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After 11 years of conservative rule, it looks like Kevin Rudd has led the Australian Labour Party to victory in Australia's elections. All the networks have called it for Rudd and Labor. Howard has just conceded (watch the video). Howard may well lose his own…
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It's a bit late, but a reader who was at yesterday's anti-EFB march has mailed us through some pics from the rally. As David Farrar has noted, the protest march was joined by a small group of activists in John Key and Mr Burns masks…
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The husband of retiring Liberal MP Jackie Kelly and a state Liberal official have been caught distributing fake pamphlets in Western Sydney. The bogus pamphlets purport to come from a militant Islamic group - praising the ALP's supposed support for the Bali bombers. The pamphlets have…
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We at The Standard would like to wish our US counterparts a very happy Thanksgiving tomorrow. Of course we'd hate to think that just because it's not a traditional holiday here in NZ we should be in any way deterred from eating till we can't…
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The Dom reports that "A father who spanked his eight-year-old son... for misbehaving... is one of the first to be convicted of assault under the law against smacking". As expected, all the usual suspects are up in arms, including Family First national director Bob McCroskrie,…
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From Kiwiblog: Okay just got back from the march. Didn't quite go as I envisioned. You see while I have promoted the march here, I'm not one of the organisers and my involvement was purely to stroll along at the back, and see how it…
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The Hysteria- with a capital H- over at Kiwiblog around the Electoral Finance Bill has been mystifying for many of us in blogland. Sure David Farrar is a key National Party figure, and is no doubt worried that the Bill will mean his party will…
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There's a new new Roy Morgan poll out and it's not good news for Labour. Gary Morgan says: "The recent plunge in support for the Labour Party follows the mishandling of the domestic terrorism case with the October 15 arrests of Maori activists in Ruatoki.…
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From Boing Boing: Furries get no respect. Usually, when you hear about people who dress up like life-sized stuffed animals, it's in the context of an unfriendly internet joke, a sex gag on Entourage, or an insult that ends with "yiff in hell." But Brooklyn-based…
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Miro - a free, opensource video platform has recently been released. It's a piece of software that allows you to download, manage, and watch video content and it runs on Microsoft Window, Mac OS X and Linux. Their pitch is "Miro: turn your computer into…
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Someone just sent me this blog readability test. It cl/aims to tell you what level of education is required to read your blog/website/myspace page. Here at The Standard we scored "College (undergrad)", as did Kiwiblog. The real interest was the Party sites though. Depending on…
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The reason for National Party Kiwiblogger David Farrar's obsession with megaphones is now clear. It's about electioneering speech, and the logic goes like this. The Electoral Finance Bill prohibits election advertising "in any form of words" unless published with a name and address. So if…
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Fortunately we have a government that's prepared to act on climate change rather than gamble with the future. Nevertheless here's an interesting take on the importance of a meaningful response to climate change based on everybody's favourite PHIL101 poser: Pascal's Wager. He's also done a…
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Stuff reports that "Key non-political critics have welcomed changes to the Government's electoral finance reforms." Both the Human Rights Commission and Coalition for Open Government are pleased with the revisions to the Electoral Finance Bill. Coalition spokesman Steven Price said the changes were a great…
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Now we know why Kiwiblog wants the Electoral Finance Bill killed - it could cost Farrar money! Kiwiblog "has some significant advertising lined up" which may be "at serious risk". Certainly, Kiwiblog is a dyed-in-blue-wool National Party supporter. Kiwiblog also goes on a rave about…
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The Electoral Finance Bill is back from Select Committee and can be downloaded here [PDF, 500k]. It's huge and will take a bit of time to digest, but it doesn't look like there are any major surprises. The overly broad definition of election advertising has…
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It's interesting to see National is attacking Peter Davis, the PM's husband, over a letter he wrote to the NZ Herald about the Electoral Finance Bill. Apparently Peter Davis - a respected university professor - is not entitled to views of his own and is…