Politics

politicans

Polity: Armstrong on National on Labour

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 13 comments

It isn’t a new ploy from National or its supporters. “Mortgage rate rises under National: Good. Mortgage rate rises under Labour: Dreadful!”. I’ve seen David Farrar argue both that a recession is the perfect time to cut taxes because it stimulates the economy, and a recovery is also the perfect time to cut taxes to provide a dividend. It reminds me of that old chestnut, most recently applied to Don Brash: “The answer is tax cuts. What is the question again?”

Winning song urges Key to leave politics

Written By: susannact
Date published: - 7 comments

Tracy Whatshite, Cadet Reporter, attended the “Bellies” (held at Bellamy’s) and found out who the winners were in this year’s competition for the Best Political Song of 2014. She spoke with the judge Frankie Stevens.

“Competition was particularly intense this year and the top entries included some old favourites, but also some surprizing new comers,” he said.

Bugger the polls!

Written By: karol
Date published: - 83 comments

Auckland Against Poverty protest the Young Nats Ball and Paula Bennett’s war on the poor.  Steven Joyce is cynical about the polls. A Stuff poll shows everything that is wrong with the media’s poll beat ups.

Auckland’s city rail link may be accelerated

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 32 comments

The introduction of new electric trains to Auckland’s train system is going to put increased pressure on the Government to bring forward funding of Auckland’s inner city loop. Will it stick to its anti train beliefs or will it succumb to pressure to change in election year?

NRT: Time to see if the Ombudsman will keep their word

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 3 comments

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.

Polity: Key in self-parody about lying (mk 2)

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 52 comments

There was an Audrey Young piece in the Herald yesterday, in which John Key talks about Labour’s plan to increase eligibility for free Early Childhood Education. So Key thinks this policy will cost at least ten times as much as Labour does. That’s a very big claim. But Andrey did not appear to ask for his sums, she just printed Key’s figures without comment. That was a pity because John Key’s figures are a bare-faced lie and are quite impossible.

Whales 1 Japan 0

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 12 comments

The International Court of Justice has ruled that the Japanese yearly slaughter of whales is not for the purposes of scientific research and is illegal.

LB: The Destruction of New Zealand’s Public Education System

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 21 comments

In 2008 New Zealand was internationally ranked in the top seven for educational achievement, and when you compared us with other countries that were also culturally diverse and were experiencing growing inequality we were extremely successful. A National led Government was elected and New Zealand’s public education system came under heavy attack… Hekia Parata continues this.

The Mein Kampf distraction

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 511 comments

Slater and TV3 have double teamed an attack on Kim Dotcom suggesting that he has Nazi tendencies the day before the launch of the Internet Party.  Is the main stream media being manipulated?

Polity: The buck stops with Hekia

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 29 comments

Just when you think that Hekia Parata couldn’t make more of a shambolic mess of the Kohanga Reo review, it turns out that she could and did. Rob Salmond at Polity (and Audrey Young of the Herald) has a look at it.

The struggle over gambling corruption

Written By: karol
Date published: - 48 comments

There has been a long struggle by the Problem Gambling Foundation & others against SkyCity & the powerful and secretive Pokie Trusts.  The government has tended to support the trusts, while maintaining their distance from them.  The defunding of the PGF is the latest chapter in the struggle.

Power disconnections increase as hardship grants are cut

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 38 comments

Radio New Zealand has reported that power disconnections have soared at the same time that WINZ hardship grants have plummeted. Simon Bridges has suggested that it is the power companies fault. The Government should be blaming increasing poverty and inadequate WINZ hardship grants instead.

IF: A day in the life of Matthew Hooton

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 32 comments

[Satire]  I has a dream… Winston retired from politics and went on to set up a bird rescue centre in a remote spot in the Raukumura Range, but the centre was burned down after two teenagers high on glue broke in and set it alight. The delicious smells of hundreds of roasted native birds attracted the attentions of the poor for miles around… desperate and hungry people tore at each other to get into the still-burning sanctuary…  I awoke in a fever and ran to my computer, and in seconds flat I had my NBR column finished.

