Written By: - Date published: 11:31 am, August 16th, 2014 - 40 comments
Nicky Hager’s Dirty Politics tells of the “two track strategy” of John Key’s leadership of the National Party & the country: a smiley nice front, & vicious, covert black ops behind the scenes. Key has overseen one of the darkest, nastiest periods in NZ politics. Vote Left for necessary, democratic change, for people-centred governance.
Written By: - Date published: 5:00 pm, August 15th, 2014 - 8 comments
Nationwide protests in support of Palestine are planned for this weekend.
Written By: - Date published: 2:42 pm, August 15th, 2014 - 7 comments
How private are communications on social media platforms such as Facebook? It is claimed that the GCSB law’s definition of “privacy” leaves a loophole for warrantless surveillance of messaging by Kiwis on platforms like Facebook.
Written By: - Date published: 5:00 am, August 15th, 2014 - 277 comments
The intention of this post is to examine the similarities and differences between the hacking of Cameron Slater’s communications on the one hand, and the hacking of the Labour Party donor database on the other. There are two important issues to determine in both cases and I will cover them separately. The first is the legality of the hacking and the second is the ethics of using the resulting information regardless of whether the obtaining of the information in the first instance was unlawful.
Written By: - Date published: 11:02 pm, August 14th, 2014 - 18 comments
According to John Key, allegations about Jason Ede’s muckspreading activities in cahoots with Cameron Slater are nothing to do with him because Ede now does not work any more on the 9th floor of the Beehive for the “Office of the Leader of the National Party.” The National Party employs him apparently. I would like to know exactly when Ede changed employers and email dates should establish exactly who paying for and managing him when the comments were made. Leader or Office – it’s the National Party spreading dirt – and many good people who are members will not be happy.
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, August 14th, 2014 - 61 comments
Cameron Slater expresses his thoughts on Christchurch and the effects of the second Christchurch Earthquake. John Key thinks that he is a “pretty colourful character”. What do you think?
Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, August 14th, 2014 - 3 comments
New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote – and this year all New Zealand women have an opportunity to honour that achievement by voting in the general election.
Written By: - Date published: 10:57 pm, August 13th, 2014 - 12 comments
In no particular order, some tweets from those in Wellington with the book. Or those who have read something more than I have.
Written By: - Date published: 10:51 pm, August 13th, 2014 - 10 comments
There’s obviously a few people reading “Dirty Politics” tonight. One of the biggies, looks to be evidence of Slater’s collusion with Ports of Auckland. Other tweets show Slater in a very bad light.
Written By: - Date published: 7:11 pm, August 13th, 2014 - 138 comments
I haven’t read the Nicky Hager’s book “Dirty Politics” yet. But I’m not surprised that Cameron Slater is up to his neck in dirt provided by John Key’s dirt merchant Jason Ede. That he has been given information sourced from the SIS is extremely surprising. I had not thought that John Key was quite that stupid.
Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, August 13th, 2014 - 189 comments
So the book is an expose of the Slater-Ede-Key Dirty Politics machine, based on data acquired and leaked to Hager. Will Update: Update: Hager to be on Campbell Live tonight.
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, August 13th, 2014 - 25 comments
A guest post by Old Irascible on recent local experience when a Labour candidate tried to reach out to his local Rotary Club.
Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, August 13th, 2014 - 104 comments
Nicky Hager has certainly got the attention of political circles in NZ, by announcing his (untitled) book launch today at 5.15pm. J[update: 3 news Livestream of book launch] Update: Title “Dirty Politics” – on attack politics – implicates John key & Slater]
Written By: - Date published: 9:41 am, August 13th, 2014 - 10 comments
Dave Kennedy (bsprout) looks at the increasingly parlous current state of the smaller parties. He is also looking forward to the Green party campaign launch this weekend in Auckland. Updated with Green campaign launch details.
Written By: - Date published: 7:33 am, August 13th, 2014 - 86 comments
What the hell? This isn’t an election advertisement. This is someone expressing their views in music and video. This judgement by the Electoral Commission doesn’t appear to have any real basis behind it. Quite simply they are wrong.
