Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, June 19th, 2014 - 280 comments
Yesterday wasn’t a good day for Labour. But it’s not the end of the world – because we know how this game goes.
Written By: - Date published: 7:21 am, June 19th, 2014 - 57 comments
Stand up: fight back: We know what we are up against. We’ve seen the depth of the negative, right wing campaigning. NZ wants and needs better politics, and a more inclusive society.
Written By: - Date published: 8:46 pm, June 18th, 2014 - 222 comments
The weak and transparent smear attempt from National says more about them than David Cunliffe.
Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, June 18th, 2014 - 9 comments
Lincoln Kidd was killed in a forest just before Christmas last year. He was 20. Rebecca Macfie wrote powerfully about him and his family in this Listener article. The new health and safety organisation Worksafe had six months to press charges in relation to this workplace deaths and as we know of the 900 serious harm […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:50 pm, June 18th, 2014 - 324 comments
It is a damn form letter written to immigration by electorate offices every day. Prepared by electorate office staff. Signed in a stack by the MP. Requesting information about a constituent case or even a drop-in to the office. I’ve seen many of these per day going on in a neighbouring electorate office. Their files are strewn all over immense file directories. It is seldom that the MPs meet with the people until after the information is received from immigration. It isn’t “advocacy”. It is just dumpster diving for crap by National’s researchers.
Written By: - Date published: 3:36 pm, June 18th, 2014 - 74 comments
So apparently forgetting about signing a form letter for a constituent 11 years ago is a resignable offence now.
Update: Key memory lapses
Written By: - Date published: 7:18 pm, June 17th, 2014 - 8 comments
This site frequently has opinions from authors and comments promoting promoting political positions and telling people who they should vote for or not vote for, and why. I’ve been making the site conformant to the rules about 3rd party promoters. You have a few days to comment on that before I start treating nuisance complaints as being a reason to get banned from commenting. Speak now or hold your peace until after the election.
😈
Written By: - Date published: 4:21 pm, June 17th, 2014 - 86 comments
We allow new candidates for left parties to post here, usually just as guest posts because they aren’t bloggers (and unused to the medium). However James Dann from the blog Rebuilding Christchurch has been writing some excellent posts about that city and its travails during the rebuild. So we’ve decided to give him a author login because for years we have been longing for a author who is in and who writes about Christchurch.
Written By: - Date published: 3:14 pm, June 17th, 2014 - 60 comments
Rob Salmond at Polity looks at the Herald poll published this morning and looks at what ground the left has to make up. Over recent polls the right vote appears to have been consolidating more and more strongly behind National over the course of this year. The formation of the Internet Mana Party doesn’t appear to have made much impact on their combined vote. Also the various poll of polls corrected for known biases and looking at probably seat allocations don’t look good either. Some work for the progressive parties to make up over the next 95 days.
Written By: - Date published: 2:51 pm, June 17th, 2014 - 4 comments
Police and security forces often seem to consider themselves to be beyond the law. Their propensity towards excessive surveillance of people who are following peaceful and legal paths towards societal change without any evidence is rather legendary amongst activists on the left. The impression that most activists have is that some police just don’t like their politics. However surveillance of a councillor in the UK after they have been elected and while they are monitoring police activities as part of their job does mark a new low.
Written By: - Date published: 11:35 am, June 17th, 2014 - 202 comments
Labour has released its Kiwisaver policy. Kiwisaver will now be universal for all workers except those earning less than a to be set level. Contributions will be gradually increased. The $1,000 Kick-start and government contribution of up to $521 a year will be retained and will apply to all new enrollments
Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, June 15th, 2014 - 253 comments
Al Jazeera outlines the dubious ethics of Goldman Sachs and the oligarchy it supports. They don’t give a shit about the lives they damage, or the resulting increases in inequality. The Nation interviews call for increasing public pressure on politicians to tackle NZ’s appalling child poverty.
Written By: - Date published: 3:48 pm, June 13th, 2014 - 84 comments
The latest Conservative poster has a familiar feel to it.
Written By: - Date published: 2:50 pm, June 13th, 2014 - 40 comments
Rob Salmond at Polity on what has landed in his mail box paid for by your GST and also close to the wrong side the permissible limits of Parliamentary Services funds. Or perhaps this is something for “NZ Taxpayers Union” to moan about wasting taxpayers money with. They won’t of course because they seem to be good little front organisation for Act and Jordan Williams appears to have about as much independence as their beloved slaves. But if you received one, then a complaint seems in order.
Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, June 12th, 2014 - 204 comments
Four alleged murders out west in the past month have caused a great deal of soul searching. What is going wrong? What can we do to prevent any further tragic loss of life?
Written By: - Date published: 4:11 pm, June 11th, 2014 - 37 comments
Writing in the Herald, Fran O’Sullivan tells us what we all knew: that political donors have expectations, and want favours in exchange for their cash. She’s too polite (and Establishment) to call it corruption, but that’s what it is. Its time we forced parties to do so as well. Transparent public funding if required. If the choice is spending public money or permitting corruption, the choice is pretty clear.
Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, June 11th, 2014 - 78 comments
Classroom teachers, the New Zealand Educational Institute, the New Zealand Principal’s Federation and education academics have all strongly rejected the Government’s proposed $359 million Investment into Education Success (IES). All believe that this substantial amount of money will not produce the results that the Education Minister claims and would be better spent elsewhere.
Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, June 11th, 2014 - 70 comments
Five years after making cuts to the training incentive allowance for solo parents wanting to educate themselves National is moving to provide some support and now realises that it makes long term sense to invest in education for solo parents. Could it be there is an election around the corner and National realises that it is vulnerable on issues relating to poverty and inequality?
Written By: - Date published: 1:34 pm, June 9th, 2014 - 34 comments
Yesterday TV3 on the Nation hosted a debate between the candidates for the Epsom seat. Unbelievably National’s Paul Goldsmith did not show up. Labour’s Michael Wood produced a bag of wholemeal flour and has promised to take this bag to every public event and to put it where Goldsmith should be every time he does not show up. I suspect we are going to see this particular bag of flour a lot …
Written By: - Date published: 12:56 pm, June 9th, 2014 - 62 comments
The government has been stripped of its legislative majority and its policy programme, especially employment relations “reform”, is now in tatters. Now that Banks has going, we are seeing an extensive rewriting of history by the National government. Kind of pathetic really.
Written By: - Date published: 9:24 am, June 9th, 2014 - 51 comments
David Cunliffe badly needs a new stump speech. On Thursday in Whanganui I heard him depress a large and sympathetic audience for ten minutes with tales of national woe, then promise a positive campaign but give no details. It is good to know that a positive campaign is proposed. Labour has promised an economic upgrade; it also needs a communications upgrade, and besides being positive it must be relevant. That could shift the polls.
Written By: - Date published: 6:23 pm, June 8th, 2014 - 108 comments
John Banks has announced his resignation from Parliament effective from this Friday …
Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, June 8th, 2014 - 93 comments
Banks look very likely to be gone by Monday. But, some journalists are going to bat for John Banks, claiming he hasn’t really done anything wrong with respect to the verdict of guilty for filing a false election funding return. They are ignoring the facts of the case, and trying to rewrite history. [Update: Banks to resign]
Written By: - Date published: 10:20 pm, June 7th, 2014 - 8 comments
As a senior member of the New Zealand Police, I would like to respond to allegations that the police were remiss in not prosecuting ACT Party MP the Hon John Banks. There is no police corruption here. We may have been disgracefully, eye-wateringly incompetent, but we are not dirty. Now please move along, as we wish to put this entire incident behind us as quickly as we can, before too many questions are asked.
Written By: - Date published: 8:32 pm, June 7th, 2014 - 220 comments
Nate Silver (The Signal and the Noise – the art and science of prediction) uses an old idea to distinguish pundits as hedgehogs or foxes. Originating with Archilochus through Isaiah Berlin to it can be summed up as “the fox knows many little things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” The test for hedgehogs is “Do your predictions improve when you have more information?” Foxes do – hedgehogs’ don’t. The polls should be a wake-up call for Labour.
Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, June 7th, 2014 - 47 comments
Earlier this week the latest Roy Morgan poll came out. It was not good news for the left, with National up well over 50% and the Labour/Greens combination languishing below 40%. It is after the Budget and ended before the Banks stuff. Most is probably the post-budget spike. But the government parties are in a lot worse position than they were before the 2011 election.
Written By: - Date published: 8:54 am, June 7th, 2014 - 104 comments
The John Banks scenario must have the Government scratching its head wondering what to do. If he fails to be discharged without conviction a by election will need to be called and can only be avoided if Parliament is reconvened and a 75% majority agrees that one not be called. The imagery of this occurring is something I am sure National wants to avoid.
Written By: - Date published: 8:06 pm, June 6th, 2014 - 76 comments
The names of 20 short listed Internet Party candidates have been published. The list has a very fresh, diverse, youthful, talented and energetic feel to it. I would need more informaton in order to judge who will be the most effective politicians.
Written By: - Date published: 3:08 pm, June 6th, 2014 - 45 comments
In Kiwiblog this morning, David Farrar appeared to be running a 9th floor pre-pump for John Banks to resign. But I was rather incredulous when I read this “I don’t think the Judge has actually helped the Government by delaying the decision on entering a conviction. Now that it is the Judge’s role to care about the impact on the Government.”. Huh? DPF badly needs to go back to do some adult education. Perhaps to night school?
Written By: - Date published: 12:19 pm, June 6th, 2014 - 7 comments
Meet Australia’s President of the United States, Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the instigator of a wink-related scandal. He sometimes puts his foot in his mouth and other times chooses to say nothing at all. 665,777 page views.
Written By: - Date published: 12:19 pm, June 6th, 2014 - 216 comments
Removing our absurd thirty-year-old abortion law, which effectively requires women to declare themselves mentally ill to access a basic medical procedure is great. But it also addresses availability, requiring medical professionals who object to abortion to provide an effective referral, and ensuring that women don’t have to travel hundreds of kilometres for a basic medical procedure.
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