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From the Sunday Star Times: A new poll suggests that National Leader John Key may be up against a bigger obstacle than he thought in knocking Prime Minister Helen Clark off she is the person New Zealanders most admire after Sir Edmund Hillary. The much-loved mountaineer topped…
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Sarah Montague from BBC's Hardtalk interviews Helen Clark - starting with a question about whether the time might be right for a New Zealand referendum on republicanism. I've got to admit that I found it thoroughly refreshing to watch an interview where the interviewer doesn't…
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Do you have a fascination with ads? Ever wonder where they come up with their ideas or feel like you've seen an ad that's similar somewhere else? This site has a curious and diverse range of original and less original works to view. The motto…
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Liberal democracy (ie. democracy where there are truly competitive elections) is the dominant ideology of government of our time, having seen off monarchy and totalitarianism in both its fascist and communist guises. And if there's one thing the world's liberal democracies agree on is that…
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Slippery John and his mates seemed pretty down in the dumps in the House this week. I know that no one, but a few political junkies, watch the House but a political party's performance there is a good indicator for their mood. And, frankly, the…
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David Farrar's latest political campaign on behalf of the National Party has, like so many of them before, foundered on the sharp rocks of reality. In an attempt reminiscent of the ramshackle PR fiasco that was the Free Speech Coalition, DPF tried to get the…
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Part three of the 'If I were [Party X]'s campaign strategist' series brings us to Labour. The strategy for a major party is very different from that of a smaller party. Rather than trying to grab attention public attention and target niche concerns, a major…
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Our sources tell us National is set to follow-up to last year's DVD ‘John Key: Vacuous for New Zealand' with its sequel ‘John Key: I won't bite, promise'. ‘Vacuous' was withdrawn after The Standard and Kiwiblogblog revealed that Key had illegally used Coldplay's ‘Clocks' as…
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A reader just sent us this - REM meets John Key. (Hat-tip: PJ)
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That's what Key said when asked about his plan to increase GP fees. A reader reckons Key's planning to apply the same market logic to crime: Great cartoon. No wonder National's Law and order Spokesperson, Simon Power, is distancing himself from Key's policy.
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It was nice to see this independent report into the ACC scheme by Price Waterhouse Coopers. Amongst the general positive comments was this observation: "The ACC under its current implementation structure performs as well or better than most other schemes we can observe around the…
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Now this is what Campbell needs to do more of. Last night the man ripped poor old Peter Brown to shreds over his racist comments about Asian immigrants, and it was brutal. You almost had to feel sorry for the guy:
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Just a reminder, there's still time to get your questions in for the Greens in our upcoming Interview the Leaders series. You can place your questions in the comments section of this post. Remember, keep them above the belt but make them tough. Jim Anderton…
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There is a Novotel hotel beside the Canadian High Commission on The Terrace in Wellington. Check out this billboard on the wall of the hotel nearest the High Commission, you can see the Canadian flag in the bottom left corner. So, that's where the baby…
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Tracy Watkins tells us in today's Dom-Post that John Key may have taken a beating in the stock market lately. He wouldn't say how much he lost, but did admit, 'I'm worth less than I was.' And, I'll bet some in his Caucus would agree.…
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I've just got back from a small but very vocal picket outside Spotless' corporate HQ on The Terrace in solidarity with the 800 cooks, cleaners and orderlies from hospitals around New Zealand who began 24 hours of strike action today. They're striking because despite agreeing…
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Duncan Garner kept Copperfield diners entertained yesterday by teasing Simon Power about the implications of National's $50 conviction levy. We're told that in response Power threw his hands into the air and exclaimed loudly that the policy wasn't "his". What an odd thing for the…
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Keith Ng of Public Address has a long-standing commitment to improving the quality of journalism in this country. Now, he is proposing a non-partisan wiki-style forum for fact-checking politicians' statements. It seems like a great idea. We constantly see politicians making statements that are not…
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The Council of Trade Unions has given Bill English a good slapping over his false allegations in Parliament yesterday that the peak union body had broken the Electoral Finance Act. English accused the CTU of failing to include the home address of its financial agent…
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Do you think our politicians are unpopular? This story from the Washington Post puts any of those thoughts in perspective: There's a reason President Bush almost never appears before members of the general public: They really don't like him. Despite the delirious mood of Washington…
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Following the first incident of a New Zealand vehicle being attacked by an improvised mine, National's Defence Spokesman Wayne Mapp has attacked the Government over the fact the NZ military in Afghanistan do not have any of our new LAV armoured vehicles. The problem with…
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Lockwood Smith gave us student debt. Maurice Williamson gave us traffic jams. Now they want to give us global warming. Just days after Al Gore launched his $300m worldwide climate change campaign National retreads Maurice Williamson and Lockwood Smith are refusing to answer questions about…
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Perhaps he's still getting into the swing of things after his Aussie holiday or perhaps he just doesn't want to take on Cullen - either way, it's a little odd that John Key doesn't have any oral questions in the House today. On a day…
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Now this is rich. National, the party that gave New Zealand its low wage economy, is running the line that the trans-Tasman wage gap is "Labour's legacy". You'd think such a shameless rewriting of history would be laughed off in a second, but it seems…
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The latest Police statistics show crime is still dropping. Crime dropped from 1013 offences per 10,000 people in 2006 to 1008 in 2007. There was a dramatic reduction in homicides (down 10.1%, following a 10.2% drop in 2006), sex attacks were down 2.3%, and ‘Dishonesty'…
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Al Gore has just launched a $300 million, bipartisan campaign to try to push climate change higher on the nation's political agenda. The website is www.wecansolveit.org - you can see the debut ad, "Anthem," here. The campaign plans to bring together "unlikely bedfellows" of differing…
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Transport for London have recently launched a campaign to raise drivers' awareness of cyclists. Try the test below. You can read about what's going on here.
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Today is a big day for government policy affecting Kiwis' incomes: The minimum wage is now $12 an hour, up from $7 when Labour gained power. Youth rates have been effectively abolished, meaning young people will get the same pay for the same work. From…
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I wonder if the ACT Party Secretary's authorisation, top left, will make it harder for ACT to deny, as they have in the past, that ACT on campus are outside their control. (Hat-tip: Alex N)