Polity: Buy low, sell high. Except National.

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 27 comments

Rob at Polity points out National’s intensely unstrategic view about investments and asset sales. In a down market where all the indications said “buy,” National sold our assets for a pittance, and refused to invest in the Super Fund. The Super Fund has been making returns of 21%, far exceeding the Crown’s cost of borrowing. And National will only start investing in the Super Fund when equities are expensive again.  It is almost as if they wanted to waste taxpayers funds eh?

LocalBodies: National Slumps in Polls As Ministers Struggle

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 22 comments

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…

NRT: A good idea from NZFirst

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 4 comments

From an environmental economics perspective, mining is a wealth transfer, shifting public wealth (minerals) into private profits of mining companies. Along the way, it creates jobs, but it is basically spending capital. When the resources run out or become unprofitable to extract the jobs disappear and a regional economy geared solely to resource extraction withers and dies. NZ First wants to change that.

Polity: Losing count of Judith’s lies

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 58 comments

“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?

LocalBodies: Gerry Brownlee, Making Stuff Up Again!

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 35 comments

The crazy thing about Gerry Brownlee is that he is so incompetent because he never seems to study anything that he is responsible for. On Monday, Local Bodies wrote about his current burst of illiterate and untutored whining and blowhard posturing about roads. And yet people on the inside of the National party appear to rate him? What does that say about their competence?

Hekia Parata wants to punish poor schools

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 46 comments

Yesterday Hekia Parata floated the idea that funding of schools should be based on measuring the periodic change in academic standards.  This is a retrograde proposal which almost inevitably would penalise poor schools and worsen educational standards for many.  Today she has been trying to dampen down the idea and has emphasised that it will not be considered until after the next election.  A better reason to vote this Government out I cannot imagine.

Tony Abbott is an idiot

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 90 comments

Tony Abbott’s Liberal Government has acted to undermine New Zealand’s push for a United Nations declaration that it is in the interest of humanity that nuclear weapons never be used again under any circumstances.  Having the option of killing millions of human beings and devastating major urban centres either by way of a first strike or a retaliatory strike is obviously something he thinks should be preserved.

Russel Norman on consumerism & happiness

Written By: karol
Date published: - 38 comments

An interview provides an insight into Russel Norman’s working class background & frugal, anti-consumerist outlook. Combines well with Metiria Turei’s working class background –  which has motivated her campaign against child poverty and inequality.

Officials’ dinners off in China

Written By: Mike Smith
Date published: - 36 comments

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.

ImperatorFish: A statement from Shane Jones

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 14 comments

[probably satire] This statement has been reposted from ImperatorFish and is believed to be a work of satire by Scott Yorke (who generously allows us to reproduce his posts). However with Shane Jones, one can never be too sure what is truth and what is fantasy. Shane Jones or a reasonable facsimile thereof takes on why he isn’t going to attack the terrible Green party again (to the nearly universal chorus of “dickhead”).

Five Eyes, One Network

Written By: karol
Date published: - 60 comments

Edward Snowden revelations indicate that the US NSA pressured the NZ government to make last year’s hasty changes to the GCSB and TICS laws, to enable mass surveillance.  John Key sometimes denies he knows of visits to NZ by the NSA’s Gen Keith Alexander – but Key would have to approve the visits.

NRT: Proving my point

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 46 comments

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

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 4 comments

[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”

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 16 comments

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…

Polity: Why announce the election date this week?

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 18 comments

Rob Salmond at Polity has a look at why National surprisingly announced the election date yesterday. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that it was a deflection from something. Rob thinks that National was worried about where a look at donations to National’s campaign would lead. He may be right, as in the past National has had some legally and morally dubious donation regimes

NRT: Did the NSA write John Key’s spy bill?

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 16 comments

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden gave evidence to the European Parliament last week about the NSA and mass-surveillance. The most interesting revelation? The NSA’s use of lawyers to subvert other countries limits on surveillance – including our own. So what did GCSB receive “legal guidance” on? What about the careful loopholes in the new Act