RWNJs worried msm may awaken
I guess we shouldn’t really mock such unfortunates but this latest missive from the Bog is too hard to resist. Farrar and his […]
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zzero use
rodney hide
Caption Contest
Written By: the sprout
“All I can say is that in the 22 months that Mr Hide has been a minister in my Government he’s shown very […]
Key ties himself to Hide
Written By: r0b
What is John Key thinking? Why would he tie himself so firmly to the mast of the sinking ship that is Rodney Hide and ACT?
Key backs Hide’s lies
Written By: Eddie
John Key doesn’t want to touch the Garrett fiasco with a barge-pole. He wants to keep his brand clean. But here he is backing Rodney Hide, the shyster who kept Garrett’s secrets from the public, as one of his ministers. In the fight to keep his government together, all Key’s supposed principles go out the window.
Awatere-Huata & Garrett, what’s the difference?
Written By: Eddie
ACT’s lost two List MPs. When Donna Awatere-Huata was booted out, Rodney Hide took her to court to force her out of Parliament. Now, David Garrett is forced to resign and Hide says he won’t push him to leave Parliament. Why the kid-gloves for Garrett? Because Hide’s leadership matters more to him than the future of his party.
A Busy Week In Politics
Written By: Bunji
It’s been a very big week this week, so I thought I’d do a round-up, just so we don’t forget some of the ‘lesser’ lights that may have been big news had we not had so much to go on…
Tashkoff: Hide lied to ACT Board about Garrett
Written By: the sprout
According to ACT’s Peter Tashkoff, Rodney Hide misled the ACT Party Board by hiding his knowledge of David Garrett’s passport dishonesty offence. So here […]
Garrett resigns from ACT
Written By: Eddie
David Garrett has resigned from ACT and has indicated he will almost certainly resign from Parliament. Good, He is a scumbag, a liar, […]
Key: No Surprises?
Written By: Bunji
Under National & Act’s power-sharing agreement there is a ‘No Surprises’ clause. So Rodney Hide should have told John Key about David Garrett’s assault conviction and dead baby identity stealing, as well as his own drunk and disorderly conviction in 2008.
Did he?
Losing Momentum
Written By: the sprout
Momentum Recruitment is in the gun yet again, this time for placing a woman in an accounting firm when she did not have […]
ACT infighting continues
Written By: Marty G
The ACT Party’s in-fighting continues, with ACT member Peter Tashkoff announcing he will contest Rodney Hide for the party’s selection in Epsom. Someone pass the popcorn.
NACT attack on Roy gets personal
Written By: Eddie
We’ve heard stories about the, to quote the Herald, “depth” of Heather Roy’s relationship with her former senior advisor Dr Simon Ewing-Jarvie for some time. But this isn’t Whaleoil and adults’ personal lives are their own. What’s surprising is that the Right have decided to use it against her.
The threat in today’s Herald is clear: If she doesn’t toe the line, her family life is not out of bounds.
Kudos to “The Veteran”
Written By: lprent
Reading about Act ritualistically disemboweling themselves this week has been interesting, and has quite a few implications for the political landscape at the next election. The factor that has been attracting my attention was highlighted by Fran O’Sullivan this morning – where did those defense papers wind up. Apparently with The Veteran at No Minister, who wins kudos from me by acting responsibly to the leak.
Key backs the bully, loses a good minister
Written By: Eddie
John Key allowed one of the ministers he appointed to be bullied out of her job and replaced by a man chosen by Rodney Hide, and he didn’t even ask Hide why. As more details emerge, it looks like Hide is the one in the wrong. Will Key now discipline Hide and invite Roy, who has been acclaimed as a good minister in a bad bunch, back on board? Not likely. The guy’s barely awake these days.
An inflated star collapsing
Written By: lprent
Watching ACT at present must be similar to watching a red giant finishing consuming all of its helium, expel its envelope, and collapse down to dwarf star. A breaking Herald report on the back story of the ACT leadership assassination says Heather Roy’s “leaked documents…portray Act leader Rodney Hide as an abusive, intimidating bully”
An Authoritarian Act
Written By: Bunji
So Rodney can’t keep 4 other people on side. The liberal and authoritarian split in Act has had its blood-letting and the authoritarians have won. Where will the neo-liberal idealogues go? And how will Epsom react to this change in philosophy in a year’s time?
Does Key know why he replaced Roy with Boscawen?
Written By: Eddie
We’re in a depressingly familiar position under this Key government: We don’t know why one of our government’s ministers was forced to resign yesterday. It’s not good enough in this age of supposedly open and transparent government. The really scary thing this time is it appears the Prime Minister doesn’t know either.
Final ACT for Roy?
Written By: r0b
Infighting within ACT seems to have come to a head, and pundits are predicting that Heather Roy will be sacked today, with John Boscawen to replace her as deputy. Will Roy split off and form a new party of the right? Fight ACT for that 1.5% of the vote?
