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Boots Theory: Creepy behaviour from David Farrar

Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, September 27th, 2014 - 78 comments

David Farrar continues the Dirty Politics strategy of trying to intimidate critics of the government into silence.

What will Kim Dotcom do next?

Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, September 27th, 2014 - 173 comments

Nice to see one Journalist speaking up about National’s vicious personal attacks on Kim Dotcom. What will Dotcom do next? My guess is that he will stay out of NZ politics from now on.

Local Bodies: Greens Immediately Become the Opposition.

Written By: - Date published: 7:16 am, September 27th, 2014 - 63 comments

bspout at Local Bodies was well up on the Greens list, but as the Greens only got 10%, he didn’t get into parliament. But as he says, with Labour navel gazing and NZ First lacking experience, the greens are currently the only effective opposition at present.

I disagree

Written By: - Date published: 1:53 pm, September 26th, 2014 - 112 comments

With Lynn, which according to the trolls should see me banned 😈

I think the Labour results show voters understand MMP, not that Labour doesn’t.

Labour obviously never worked out MMP

Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, September 26th, 2014 - 104 comments

Perhaps it is time for activists to have two parties. The one that specialises in electorates and the one that focuses on party vote. Because it is becoming evident that Labour is unlikely to ever manage to make the transition to being a MMP party. Their MPs clearly don’t care for the party or the brand.

The last five days

Written By: - Date published: 5:53 pm, September 25th, 2014 - 63 comments

An accident… Then an odd thing starts to happen. Instead of helping the survivors and securing the scene, the rescue crew start fighting amongst themselves. How did the crash happen? Was it was the driver’s fault? What was the main cause of the accident?

Health service funding

Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, September 25th, 2014 - 62 comments

The Nats are steadily cutting funding (in real terms) to health (and other sectors). Today, yet another doctor broke. Welcome to the brighter future.

WANTED: new ideas on child poverty

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, September 24th, 2014 - 88 comments

It’s great to see John Key taking a sudden interest in addressing child poverty in New Zealand. But why the change of heart?

No rush to judgment

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 pm, September 23rd, 2014 - 146 comments

It would appear that the Labour caucus has decided to take its time to fully consider all implications of what was a massive defeat before proceeding to decide questions of leadership. I think that is wise – we have to get the Labour horse in proper shape for the next race before we worry about the jockey.

Time to say thanks

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 pm, September 23rd, 2014 - 14 comments

A word of thanks to our departing Members of Parliament – Hon Maryan Street, Moana Mackey, Raymond Huo and Carol Beaumont. All those who put themselves forward to serve our cause in Parliament deserve our sincerest and most heartfelt thanks. Their life  becomes an open book, their time is  no longer their own, and the verdict of the electorate can be cruel for those on the list. Thanks to all for your commitment and contribution to Labour.

The Election That Left One Third of Us Behind

Written By: - Date published: 5:32 pm, September 23rd, 2014 - 171 comments

No one should begrudge John Key and the National party the right to celebrate an impressive election victory. It is little consolation to those who opposed them that the win is very much a personal triumph for the Prime Minister rather than for the party and government he leads. As the tumult and the shouting […]

Labour’s leadership

Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, September 23rd, 2014 - 216 comments

David Cunliffe has just announced that he will seek to continue as leader of the Labour Party and will let the party decide.  A contest for the leadership is almost inevitable.

Clean it up

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, September 23rd, 2014 - 70 comments

Action Station has a full page ad in today’s NZ Herald, asking to clean up dirty politics. Dirty Politics is not any isolated attack politics or criticism of those in power.  It is a relentless two track strategy, an orchestrated smear machine, aimed at moving politics rightwards & disengaging (left wing) voters. Update: Hager comments on the election.

Our children in Wellington

Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, September 23rd, 2014 - 282 comments

I’m pretty sure that David Cunliffe would win a members and affiliates vote. So suck it up MPs, stop playing your silly caucus games and do some frigging work this term rather than the self-indulgent posturing you wasted time with last term. We have to start building campaigning machinery as soon as possible. You are getting in the way.

Lessons

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, September 22nd, 2014 - 482 comments

Greetings from the sanity of Dunedin North. Every pundit and their dog is opining on the lessons of Saturday, so I might as well have a go too.

