Written By: - Date published: 9:56 am, August 12th, 2019 - 30 comments
Simon Bridges has borrowed heavily from Donald Trump in releasing a press release saying that Ihumātao protesters should go home.
Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, August 11th, 2019 - 206 comments
Autonomous sanctions imposed on Iran and Venezuela by the US are expressly designed to drive whole populations into poverty to bring about regime change. They are sociopathic. Based on its values, The National Party wants to make such sanctions New Zealand’s policy. Extraodinary!
Written By: - Date published: 8:37 am, August 9th, 2019 - 105 comments
New Zealand First’s late decision to promote a referendum concerning abortion has caught everyone including its spokesperson Tracy Martin by surprise and is the latest example of last minute changes of position.
Written By: - Date published: 2:20 pm, August 6th, 2019 - 27 comments
Five days ago Simon Bridges predicted that unemployment had gone up. The latest figures show that the unemployment rate is at its lowest rate for the past eleven years. Update: My enthusiasm was too high. It has been pointed out to me that the Bridges tweet was from last year. My apologies to Simon …
Written By: - Date published: 7:43 am, August 6th, 2019 - 21 comments
A slight rewrite of an ad currently on Parliament’s careers website.
Written By: - Date published: 12:19 pm, August 5th, 2019 - 52 comments
America has suffered two mass shootings of civilians in the past couple of days with at least one being committed by a white supremacist. But the Republican Party is fixated on Antifa, a loose organisation that has been implicated in no mass shootigns.
Written By: - Date published: 9:56 am, August 4th, 2019 - 71 comments
Only 6 months ago the UK Liberal Democrat party was at a real low, with their leader resigning and the polls about 7%: same as the last five years. Fast forward five months from that and they are ready to become a major opposition party of opposition. Can the Greens do the same?
Written By: - Date published: 2:03 am, August 4th, 2019 - 170 comments
James Shaw lays it out in his AGM speech: the new climate denial sounds reasonable and is the gravest danger we currently face.
Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, August 1st, 2019 - 63 comments
Australia is responding to New Zealand’s concern at the forced repatriation of New Zealand citizens from Australia who fall foul of the law by dramatically increasing the potential for this to occur.
Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, July 31st, 2019 - 31 comments
Simon Bridges has insulted women and Tokelauans at the same time with a thinly veiled attack on Jacinda Ardern.
Written By: - Date published: 8:03 am, July 31st, 2019 - 78 comments
The interview between Jack Tame and Simon Bridges was revealing. Circumlocutions and the wheedling of a conniving prosecutor around the National party hypocrisy over cancer drugs. Making a token amount towards funding super-expensive cancer drugs – but don’t want to deal with root causes or prevention of cancer? It beggars belief that this fool is a politician.
Written By: - Date published: 7:32 am, July 31st, 2019 - 119 comments
The background to the Ihumatao dispute is complex and problematic and resolving it may require the Government to review issues relating to privately held land and treaty claims.
Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, July 30th, 2019 - 104 comments
National has announced a new Cancer Agency to replace the agency it closed four years ago to be funded from within already overstretched Health budgets.
Written By: - Date published: 8:01 am, July 28th, 2019 - 138 comments
Despite the babies and the engagements, maybe it’s time to ditch the default Jacindamania.
Written By: - Date published: 12:05 am, July 27th, 2019 - 29 comments
Boris Johnson’s ruthless purge of Cabinet and hard right shift looks like preparation for an early election. Reminds me of 1984 at home, as a right wing coup is on the way. He lied his way to Brexit – will it work again?
Written By: - Date published: 2:05 pm, July 26th, 2019 - 36 comments
Matthew Hooton has a piece on National’s chances in the next election this morning entitled as “National stumbling to defeat”. Personally I think he is a PR weasel who is on the border to dirty politics. But he did cover the salient points that will be on the mind of the National party conference.
Written By: - Date published: 12:35 pm, July 26th, 2019 - 8 comments
John Banks has announced that he will not be standing for Auckland’s mayoralty.
Written By: - Date published: 9:22 am, July 26th, 2019 - 48 comments
Peter Dunne has come up with some 2020 election reckons that ignores current polling as well as National’s leadership problems.
Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, July 25th, 2019 - 87 comments
The Greens recent ad mocking Simon Bridges has attracted some strong criticism. But is it justified?
Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, July 24th, 2019 - 76 comments
Australian right wing commentators are losing their shirts at the thought that Jacinda Ardern may be in the running for a Nobel Peace prize.
Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, July 23rd, 2019 - 57 comments
Barry Soper has reported on a UMR poll that has National at 38% and Simon Bridges unfavourable rating at over 60%.
Written By: - Date published: 7:36 am, July 22nd, 2019 - 90 comments
National Climate Change spokesperson Todd Muller has publicly stated that he is broadly supportive of the Government’s proposed EV incentive policy.
Written By: - Date published: 2:57 am, July 21st, 2019 - 25 comments
Hamish Rutherfurd writes that Winston Peters’ trip to the US to secure a trade deal is far-fetched and a waste of time. I agree. But if Peters has his agenda, so will Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence, John Bolton and Dan Coats have theirs. He was scheduled to meet them all. No wonder the 9th floor are worried.
Written By: - Date published: 8:44 am, July 20th, 2019 - 49 comments
With the seizing of an oil tanker by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz today as a presumably tit-for-tat escalation for British seizing an Iranian ship, and the U.S. Navy harassing their coastline, we are in for a senseless and dangerous political escalation.
Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, July 19th, 2019 - 194 comments
Simon Wilson has suggested in the the Herald this morning that for purely political reasons National will frustrate and stymie action on climate change
Written By: - Date published: 8:03 am, July 18th, 2019 - 98 comments
Stacey Kirk thinks that Julie Anne Genter should not have criticised National’s spin on the Government’s fuel efficient importation policy but forgets to do her basic job of analysing National’s spin.
Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, July 16th, 2019 - 81 comments
Donald Trump has attacked a group of young female Democrat politicians and has claimed they should go back to the country they were born in. Even though they were actually born in the United States.
Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, July 16th, 2019 - 75 comments
There are rumours that the Interim Climate Change Committee will propose that agriculture is included in the Emissions Trading Scheme as an interim measure to allow a levy/rebate system that can operate at a farm level.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, July 15th, 2019 - 59 comments
The rate at which the building consents have increased in Auckland, and the shift to a more useful mix, has been incredibly fast. You can understand why National after their decade of failure for housing and transport have been targeting the authors of that success. It highlights National’s economic incompetence.
Written By: - Date published: 3:48 pm, July 14th, 2019 - 51 comments
Simon Bridges is barking madly at green cars.
Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, July 14th, 2019 - 30 comments
It isn’t often that I read a sports story. My view was that if you aren’t doing a sport, then what is the point in watching others doing it? Work on something that you can do. However a title on an aussie ABC article caught me – “New Zealand earn genuine respect”. Now that was unusual…
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