Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, July 19th, 2011 - 43 comments
Key’s off on holiday again. 5 days of taxpayer-funded travel and the only real meeting will be half an hour with Obama. But first, he’s in LA solely to have dinner with Warners. Value for our money eh? Key’s more excited about standing in the Oval Office so he can pretend to be powerful than achieving anything solid from his time in the US.
Written By: - Date published: 9:16 am, July 18th, 2011 - 41 comments
Written By: - Date published: 10:23 pm, July 17th, 2011 - 102 comments
The Nats can’t tell us how much their asset sales policy will cost in lost dividends and sales costs, yet they’ve magicked up some numbers with all kinds of dodgy assumptions that supposedly show Labour’s tax package doesn’t add up. Well, I suppose they would know something about borrowing for tax cuts but their attacks on Labour aren’t credible.
Written By: - Date published: 4:15 pm, July 16th, 2011 - 113 comments
After two weeks of contradictory, panicked lines from National, the Right’s official critique of Labour’s CGT is “it’s a hodge-podge”. The Right, including Bill English and Don Brash, aren’t saying CGT is bad, they’re saying Labour’s CGT isn’t comprehensive enough. Why, then, don’t they campaign on a more comprehensive one? Maybe they were going to.
Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, July 16th, 2011 - 15 comments
In a comment yesterday on Eddie’s post ‘CGT or asset sales? Which do you prefer?‘, Matthew Hooton wrote “Where do I tick “I want both”?” Except for Nat sycophants, most righties acknowledge the need for a CGT. What should they do? Well, a little game theory shows that such a rightie should vote for a Labour-led government, this one time.
Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, July 15th, 2011 - 179 comments
The media have provided us with five people examples of people who will be affected in different ways by Labour’s tax package. Ordinary families win big and they know it. The vested interests moan and reveal the pure greed that underlies their worldview. Frankly, I think Labour will win support due to both who supports and who opposes its tax policy.
Written By: - Date published: 2:25 pm, July 14th, 2011 - 139 comments
Voters will see Labour oppositions on both sides of the world in a completely new light after this week. Phil Goff and Ed Miliband both took the bold step of taking on hitherto untouchable third-rail issues; capital gains tax in New Zealand and Rupert Murdoch’s pernicious monopoly media influence in England. Both leaders have turned the political landscape upside down and given voters a clear choice between the interests of the many and of the few. Go here for all the details. New Zealand is not for sale – game on for November!
Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, July 14th, 2011 - 107 comments
Generally, no-one likes taxes, but Labour’s polling shows Kiwis are surprisingly receptive to capital gains tax. Head to head with National asset sales plan, the choice was clear: 55% prefer CGT vs 32% privatisation. In a contest of economic plans, Labour wins hands down. Even John Whitehead agrees. All English can do is scaremonger about the 35% debt ceiling.
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, July 14th, 2011 - 84 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Written By: - Date published: 9:27 pm, July 13th, 2011 - 9 comments
When Helen was PM, visitors to Beehive offices had to leave their cellphones in the foyers. I understand it’s still the practice. It’s not because Ministers suspect officials of bugging them. It’s because cellphones can be accessed remotely and used as bugs without owners knowing. A Murdoch-owned Fox channel tells how it’s done. Google tells you where you can buy to spy. It’s not just Ministers – the Engineers Union, which represents journalists, found a paper tapping their phones during negotiations in 2005.
Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, July 12th, 2011 - 14 comments
After coming to office, National cried ‘crisis at ACC’ as an excuse for raising levies, cutting cover, and privatisation. Suddenly, the ‘crisis’ has disappeared and good ol’ National is cutting your ACC levies, back to where they were before National raised them. Now, just forget who put them up in the first place, and tick the blue box in November.
Written By: - Date published: 6:49 am, July 12th, 2011 - 79 comments
Last night, two ministers went head to head calling each other racists but it looked more like two old hobos fighting over a tin of beans. Pathetic, really. Meanwhile, Key has sided with Brash and dismissed the offense many Kiwis feel over the ads by saying he doesn’t “give a toss” about ACT’s racist ads.
Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, July 11th, 2011 - 22 comments
In today’s DomPost Andrea Vance has a tell-some-of-it op-ed piece about her days working the the Scottish edition of the News of the World. In it she says “it was The Guardian that has, rather sanctimoniously, pursued the News of the World.” I’ve been following this story closely and found that put-down offensive. Contrast it with how Rebekah Wade pursued Clare Short (pictured).
Written By: - Date published: 11:15 am, July 11th, 2011 - 18 comments
There were two ways that the Mana vs Maori Party confrontation could have gone. Cooperation could have been could for both, competition will see both diminished. Guess which option the Maori party has chosen…
Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, July 9th, 2011 - 9 comments
At a Downing Street press conference, Cameron said: “The deeper truth is this… because party leaders were so keen to win the support of newspapers we turned a blind eye to the need to get on top of the bad practices.” Cameron said he would have taken Rebekah Brooks’ resignation. Watch this space – others may now be seeking his. Just like Watergate, this story grows legs by the day and is now certain to be long-running. Cameron could well go the way of Nixon for the same reason – cover-up.
