beneficiaries.
Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, July 7th, 2022 - 213 comments
Right now Labour is preparing the ground for its run at 2023’s election with new policy. New policy must be wildly popular. What could make Labour popular enough to them back leading a third term in government?
Written By: - Date published: 10:16 am, June 24th, 2022 - 73 comments
Plenty of experts will tell you about what Matariki ‘means to us’. Here’s what it means to Ardern.
Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, June 21st, 2022 - 31 comments
It’s pretty commonplace now to observe that Prime Minister Ardern is doing well overseas but tanking at home.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 pm, June 18th, 2022 - 64 comments
The Tauranga by election has been one of the most low key by elections held in some time. The polls are now closed. If Labour get within 25 points of National they can regard this as a victory.
Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, June 14th, 2022 - 64 comments
There was some drama yesterday in the Beehive where Kris Faafoi and Trevor Mallard announced that they will be resigning from Parliament and Jacinda Ardern took the opportunity to reshuffle the Cabinet.
Written By: - Date published: 6:08 pm, June 12th, 2022 - 16 comments
We are about to have a proper gang control policy contest. It’s about time.
Written By: - Date published: 4:09 pm, June 12th, 2022 - 33 comments
This weekend National threw out a few hunks of red meat to some of its more rabid supporters by going to its old favourite of gang bashing.
Written By: - Date published: 8:02 am, June 10th, 2022 - 16 comments
The He Waka Eke Noa report recommends the introduction of farm-level split-gas levy on agricultural emissions. The anticipated savings are very small and reliant on Government proposals for the sector to reaching the Government target of 10% methane reduction. Are we really all in this together?
Written By: - Date published: 9:10 am, June 2nd, 2022 - 5 comments
Quick quiz on which New Zealand politicians led well on climate action in the past 15 years. Which New Zealand town is in a climate emergency today? And how our focus and voting matters if we want to avert climate disaster.
Written By: - Date published: 7:58 am, June 2nd, 2022 - 273 comments
Yesterday on Morning Report Chris Luxon pivoted from a question about National supporters expressing distaste for Te Ao Maori to blaming Jacinda Ardern for not burning up political capital on co governance.
Written By: - Date published: 9:59 am, May 23rd, 2022 - 95 comments
What if instead of waiting for a new left wing party to arise, the left worked with the three progressive parties we already have in parliament?
Written By: - Date published: 9:25 am, May 20th, 2022 - 24 comments
How was the 2022 budget? Was it the worst since Ruth Richardson’s mother of all budgets or the best since the first Labour Government gave everyone a Christmas bonus in 1935?
Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, May 19th, 2022 - 50 comments
Today is budget day. What surprises will Grant Robertson announce to address the country’s many and varied problems. Will Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis be able to sound like they actually understand what is in the budget? Stay tuned for 2 pm …
Written By: - Date published: 8:08 am, May 17th, 2022 - 18 comments
Business NZ has claimed that the proposed Fair Play legislation breaches International Labour Law and that the International Labour Organisation agrees with it. But its claims appear to be on the wrong side of what we could politely describe as the truth.
Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, May 17th, 2022 - 33 comments
what kind of climate action do we want?
Written By: - Date published: 11:02 am, May 14th, 2022 - 11 comments
Former Labour MP Shane Jones has criticised the 2021 budget even though he has no idea what is going to be in it.
Written By: - Date published: 8:11 pm, May 3rd, 2022 - 109 comments
The latest Reid Research poll result has been released. Basically it reflects other polls that have been recently conducted. But the Herald have chosen to suggest it shows a dramatic change.
Written By: - Date published: 7:12 am, April 29th, 2022 - 157 comments
The tide of this government is running out. There’s 18 months left in the term. What would you save?
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, April 21st, 2022 - 72 comments
In the space of one day Chris Luxon called repeatedly for the scrapping of Labour Day as a holiday then confirmed that a future National Government would not do this and said that his earlier comment was facetious.
Written By: - Date published: 8:31 am, April 18th, 2022 - 79 comments
Despite Labour seeing the country through the biggest public health threat seen in the last century and despite improving numbers of houses and a reduction in child poverty some on the left are buying into National’s despair lines. And the issues on which the next election will be fought are becoming clearer.
Written By: - Date published: 8:29 am, April 13th, 2022 - 66 comments
Yesterday Chris Luxon showed the sensitivity and sophistication of someone who owns seven properties and at one stage had 6.1 million Air New Zealand shares by stating that he believed that at least some public transport services should not be supported and that public transport needs to stand on its own feet.
Written By: - Date published: 7:26 am, April 7th, 2022 - 20 comments
If the 3 Waters reforms can survive its attacks and be implemented, a consequence will be that we are going to have a most enormous nationwide economic argument about the price of water and who pays for it all.
Written By: - Date published: 8:04 am, April 6th, 2022 - 15 comments
You get to a point – and Ardern must be close – where the most you can do is hang on.
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