Written By: - Date published: 11:02 am, July 22nd, 2014 - 35 comments
David Cunliffe has announced Labour’s Regional Development policy today. Labour will work in partnership with regions and put $200 million into a Regional Growth Fund fund to resource regional projects that will create jobs and drive local initiative. Labour’s policy is timely; it offers real hope to the regions, and in the best development tradition of building on local initiative. Update: LGNZ welcomes Labour policy
Written By: - Date published: 9:47 am, July 22nd, 2014 - 104 comments
No Right Turn gets rightfully acerbic about the witless fool “senior” MP in Labour who was trying to sabotage Labour in the Sunday Star Times this weekend, and about the general self-mutilation of Labour by its caucus at present.
Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, July 22nd, 2014 - 30 comments
The overall strength of the status quo bloc at around 54%, and the strength of the change bloc a little under 46%. The picture ain’t pretty.
Written By: - Date published: 6:06 pm, July 21st, 2014 - 110 comments
The Herald is saying some weird things about David Cunliffe and Labour’s Clutha Southland candidate Liz Craig.
Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, July 21st, 2014 - 160 comments
Voter turnout has been falling steadily across the western world in recent decades, and not least in New Zealand. We have a proud record of high turnouts in general elections, but even here, we dipped below 80% in 2008 and fell further to a post-war low of 74.21% in 2011. The problem is even more […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, July 21st, 2014 - 37 comments
Every Sunday morning a group of Labour Activists attend the Avondale Market to hand out literature and talk to people. It is refreshing that ordinary people are not affected by beltway issues and are concerned at the basics such as housing, poverty and education.
Written By: - Date published: 8:22 am, July 20th, 2014 - 172 comments
David Cunliffe is now being criticised for having a short holiday with his family. It is strange that it should be thought of as a bad thing for the leader of the party interested in improving ordinary people’s quality of life to try and get some work life balance.
Written By: - Date published: 9:48 pm, July 18th, 2014 - 5 comments
Over the weekend we learned that police had been juking the stats, recoding burglaries as “incidents” to make themselves and their Minister look good. But its all fine now, supposedly – the police claim they’ve instituted a series of spot audits to ensure it can never happen again. Except when they’re asked for information about these supposed safeguards and whether they’ve uncovered any problems, they suddenly can’t find anything… Sounds like bullshit and spin.
Written By: - Date published: 1:28 pm, July 18th, 2014 - 6 comments
Imperator Fish discovers that the official legal website for law in NZ has been hacked. The law that the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) used to look at complaints about the interception of communications for Kim DotCom, political parties, and anyone that the police deem as being suspicious was obviously incomplete. So the IPCA used some invisible law in their ruling. Who cares what the real law is anyway?
Written By: - Date published: 6:34 pm, July 17th, 2014 - 26 comments
I was uplifted by seeing Team Carmel Sepuloni out campaigning in Henderson today. Marama Davidson has been out on the ground in Otara. The Internet-Mana Party have gone on a Road Trip. There’s been an on-going left campaign in Ohariu…. what are the tales from the left, campaigning on the ground?!
Written By: - Date published: 1:26 pm, July 17th, 2014 - 51 comments
If there is evidence that Key lied about when he first heard of Dotcom, then that strengthens Dotcom’s defence against extradition. He can then rightly say he has not had a fair go; that the parties trying to send him to the States to stand trial do not have clean hands. The potential personal gain for Kim Dotcom is obvious. The effect on the election may not be quite as positive.
Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, July 17th, 2014 - 46 comments
I’m intrigued by Kim Dotcom’s announcement of earth-shattering revelations to be made on 15 September – just 5 days out from the last voting day of this general election.
Written By: - Date published: 11:43 am, July 17th, 2014 - 161 comments
The Roy Morgan and Fairfax/Ipsos polls out overnight are both bad news for the cause of positive change in New Zealand. Labour is below 25% in both polls, which is disaster territory if is solidifies. The potential coalitions of the left look just as bad. This doesn’t look like a change in the left-right split. The effects of the National / NZ Herald /Liu smear campaign feeding through fits the usual polling lag time period of about 4-6 weeks.
Written By: - Date published: 1:47 pm, July 16th, 2014 - 34 comments
Russel Norman has announced a business-friendly policy for a “smart, green” focus on innovation. A move towards a “Green New Deal”, working with the current system, and away from neoliberalism. It won’t dismantle capitalism, but exists within a framework for a fairer NZ.
Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, July 15th, 2014 - 6 comments
The National government’s policy for economic growth has been simple: pump up dairy production, export more low-value milk powder, and keep low-value farmers as the “backbone of the economy”. To achieve this, they have dismantled the protections for and then defiled our fresh water on an industrial scale. The Greens want to reverse that and thereby ensure a long-term future for both our farming and peoples. Updated.
