Member’s Day
2 great Member’s Bills are before the House today. National oppose both the Mondayising of Holidays and Paid Parental Leave, but they should have the numbers to get through their first readings.
Politics
political parties
Milk it, dig it, drill it, sell it – for a brighter future?
National’s internal polling is telling it people are serious about how it plans to get to the birghter future. So Joyce was wheeled out at the weekend to sell the same old story – more cows, more coal, more oil; and asset sales so we can afford schools and hospitals once at least. He also attacked Labour/Greens – maybe their polls are telling them people aren’t buying.
Protests then and now
Looks like we should conclude that opposition to National in 2012 is much stronger and more vociferous than opposition to Labour in 2008.
ImperatorFish: Whose Planet Is This?
Imagine a place with a stagnant economy; led by a government that is anti-growth, doesn’t have any plan, and is not prepared to make the tough decisions needed to ensure the future prosperity of its people; where most people struggle to get ahead; and where those who aspire for better things are probably thinking of leaving.
Everyone hears what they want to hear
Key has been giving different messages on the water rights issue to the Maori Party and to the wider public. No one knows what, if anything, his “promises” mean. Why isn’t the Maori Party (which has been burned before) seeking urgent clarification?
What the polls actually show
‘National’s made a complete cock-up of this and everyone’s pissed, but it doesn’t seem to be hurting them in the polls, where they’re still strong’. You can find that stereotype sentence in the media all the time, particularly in the coverage of the weekend’s National Party conference. But it might be time to do some fact-checking, because they are being hurt in the polls.
National’s new strategy
National have decided to lower the tone and just attack attack attack Labour and the Greens. They know they’re going down, and they’re trying to take the left down with them. It’s nasty, it’s negative and it will do our whole political system no good.
Nat conference protests
This weekend the National Party is holding its annual conference at SkyCity (how appropriate) in Auckland. Protests are planned. Be careful, keep it peaceful.
An Auckland view on Labour’s changes
Here’s a guest post from an Auckland Labour Party member with a different take on the constitutional changes. It’s interesting and challenging. Good […]
What does Key’s promise mean?
Key is already qualifying a promise he’s made on Maori water rights. Does the promise mean anything at all?
Welded to National
The meeting between Key and the Maori Party leaders last night reached it’s predictable conclusion. From his point of view Key has played this brilliantly.
Not with a bang but a whimper
There’s some interesting speculation that the Government could collapse within months. The theory goes that the Government could lose its majority due to 1) the Maori Party walking away over the water rights issue and 2) John Banks being forced to resign over illegally anonymised donations in the 2010 Auckland mayoral election. I don’t see it happening, yet.
Asset sale delay likely
Even John Key is now admitting that the asset sale program is facing a serious legal challenge, and that delays in the sales are likely. Any such delay would have several implications…
Bullying schools – again
Threats to schools over the contents of their newsletters? The “brighter future” doesn’t like dissent.
Labor Right v Greens
This weekend the NSW ALP Conference and the New Zealand Labour Party Council will both debate and decide proposals for reform. Prospects look decidedly better on this side of the Tasman for internal reform as well as for relations with the Greens.
Cute with semantics on water
John Key has been running round repeating that no one owns water. He’s just being cute with semantics. What is the effective difference between owning water, and owning water rights?
Questions on Labour leadership selection reform
Seeing coverage of the apparently unhurried steps towards Labour party members having a say in future leadership bids made me want to stop and ask some questions about whether they are telling the full story.
Key’s fight with Maori no accident
Just 32 hours after Key started running the line that the Government would ignore the Waitangi Tribunal’s decision on the Maori Council water rights claim if it didn’t go his way, the Maori Party reacted. Key is abusing the privilege of his office by trying to pre-empt a judicial body’s decision says Pita Sharples. Tariana Turia says they will talk about their ‘future’ with National.
ImperatorFish: How Should We Fund Our Political Parties?
