Right wing environmental sock puppet party launched
No friends National’s sock puppet party has now been announced.
Politics
political parties
Ross taunts Bridges about mental health system
Jami-Lee Ross has implied that Simon Bridges is being hypocritical in criticising a Government review into mental health.
What does the right have against Venezuela?
Simon Bridges has claimed that the Government is going to follow a “Venezuela model” in making much needed reform of the Polytechnic sector. But no one knows what he means.
Ardern’s state of the nation speech
The text of Jacinda Ardern’s speech delivered this morning.
What should Jacinda Ardern say in her state of the nation speech?
What are the issues Jacinda Ardern should be talking about when she gives her state of the nation speech tomorrow?
Auckland’s yellow jacket protest
Some observations on yesterday’s yellow jacket protest in Auckland. Basically it was pretty mundane but continued vigilance is important.
The Meathead tax
National’s claim that the Government wants to impose a meat tax suffers from the reality that the Government has done no such thing and the proposal comes from an International collective of academics.
Simon Wilson thinks Epsom could be offered to Blue-Greens
Simon Wilson has suggested that the only way National may have to establish a Blue Green presence in Parliament is to offer them the seat of Epsom.
Show us the money Simon
Hopefully the media will ask of National the tough questions, like how it is going to increase spending in critical areas, pay down debt and give us a tax cut at the same time.
The Blue Green oxymoron
National appears to be well advanced in the formation of a new puppet party, one with an environmental theme that will present a challenge to the Green Party.
About that $100,000 National Party donation
Fran O’Sullivan has correctly stated that the investigation of the $100,000 donation made to the National Party that was partitioned to hide it should be of much greater concern to the New Zealand Police than Sarah Dowie’s texts.
Herald names Dowie as the sender of that text to Jami-Lee Ross
Sarah Dowie has been identified as the MP under police investigation for sending the text to Jami-Lee Ross saying that he deserved to die.
Stuff is now an official mouthpiece of the National Party
Mark Mitchell is an early contender for most stupid utterance by a politician this year. And Stuff has packaged up his utterance and uncritically made it a headline.
National’s Jami-Lee Ross problem
Jami-Lee Ross has written a somewhat conciliatory facebook post which essentially confirms that he is not going to resign as an MP.
National starts political year beneficiary bashing
National has kicked off the year by reverting to type and engaging in a classic example of beneficiary bashing based on a distortion of official statistics.
Housing affordability and urban form
Hugh Pavletich thinks that Auckland’s housing crisis is because of restrictions on urban sprawl and that loosening up would be a good thing. I disagree.
Sroubek; Richie Hardcore Text Released
The text sent by Karel Sroubek supporter Richie Hardcore has been released. Is it the knock out blow we were promised?
National shafted us with the MOM privatisation
Five years on how are the benefits from the Mixed Ownership Model privatisation process the last Government engaged in working out?
Beware the Ides of May
It’s D Day for Theresa May’s Brexit plan. Will Jeremy Corbyn finally put her out of our misery?
David Seymour can’t handle criticism
ACT MP David Seymour has lashed out on Facebook at Dianne Khan apparently for successfully fact checking him.
National has lots of questions
National asked 40,000 questions of Ministers last year. This seems excessive.
New Zealand needs a Government that understands climate change
In an opinion piece in Stuff National Spokesperson on climate change Todd Muller has cast doubt on National agreeing to a political consensus on climate change.
Drug testing at music festivals
Police Minister Stuart Nash has said publicly that he wants to see all New Zealand music festivals to have drug testing kits by next summer.
National just wants to have some friends
National clearly needs new friends if it is to regain power. Could the nutty New Conservatives be a possibility?
Farrar criticises Genter for not solving National’s transport safety mess quickly enough
David Farrar has accused Julie Anne Genter of saying she can do nothing about the road safety when she said nothing of the sort.
Political punditry in 2019
The media has recently reviewed its predictions from last year and made a few new ones. How did it go? And what is going to happen in the next 12 months?
Matt King goes full nut job
National MP Matt King has claimed that Stuff has been censoring comments that are critical of the Government and that an article expressing concerns about the run down of health infrastructure, the increase in child poverty, the use of private contractors to spy on us and the inability of NZTA to properly regulate WOF inspections is “left wing claptrap”.
National’s brave new world of MOAR ROADS!
National has taken to criticising the Government for not building roads that had no coherent business case and no proposal to build.
An ex-insider rating of our politicians
MSM and blogsters are in an orgy of “rating” and marking politicians at the moment. It seems to be based on headlines, fuck […]
National’s varied response to the Thompson and Clark report
Simon Bridges and Gerry Brownlee have offered diametrically opposed versions of how to respond to the crisis presented by the report into Thompson and Clark’s activities.
New Zealand First or America First?
In Washington last week Winston Peters urged America to involve itself more in the Pacific, in a speech the Prime Minister was apparently unaware of. Referring to Africa, John Bolton outlined what that involvement would mean – American interests first and only. Dangerous with the neocons in charge of the playpen.
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.
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.
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.
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.