Question over Banks’ polling
Sam Cash has spotted a possible issue with Dodgy John “if I wear my policy on my sleeve, I won’t get elected†Banks’ most recent mayoral poll. Could it be Banks is just polling ratepayers to boost his numbers?
Social issues
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Nats partially undo their cuts to R&D
The Herald editorial is rightly damning of the government’s lacklustre approach to science funding. The ‘new’ money is a trickle, barely replacing last year’s cuts. A crucial difference between Labour and National has always been that Labour invests in the long-term success of the country while National makes short-term wealth grabs for the ruling elite.
Help the Campaign for MMP, they’re Internet illiterates
One thing that the election in Britain brought home to me, was how much I’m grateful for having Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) representation here. I didn’t start that way. Over time, I’ve grown to appreciate the gradual progress and stability offered by MMP. However the people at the Campaign for MMP could do with a little help in the Internet age. They’re operating like it was 1993.
English: do what we need to do to win
Bill English is trying to assuage National Party member who are concerned that the Party is betraying its principles (ha!) and giving too much to the Maori Party saying “all those decisions are being made in the context of the longer-term view, reaching our objectives over the next four or five years” – winning a second term trumps principle. It’s about power for its own sake.
Choices are becoming clear
The choices between Labour and National are becoming clearer by the day. Next election the public is going to be offered two very different futures for New Zealand. Not between Labour and a dissembling “Labour Lite”, but between Labour and the true National agenda exposed.
Dead even in Auckland
Sam Cash takes a look at John Banks’ latest poll and doesn’t find too much to crow about for the Mayor for Remuera – noting he has only managed to draw even with Len Brown in spite of the huge profile lead he has over his challenger.
Open mike 27/04/2010
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes […]
Xena and Sheryl do the dirty on Brownlee
Remember back in 2007 when Gerry Brownlee took some really bad PR advice and unfathomably released a video entitled “Sexy Coal”? It was […]
Weeding out low quality
The Nats are looking to cut $1.8 billion in spending over four years. Where from? What and who will be deemed to be “low quality” in need of “weeding out”? The answers are going to tell us a lot about the National Party’s values…
NZ hero still prisoner of the Japanese State
Pete Bethune is one of New Zealand’s heroes. He’s been a successful entrepreneur and gone on to use his wealth to fight the […]
Key’s vomit-inducing Herald interview
If you want to read something vomit-inducing this morning, there’s no need to go any further than Audrey Young’s interview with Key about his overseas trip. Key talks about touching Barack Obama, sharing secrets with Stephen Harper, discussing Berlusconi’s boat, and how Angela Merkel knew Helen Clark quite well. If only Audrey Young were taking the piss, it wouldn’t be so yellow and chunky.
C&R’s takeover attempt
Voters of the Auckland region should be very concerned with the news that the Auckland City CBD-based Citrat political party looks set to run a single whipped slate of candidates at this year’s supercity election. The fear is that the C&R CBD old boys are gonna do in Waitakere, Manukau, Franklin, Rodney and the North Shore what they did in Otahuhu. Talk about crushing local voice.
Fox News – driven by conservative bullshit
Rachel Maddow has a look at exactly how much Fox News just makes stuff up and calls it news. It uses selectively edited stories like the ACORN ‘pimp’ story, the ‘climategate’ e-mails, and many other highly inaccurate ‘stories’, and promotes them for ratings.
In effect Fox News is the (un)official spin channel for conservative activists to peddle garbage entertainment on. Have a watch of Rachael as she tears the facade of conservative story telling apart.
Will Winston be back in 2011?
In politics nothing lasts forever. That is it seems, except the Rt Hon Winston Peters. The latest Roy Morgan poll has NZ First at 3%, just below the 5% threshold (Nats 49%, Lab 33%). With Peters once again creeping back into the media spotlight, you’ve got to wonder: Will Rodney Hide’s nightmare come true with the return of Winston Peters to Parliament in 2011?
A day of flip-flops
You can say this much for the Key Government – they’re idiots but half the time they’re also cowards. If an issue generates too much public disquiet they’ll flip-flop. It’s easy when they don’t have a real plan or real principles.
Stand up against ACT attack on students’ associations
Andrew Campbell reports that Roger Douglas and the ACT party want to change the law so that student associations will be unable to provide the important services and representation that they currently offer by making their membership voluntary. This will put the clubs and services that many universities offer at risk.
“Surgical mining” like “surgical bombing”
Remember John Key’s talk about “surgical mining?” It’s like “surgical bombing” – there is a lot of collateral damage. A lot of people […]
Banks’ brand is buggered
How much is the Huljich Kiwisaver figure-fudging scandal hurting John “the dodgy-director†Banks’ mayoral chances? Answer: a lot.O’Sullivan then explicitly writes off Banks – saying he’ll lose to Len Brown – and joins the long list of commentators criticizing the Huljich rip-off and noting it has damaged Banks’ chances. Think this story is only getting play in the business pages? It’s not.
Carmel Sepuloni takes Waitakere selection
Two list MPs and a popular local favourit son. It was always going to be a hard one to pick and it took […]
Fabians seminars on the budget.
There are a second set of seminars in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch over the next week on Choices and Consequences of the 2010 budget. Based on the Bold Choices seminar that I attended last weekend in Auckland (there are later ones in Wellington and Christchurch), they will be well worth attending. There are some materials on-line from that seminar.
Oh and David Farrar was shocked to find that Kiwiblog had been advertising the seminars 
Nats all at sea on whaling
In Kaikoura, John Key said commercial whaling “might be acceptable if it was acceptable to others”. You gotta love the leadership there. But you’ve also got to question what kind of two-faced game the Nats are playing because in the House, Murray McCully said precisely the opposite – that the Government opposes commercial whaling.
Hysterical media coverage
Herald’s “democracy lockout” campaign – pick it up!
On Monday this week the front page of the Auckland Herald’s print edition announced that the paper was going to run a campaign […]
Wage gap is the John Key credibility gap
There’s a nickname for John Key that’s picking up currency from both Left and Right around the blogosphere: ‘smile and wave’. The one thing Key can be depended on is to turn up grinning in some cheesy photo op. All his promises fall by the wayside. Meanwhile, 276,000 Kiwis are jobless, the wage gap with Australia keeps widening, and so does Key’s credibility gap.
The cruelest cuts
Cuts to prisoner rehabilitation, night classes, and the Super Gold Card aren’t about saving money. The government is only too happy to sign blank cheques for stupid projects like Transmission Gully and the Holiday Highway on the vaguest cost estimates. No, these successful policies are having the financial life bled out of them because they contradict National’s ideology.
Reminder: Roger Award tomorrow
The first Drinking Liberally – Wellington of the year is being held in conjunction with the annual Roger Award. The Roger Award is […]
Glorified holiday for Bennett
There are 276,000 jobless Kiwis. The seasonally-adjusted trend on dole numbers is still on the rise. Many other people fall through the gaps and are unable to get public assistance in their time of need.
What better time for the Minister for Social Development to bugger off for five weeks?