Key Announces National’s Job’s Policy.
‘Allo, Allo, Allo, Allo – Based on the 1980’s Comedy Series, “Allo, allo” – Starring Cameron Slater as Rene and Judith Collins as […]
politicans
Judith Collins
Thanks for the Piss, Collins.
Karol has already mentioned this in her post from this morning. But in the interests of splitting milk from alcohol…
Judith Collins: fudging evidence
Judith Colllins & the PM are probably toasting Shane Jones (and Murray McCully) right now: the heat around the Oravida controversy has been pushed off the front pages. Information and marginalised news don’t easily disappear off the web – or Wikipedia. Collins quietly slipped out a press release on the delay of her decision on alcohol pricing – media shy suddenly?
It’s the little things …
Another day and another hole in Judith Collins’ description of events surrounding the dinner that she had with senior Oravida figures and a Chinese Official who may or may not have been able to sort out importation problems for Oravida, a company who her husband is a Director of and who has made large donations to the National Party.
The week that was
The highs and lows and the good and bad of what was a fascinating week in Politics.
ImperatorFish: Judith Collins explains
Judith can’t believe she has to explain this all again
Collins under fire
Judith Collins, once one of National’s most assured performers, is facing increasing pressure. Her handling of the ACC privacy release form scandal is under scrutiny. And the release of a letter from Oravida to the Government asking for help in handling reputational risk focusses even more attention on the “private dinner” and the identity of the mysterious Chinese Government Official.
iPredict needs “Next National Minister Resignation”
Who will it be? Judith? Simon? Hekia? Amy? Or a surprise?
Random impertinent questions for Judith Collins
National must be hoping that Judith Collins can answer questions in Parliament better than she did today when questioned about Oravida. Because today she had a shocker.
NRT: Time to see if the Ombudsman will keep their word
Last month, we learned that Judith Collins had taken time off a taxpayer-funded trip to China to endorse her husband’s company – a company which had also donated significant sums of money to the National Party. The endorsement appeared to violate the Cabinet Manual, but John Key stepped up and claimed that the Cabinet Office said it was all OK. Then, just a few days later, he admitted that he’d lied about that. In the process, he implicitly raised serious questions about the quality of the Cabinet Office’s advice.
LocalBodies: National Slumps in Polls As Ministers Struggle
There is danger of reading too much into polls months out from an election. Commentators were claiming that National was too strong to lose the next election based on a rogue poll. Few looked at multiple polls, accounted for the margin of error nor the trends over past months. The last fortnight has seen a National with the latest Roy Morgan Poll plummeting from the Colmar Brunton result of 51% to 45.5%. And it is based on a lack of ministerial performance…
Parata replaces Collins and Adams as National’s weakest link
This week Hekia Parata has achieved what I thought was impossible. She has shown even worse judgment than Judith Collins and is threatening to replace Collins as National’s minister who is most in trouble. Hekia’s days as a Minister must be numbered …
Polity: Losing count of Judith’s lies
“Justice Minister Judith Collins’ “cup of tea on the way to the airport” at her friend Stone Shi’s company in Shanghai involved a 30km detour in the opposite direction…”. That’s pretty embarrassing for Collins. Caught, red-handed, again, lying in the Parliament and misleading your boss. I wonder what he will do now?
Officials’ dinners off in China
Fran O’Sullivan thinks that the only reason why Collins is still a Minister was Key’s need to save face in his impending visit to China. I think Key may have got a better reception from Xi Jinping if he had followed the Chinese leader’s example of taking a hard line on dinner-table corruption and sacked Collins.
Oravida employee of the month
And the winner is …
NRT: Proving my point
Last week No Right Turn argued strongly that we needed full transparency over Cabinet Office advice on ministers’ conflicts of interest, because we couldn’t trust the Prime Minister to represent that advice accurately, and we couldn’t trust secret advice to be accurate. And John Key has just proven his point: “Prime Minister John Key has admitted he misled reporters over Cabinet Office advice…”
ImperatorFish: John Key explains to the media
[satire] Let me explain. There has been no breach of Cabinet rules. This has been confirmed by the Cabinet Office. Not the real Cabinet Office, but the one that exists in the deepest recesses of my imagination. That particular Cabinet Office always gives me the advice I want to hear, and the one thing I’ve learned from all my years in this place is to always listen to the voices in my head.
Polity: “Promoting” vs “endorsing”
The Orivida mess smells worse by the day for National. Yesterday, it turned out the Cabinet Office’s advice clearing Judith Collins of any wrongdoing had failed to even look at the most important piece of the evidence – the Chinese text of Orivida’s website. It had to rush out new advice to cover that off, which Key still won’t release. That is why today John Key will spend much of question time dancing on the head of a pin…
Key schemes with media at Whaleoil cafe.
[satire] It’s early morning at a greasy spoon cafe set in a back street off K Road. Rene (Cameron Slater) is scrubbing the grease off the table where he and John Key sat last night. His wife Edith (Judith Collins) is trying to get a fresh milk stain off her jacket.
Oravida: Collins, Goodfellow, Key.
John Key claims Judith Collins was not guilty of conflict of interest re-her visit to Oravida in China. Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins, in the General Debate today claimed that Peter Goodfellow met with an Oravida sponsored group of businessmen to discuss “bi-lateral collaboration.” They claim Key also played golf with an Oravida bigwig.
