Written By: - Date published: 3:10 pm, October 2nd, 2014 - 7 comments
It’s the conference season in Britain. According to the Guardian, audio specialist Cassetteboy has rearranged cuts from David Cameron’s Conservative conference speeches to Eminem’s 2002 track Lose Yourself. Cameron can be heard rhyming “I’m hardcore and I know the score” with “I am disgusted by the poor” followed by “I’ve made sure we’re ready for class war.”
Written By: - Date published: 4:03 pm, September 29th, 2014 - 61 comments
Trevor Mallard is known for frequent intervention with points of order in Parliament at Question Time. His latest intervention however notified to the Herald to refuse caucus discipline is out of order. The whip’s request to caucus members to refrain from expressing their personal views at this stage of the process is entirely reasonable. No doubt at some time they will all be let off the leash, but right now unity and solidarity is far more important.
Written By: - Date published: 2:01 pm, September 29th, 2014 - 75 comments
Some thoughts from a different angle on ‘what went wrong’, or maybe just saying stuff along the lines of what plenty of other people are thinking
Written By: - Date published: 10:53 am, September 28th, 2014 - 30 comments
In the spirit of new badly needed Left Unity. The Left opposition needs to start setting the agenda. First “feed the kids” needs to be picked up. Second the corporate welfare for Solid Energy needs a lot of scrutiny. So does the the state funding of oil exploration.
Written By: - Date published: 9:01 am, September 28th, 2014 - 44 comments
MP for Dunedin North David Clark has been reflecting on the very successful result in the electorate.
Written By: - Date published: 1:12 pm, September 27th, 2014 - 280 comments
Labour’s Council is currently meeting. David Cunliffe is expected to make a statement today at 2:30. It will be covered live by RNZ, 3 News and other outlets. Update: David Cunliffe has announced his resignation from the leader’s position but will contest the vacant leadership. Get ready for a leadership contest …
Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, September 27th, 2014 - 173 comments
Nice to see one Journalist speaking up about National’s vicious personal attacks on Kim Dotcom. What will Dotcom do next? My guess is that he will stay out of NZ politics from now on.
Written By: - Date published: 7:16 am, September 27th, 2014 - 63 comments
bspout at Local Bodies was well up on the Greens list, but as the Greens only got 10%, he didn’t get into parliament. But as he says, with Labour navel gazing and NZ First lacking experience, the greens are currently the only effective opposition at present.
Written By: - Date published: 1:53 pm, September 26th, 2014 - 112 comments
With Lynn, which according to the trolls should see me banned 😈
I think the Labour results show voters understand MMP, not that Labour doesn’t.
Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, September 26th, 2014 - 104 comments
Perhaps it is time for activists to have two parties. The one that specialises in electorates and the one that focuses on party vote. Because it is becoming evident that Labour is unlikely to ever manage to make the transition to being a MMP party. Their MPs clearly don’t care for the party or the brand.
Written By: - Date published: 5:53 pm, September 25th, 2014 - 63 comments
An accident… Then an odd thing starts to happen. Instead of helping the survivors and securing the scene, the rescue crew start fighting amongst themselves. How did the crash happen? Was it was the driver’s fault? What was the main cause of the accident?
Written By: - Date published: 10:31 pm, September 23rd, 2014 - 146 comments
It would appear that the Labour caucus has decided to take its time to fully consider all implications of what was a massive defeat before proceeding to decide questions of leadership. I think that is wise – we have to get the Labour horse in proper shape for the next race before we worry about the jockey.
Written By: - Date published: 8:24 pm, September 23rd, 2014 - 14 comments
A word of thanks to our departing Members of Parliament – Hon Maryan Street, Moana Mackey, Raymond Huo and Carol Beaumont. All those who put themselves forward to serve our cause in Parliament deserve our sincerest and most heartfelt thanks. Their life becomes an open book, their time is no longer their own, and the verdict of the electorate can be cruel for those on the list. Thanks to all for your commitment and contribution to Labour.
Written By: - Date published: 5:32 pm, September 23rd, 2014 - 171 comments
No one should begrudge John Key and the National party the right to celebrate an impressive election victory. It is little consolation to those who opposed them that the win is very much a personal triumph for the Prime Minister rather than for the party and government he leads. As the tumult and the shouting […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, September 23rd, 2014 - 216 comments
David Cunliffe has just announced that he will seek to continue as leader of the Labour Party and will let the party decide. A contest for the leadership is almost inevitable.