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, July 15th, 2014 - 202 comments
The Herald is reporting that direct political pressure was applied on Immigration NZ to grant Kim Dotcom and his family residence in New Zealand. And the SIS tried to block the application but dropped their objection after being told there was “political pressure”.
Updated with more links
Written By: - Date published: 2:36 pm, July 14th, 2014 - 32 comments
Last week, new information became public about potential stat-juking by our Police. The practice of reclassifying crimes as “incidents” has the effect of artificially reducing the apparent crime rate. This practice occurred mainly in the Counties-Manukau police district, which operates in the electorate of then-Police Minister Judith Collins. That is, of course, troubling on a number of levels.
Updated.
Written By: - Date published: 12:32 pm, July 14th, 2014 - 71 comments
This past week has seen both mainstream media and political blogs of all persuasions, opine with fact-free ranting on the reversal of the burden of proof in sexual offence cases.
A bit of a plea . Sexual Violence is a sensitive issue. The least that ought be done, by those releasing policy around it; the media reporting it; the bloggers opining on it; and us, the individual’s commenting on it; the least we can do is try and make sure we have our facts in order first. Please?
Written By: - Date published: 11:11 am, July 14th, 2014 - 35 comments
I am really sorry to see the return of the Worm this election. It’s bad enough we have way more polling than we need, interfering with democratic process. Now we have even more of the same, with the way the Worm is to be implemented. [Updated]
Written By: - Date published: 8:37 am, July 13th, 2014 - 45 comments
The Herald on Sunday is reporting that South Auckland police have doctored crime statistics for the area by reclassifying burglary offences as less serious offences.
Written By: - Date published: 1:56 pm, July 12th, 2014 - 107 comments
Today the Green Party launched the first of it’s election priorities in Hamilton at 11. 00 am. The focus is on building a cleaner, fairer, smarter New Zealand. The Internet Party is onboard with a new environment policy. There are differences between these 2 parties and Labour on oil and gas exploration. Equality continues to be a key priority for the Green Party. [Updated]
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, July 12th, 2014 - 86 comments
National’s desire of increasing its support among Pasifika is understandable in an MMP world. But John Key’s and National’s selection of socially conservative candidates in South Auckland in an attempt to be attractive to some socially conservative voters is more than a little disingenuous.
Written By: - Date published: 8:21 pm, July 11th, 2014 - 49 comments
If you ever wanted an entertaining, succinct, yet devastating critique of the media handling of Climate Change then John Oliver’s recent attempt from his Last Week Tonight show should be compulsory viewing.
Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, July 11th, 2014 - 48 comments
Reposted from Polity. Here is Vernon Small this morning: The Government rejected plans to include beneficiaries in a package to help families with newborn babies, despite official advice they were the most vulnerable. Budget papers show that last November, Treasury, Inland Revenue and Social Development jointly considered ways to give more help to families after […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, July 11th, 2014 - 14 comments
Rob Salmond presents the David Farrar / Steven Joyce / John Key argument that 2011 non voters are a National-leaning bunch. Then he shows that a better look at their own data undermines their claim. This matters because it helps us understand which bloc has more to gain from voter mobilization efforts in 2014. This means the left has a lot more to gain than the right from mobilization in 2014.
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, July 10th, 2014 - 224 comments
It’s headline news again: Labour is trying to take away men’s rights and exile you all to a desert island. If you believe David Farrar, that is.
Written By: - Date published: 3:33 pm, July 10th, 2014 - 47 comments
Rob Salmond has been looking through the newly released Ministry of Social Development’s Household Incomes Report. It really is invaluable.
Written By: - Date published: 12:17 pm, July 10th, 2014 - 65 comments
Tania Billingsley’s public comments and her suggestion that Murray McCully should resign as Minister of Foreign Affairs are cogent and compelling. For his failure to look after New Zealand’s interests and for his inept handling of issues for Tania he should resign as Minister.
Written By: - Date published: 9:16 am, July 10th, 2014 - 97 comments
Tania Billingsley has waived her right to name suppression in the case against the Malaysian diplomat accused of attempted rape – and a Minister of Foreign Affairs who wants the finger pointed at anyone but him.
She’s spoken to 3rd Degree about it, and I think she’s a big damn hero.
Written By: - Date published: 8:53 pm, July 8th, 2014 - 35 comments
Kiwi voters are going to be offered clear election choices across a wide range of policies that matter. This is clear from Labour’s mini-Manifesto, released at the weekend Congress. As promised Labour’s offerings are positive and forward-looking. Besides education, there are policies on work, economy, schools, children, jobs, homes, environment, democracy, health, living costs and budget – put the commitments together and it’s a recipe for positive change.
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, July 8th, 2014 - 19 comments
The number of reported domestic violence incidents is increasing but amazingly the number of prosecutions is going down at the same time allowing the Government to claim that it is getting on top of crime. And the release of the latest statistics give added support to David Cunliffe’s and Labour’s proposals to treat the issue with urgency.
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