Written By: - Date published: 6:34 pm, August 12th, 2014 - 78 comments
It’s been interesting to watch the nats and their busy little helpers working away at branding the election campaign as a nasty one.
It’s been disappointing to watch the media falling for it so hard.
Written By: - Date published: 12:55 pm, August 12th, 2014 - 82 comments
Nicky Hager’s latest book will be unveiled tomorrow. I look at his research interests, & his approach to investigative journalism; plus Hager’s speech on the GCSB Bill, & opposition party policies on state surveillance services.
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, August 12th, 2014 - 46 comments
On the right there’s one big party who have the lion’s share of the vote, and a smattering of odd little parties at the kids’ table fighting for scraps and key electorates. It’s one of the reasons National continues to poll so highly: if you’re a rightwing voter, you don’t have any other viable options.
Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, August 12th, 2014 - 20 comments
The Kumeu candidates debate last night covered topics ranging from the very local, to the global: local roads and round-a-bouts, through the internet, poverty, health, jobs and education, to climate change, the TPPA, and the GCSB. Roads and rules were a recurring theme. [updated: stuff video; links to Green Party speeches]
Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, August 12th, 2014 - 43 comments
ACT Epsom candidate David Seymour is complaining that left voters in the seat may vote tactically.
Written By: - Date published: 12:43 pm, August 11th, 2014 - 32 comments
For those who haven’t heard, Nicky Hager has a new book coming out this week. It will be launched in Wellington on Wednesday. As usual it is likely to be of political interest especially being launched to close to an election.
Written By: - Date published: 12:31 pm, August 11th, 2014 - 13 comments
Steven Joyce is asking about how Labour can afford their policies. Half of the money is what National is planning to spend unwisely. The rest is from documented increases in revenue in a fiscal plan. Unlike National’s mythic surplus, these are solid values. They will produce a solid surplus to pay down National’s debt.
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, August 11th, 2014 - 82 comments
It seems like every time Labour (or the Greens) announce a policy the first question (after “what does John Key think about this?”) is “But the Greens (or Labour) have a different policy to the one you just announced! How can you possibly work together in government?”
Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, August 11th, 2014 - 3 comments
11,000+ voters enrolled in the last week – great work, more to be done. For democracy & NZ’s sake, now and in the future, enroll, vote, vote left!
Written By: - Date published: 9:20 am, August 11th, 2014 - 81 comments
A great campaign launch from Labour on the weekend, a couple of bad weeks for National and suddenly there is a chance that David Cunliffe may be our next Prime Minister. But how does he succeed and what can progressives do to help?
Written By: - Date published: 3:10 pm, August 10th, 2014 - 135 comments
David Cunliffe’s campaign launch speech.
Added a video of the speech.
Written By: - Date published: 1:08 pm, August 10th, 2014 - 61 comments
For those of you who aren’t going to be at the campaign launch today. Here is the link to where the live stream will be.. It is going to be fun to see what happens this afternoon. But I’ll be there so if I have elbow room, I might write something.
Updated with reaction links.
Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, August 10th, 2014 - 9 comments
You really have to ask what journalists are trained in. Clearly not learning about existing party policies. Some reporters managing to miss that Labour has been planning to extend Paid Parental Leave for 3 years.
Written By: - Date published: 8:26 am, August 10th, 2014 - 40 comments
Labour’s campaign launch is today and it is expected that major health initiatives will be announced.
Written By: - Date published: 12:17 pm, August 9th, 2014 - 101 comments
There’s much to discuss on the two election-focused TV debates conducted over the last 24 hours. Prime TV’s new show: Prime Time with Sean Plunket – Bennett & Turei on poverty/inequality (Prime TV Fridays 9.30pm): TV 3’s The Nation: Saturday 9.30am
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, August 8th, 2014 - 267 comments
There are sobering & harrowing stories coming out of AAAP’s Action Impact at Mangere this week. It exposes the vast inequalities & poverty existing in NZ. Vote to end this destruction of humanity & democracy! Vote for compassion, caring & sharing! VOTE LEFT!
Recent Comments