politicans

Rudman on Nats’ total housing fail

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 10:24 am, December 21st, 2016 - 196 comments

Rudman: “The Prime Minister, in his role in charge of Housing New Zealand, and Smith have spectacularly failed to solve Auckland’s housing crisis over several years.”

Crushed Collins to ACT?

Written By: Natwatch - Date published: 7:23 am, December 19th, 2016 - 53 comments

What next for Collins? Burning ambition, a significant personal following, no future in National. Time jump to ACT? She must fancy her chances of taking over that pretend party and building it up to a “kingmaker” role.

Denial in Politics

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 9:26 pm, December 17th, 2016 - 33 comments

There’s a lot of it around. The Democrats and their media and spook allies are in a complete lather over Putin’s supposed personal influence in the US election. Confident of victory and its spoils up till midday on election day, the Clinton team are incapable of assessing just what a debacle of a campaign they ran, still less what they need to do now. Lessons abound.

English honeymoon over already

Written By: Natwatch - Date published: 7:37 am, December 16th, 2016 - 198 comments

The English honeymoon came to an abrupt end yesterday as the new PM copped an earful in Kaikoura. And bad goes to worse as Brownlee loses his rag (again). Key would have handled it better.

Andrew Little: Middle New Zealand needs answers from English

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 12:48 pm, December 13th, 2016 - 205 comments

Andrew Little talks about what a Bill English leadership may look like.  John Key promised to lift up the underclass, to fix the housing crisis, and to close the wage gap with Australia but failed.  Will English be the same?

Govt response to poverty report will tell us all we need to know about Bill English

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 8:04 am, December 13th, 2016 - 264 comments

The 2016 Child Poverty Monitor Technical Report is out today. As usual it paints a bleak picture. What will Bill English’s government do about poverty – evasions, words, or actions? Update: Bill fails.

Out with the old – in with the old

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 10:18 am, December 12th, 2016 - 110 comments

Bye John, out with the old. And in with the old. Shortly the Nats will anoint the chosen one, Bill English. A pre-failed leader. Mr 21%. The greedy double dipper. The boring, conservative choice for a boring conservative party.

The Political Scientist: Is that all there is?

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 8:30 am, December 10th, 2016 - 131 comments

Puddleglum has perhaps the most accurate description of the Key years and equates it as the equivalent of a Big Mac, perfectly engineered but ultimately deeply dissatisfying.

Collins withdraws and pledges to support English

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 1:59 pm, December 8th, 2016 - 162 comments

Judith Collins has withdrawn from the leadership race and pledged support for Bill English.

Three’s a crowd

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 9:28 am, December 7th, 2016 - 24 comments

The policy wonk, the ambitious change-maker, or the no-bullshit bullshitter – the contenders for National Party Prime Minister set out their stalls yesterday with John Campbell. Just like the Kaikoura quake, their pitches exposed some complex fault-lines. It’ll be a long week in politics.

Mr Key’s Achievements

Written By: Ben Clark - Date published: 4:55 pm, December 6th, 2016 - 56 comments

{   }

Key’s 4th term – something doesn’t add up

Written By: Natwatch - Date published: 6:49 am, December 6th, 2016 - 145 comments

Key has long craved a “historic” 4th term. Interviewed on 24 September he was still saying he wanted it, he now claims he had already decided to quit. While rumours are hard to believe, something doesn’t add up here.

Key’s gone …

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 12:59 pm, December 5th, 2016 - 469 comments

John Key has announced that he will be standing down as Prime Minister from December 12, 2016.

A little humour

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 11:23 am, December 4th, 2016 - 13 comments

Labour sticks to the high road

Written By: Anthony R0bins - Date published: 8:44 am, December 3rd, 2016 - 128 comments

As the confused media pile-on to Labour continues, it’s good to hear that the party is planning to stick to the high road.