Written By: - Date published: 1:53 pm, September 23rd, 2008 - 33 comments
The PSA’s campaign looks to get past National’s simplistic ‘tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts’ mantra and ask voters to consider what they would have to give up to get larger tax cuts. (full size) Great stuff. Hopefully, they won’t be limiting this campaign to internet and magazine ads. Every kiwi family should get this […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, September 23rd, 2008 - 41 comments
Anyone remember back in July Key accused Clark of misleading the house over his involvement in Tranzrail and asked for an apology? Just in case you don’t here’s what John Key said to TV3 said at the time: “Can I assure her that neither I, nor my family trust, was an owner of shares in […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, September 23rd, 2008 - 28 comments
John Key on August 30 “The appointment of a minister to Cabinet has to be done on the basis that as Prime Minister I can look that person in the eye and have confidence that I can rely on their word.” Also, I know it’s small change to Key but to those of us who aren’t […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:47 pm, September 22nd, 2008 - 12 comments
Dirty politics and personal attacks. They’re two of the phrases of the campaign so far. The Sunday Star Times took the time to investigate what dirty tricks might mean. According to Wanganui mayor and former National MP Michael Laws: “A dirty trick is a covert act “that you would be embarrassed about if you were exposed”. When he was […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:43 pm, September 22nd, 2008 - 47 comments
It’s really easy to present misleading statistics. David Farrar shows how it’s done with a post on migration today. Note how his figures only go back to 2003. Why is that? Well, it just so happens that 2003 was the last low point in the migration cycle. So, if you show just the last five […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, September 22nd, 2008 - 16 comments
We’re keen to help you get active this election campaign. That’s why we’ve launched Campaign Hub 2008 and its Facebook group to give you info, access to materials, and tips on campaigning. It’s great to see so many people have downloaded leaflets and posters from the Hub or clicked through to Vote With Both Eyes […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:52 pm, September 19th, 2008 - 93 comments
If the latest Roy Morgan poll is to be believed, John Key’s big gamble of ruling Winston Peters out of any future coalition may well turn out to be one of the stupidest plays in New Zealand’s political history. According to the poll, NZ First has increased its hypothetical share of the vote to 5%, […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, September 19th, 2008 - 164 comments
From Newzblog: “Local activist James Sleep was today exercising his democratic right to protest when he was approached by an entourage of 4WDs carrying Wairapara MP John Hayes and John Key. Sleep attempted to get out of the way however he soon found himself being propelled backwards by the force of Hayes’ car. The car […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, September 18th, 2008 - 33 comments
Under the headline “National MP ‘least prefered’ in own website opinion poll” the Kapiti News reports that Nathan Guy trails Darren Hughes 5% to 95% in his own Facebook poll. Comments on the poll include: I don’t trust Nathan Guy to work properly for all the people of Kapiti and Horowhenua. I’ve heard nothing from […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, September 18th, 2008 - 75 comments
Work rights should be a big issue this election. National is proposing to strip workers of their rights to undermine wage increases. The Greens’ work rights policy, on the other hand, rocks. – Lift the minimum wage from $12 an hour to $15 an hour immediately. That will restore the minimum wage relative to the […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:45 am, September 18th, 2008 - 158 comments
Helen Clark made foreign policy judgement a campaign issue today when she told a Grey Power meeting that if New Zealand had invaded Iraq with the US as John Key wanted we would have lost up to 60 soldiers*. Through a spokesman, John Key said “the claim of 60 dead is hysterical and desperate”. I […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:26 am, September 17th, 2008 - 39 comments
I’ve just come across Labour’s tragic new campaign website, Labour08.co.nz, and I’m of the firm opinion that someone needs to get their shit together very quickly. Let’s recap here. Labour, according to the polls, is anywhere from 6 to 18 points behind National. Even accounting for the quirks of MMP it’ll be a bloody hard […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, September 17th, 2008 - 70 comments
Yesterday, John Key “attacked Labour’s economic record, which he said amounted to overtaxing voters so it could put money into its pet projects” So, what are these ‘pet projects’ and which of them National would cancel? Well, Labour’s major spending projects have been increasing the health budget, spending more on transport (including roads, unfortunately), more […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, September 17th, 2008 - 46 comments
I see the National billboard on the corner of Dixon and Victoria in Wellington is already down. Are they pulling them all because they have been unanimously ridiculed or were the hilarious extra comments* that kept appearing on this one making it a liability? Either way, perhaps they will consider replacing it with something like […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:26 pm, September 16th, 2008 - 12 comments
Some commentators have pondered whether an election in NZ so close to the election in the States should be a concern for Labour. Helen Clark has already said: “… Obviously we all take a great interest in the American election but our election is what determines our immediate future”. But there’s also an upside in […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, September 16th, 2008 - 22 comments
