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Check you are enrolled – last chance

Written By: - Date published: 1:13 pm, September 19th, 2014 - 9 comments

You can’t enrol to vote tomorrow. If you haven’t early voted, don’t have a vote pack, and if you don’t show up on the electronic roll and you are in anyway unsure, then your best bet is to head to your local post shop, and fill in and give them an enrolment form – BEFORE the post shop closes.

The importance of voting from a young woman’s perspective

Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, September 19th, 2014 - 7 comments

A guest post from a young woman who cast her vote today.

A clean start

Written By: - Date published: 11:17 am, September 19th, 2014 - 27 comments

If Team Key manage to stagger over the line it will be a government paralysed from the start by scandal and investigation – inward looking and defensive. A rather Pyrrhic “victory” at best. We need a Labour led government so that we can put this nightmare behind us. We need a clean start.

The tweets are alive….

Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, September 19th, 2014 - 5 comments

… with pre-election day fervour. It’s an election that’s going down to the wire.  The energy is there for the left to keep talking to people, and to encourage as many as possible to get out and vote. It’s Suffrage Day – reporting via the telegraph in 1893 to the internet today. On-going updates

Polity: Shameful, innumerate reporting of Herald poll

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, September 19th, 2014 - 32 comments

If a politics editor at a major National newspaper doesn’t know basic statistics, then you’d have to ask how she retains her job? Having a jonolist apparently deliberately distort the meaning of a poll that is taken, and whose results was not linked to in the article, is a complete travesty.

Three final polls

Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, September 19th, 2014 - 98 comments

Three last polls and National’s support is declining, Labour’s improving and the Greens are stable.  Things are getting very close with Winston Peters looking more and more likely to hold the balance of power.  This election will be decided vote by vote.

Shout out to The Standard

Written By: - Date published: 6:50 pm, September 18th, 2014 - 61 comments

A special call to work from David Cunliffe. If you don’t already have an date with a political party of the left on Saturday, then the best thing you can do is to Firstly vote left (and maybe Labour). Find a party that can employ you constructively on Saturday on turning out the vote. Labour […]

Greens buoyant

Written By: - Date published: 5:53 pm, September 18th, 2014 - 14 comments

John Key & National’s empty facade – its lack of vision for NZ – has been exposed. Opposition parties have continued to campaign positively, focusing on people, fairness, & the environment. [Update] NZ Herald video

The Conservatives in a shambles

Written By: - Date published: 3:03 pm, September 18th, 2014 - 29 comments

This direct mail has gone out without an authorisation statement to who knows how many kiwi households. Add this on top of losing their press sec today and you have to wonder if the Conservatives are going to make it to election day in one piece. In case you can’t read the text at the […]

Vote Key, get Colin

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 18th, 2014 - 97 comments

With the latest poll results it’s basically a coin-toss whether a vote for National gets you Colin Craig and his extremist mates at the Cabinet table.

Stability vs Change

Written By: - Date published: 8:22 am, September 18th, 2014 - 79 comments

This election there are two very different visions of the future on offer. I know which I prefer.

Key’s last fig leaf

Written By: - Date published: 7:42 am, September 18th, 2014 - 32 comments

Key’s last fig leaf on GCSB surveillance is to plead ignorance. Unfortunately for him the evidence is compelling. If he does manage to lead the next government, these issues will continue to haunt him.

Leader’s debate IV

Written By: - Date published: 8:34 pm, September 17th, 2014 - 155 comments

The fourth and final leaders debate has now finished.  John Key will be pleased at his decision to limit it to 30 minutes.

The latest polls

Written By: - Date published: 6:24 pm, September 17th, 2014 - 92 comments

Two polls out today both suggesting that National are comfortably ahead although the Reid Research has National declining further and polling under 45%.  The equivalent polls last time predicted that National would win an outright victory.  This is going to be a very tight election.

Jackal: A conspiracy theory too far

Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, September 17th, 2014 - 114 comments

Over the last month John Key has been displaying behaviour of being  a raving right wing conspiracy theorist. Over the weekend megalomaniacal John Key even said that he wants the governor general to stage a coup to allow him to remain in power. The Jackal summarises recent nutty right wing conspiracy theories from the PM and others.

Nastiest election ever?

