Now I think suing 2 Labour MPs isn't the smartest political move. It keeps your scandal in the spotlight for months, reminding the public about the affair, and have them sour on you. You might win, in theory, so you might make Mallard and Little look…
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I don't think that it's a coincidence that several of the people named in the Sovereign insurance letter as being part of Bronwyn Pullar's support team are also people that were critical in bringing John Key into the National party when he returned to New…
Close Up tonight led with the allegation, based on a leaked document, that John Key (and other prominent Nats) were listed as supporting a $14 million dollar insurance claim by Bronwyn Pullar in 2007. Check out the Facebook posting here, and Close Up here. Key…
Treasury must have been pleased to get one of their own, Bill English, as its head. Now they can tell other departments how they should be run, oversee massive cuts to them - all safe in the knowledge that they'll continue to have fat budget…
The right to choose to end our lives is back on the political agenda with Maryan Street's private member's bill on euthanasia going into the ballot. If it's drawn, it will be the third time in 17 years such a Bill has come up. The…
Pure cronyism III Last month, ACT's John Banks claimed to have appointed ACT-crony Catherine Isaac to head the charter schools implementation committee. Then, when questioned about it, he was quick to say that the appointment was "not confirmed" and that no appointment had officially been…
Bloggers seem to be asking the best questions on the cost of the POAL fiasco. Here's NRT: Asleep at the wheel How much has the Ports of Auckland dispute cost Auckland's ratepayers? As the ultimate owners of the port, you'd expect the Auckland Council to…
One of the amusing things in my mailbox this morning was a link with new contracts at iPredict looking at the possible political casualties from the ACC/Pullar leaks. Looks like the contracts opened yesterday and have had minimal trading when I wrote this post. You…
Why did Collins print a copy of the Boag email? Who else saw it or was informed of its contents? If she didn't give the information to Lusk or Slater, how did it get to the Herald? It is interesting that Slater and Lusk, under…
Mfat is spending $9.2m a year on 30 strong razor gang cut diplomat jobs ($300K per razor gang member). It's a ludicrous waste of money. As Goff notes - McCully's splurging on 'back office' contractors in the razor gang to cut the 'frontline'. 49 of…
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ACC denies leaking Bronwyn Pullar's name. It's not credible that they would act so high risk and so politically. Boag and Pullar clearly didn't leak it. So, that leaves Collins and her office. Collins denied leaking the email to the media ... but leaves a…
100 jobs a day were lost in January and 1000 people a week left New Zealand for Australia last year but it turns out it was all a mistake! David Farrar has discovered that we measure GDP slightly differently from Australia and if we use…
Ipredict reckons there's 60% odds Key won't be National leader in 3 years. Whether you think that's too low or high, it brings an important fact into resolution - the next National leader is in Parliament, probably a minister right now. People talk about Parata…
Ports of Auckland must pay the permanent workers among the union members it had illegally locked out. PoAL suddenly changed tack yesterday and now says the lockout isn't for health and safety but because there's not enough work (thanks to the weeks of industrial action…
Judith Collins has twice told the Prime Minister that she didn't leak Bronwyn Pullar's information. But who else could have? The internecine fighting within National is heating up with Michelle Boag saying "When you can't send a communication to a Government minister without fearing that…
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"Crusher Collins up close" is the headline for a two-page article by Andrea Vance in the Saturday March 10 DomPost. It's not on the Stuff or DomPost website but can be viewed via Google on PressDisplay. It's a very good article - Andrea Vance didn't…
By "lying liar" I mean Cameron Slater. Here's his wee effort here last friday: I have not ever spoken to Phil Kitchin, nor emailed him or corresponded in any manner. Kitchin has been running this story from information provided to him directly by Pullar, he…
Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here. Police have launched an investigation into alleged covert journalist recordings, following an incident at a press conference yesterday. They confirmed late last night that a…
"Ms Collins strenuously denies hints by opposition parties that her office was involved in leaking Bronwyn Pullar's information to the media. She says only herself, one staff member, chairman John Judge and ACC's chief executive had the information". Hmm. 4 people, at least 1 head…
The Nats selected Chinese company Huawei to build the Ultrafast Broadband network in Waikato and Canterbury after Joyce and English visited them in China. Now, the company's been banned from Australia's UFB project because of links to Chinese espionage. Key's shrugged it off. Maybe there's…
Mediation broke down in the Port dispute again yesterday with the PoAL management still refusing to make any concessions as they have refused to do throughout this process because their end goal is not an agreement but to destroy the union. The workers are currently…
The lead story on Helsingin Sanomat, Finland's largest newspaper is about the "violent comments" of Gerry Brownlee. Can't this government go more than a couple of months without embarrassing us on the international stage? Brownlee told some pretty bad lies about Finland. How would we…
National's only push (if you can call such a feeble effort that) on gender equality seems to be on getting some women into the boardroom. Which is an admirable goal, and would indeed shake up the current clique and add some new ways of thinking…
So let's get this straight - the Prime Minister gets caught saying a few things he shouldn't in a cafe so he brings the full weight of the state down on the freelance cameraman who caught said things on "tape". He then extorts a letter…
To say someone broke a law when that hasn't been proven, and without legal defence, is to defame them. It is a particular issue when a government figure does it because they are effectively imposing an extra-judicial punishment by sullying the person's reputation. The rules…
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