Scott asks: It’s naive to think donors don’t want something in return, so should we have state funding of our political parties? It would remove any suspicion of influence buying, and would cost only a few million dollars per year.
Key’s press release on exodus to Australia
With news that there are now more Kiwis living in Australia than either Christchurch or Wellington, here’s “John Key’s” latest press release on the topic.
Frogblog: Greens call for inquiry into inquiries
A very funny response from the Greens to Key’s complaint that they’re always asking for inquiries: “The Greens have been criticised by Prime Minister John Key, who said, ‘The Greens call for an inquiry on virtually anything.’ The remark prompted immediate calls from the Green Party for an inquiry, which would focus on why the Greens call for so many inquiries.”
Banks case to Police lawyers
The Police have concluded their investigation into John Banks’ donations to his 2010 mayoral campaign. The Police legal section will now decide whether or not to prosecute. There are two tests; the evidential test and the public interest test. There is no question that if the evidence is sufficient, prosecution is in the public interest. It comes down to credibility – best decided in court.
Kiwiblog: media getting savvy?
The media have generally just regurgitated David Farrar’s angled statistics, stories and lines. Now we finally see a story that looks behind: this is a blog from one of the National Party elite, so why is he running a story on Police pay? Are National looking to move on this?
A quick question
The Nats are going to terminate the benefits of those who fail or refuse drug tests. I have a question…
Spin the wheel
Legitimate calls for inquiries
Key has dismissed calls for an inquiry into the Police’s actions in the Dotcom affair. He says that the Greens call for inquiries every week. In fact, they’ve called for 19 in the past year and a half. Is that too many? Well, the Auditor-General didn’t think so: she responded positively to the Greens’ call for a investigation into Key’s dodgy SkyCity deal.
Iwi and the riverbeds
The only remaining possible legal threat to the Nats’ plans to sell off our power companies is a Treaty based claim to water rights or riverbeds.
National has no intention of ever enforcing ETS
As many of us expected, National has no intention of ever enforcing the ETS in the area where it makes the most difference to NZ emissions – agriculture.
What did Key really know about Dotcom?
We know that the Police overstepped their authority following their Hollywood wannabe raid on Dotcom’s home. They used invalid warrants to take property of Dotcom’s that they weren’t entitled to, and gave that data to the FBI. Now, we learn that Key’s office was involved in advising the Department of Labour on shutting down a leaked email.
Parata was briefed on teacher cuts
It seems that Parata was fully briefed on teacher cuts after all, but she somehow “did not have enough time to mention it”. The government’s most recent humiliating bungle just got worse.
Wrong headed _and_ incompentent
So here is the story that will probably summarise this government in the history books. The whole cabinet delegated responsibility to John Key and Bill English to achieve their promised land of surplus in 2014/15. They defined themselves as the only party that could deliver this goal, they jettisoned all other goals in pursuit of a single number, and they can’t even achieve it…
Patsy of the year
Such is the abundance of talent in the National Party that they can’t even ask a patsy question right…
Funding fraud
It’s not acceptable for the government to keep funding a service provider after fraud has been clearly reported. It’s not acceptable for a Minister to be aware of “problems” and not even read the audit report before allocating further funding. Will anyone be held to account?
Katherine Rich on the Health Promotion Board: The next outrageous piece of Nat cronyism
Putting the CEO of the leading lobbying agency and industry promotional group for companies promoting sales of sugar, fat and alcohol on the Board of the public health agency supposed to prevent harm to young NZers is an outrageous act of cronyism.
Competition, cooperation, schools
Competition is the wrong model for education, and National’s nonsense “league tables” are going to make it worse…
When photo-ops backfire
3 years ago, a National minister dancing on a flattened boyracer car would have been a PR coup. And certainly that’s how National’s spin doctors expected it to play out last week. But times have changed. Now, it’s being criticised as an unseemly act and a waste of money through-out the media. These tipping points creep up on governments. Strengths suddenly become weaknesses.