Written By: - Date published: 8:06 am, September 17th, 2014 - 79 comments

Is this the nastiest election ever? The wit and wisdom of Twitter on this and other matters…

A Matter of Simple Logic

Written By: - Date published: 4:54 pm, September 16th, 2014 - 103 comments

One of the few journalists to do his job properly over the course of the dirty politics scandal has been Guyon Espiner. He has, without in any way breaching his duty of impartiality, seen it as his responsibility on Morning Report to put questions to, and demand answers of, the Prime Minister – and, when […]

Flashback post: Poetic justice

Written By: - Date published: 3:39 pm, September 16th, 2014 - 11 comments

Irish Bill originally posted this on 1 December 2007. For no reason at all we thought it warranted a reprint, with a guest comment from David Farrar.

Slip, slip, slip

Written By: - Date published: 1:48 pm, September 16th, 2014 - 82 comments

John Key will no doubt – like with Dirty Politics – keep saying that “most of it is proven false” about the Snowden revelations… while slowly admitting most of the charges against him.

NZ Inc: Frightening the invisible horses of the market

Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, September 16th, 2014 - 15 comments

The Herald is scathing of Labour’s NZ Inc policy, which defies all logic and reason by assuming that there are better ways to build our economy than flogging off profitable assets, built by New Zealanders, to foreign investors.

The cost of a bowl of Weet-Bix

Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, September 16th, 2014 - 197 comments

One of the most dishonest arguments the right ever put forward on the subject of poverty is around one of the simplest things in life: a bowl of Weet-Bix.

A brilliant (if flawed) event – Key must resign

Written By: - Date published: 6:06 am, September 16th, 2014 - 71 comments

From Key we have changing stories, irrelevant distractions and refusal to comment. From Snowden we have compelling first person testimony and supporting documents (uncontested by any other Five Eyes leader). New Zealand is under mass surveillance.

Right Back At You John.

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, September 16th, 2014 - 130 comments

I need to say this – for those academics who will slice and dice a subject to slithers so small that all that is left is invisible and meaningless; and to all those who think or believe that fascism is marked by brown shorts and Nuremberg rallies – No. Fascism comes with a smile and […]

The blowoff stream

Written By: - Date published: 6:02 pm, September 15th, 2014 - 348 comments

The queue is enormous. But here is the feed. Thanks Selwyn for the link….. 19:05: Liala Harre has been improving her speaking since I last heard her. Introduced the speaker guests. Looking at the progressive achievements of the NZ past. 19:07: Glenn Greenwald is first up. 19:10: Greenwald calls John Key an adolescent 🙂 John […]

John Key On Trial

Written By: - Date published: 4:35 pm, September 15th, 2014 - 27 comments

The latest instalment in the saga of John Key’s struggle to maintain his image as someone above suspicion has produced the amazing spectacle of a Prime Minister in free fall. Faced with the threatened revelation that he has been – not just economical with, but contemptuous of – the truth as to whether or not […]

The email

Written By: - Date published: 2:57 pm, September 15th, 2014 - 143 comments

The email that alleges to show John key was in on a conspiracy, with Hollywood execs, to entrap Dotcom in NZ so they could extradite him to the US. Updated. Warners say the email is fake. But who was applying the “political pressure”? Updated: Cameron Slater is a techno idiot.

Key changing his story (again)…

Written By: - Date published: 12:37 pm, September 15th, 2014 - 60 comments

Well well – Mr “No middle ground. I’m right. He’s wrong” is changing his story. He now admits that surveillance did go ahead…

The enablers

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, September 15th, 2014 - 14 comments

Under pressure from Glenn Greenwald’s revelations, John Key, using various smoke screens, is starting to reveal his complicity in working with the GCSB & its 5 Eyes partners, to extend the scope of their spying. Could the Southern Cross Cable Network not have known their systems had been tapped? Update: Statement by Southern Cross Cables

“Moment of Truth” – a key claim

Written By: - Date published: 7:14 am, September 15th, 2014 - 152 comments

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald is standing firm in the face of Key’s attacks and denials. A fascinating interview with Steve Braunias yesterday contains a key claim.

Jackal: A coalition with Winston Peters

Written By: - Date published: 3:54 pm, September 14th, 2014 - 79 comments

Jackal has compiled a number of the reasons why NZ First and particularly Winston Peters are unlikely to form a coalition or even to support National and John Key. Probably the way that National through their sockpuppets Act, David Farrar, and Whaleoil attacked with spurious charges  in 2008. That he came back must have been a shock…

Blue on the polls

Written By: - Date published: 12:04 pm, September 14th, 2014 - 62 comments

Landline polls are a traditional gripe for lefties. But this election polls look seriously out of whack with reality.  Is National at 55%, 50%, 48% or 46%? But it’s always far too large for a party at National’s current stage in the political cycle. Just unbelievable and highly unlikely.