Bill English has confirmed that National still intends to give the average worker a $50 tax cut. That’s $18 a week more than they will get in Labour’s tax cuts after 2011. If National’s would increase the cut for all taxpayers by around $18 a week it would cost nearly $3 billion a year. In […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, September 16th, 2008 - 53 comments
Cameron Slater, aka Whaleoil, is a nasty piece of work. If you’re a leftie and you get into the media, he’ll dig whatever dirt he can find on you from the ‘net and what he can’t find he’ll make up in an attempt to intimidate you and others into silence. But the intertubes flow both […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:29 am, September 16th, 2008 - 64 comments
When John Key responded to the PM’s announcement of the election date on Friday he stated: This election is not about the past. It’s not about the old political battles of the past 20 or 30 years. And I got to thinking, what exactly are these “old political battles of the past 20 or 30 […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:50 pm, September 15th, 2008 - 46 comments
Prime is running a series of interviews every Sunday until the election with the leader of each party in Parliament, starting with Rodney Hide last night. It was surprisingly good. Hosted by Bill Ralston with a panel of Barry Soper, Audrey Young, and Colin Espiner, some good questions were asked and Hide himself was good […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:16 pm, September 15th, 2008 - 30 comments
08 wire are staying on the case – coming to a screen near you:
Written By: - Date published: 12:40 pm, September 15th, 2008 - 24 comments
It’s an old saw among those who think knee-jerk cynicism is a replacement for healthy skepticism that politicians always break their promises. That’s challenged by an interesting study out of Canterbury University about whether governments keep their election promises. In the 11 terms from 1972 to 2005, each government kept at least half its election […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, September 15th, 2008 - 79 comments
I just have to say, it’s incredibly disappointing that a simple prank, a google bomb, gets three newspaper articles and coverage on TV3 and when talkback radio suggests The Standard was tipped off on the election date that is an issue worth following up with the PM. But when John Key is quoted in a […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:02 pm, September 14th, 2008 - 32 comments
Agenda this morning showed, in several ways, that if you want to ask difficult questions, you have to know your topic. Guyon Espiner gave a comprehensive lesson in the dangers of only knowing the media hype on a topic, not the actual detail. Defence Minister Phil Goff, frankly, made mince meat of Guyon’s attempts to […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:13 pm, September 13th, 2008 - 69 comments
There’s an important difference between negative campaigning and dirty tricks but it already seems the two are getting confused in the media. Negative campaigning is saying bad things about your opponent that are at least arguably true (eg Clark saying Key was like a tourist at the South Auckland markets). Dirty campaigning is knowingly telling […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:57 am, September 12th, 2008 - 75 comments
So, Helen Clark is expected to announce the election date at 12.30. $20 says it’s November 8. UPDATE: The 8th it is. I’ll be collecting my $20 off each of you in due course. Full text of the speech over the break: PM’s announcement on the 2008 General Election I have called this press conference […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, September 12th, 2008 - 14 comments
On Sunday, John Key, apparently off-the-cuff, announced he would dismantle the Families Commission and give the money to church groups, who just happened to be the people he was speaking to at the time. Then, he had to speak to UnitedFuture Leader Peter Dunne. The Families Commission is his baby and Key will probably need […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:37 pm, September 11th, 2008 - 69 comments
Helena Catt, head of the Electoral Commission, says the EFA has had a ‘chilling effect’ on democratic participation. I’m convinced that that is a foolish position based on a belief that ‘democratic participation’ is rich lobby groups paying for ads and billboards, trying to market to us. What the EFA has actually done is democratise […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:20 pm, September 10th, 2008 - 10 comments
Having just read the National health policy and background paper released by Labour, a few things stand out to me. 1) There is no commitment to primary health-care. In fact, in 25 pages all it says is ‘we’ll do what’s already happening but we’ll re-name PHOs ‘Family Health Centres’, got ‘family’ in the name, don’t […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:02 pm, September 10th, 2008 - 27 comments
An interesting interview between John Key and Wammo today. He starts out saying Labour is spending all its time talking about Owen Glenn and Peters whereas he wants to concerntrate on what matters. Funny, because he then spends the rest of the interview turning the topic back to that issue whenever possible and the only […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:27 pm, September 10th, 2008 - 43 comments
For the last several weeks the EPMU has had to weather an extraordinary series of attacks from ACT, ACT candidate and EPMU employee Shawn Tan, and right-wing activist/Herald journalist Lincoln Tan. The union has been accused of breaching Tan’s human rights and racism but it has had to respond to these attacks with one hand […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, September 10th, 2008 - 152 comments
Winston Peters will be wondering why he has let his political legacy be destroyed by not simply declaring donations that came from legal sources and being open in his role in soliciting them. All those MPs and other hangers-on who have ridden on the coat-tails of one of New Zealand’s most successful politicians* must be […]
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