Written By: - Date published: 6:50 am, June 19th, 2008 - 47 comments
Key reckons he could bring down inflation by targeting ‘low quality’ government spending. How? To counter inflation, you need to increase productivity. Inflation is projected to run at 4.7% this year. The Government makes up a third of the economy. If Key was to bring that down to 2% by increasing Government productivity how much […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:29 am, June 18th, 2008 - 33 comments
You’ll have noticed that Key only ever talks about increasing ‘after-tax incomes’. Even when he’s asked about wages for government employees, like doctors, he responds that National would increase their after-tax incomes with tax cuts, not by increasing their wages. But anybody can see that cutting taxes is only a short-term way to slightly increase […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:23 pm, June 16th, 2008 - 15 comments
Worth a read: Remember when George Bush’s administration promised the world that the invasion of Iraq would be over in a few weeks? We were assured that the Iraqis would throw flowers at their liberators, the war would make a tidy profit and petrol prices would plummet. Next time you fill up your car think […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:27 pm, June 14th, 2008 - 50 comments
National has staked it all on delivering bigger tax cuts than Labour. To remain credible, they need to deliver $20 a week on average more than Labour. That’s $3 billion a year. The operating surplus is gone, so where will the money come from? John Key has been repeatedly referencing the fact that the government […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, June 13th, 2008 - 30 comments
Keith Holyoake used to say “tell the people, trust the people”; be honest about the benefits, trade-offs, and costs of policies and trust the people to judge you in an adult manner. Central to Brand Key, however, is playing to voters’ baser desires, especially greed, and fomenting juvenile beliefs, including that it is possible to have ones cake and eat it. For […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, June 11th, 2008 - 29 comments
Remember National’s broadband ‘plan’ that reads like it was drawn up on the back of a napkin? Notice how the only gains they can point to from this plan to borrow $1.5 billion are better video conferencing (when was the last time the average worker used video conferencing?) and being able to download pirated movies […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:47 am, June 9th, 2008 - 39 comments
On TV3 last night John Key was continuing to tell outright porkies about how advanced National is with its “policy” development compared with Labour in 1999. Key’s figure of 14 policies is derisory – as John Armstrong wrote in the Herald on Saturday, some of the 14 are assurances of what National would not do, […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:51 pm, June 8th, 2008 - 81 comments
We got this in from the ‘sod and we like it so here’s the guest post we swore we’d never give him (taking the piss out of Ian Wishart didn’t count). ‘Sod, don’t let it go to your head. Brand Key, or the cultural logic of late capitalism in NZ politics Like others I have […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:06 pm, June 8th, 2008 - 38 comments
Ever since Labour’s budget was released, John Key has been talking cheese. I’ve been wondering why all his talk of blocks of cheese has been making him smile with such a big big grin. Well, a check of MPs’ financial interests sheds some light. Slippery John is making a bundle from Kiwis buying cheese. He is the third largest shareholder […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:31 pm, June 7th, 2008 - 63 comments
John Key’s policy vacuum is such a joke that even the ad-men are using it for comic material. Have a listen. powered by ODEO lprent: There seems to be a problem At ODEO. Stored local in link below. John Key – Bubbles
Written By: - Date published: 4:51 pm, June 6th, 2008 - 11 comments
Before you bag him, give it a go yourself, it’s harder than it looks. It’s a little known fact that Spock took years to perfect the Vulcan salute and sparked more than his fair share of diplomatic interplanetary incidents during that time.