Easy Vote or Voter Intimidation?
Good to see Labour has stood up against National’s “harder-to-vote” revisions to the Electoral Amendment Bill, especially making voters now have to state their name to get a voting paper. The reason for this is to allow scrutineers to more easily challenge a voter’s credentials, and is similar to voter intimidation practices in conservative States in the US. Expect National Party scrutineers questioning more voter credentials in the 2014 election.
Local Bodies: First they ignore you
Local bodies writes on the way that National has been concentrating their personal attacks at the Greens. It is a pretty typical display by National in any election year. But you get the impression they’re going to seriously be dumpster diving for dirt this year – especially Judith Collins. National are getting desperate at their disappearing coalition partners. “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win”
The politics of nastiness
Is this election year going to be the most vicious in recent history? There’s always a bit of argy-bargy in politics, and sometimes […]
Key’s transparent gerrymander
For John Key, MMP stands for “Manipulate Members of Parliament”. Senior journalists are beginning to call him on the games he’s playing, and good on them; gerrymander entered the New Zealand political lexicon at Key’s press conference this week. Key wants to push the issues away till closer to the election, when he’ll know what his polling is telling him – I hope the gallery don’t let him.
UN to NZ Human Rights – ‘can do better’
A draft UN report on human rights shows NZ has been slacking off. The government is glossing over its failings: eg on domestic violence, child protection, poverty, ethnic inequalities, discrimination, disability rights, government abuse of urgency. Collins focuses on punishment, surveillance.
National’s election year strategy and designer jackets
National’s attacks on Metiria Turei appear to me as being deliberate and programmed rather than an inconsequential argument on the cost of designer jackets.
Health and Safety Rep Training – a cut by any other name
I couldn’t give a rats arse about Jordan Williams and his new little Act campaigning vehicle against the State, but I do care about health and safety and the manner in which some of the media have run his latest little ruse against training health and safety representatives in the workplace is a disgrace. Judith Collins has used it as a cover to announce the end of worker health and safety training by unions beyond this year, leaving workers unable to access the powers under the Health and Safety Act to issue hazard notices and represent their workmates.
Judith Collins: The obnoxious right
Seems that Collins likes to call others bullies, but doesn’t mind being simply abusive and derogatory in her own language. Let’s call it what it is: more insults fly from the obnoxious right who like to play the man and not the ball, especially when the facts are inconvenient. It’s not surprising that the Collins faction has been associated with Cameron Slater.
Press Release: Bob Jones offers help to police
Police have called on Bob’s expertise to establish if the crime actually happened. We now all know thanks to Bob’s expertise, that women don’t get raped unless they are attractive, dress sexy and go out beyond their front gate at night. Besides women can’t drive like a guy or have fun like a guy. Bob knows just how women think – at least better than the police?
Collins ducks the questions again
In today’s Herald Judith Collins again sidesteps the questions on trial processes on sexual abuse cases posed last week by Jan Logie and Andrew Little. The Minister for No is now dead keen to be seen to be doing something. I think she should take up Metiria Turei’s suggestion to set up an all-party group to consider the issues. One thing is absolutely clear; all wisdom does not reside in the mind of this Minister.
Bring back Simon Power
This week in Parliament Judith Collins was in full-on “no” mode – no to alternative trial process for sexual abuse cases, and no to changes to the law of evidence in sexual abuse cases rising from Law Commission work commissioned by Simon Power. This morning on National Radio Jan Jordan of Victoria University called for that extensive work to be revisited. I think she is absolutely right; if carried through it can only lead to a better outcome than what we have at the moment.
The sound of feet dragging: after Bazley
The police yet again apologise for the continuing support for rape culture within their ranks. As a result, young (alleged) rape victims have been re-traumatised. The Bazley Report recommendations should have prevented this from happening. From Key, Collins & Tolley we have been hearing the low-key sound of feet dragging.
The Prime Nanny
Parliament’s Chief Nanny has been in full flight this week, trying to slap down questions from Jan Logie and Andrew Little about trial processes for sexual abuse cases. Nanny was very strict. Everyone else had got it wrong, and needed to be corrected. When Nanny got it wrong herself, as she did when answering Andrew Little, she backed off quickly. When he challenged “so you don’t want to change anything”, she found the mild heckling “abusive”, which certainly does raise the bar, at least for herself.
It’s not just about cyber-culture, Judith
The reports of the Roast Busters are chilling. Watching 3 News tonight was very upsetting. Reported responses by the police, John Key and Judith Collins are inadequate. Key & Collins seem to be shifting the focus to cyber-bullying and away from the brutality of the physical acts. [Update: Scuba Nurse – positive steps to make a difference]
Fight you bastards fight
At least one MP if not the whole of National’s caucus knew that the news concerning Len Brown and Bevan Chuang would break soon eight days before it did. Slater’s and Palino’s claims are becoming more and more difficult to believe. And in a comment yesterday Bad12 sums up why this is such bad news for National.
Roy Morgan – easy win for Labour/Greens?
The latest Roy Morgan poll has Labour 37%, Green 12.5%, and National down to 41.5%. As Roy Morgan says, this is the closest Labour has been since 2008. Morgan’s comment: “If a National Election were held now the latest New Zealand Roy Morgan Poll shows that a Labour/ Greens alliance would win easily.” The Conservatives have dropped from 2% to 0.5% – no help there.