Knee-jerk wins again
Does anyone understand why prisons are so expensive to construct? They’ve got to be secure They’ve got to be safe for the prisoners […]
Social issues
Pigs, kiwis… and a king!
From SAFE: Join Mike King, one of New Zealand’s leading comedians and pig campaigners, launch an exciting new pig-friendly initiative to help end […]
Focussing on the things that matter – to the Aussie banks
What on earth is going on between the National Party and the banks? The week before last Key and English were waxing hot […]
Unedifying
The Herald reports Pita Sharples has backed down on his demand to ‘open’ the universities to Maori. Now he says: “he wants Maori […]
The Daily Refrain takes on Larry Baldock
So. There’s this dude who writes a song a day (weekdays only) and puts it on Youtube. Calls it The Daily Refrain. He’s […]
Who pays for swine flu?
A lot of people (like a million people or more according to the experts) are set to get sick from swine flu or […]
Do citizens-initiated referenda hamper democracy?
It’s hard to argue with the idea of referenda. What could be more democratic than citizens deciding precisely what issues the New Zealand […]
Still voting yes
I fully understand the political reasons for both Key and Goff not voting in the upcoming referendum. Neither want to have an official […]
National still hate women
Despite women being 51% of the population, and it being women who won National the last election, they are still showing their contempt […]
Baldock gets a smacking
The folks at The Yes Vote point to a hilarious exchange this morning between Sean Plunket and Larry Baldock on Morning Report. Challenged […]
‘Crusher’ running scared
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Clayton Cosgrove, but he’s sure got ‘Crusher’ Collins running scared on her cuts to police vehicles. […]
Priorities
Noticed this comment in the Dom this morning [offline] about National’s decision to slash funding for night classes in the Budget: Finance Minister […]
Swine flu information pack
It’s appalling that if you go to the Ministry of Health or Beehive websites there is nothing easy to find about how we […]
Child beating lobby finished
Here’s a tip for the child beaters at Family Fist – if you’re going to whip up a storm of fear and misinformation […]
F*ck tha police…
…that seems to be National’s plan as it moves to cut 10% of the police vehicle fleet (why are so many of National’s […]
Glitch
There has been a domain registrant glitch that has had the server unavailable. Fixed now.
Break the Power of Money.
For some weeks our media has been distracted by various sideshows. Worth, Swineflu, Mt Albert, Flight 447 and of course David Bain, have […]
Class war
One of the particularly unpleasant parts of the last budget was the cutting of funding for night school classes in conjunction with the […]
Pontius John
How extraordinary of John Key to align himself with western history’s most notorious coward in his statement that he had “washed his hands” […]
Nats slash education
Did anyone else notice that for all this supposed government waste that National was going to get rid of it made only $500 […]
Cameron Slater gets it wrong
Cameron Slater (WhaleOil) gets it wrong again in his post about me today. On the upside he managed to write his post today […]
A sign of things to come
Boniface hits the mark
From Linley Boniface in the Dom 0n Monday: …My kids love hearing about the teacher who used to soak his strap in warm […]
Honest? John?
Richard Long, Fairfax’s in-house media adviser to the National Party, recycles an old line in today’s DomPost. Today it’s “honest John”. Two years […]
Audrey Young: Goff right, Key wrong
The Herald asked this morning whose word was more credible on the Worth issue, John Key or Phil Goff. Their political editor Audrey […]
It’s called sovereignty, stupid!
The Minister of Agriculture David Carter really outdid himself in the house last week. First he completely dodged and didn’t address the question […]
Rhetoric & Reality 3: Crime
One of the most tedious and predictable right wing electoral tactics is to try and whip up a frenzy of fear about crime, […]
Should Key have appointed Worth at all?
On Q+A this morning, Phil Goff was asked by Paul Holmes for more detail on why John Key wasn’t surprised when he took […]
Wait, didn’t he say ‘women’?
There’s still a lot of confusion on the Right, in particular, about the sequence of events in the Worth saga, so I’ve tried […]
Why didn’t Goff out Worth earlier?
That’s the right-wing bloggers’ spin. It’s weak. By far the most interesting thing that emerged from this morning’s exchanges on the wireless was […]
Crying wolf?
From The Independent: No lasting harm from airport credit downgrade. Analysts and management of Auckland International Airport are unconcerned at Standard & Poor’s […]
Pork Board desperation and farm tour success
Animal Liberation Aotearoa (ALA) have for the past year or so been running a series of farm tours, taking members of the public onto factory farms to see for themselves how they work. They do these openly and in broad daylight, accepting the possible risk of minor criminal charges that may result (though thus far none have).
Question time
John Key’s making a real hash of this latest Worth scandal. There was the secretive way he went about things yesterday, which is […]
If you’re gonna cut, make it clean
How titillating. Worth has resigned and he won’t say why. ‘Personal reasons’ eh? Heard that one before. Key’s not talking either. He describes […]
Three down
Six months in and John Key has broken three of his eleven “personal guarantees”. Impressive. Click on the image for full size.
Step-dad state gets it right
The principle of liberalism is that there should be no restriction on the freedoms of the individual except to realise a greater benefit […]