The most interesting thing so far about Hagers’ Dirty Work book has been revelation of the extent that the Tobacco industry funds the Taxpayers Union and the people operating it. It appears that the organisation should be regarded as an organisation dedicated to killing citizens with tobacco products.
This Tuesday Nicky Hager is releasing a new book. And there are some indications it may be about the role of astroturf organisations in Aotearoa and how they are funded.
Why does our media allow potentially foreign funded polls that are out of kilter with other polling results to affect local political discourse?
Winston Peters has been in this scenario before. The brutal replacement of Jim Bolger as PM in 1997 eventually saw Peters walk away from the coalition. What will happen this time around?
The real affordability crisis lies in the systematic extraction of income from households.
The Taxpayer’s Union campaign against Nicola Willis’s Socialist handling of the economy, complete with novelty fudge has crashed unceremoniously. The sponsors have clearly spoken.
The usual voices have publicly attacked Labour’s proposed Capital Gains Tax using arguments that do not stack up.
National Party Ministers have been goading Labour to share policies for a while now. Why?
It is time to reflect on what happened with the Atlas Network and the Treaty Principles Bill.
What happened to the Curia Market Research suspension? David Farrar responded after RANZ hired an independent sub-committee to investigate complaints about polling integrity
Why corporate fascism may no longer be a distant dream – and how it’s closer than you might think
Six months late and in the middle of the Holiday Period the Tax Payers Union has filed its election year accounts suggesting that it received $2,628,721 in donations that year. And there is no indication of who from.
Unlike two other recent polls the latest Taxpayer’s Union poll reports a surge to Act happening during the time the Treaty Principles Bill was introduced.
The similarities between the Atlas Network modus operandi and our government’s policies appear strident and unsettling.
The media landscape in Aotearoa NZ continues to weaken. In the same week TVNZ announced massive job cuts and further firings to come, Paul Goldsmith rewarded TVNZ Directors.
But can the left learn to avoid the trap of rapid fire – we need the journalists and newsrooms we have left.
Welcome news from yesterday was the request to the Auditor General under the Public Audit Act on the arbitrary and unsupported by evidence decisions on tobacco products by the Customs Minister Casey Costello. As the request stated, Labour’s health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall had reached the limits of the information that she could seek using the Official Information Act.
Casey Costello and the Coalition government have already halved tobacco excise at a cost of up to $216mn. Today RNZ reports there remain more questions on who wrote her Ministerial papers begging for tobacco industry benefits.
It appears that Curia Research has resigned from the professional standards group Research Association of NZ (RANZ).
A track record of deception and pro tobacco industry policies is becoming evident in the Coalition. Casey Costello is at it again, this time quietly halving excise tax for some tobacco products. This is the first time in NZ’s history to have reduced excise on tobacco. We should all ask ‘Why now?’
Trump’s shooting has left the world shocked and bewildered. But what, if anything, does it mean for us here in New Zealand?
With all of the issues about Green party MPs, who have been having issues recently, I was intrigued to run across the article in the Guardian “Reform UK under pressure to prove all its candidates were real people” after the recent election in the UK.
The Electoral Commission has released the major promoters’ electoral returns. These show significant amounts of money being spent on getting Labour unelected but give no detail about how the campaigns were funded.
Attacking leftists attempts to expose the Atlas Network of right-wing think tanks, Chris Trotter offers this gem “Morally speaking, is taking money from oil companies really all that distinguishable from giving money to oil companies every time we fill up our petrol tank?”
National has trashed its comment last terms that lobbyists should not have special access rights by handing out four swipe cards to lobbyists and refusing to say who they are.
In a guest post Seddonville Miner explores links between the Atlas Network and the Taxpayer’s Union.
Recent disclosure of the actions of associate Minister of Health Casey Costello raises the extraordinary possibility that British American Tobacco may be having an undue influence on the setting of the Government’s smoking policies.
A George Monbiot article in the Guardian made me wonder what effect the Atlas Network is having on New Zealand politics through the Taxpayer’s Union. Publicly available information suggests considerable funding is being made available and that the current Government’s priorities are precisely those that the Atlas Network would approve of.
National, which perfected the art of dirty politics, and which has spent the past couple of years being relentlessly negative and which has had its sock puppets attack individual Labour MPs mercilessly is deeply, deeply, deeply upset that the CTU has pointed out to the public what a Christopher Luxon led Government would actually mean.
Nicola Sturgeon’s shock resignation as Scotland’s First Minister was something of a replay of Jacinda Ardern’s resignation. While subject to widespread abuse, both were reluctant to cite this as their main reason for quitting. But the abuse undoubtedly played a major role. But the misogynist trend is endemic and needs to be quelled.
Yesterday on Radio New Zealand’s Political Commentator’s show Bridget Morten said that three waters is a toxic thing for the Government but then declared that her law firm represents a group currently taking the Government to Court over three waters. Should such clearly partisan views be given expression by RNZ?
Two days before what is claimed will be the mother of all protests links between the Groundswell organisation and the Taxpayers Union have been discovered.
It is good to see our comrades in the Taxpayers Union celebrate the glorious Socialist revolution that is currently engulfing Aotearoa.
The Taxpayer’s Union, which claims to be opposed to Government waste, is wasting taxpayer’s resources by lodging a spurious complaint with the Broadcasting Standards Authority against Labour’s free apprenticeship policy.
The Taxpayer’s Union has applied for government support to pay wages during the lockdown.
The right, elements of which have thought the best thing to do to the state is weaken it that badly that they could then drown it in a bathtub, are rethinking and now realise that a well resourced, active and engaged State is actually a life saver.
David Seymour has written a critique of Deborah Russel’s review of the hard right economic tome “Economics in one lesson”. And totally missed the point of what she was saying.