Written By: - Date published: 4:32 pm, June 6th, 2008 - 28 comments
On John Key’s visit to Waitara High School yesterday: Ms Gellen said Mr Key’s visit had been excellent and the students had got a lot from it. “They are now more aware of who he (Mr Key) is. “Some said they weren’t going to vote before, but now they are going to go away and have […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:59 pm, June 6th, 2008 - 37 comments
In the final of our ‘Interview the Leaders’ series, we asked Winston Peters three questions submitted by readers. Damian Edwards from his office promptly replied that Peters would be answering no questions from political blogs. So instead we’ve provided answers to your questions in the form of some great political songs. Q. Of which of […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:14 am, June 6th, 2008 - 24 comments
A reader just alerted us to this. When John Key went missing in action on Sunrise what did the “Allstars” suggest he was up to? Watch to find out…
Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, June 6th, 2008 - 28 comments
The Taranaki Daily News reports: National Party leader John Key was at Waitara High School, where he pushed his party’s plan to spend $1 billion on “super fast broadband”. This would allow pupils to access his Bebo and Facebook pages at a fraction of the speed, and download movies in seven seconds, he said. But […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, June 4th, 2008 - 85 comments
It’s funny the stories you hear when you’re out in the provinces. I was up in Auckland over the long weekend and came across someone who told me the story of how Key became involved in National. See, Key was never political growing up and certainly not strongly National. He can’t remember where he stood […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, June 3rd, 2008 - 18 comments
Isn’t this the one issue where we truly know what National will do? Didn’t John Key say ‘there will be no asset sales in the first term of a National Government (we’ll save that or the second term)’? Yes, he did. But that goes against the deepest of National principles and caused real disquiet about […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:12 am, May 29th, 2008 - 115 comments
Yesterday, the leaders of the parliamentary parties apologised to the veterans of the Vietnam War for the treatment they received both while fighting and on their return home. It was not these soldiers’ fault that their government deployed them in a disastrous and unjust war. Except, now John Key is saying the war and New […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:56 am, May 29th, 2008 - 60 comments
I noticed an interesting comment from Ferdinand in our Kiwisaver thread yesterday: I signed up to Kiwisaver based on the 4% employer contribution being rolled out. If National cap that at 1% then I’m out of pocket by about $75,000 in contributions alone. That got me thinking about that meaningless phrase John Key used to […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:44 pm, May 27th, 2008 - 2 comments
We’ve chosen the questions for Winston Peters in the final installment of our ‘Interview the Leaders’ series. The first question remains the same, as for all leaders: Of which of your achievements in politics are you most proud? For the others we’ve gone with Robinsod’s question: Last election you stated you would go with the […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:57 pm, May 26th, 2008 - 32 comments
Steve posted this morning that even Granny Herald’s patience appears to be wearing thin waiting for National and Key to announce some policy detail: “National must get a move on… we need to hear some serious policy soon”. Turns out they’re not alone. Rod Oram (SST): …for it to be a genuine debate, National needs […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:24 am, May 24th, 2008 - 62 comments
Key’s best trick is to answer questions with impressive or technical sounding assertions that stop the line of questioning but don’t actually tell us anything. When he does that, interviewers need to push him to explain himself. Here’s a few paraphrased examples from the last couple of week: Q. ‘What don’t you like about the […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:05 pm, May 23rd, 2008 - 70 comments
Here’s a good ten minutes from the middle of Winston’s post budget address yesterday. The highlight is around four minutes in, on National’s burgeoning bureaucracy: Did you know that John Key himself in his Wellington parliamentary office employs has 36 people?… they cost the taxpayer, every year… over seven million dollars… Teams of PR people and spin doctors […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:57 am, May 23rd, 2008 - 5 comments
Key kicks off this Close Up interview by trying to dampen down rising expectations of National’s tax package and make himself some wiggle room by emphasising that his comments from earlier in the week about tax cuts “north of $50” relate to voter expectations rather than what National may eventually be able to deliver. Presumably […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:04 am, May 23rd, 2008 - 61 comments
John Campbell interviews John Key on the budget, refusing to let him get away with merely repeating his focus-grouped lines. At about the 3 minute mark Campbell challenges Key’s evasiveness directly: “I think you are as slippery as a snake in wet grass”. It’s not just the media that are starting to get frustrated with […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:41 pm, May 21st, 2008 - 9 comments
Seemingly content to coast along on the “time for a change” sentiment, the National Party are still refusing to offer any substantive details in major policy areas: government debt, work rights and retirement savings. English ended up sounding like a broken record on Agenda a few days back. His stock answer was ‘I can’t tell […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:56 pm, May 20th, 2008 - 24 comments
National’s refusal to say what it stands for is becoming so ridiculous we have resorted to the Cold War art of Kremlinology. Today, we look at work rights. On Agenda, Bill English said he is concerned about new ‘entitlements’ for workers. ‘Entitlements’ is an anti-worker way of saying work rights – it implies that they […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:02 pm, May 19th, 2008 - 26 comments
National has pulled its support for the emissions trading scheme which is intended to set limits on the emission of greenhouse gases and penalise polluters. This is the latest in a long line of Key’s shifting positions on climate change. First climate change was a “complete and utter hoax”. Then as the environmental mood gained momentum […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:57 am, May 19th, 2008 - 27 comments
When asked on Morning Report (MP3 link) today why National was bringing up the issue of MMP now, Key remarked: “[the public] were promised a referendum on MMP”. He’s wrong. Nigel Robert, Professor of Political Science at Victoria University points out: “A referendum wasn’t promised previously. The role of Parliament after MMP was introduced was […]
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