Party failure
Written By: lprent
“Why, if you are an international rugby fan, would you leave Eden Park and hop on a train, eschewing the delights of Kingsland’s cafes, going directly past the thriving night life of Ponsonby and taking a right on to a bleak windswept wharf instead of a left to the maelstrom that is the Viaduct?”
Indeed!
SuperCity not Solved
Written By: Bunji
Rodney Hide’s new line is that he has listened to the people, democracy has triumphed, and the SuperShitty is all better now. It isn’t. We still have CCOs imposed by government. And the vast majority of submitters that wanted more powers for local boards have largely been ignored. Rodney still has no idea how much this SuperShitty is going to cost. But rates are going one way – up.
Send a JAFA to Wellington….
Written By: lprent
To paraphrase Muldoon – send a JAFA to Wellington, and we can only increase the average intelligence of both parts of the country. […]
Humour of the week
Written By: lprent
David Slack says..
“Qantas passenger threatened to bring down flight with the power of his mind. Ten bucks says he’s wearing an ACT T-shirt”
But it made me laugh after a hard weekend. as it perfectly reflects that way I feel about the breed.
Hide to speak at privatisation conference
Written By: Marty G
Last year, Rodney Hide said that John Key is a ‘do nothing’ prime minister, and his fellow ministers were lazy and didn’t pay attention what his was up to. Well, they might like to pay attention now: Hide is keynote speaker at a conference on local government later this month where water privatisation is the highlight of the agenda. Does Key support Hide’s push for water privatisation?
Hide plays dictator of local government
Written By: Marty G
Andrew Williams, mayor of North Shore, is clearly a bit of an odd-ball. Maybe the people of North Shore simply feel that a bit of public urination is a small price to pay for having a good mayor. I don’t know or care. But it’s outrageous, frankly, to see Hide once again over-stepping the constitutional limitations on his office. It is clear his call for Williams’ resignation is politically motivated.
The knives are out (again)
Written By: lprent
This image has been sitting around since October 2007 in a unposted post from all_your_base awaiting someone who deserves it.
I read Marty G’s post today about the infighting in Act.
I’m awarding it to Rodney Hide. He seems to deserve it….
More Act infighting
Written By: Marty G
It’s getting nasty in the ACT party. Rodney Hide can’t last as leader. Heather Roy, Roger Douglas, and John Boscawen each have factions backing them to replace him. Disintegration is a real possibility. The consequence of ACT’s straying from it’s economically and socially liberal roots under Douglas and Prebble to reactionism under the nihilist Hide. If a collapse does take place, Key may have to call an early election.
Super bill for Supercity
Written By: Marty G
When pressed very very hard, Rodney Hide described the set up costs of the Government’s Supercity as “minuscule” even though he couldn’t put a number on it. Now, we have some a number on what “minuscule” is in Hide’s book. The Auckland City Council alone faces a $34 million bill to establish the Supercity.
Auckland Super City and the American Revolution
Written By: Guest post
Much of the power in the new Super City will be held by council controlled organisations. These organisations will be responsible for approximately 75% of Auckland services and their unelected directors will have free rein to make important city decisions. The organisations will have no obligation to consult and no responsibility to the public if things go wrong.
What’s a decade between friends?
Written By: Marty G
Deborah Coddington writes:
“In 1994, not long after Rodney Hide became leader of Act,…”
Umm, Hide became leader in 2004. To be fair, the rest of Coddington’s piece offers a pretty good examination of Act’s fundamental problems.
Where are Hide & Key on Garrett comments?
Written By: Marty G
Colin Espiner reports that Rodney Hide has gone into his shell as outrage over David Garrett’s appalling sterilisation comments builds. Since Irish broke the story of Garrett’s comments yesterday, it has spread like wildfire through the blogosphere and the msm. And nowhere will you find a reaction from anyone in ACT or from their coalition partners.
Come Aucklanders – protest tomorrow.
Written By: lprent
The select committee on Rodney Hides vision of the Auckland Super-City sits in Parnell tommorrow. The National MPs complicit in foisting this idiotic vision of Auckland on us will be there along with the architect – the head of the lunatic Act party.
Spend your lunchtime demonstrating what a crock this version of the super-city is. Do it in Rodney Hide’s Epsom electorate.
ACT’s ugly racist face exposed
Written By: Eddie
Former ACT Deputy Leader Muriel Newman has launched into a racist tirade that amounts to ‘bloody bludging Maoris’. Incredibly, Rodney Hide agrees, saying that Maori have a culture of dependency. To ACT, poverty isn’t the result of an unequal and unfair economic system, it’s a lifestyle choice. They say Maori are morally deficient and to blame for their poverty.
Boag on way, Farrar to follow?
Written By: the sprout
Former National Party President Michelle Boag has been told to remove herself from the consultancy charged with selecting executive staff for the Auckland Supershity, because of her conflict of interest as an advisor to John Banks’ campaign
The pipsqueak attacks the Waitakeres
Written By: lprent
This is a fast way to get my blood boiling. Rodney Hide as minister of local government has removed protection from the Waitakere […]