Psephology-o-rama: Hangover nerdery edition

Written By: - Date published: 1:51 pm, September 21st, 2014 - 23 comments

Now that the battle for election night ratings is over for another three years, here is a table for your entrail-reading pleasure showing the three biggest parties’ vote shares in a few different geographic / demographic segments.

Media don’t believe their own polls

Written By: - Date published: 11:14 am, September 21st, 2014 - 62 comments

What strikes me now is the media commentators saying it was “a surprising result”. Well, if we were to believe all the polls, then this result is not a surprise. This tells us that the media don’t believe their own polls.

Three more years

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, September 21st, 2014 - 141 comments

This election result is not the end of the world for me – because I am very, very lucky.

Next time …

Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, September 21st, 2014 - 174 comments

National has an outright majority and the left has gone backwards.  Some thoughts on what may have happened.

Green Watch

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 pm, September 20th, 2014 - 43 comments

I am hoping for a good proportion of the vote for the Green Party.  They got !!% of the vote in 2011, resulting in them having 14 MPs. Updated

Seat watch – Te Tai Tokerau

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 pm, September 20th, 2014 - 65 comments

Will Hone hang on and bring in Internet Mana MPs with him?  The polls suggest that the race with Kelvin Davis is neck and neck although Hone has this habit of doing far better than the landline polls would suggest. Updated: Kelvin Davis ahead but it was won by specials last time.

Seat watch – Ohariu

Written By: - Date published: 7:10 pm, September 20th, 2014 - 24 comments

Will Peter Dunne continue as the MP for Ohariu and sole United Future MP or will Labour’s Virginia Andersen prevail?

Updated: Looks like Peter Dunne is back again.

Seat Watch – Epsom

Written By: - Date published: 7:05 pm, September 20th, 2014 - 11 comments

Who will win Epsom? Will enough people rebel at John Key’s instruction to vote for the ACT candidate or will ACT’s extreme policies and Jaime Whyte’s weirdness mean that the people of Epsom will rebel and vote for Paul Goldsmith? Updated: Early, but the Act guy ahead.

From Moira

Written By: - Date published: 7:03 pm, September 20th, 2014 - 4 comments

Moira Coatsworth, Labour Party President, sent this notice out to the members, supporters and volunteers.

Election watch 2014

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 pm, September 20th, 2014 - 695 comments

I hear there was an election today.  What happened?

21:45: National will probably be easily able to form a coalition with their two puppet parties and maybe the Maori party. Conservatives out.

The election counting schedule.

Written By: - Date published: 7:01 pm, September 20th, 2014 - 1 comment

The final tally for advance voting is 717,579. This is somewhat larger than 334,558 in 2011. Impressive. The electoral commission has a schedule published for tonight and later for the count.

Political advertising on election day

Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, September 20th, 2014 - 3 comments

I’m getting scattered reports and images of political advertising popping up on various websites. They seem to look like accidents more than a deliberate strategy.
Updated: In other news blogger does a good selfie…
Updated 1300: NZ Herald mobile site still has political ads popping up periodically.
Updated 1550: Quinovic Mt Eden have clearly violated electoral law with a mailout.

Defamation on the net

Written By: - Date published: 10:28 am, September 20th, 2014 - Comments Off on Defamation on the net

Stephen Price wrote on an interesting Appeal court decision that relates to blogging and defamation. The decision seems to leave a considerable amount of room for lawyers to continue to explore. But it effectively lays out some guidelines about site responsibilities.

Have a happy and legal election day

Written By: - Date published: 8:05 pm, September 19th, 2014 - 17 comments

At 12pm tonight, the comments section on this site will (largely) stop accepting comments. I will (probably) be putting up a post tomorrow morning to accept, store and act on private electoral complaints from anywhere around the country. Take a snap of violations and log it. Lets keep the buggers honest. Updated.

Check you are enrolled – last chance

Written By: - Date published: 1:13 pm, September 19th, 2014 - 9 comments

You can’t enrol to vote tomorrow. If you haven’t early voted, don’t have a vote pack, and if you don’t show up on the electronic roll and you are in anyway unsure, then your best bet is to head to your local post shop, and fill in and give them an enrolment form – BEFORE the post shop closes.

The importance of voting from a young woman’s perspective

Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, September 19th, 2014 - 7 comments

A guest post from a young woman who cast her vote today.