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, September 23rd, 2014 - 70 comments
Action Station has a full page ad in today’s NZ Herald, asking to clean up dirty politics. Dirty Politics is not any isolated attack politics or criticism of those in power. It is a relentless two track strategy, an orchestrated smear machine, aimed at moving politics rightwards & disengaging (left wing) voters. Update: Hager comments on the election.
Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, September 23rd, 2014 - 282 comments
I’m pretty sure that David Cunliffe would win a members and affiliates vote. So suck it up MPs, stop playing your silly caucus games and do some frigging work this term rather than the self-indulgent posturing you wasted time with last term. We have to start building campaigning machinery as soon as possible. You are getting in the way.
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, September 22nd, 2014 - 482 comments
Greetings from the sanity of Dunedin North. Every pundit and their dog is opining on the lessons of Saturday, so I might as well have a go too.
Written By: - Date published: 1:51 pm, September 21st, 2014 - 23 comments
Now that the battle for election night ratings is over for another three years, here is a table for your entrail-reading pleasure showing the three biggest parties’ vote shares in a few different geographic / demographic segments.
Written By: - Date published: 11:14 am, September 21st, 2014 - 62 comments
What strikes me now is the media commentators saying it was “a surprising result”. Well, if we were to believe all the polls, then this result is not a surprise. This tells us that the media don’t believe their own polls.
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, September 21st, 2014 - 141 comments
This election result is not the end of the world for me – because I am very, very lucky.
Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, September 21st, 2014 - 174 comments
National has an outright majority and the left has gone backwards. Some thoughts on what may have happened.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 pm, September 20th, 2014 - 43 comments
I am hoping for a good proportion of the vote for the Green Party. They got !!% of the vote in 2011, resulting in them having 14 MPs. Updated
Written By: - Date published: 7:30 pm, September 20th, 2014 - 65 comments
Will Hone hang on and bring in Internet Mana MPs with him? The polls suggest that the race with Kelvin Davis is neck and neck although Hone has this habit of doing far better than the landline polls would suggest. Updated: Kelvin Davis ahead but it was won by specials last time.
Written By: - Date published: 7:10 pm, September 20th, 2014 - 24 comments
Will Peter Dunne continue as the MP for Ohariu and sole United Future MP or will Labour’s Virginia Andersen prevail?
Updated: Looks like Peter Dunne is back again.
Written By: - Date published: 7:05 pm, September 20th, 2014 - 11 comments
Who will win Epsom? Will enough people rebel at John Key’s instruction to vote for the ACT candidate or will ACT’s extreme policies and Jaime Whyte’s weirdness mean that the people of Epsom will rebel and vote for Paul Goldsmith? Updated: Early, but the Act guy ahead.
Written By: - Date published: 7:03 pm, September 20th, 2014 - 4 comments
Moira Coatsworth, Labour Party President, sent this notice out to the members, supporters and volunteers.
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 pm, September 20th, 2014 - 695 comments
I hear there was an election today. What happened?
21:45: National will probably be easily able to form a coalition with their two puppet parties and maybe the Maori party. Conservatives out.
Written By: - Date published: 7:01 pm, September 20th, 2014 - 1 comment
The final tally for advance voting is 717,579. This is somewhat larger than 334,558 in 2011. Impressive. The electoral commission has a schedule published for tonight and later for the count.
Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, September 20th, 2014 - 3 comments
I’m getting scattered reports and images of political advertising popping up on various websites. They seem to look like accidents more than a deliberate strategy.
Updated: In other news blogger does a good selfie…
Updated 1300: NZ Herald mobile site still has political ads popping up periodically.
Updated 1550: Quinovic Mt Eden have clearly violated electoral law with a mailout.
Written By: - Date published: 8:05 pm, September 19th, 2014 - 17 comments
At 12pm tonight, the comments section on this site will (largely) stop accepting comments. I will (probably) be putting up a post tomorrow morning to accept, store and act on private electoral complaints from anywhere around the country. Take a snap of violations and log it. Lets keep the buggers honest. Updated.
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