A round-up of things which are happening this weekend, as we hear of them: Saturday 1 November North Shore: Informal members' meeeting with Grant, 1:30pm to 3:30 pm, East Coast Bays Community Centre (2 Glen Rd, Browns Bay) West Auckland: Meet Nanaia and Andrew, 5pm to…
Reposted from No Right Turn The Dominion-Post reports that the government is considering wiping past convictions for homosexuality. Good. As a guest-poster to On The Left has recently explained, living with a criminal conviction isn't easy; employers and agencies will simply dump applications from people…
Weekend social is for non political chat. What's on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever. No politics, no aggro, why can't we all just get along?
Which hat was John Key wearing when he said that he knew the identity of Rawshark. Probably the hat of a fool? Anyway, hours of amusing ridicule have followed. https://twitter.com/damianchristie/status/527922261307572224
Last night I attended the Dunedin meeting of the Labour leadership roadshow. Carnage! Crisis! Farce! Civil war! I witnessed none of those things. (What a beat-up much of the media coverage of Labour's leadership has been.) Instead, what I saw was four good people making…
Open mike is your post. The Standard is not a conspiracy – just a welcome outlet for the expression of views. Leaders that command respect will not be undermined by this. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike…
Yesterday the “Independent” Police Conduct Authority released its report into the conduct of Police during the 2012 mass arrest of students at the “Blockade the Budget” protest. In the “About the Authority” section near the bottom the report claims that the IPCA is similar to…
A brief note on a piece that caught my eye last week: Judith Collins relegated to lowly select committee Two former ministers will settle into life as backbench MPs sitting together on one of the lower profile select committees. Details of the make up of…
Andrew Little and Nanaia Mahuta have both accepted an invitation made by the Andersons Bay-Peninsula Branch of the Labour Party to attend an informal pre-hustings social catch-up this afternoon. You are most welcome to drop by if you are in the area. When: 4:30 -…
Long long ago Key promised us "a higher standard of government", and that his ministers would be held to high ethical standards. Perhaps he meant it at the time, but he long ago abandoned that promise in favour of getting away with any damn thing…
All going well Nanaia Mahuta will be joining us here live today between 2 pm and 3 pm. As usual all comments and questions will be strictly moderated. The following is from Nanaia ... Greetings Standarnistas! I am proud of our country and the Labour Party and I…
lprent: At a rough guess this guest post is probably from a David Parker supporter. But hey, this is politics. Unlike me people have opinions (this is the hardest work I have ever had for a political campaign as a voter). It looks like guest posters…
Open mike is your post. The Standard is not a conspiracy – just a welcome outlet for the expression of views. Leaders that command respect will not be undermined by this. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike…
Labour West are hosting an event this weekend where you can meet two of the Labour leadership candidates: Meet Nanaia Mahuta and Andrew Little 5pm to 7pm Saturday 1 November Ghazal restaurant, Glen Eden An invite for westies to meet with Andrew Little and Nanaia…
From The Herald: Roast Busters case: No prosecutions Police are to make an announcement this afternoon on Operation Clover, the investigation into the "Roast Busters" allegations. The Herald understands the victim has been told that the alleged offenders will not be prosecuted due to a…
As reported by Vernon Small: The Dairy Workers Union executive has endorsed Andrew Little in the Labour leadership race. The Dairy Workers Union (DWU) commands about 2.75 per cent of the overall vote for the leader. Under Labour's rules, affiliated unions hold 20 per cent…
Scott at Imperator Fish kindly lets us syndicate his posts. Original Here. #455824072 / gettyimages.com Above: On or off? John Key has told Parliament that he has not had phone calls with blogger Cameron Slater in his capacity as Prime Minister. It is not yet…
Stuff this morning is reporting on the UNICEF Report "Children of the Recession - the great leap backward" (PDF). The report compares changes in child poverty levels and related measures throughout the developed world. New Zealand's overall performance was tepid, 16th best out of 41…
Giovanni Tiso is the author of the blog Bat Bean Beam, and a tireless leftie activist on Twitter. Last week he tweeted: https://twitter.com/gtiso/status/525425275065339905 On Monday he followed up with a post on his blog - here are some extracts: Dirty journalism ... Cameron Slater posted…
While shepherding through horrendous housing changes and removing workers' rights - and hiding from Dirty Politics - John Key needs a big "look over there!" As Colin James puts it he's talking about increasing security (ISIS) while decreasing security (of employment). One of these is…
Open mike is your post. The Standard is not a conspiracy – just a welcome outlet for the expression of views. Leaders that command respect will not be undermined by this. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike…
Radio NZ has a post up "Tribunal hears blogger privacy case". It is about the prosecution of Cameron Slater being sued4 under the Privacy Act for breaching Matthew Blomfields privacy. Simon Judd, the lawyer for the Director of Human Rights, said Mr Slater had published 46…
Reposted from No Right Turn here and here for the two posts respectively. Back in August, National announced they were handing a $284 million contract to build a new convention centre in Christchurch to a consortium which included the Speaker's brother. From the outside, it…
All four of Labour's leadership candidates either have, or will (watch for announcements) be taking place in Q&A sessions here on The Standard. They have also done so on Stuff. It's a great level of accessibility and interaction with we the people, and it's much…
In its first term, National was very careful to be incremental - Key hung to the middle, chipping away carefully at workers' rights without doing anything dramatic. Having gained the public's trust by continuing (outside the House) to be a clown they'd like to have…
Open mike is your post. The Standard is not a conspiracy – just a welcome outlet for the expression of views. Leaders that command respect will not be undermined by this. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike…
All things being equal, there really is only one sensible choice to make over who should be Labour’s next leader. When I say ‘all things being equal’, I’m suggesting that if you believe all four contenders have similar levels of ability and attitude, then the…
Labour hopes to collect signatures for this petition over Labour Weekend... Workers' rights, including the right to tea breaks, are under attack from National. Labour has a petition to save our tea breaks: The Government's currently trying to rush through a law to stop workers…
Hope y'all are having a great long weekend! We all enjoy the holiday, but where does Labour Day come from? For reasons that will become apparent, it's timely to repeat most of what I posted four years ago on the subject. Labour Day celebrates the…