Written By: - Date published: 6:14 pm, July 7th, 2011 - 47 comments
The phone-hacking story in England is not only out from under the carpet – it has gone ballistic. Now there are allegations the phones of families of slain soldiers were hacked. The fallout from the scandal is now hitting Murdoch’s pocket. Major advertisers are deserting his papers, his share price is dropping, and his takeover of BSkyB, the big prize, may be under threat. Comeuppance at long last, and where it hurts. Cameron won’t escape either.
Written By: - Date published: 6:03 am, July 7th, 2011 - 153 comments
Labour have started setting out a bold, fair and plausible policy framework for the election. Rumours of their tax policy have generated more interest and excitement than anything the National government has done in the last three wasted years.
Written By: - Date published: 6:12 pm, July 6th, 2011 - 15 comments
Karl du Fresne attacked the general reaction to Alasdair Thompson’s views on women in the workforce in Tuesday’s DomPost. Those outraged were compared to Hitler, female journalists got a spray, as did the”spineless” EMA Board of Directors and “a former Prime Minister who apparently suffers from the delusion that she’s still the Queen Bee”. I don’t know why the DomPost keep him on. I think it’s time whoever’s in charge also got some spine.
Written By: - Date published: 2:10 pm, July 6th, 2011 - 23 comments
The 1,916 special votes got pared to 769. Of which Hone Harawira got 454 and Kelvin Davis got 204. There really isn’t anything in it with a by-election majority of 1117. It will make this a tight contest at election time because Labour will now view this electorate as being quite winnable. IMHO as an long time electorate campaigner, some of the Mana supporters have been over-blowing their result.
Written By: - Date published: 6:06 am, July 6th, 2011 - 330 comments
The buzz around the traps is that Labour will be announcing a capital gains tax next week. The journos are already calling it a bold move and John Key is ranting hysterically. That Labour’s winning the media battle is great but, more importantly, this is a much needed policy: it is fair, it is good for the economy, and it will pay for good policies.
Written By: - Date published: 12:05 pm, July 1st, 2011 - 58 comments
The latest Herald poll shows Labour + Greens at 42.7%, with National + ACT at 53.1% – the gap is down to 10.4% from 16.9% in May. That confirms the trend we’re seeing in the Roy Morgans as well. Interesting to note that the gap is 17% this point before the last election. Continued progress and focus on the big issues will see victory for the Left.
Written By: - Date published: 9:50 am, June 29th, 2011 - 48 comments
According to Audrey Young: “National and Act, the parties that kicked up a stink in Opposition about Labour’s taxpayer-funded election advertising, are engaging in their own taxpayer-funded binge this month”…
Written By: - Date published: 7:34 am, June 28th, 2011 - 15 comments
Labour shouldn’t get distracted trying to stop a few votes going to Mana. (or racing benefit rorting bloggers, for that matter). If the worse thing post-election is needing Mana’s support to govern, Labour would be ecstatic. Concentrate on the real fight: getting back the 100K voters who voted Labour 3 times out of the last 4.
Written By: - Date published: 10:11 pm, June 26th, 2011 - 152 comments
According to our Prime Minister democracy is simply an expensive waste of time. Not surprising as democracy isn’t exactly something this bully government gives a lot of thought to.
Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, June 25th, 2011 - 14 comments
The spotlight was on Christchurch last week, and will be on Te Tai Tokerau over the weekend. Lots of stories are slipping by under the radar. But here are a couple of pieces that deserve further comment.
Written By: - Date published: 8:44 pm, June 24th, 2011 - 31 comments
Fascinating column by Paul Krugman in the NYT. America’s growth is slowing, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernancke has just anounced that he doesn’t understand why the recession is going on so long. Krugman’s focus is on employment, and he says that policy makers are catering almost exclusively to the interests of rentiers — those who derive lots of income from assets, who lent large sums of money in the past, often unwisely, but are now being protected from loss at everyone else’s expense. Sounds familiar here too – tax cuts at the top and asset sales to benefit the NZX.
Written By: - Date published: 10:34 pm, June 22nd, 2011 - 12 comments
The Supreme Court threw out a class action suit against WalMart alleging gender discrimination on a technicality – that the women had not proved that they were a deserving class for the purpose of the law. Reagan-Bush judges Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, Alito and Roberts voted for WalMart; Clinton-Obama judges Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan for the women. This one will be back, that’s for sure.
Written By: - Date published: 2:29 pm, June 22nd, 2011 - 56 comments
3300 Kiwis left for Australia last month, breaking a 32-year-old record. Remember when John Key promised to stop the flow of Kiwis across the Tasman? Well, now it’s a flood…
[and mostly it’s not from Christchurch either]
Written By: - Date published: 7:25 am, June 21st, 2011 - 27 comments
The Roy Morgan Polls are all over the place, at the moment, and the latest one has the Left at the bottom of the roller coaster. In other news, the Readers Digest survey of most trusted individuals, which this year is dominated by scientists!
Written By: - Date published: 12:04 pm, June 18th, 2011 - 59 comments
In which r0b ponders why he blogs, and decides to come out. Very boring and predictable, I promise.
Written By: - Date published: 11:21 am, June 16th, 2011 - 28 comments
National’s election platform is pretty much out. It shows that National is very much dependent on Brand Key. They released the Budget and then the rest of their major policies in rapid-fire succession. This shows National doesn’t believe its policies are vote-winners. They want policy to take a backseat and all the focus on Key’s smile.
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