Written By: - Date published: 2:12 pm, May 7th, 2008 - 64 comments
A reader sent us this letter to the Herald’s editor, which the Herald has refused to print. When the government moved to block the sale of Auckland Airport to the Canadian Pension Fund, the Herald’s editorial proclaimed that anyone who didn’t want foreign ownership of our strategic assets was xenophobic. Yesterday, John Key played the […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, May 6th, 2008 - 13 comments
Tory candidate Boris Johnson has triumphed in the mayoral race for London in a campaign masterminded by the Australian political tactician Lynton Crosby. The Sydney Morning Herald has the story: Brought in at the end of last year, the mysterious Crosby – “you know I don’t do interviews”, he responded to an email from the […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:15 pm, May 5th, 2008 - 123 comments
The Maori Party has asked for an extension on the replies for Tariana Turia and we’re happy to oblige. In the meantime, here are the questions to United Future’s Peter Dunne that we chose from your suggestions. The general question remains: Of which of your achievements in politics are you most proud? For the two […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:39 pm, May 5th, 2008 - 21 comments
Tom Frewen’s latest column seems to have somehow slipped through the usually rigourous editorial process at the NBR. The sidebar reads: “John Key’s lyrics sound like the gobbledygook of Bushisms”. “Yeah, I mean look, the truth is, with the greatest respect to Rodney, he doesn’t understand the telecommunications sector very well if he can’t sort […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:54 am, May 1st, 2008 - 33 comments
Today is the fifth anniversary of Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech in which he stated that “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended”. To mark the date Moveon.org have released the following ad, intended to remind the public that as McCain himself said, “no one has supported President Bush on Iraq more” than he has. […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:24 pm, April 29th, 2008 - 13 comments
Greenwoman just flicked us this:
Written By: - Date published: 7:07 am, April 29th, 2008 - 13 comments
Remember National’s policy of charging a $50 levy on everyone convicted of or, maybe, charged with (Key keeps on mixing up the terms) an offence? Remember all the obvious problems with it enforcement, administration cost, natural justice issues, the pitiful size of the sum that would be collected? Well, it turns out we missed one. […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:24 pm, April 23rd, 2008 - 6 comments
So John Key has announced that a National-led government would spend “up to” $1.5 billion on fibre optic cable to the home. Well that’s a good thing right? Even I can appreciate the importance of Kiwi homes and businesses getting access to high speed broadband (even if it is solely for the use of my children’s […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, April 23rd, 2008 - 38 comments
The junior doctors’ strike is a difficult issue. On the one hand, these are highly valuable workers whom we can’t afford to lose overseas and they do work long hours in difficult conditions. On the other hand, the pay rise they want would cost $50 million and is well above what other medical professionals have […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, April 21st, 2008 - 18 comments
John Key: ‘ my lawyer actually does those things clearly [he] had the wrong information.’ That’s how Slippery John explained why legal documents showed him living at different addresses at the same time. For election purposes he had claimed to be living at his $1.1 million home in Waimauku in his electorate, but on documents […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:45 pm, April 20th, 2008 - 61 comments
In the Herald today, Bill Ralston sticks up for poor John Key who has been the subject of personal political attacks recently. Like Key, Ralston wonders what is “the cost of the Government using countless bureaucrats to endlessly scour records in an attempt to discover inconsistencies in any utterance [Key has] made”. Ralston needs to […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:59 pm, April 18th, 2008 - 18 comments
Earlier this week, John Key had a whinge about ‘personal’ political attacks on him. Particularly, he thought it was a waste of taxpayers’ money that some Labour MPs wrote and performed a version of The Gambler mocking him. The song was written in a pub on a Saturday night (Key thinks they should been reading […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:50 am, April 18th, 2008 - 54 comments
Business is starting to get worried. This was meant to, finally, be the year that they got the Left out of government and started making New Zealand work for the business elite again. But there’s a problem: the man they chose for the job. Sure, Key’s got a cheeky grin but on real ‘prime minister […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:13 pm, April 17th, 2008 - 31 comments
On Monday, I wrote ‘Stay tuned for National’s next assets policy, due out sometime next week.’ It seems I miscalculated. Here’s what Key had to say on asset sales today on newstalkzb: ‘I’m going to go into an election with a group of policies and those policies we will implement or not implement as the […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:40 pm, April 17th, 2008 - 26 comments
Continuing our benefits theme, here’s a look at how much the benefit system costs you. The figures are the combined expenditure by the Government on the Unemployment, Sickness, Invalids’, and Domestic Purposes benefits per day per working age New Zealander, in 2007 dollars. Sources: MSD (1,2,3), StatsNZ (4,5) The portion of the working age population […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:42 am, April 16th, 2008 - 19 comments
