Written By: - Date published: 8:34 am, March 15th, 2020 - 9 comments
Today marks the first anniversary of the Christchurch Mosque shooting.
Written By: - Date published: 7:43 am, March 10th, 2020 - 27 comments
Through a series of meetings that led all the way to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Head of the State Services Commission Peter Hughes, and the Police, the Islamic Women’s Council repeatedly warned the highest levels of our civil service that their community was under imminent threat. They were ignored.
Written By: - Date published: 11:33 am, February 29th, 2020 - 53 comments
Jacinda Ardern has trashed traditional notions of how New Zealand Australia relations are conducted when making the clear point that Australia should not be exporting Australian made problems who are barely kiwis to New Zealand.
Written By: - Date published: 7:38 am, February 14th, 2020 - 77 comments
This week the Reid Research Poll predicted a Labour Green government and the Colmar Brunton poll predicted a National ACT government. Which one will be proved correct?
Written By: - Date published: 8:51 am, February 13th, 2020 - 14 comments
Simon Bridges has claimed that a GDP growth Jacinda Ardern used was wrong even though it was the figure released by Statistics NZ.
Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, February 11th, 2020 - 59 comments
David Farrar has called for the suspension of Winston Peters from Cabinet for reasons which would also justify the suspension of Simon Bridges from the National Party.
Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, February 7th, 2020 - 86 comments
The repercussions from Simon Bridges’ disastrous Waitangi performance continue to reverberate. His suggestions that Māori seats and the Waitangi Tribunal should be done away with have resulted in the Māori Party indicating it is more likely to support Labour after the election.
Written By: - Date published: 9:04 am, February 5th, 2020 - 93 comments
Yesterday the political parties were welcomed onto the upper Marae at Waitangi. Jacinda Ardern took the occasion to give a stock take of what the Government was doing to address Iwi concerns, Andrew Little gave his speech totally in te reo, and Simon Bridges chose to use the opportunity to politic.
Written By: - Date published: 11:51 pm, January 27th, 2020 - 30 comments
Originally posted on Nick Kelly’s blog
Ahead of the 2020 General Election in New Zealand, Labour Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced that her party is committed to run a factual election and has signed up to a social media tool to help prove it. The 2020 NZ election will be an interesting case study of whether in the social media age there can be honest political debate free of misinformation and manipulation of facts.
Written By: - Date published: 2:58 pm, January 23rd, 2020 - 68 comments
Jacinda Ardern has announced that Labour will abide by Facebook Ad Library Report rules which allow voters to see where campaigning money is being spent on Facebook ads. And that it will have its major policies independently costed.
Written By: - Date published: 10:28 pm, January 3rd, 2020 - 104 comments
President Trump personally ordered the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s elite military Quds force. He was killed by rockets fired from US drones over Baghdad Airport. This is unlawful by any standards, as well as an act of war. Iran has promised retaliation.The doomsday clock just moved closer to midnight.
Written By: - Date published: 3:04 pm, January 1st, 2020 - 8 comments
Throughout the world 2019 was the worst year for the left since 1979. What will 2020 bring?
Written By: - Date published: 2:42 pm, December 31st, 2019 - 123 comments
With the 2020 election just round the corner and recent complaints about the left’s treatment of the #TurnArdern campaign it is a perfect time to think about the importance of language and positive uplifting campaign themes.
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, December 29th, 2019 - 124 comments
We may as well prepare ourselves for Trump overperforming his popularity again and winning. We’ve had to deal with left’s retreat in most of the world in 2019. So let’s prepare and plot some likely accelerated changes in Trump’s second term.
Written By: - Date published: 12:33 am, December 28th, 2019 - 70 comments
Antagonistic personalities are an obstacle to effective politics tackling major present problems.
Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, December 26th, 2019 - 13 comments
National’s social media team spent Christmas day deleting tweets suggesting there was any link between its MPs and members of the #turnardern campaign.
Written By: - Date published: 3:56 pm, December 21st, 2019 - 76 comments
It has been a tough week for conservative leaders with Trump impeached and the evangelical magazine Christianity Today calling for his resignation, Johnson in the UK announcing voter fraud measures reminiscent of the American deep South, and in Australia Morrison being criticised for missing in action, upstaged by a 13 year old girl and pushing through protection for religious bigotry that Israel Folau would be pleased with.
Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, December 17th, 2019 - 154 comments
The UK election was won not by Russian bots but by older voters with limited technical skills circulating poorly designed ads. What can be done in New Zealand to counter what is clearly a right wing campaign tactic?
Written By: - Date published: 9:22 am, December 15th, 2019 - 60 comments
At 2.11pm on Monday December 16, New Zealanders are being invited to hold a minute’s silence to respect those who have died in the White Island/Whakaari explosion. Once that’s over, it’s time to start turning to what might occur to prevent this kind of disaster happening again.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, December 14th, 2019 - 180 comments
Let’s frame this in leftie terms: can you get in, do grunty policy moves, and stay popular?
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, December 11th, 2019 - 6 comments
The conservative leadership in the United States and in Australia are both taking steps to attack the sustainability of public art. Shame on them.
Written By: - Date published: 7:40 am, December 2nd, 2019 - 20 comments
Is it too early to call negative odds on Elizabeth Warren’s candidacy?
Written By: - Date published: 7:10 am, November 30th, 2019 - 97 comments
It’s a weird moment for the Labour Party at Conference this weekend.
Written By: - Date published: 9:16 am, November 25th, 2019 - 95 comments
Stuff have released their latest YouGov political poll. It’s a shocker for the Tories and their current leader Simon Bridges.
Written By: - Date published: 12:23 pm, November 20th, 2019 - 74 comments
Simon Bridges has accused NZ First of engaging in the most significant breach of electoral law in New Zealand’s history. But has not ruled out working with NZ First in the future. And has forgotten about National’s neat partition of a $100,000 donation to hide it from the authorities.
Written By: - Date published: 12:07 pm, November 20th, 2019 - 71 comments
Let’s take a moment to enjoy.
Written By: - Date published: 7:45 am, November 7th, 2019 - 66 comments
Jacinda Ardern has publicly slapped Shane Jones down for blatantly racist comments by requiring Immigration Officials to reverse a policy change that was adversely affecting Kiwis who have recently entered into arranged marriages.
Written By: - Date published: 8:34 am, November 1st, 2019 - 11 comments
Jacinda Ardern’s campaign against harmful social media has had an effect with Twitter deciding to ban political advertising on the grounds that internet advertising brings significant risks to politics.
Written By: - Date published: 1:22 pm, October 25th, 2019 - 26 comments
The Sky City National Convention Centre fire brings the Government Auckland relationship to a very sharp edge. It was tense before. It’s worse now.
Written By: - Date published: 8:11 am, October 24th, 2019 - 21 comments
One of the less endearing traits of National is their ability to screw almost anything up for short-term advantage regardless how it impacts long-term. Usually this comes from the results of in-fighting within the party. The agricultural emissions deal is likely to get caught again.
Written By: - Date published: 6:21 pm, October 14th, 2019 - 121 comments
The October TV One/Colmar Brunton poll is out. Like yesterday’s devastating TV3 poll result showing National not waving, but drowning, today’s poll confirms that NZ is still heading toward an historic Labour/Green Government, despite the Tories flirting with numbers in the high fifties.
UPDATE: Some weirdness with the numbers: they add up to 101% and 47% does not actually give National 60 seats, so the ‘Poll Says National Can Govern’ headlines are a wee bit optimistic. TRP.
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