Police have closed their investigation into the theft of e-mails from former National Party leader Dr Don Brash and have announced that they have been unsuccessful in identifying those responsible for the thefts. Despite Brash’s ongoing insistence to the contrary, the police have said that they’ve been able to rule out the possibility than an […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, April 16th, 2008 - 74 comments
John Key’s latest line is to whine that Labour and others (including this blog) are launching personal attacks on him, and would we please stop. Our attacks are not personal, they are political. National wants to be in control of the Government, control an operation with a budget of near $60 billion and quarter of […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, April 15th, 2008 - 33 comments
Stuff reports that “Principals and teachers have savaged a National Party plan to increase funding for private schools, calling it a thinly disguised tax break for the rich.” New Zealand Secondary Principals’ Council chairman Arthur Graves called Key’s proposal to increase funding to private schools at the expense of the public system “a deliberate attempt […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, April 15th, 2008 - 7 comments
The Herald is really doing its best to help out National. Today it proclaims ‘Key’s wananga visit undoes Brash legacy‘. That nice Mr Key has undone all the harm caused by that nasty old Dr Brash, we’re meant to believe. But check the record. It wasn’t Brash who led the attack on Te WÄnanga o […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 15th, 2008 - 22 comments
National’s latest line is that interest rates have doubled under Labour, with the implication that National would magically lower inflation (while simultaneously pouring more money into the economy through lower surpluses) so rates would fall. But, as with so much National says, a quick look at the record reveals the lie. Average Mortgage Rate- Nat: 9.7%, […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:54 pm, April 13th, 2008 - 18 comments
A reader sent us this very good video of John Key’s repeated memory lapses over where he stood on the Springbok tour: The tour was the defining event of a generation, and it’s simply not plausible that a politically aware university student would not have had a position one way or the other. While I […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 pm, April 12th, 2008 - 11 comments
At the Labour Party congress today, Helen Clark predicted that asset sales would be a key election issue and says the Government was right to veto the Auckland Airport share bid. “The National Party and ACT have made it plain where they stand – ‘sell it off’, they cry. This is a defining issue. In […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:50 pm, April 9th, 2008 - 42 comments
From Key’s speech to the NZ Institute of Foreign Affairs on emulating the ‘Celtic Tiger’: “Thirty years ago, Ireland was a total basket case. Today, it has all of the trappings of a considerable economic success story, including the capacity to attract and retain smart, educated, enterprising people. three key policy initiatives which were critical […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, April 8th, 2008 - 14 comments
A reader wrote to us to say that they’d recently seen Finlay MacDonald speak at Otago University as part of the Distinguished Communicator Lecture Series for the Centre of Science Communication. The talk is now online: The Audacity of Hype: John Key and the new National Socialism. In case you hadn’t picked up on this […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:20 pm, April 7th, 2008 - 39 comments
John Key’s failure to ask a parliamentary question last week exposes a crisis of confidence in National’s ranks. It is unprecedented for an Opposition leader to be in attendance in the House for a full sitting week, and to not once challenge the Government. This never happened when Helen Clark led Labour in Opposition from […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:24 pm, April 4th, 2008 - 23 comments
Slippery John and his mates seemed pretty down in the dumps in the House this week. I know that no one, but a few political junkies, watch the House but a political party’s performance there is a good indicator for their mood. And, frankly, the Nats and their leader were not in a good one. […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, April 4th, 2008 - 20 comments
Our sources tell us National is set to follow-up to last year’s DVD ‘John Key: Vacuous for New Zealand’ with its sequel ‘John Key: I won’t bite, promise’. ‘Vacuous’ was withdrawn after The Standard and Kiwiblogblog revealed that Key had illegally used Coldplay’s ‘Clocks‘ as the theme tune. National and Coldplay’s record label are reported […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, April 4th, 2008 - 7 comments
A reader just sent us this – REM meets John Key. (Hat-tip: PJ)
Written By: - Date published: 3:33 pm, April 3rd, 2008 - 9 comments
That’s what Key said when asked about his plan to increase GP fees. A reader reckons Key’s planning to apply the same market logic to crime: Great cartoon. No wonder National’s Law and order Spokesperson, Simon Power, is distancing himself from Key’s policy.
Written By: - Date published: 8:15 pm, April 2nd, 2008 - 43 comments
Tracy Watkins tells us in today’s Dom-Post that John Key may have taken a beating in the stock market lately. He wouldn’t say how much he lost, but did admit, ‘I’m worth less than I was.’ And, I’ll bet some in his Caucus would agree. Anyway, Tracy tells us that Poor John came to New […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:30 pm, April 2nd, 2008 - 17 comments
Duncan Garner kept Copperfield diners entertained yesterday by teasing Simon Power about the implications of National’s $50 conviction levy. We’re told that in response Power threw his hands into the air and exclaimed loudly that the policy wasn’t “his”. What an odd thing for the National Party spokesperson on law and order to say. It […]
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