Explore the archive
Find articles and conversations by date, subject or search expression.
Searching: posts Sorted by: newest Results: 1–30 of 35
Post
What a world where a supposed journalist writes this: The trouble is Key's desire to be reasonable. Despite his intention to say no more about his reasons for losing confidence in Worth, he keeps responding to the media interrogation and seems unable to draw a…
Post
It's hardly controversial to comment that our media peddle fear. Nor uncontroversial to comment that a cowed individual is a controllable individual. Many remark on our 6 O'Clock News leading with, lingering over and sensationalising the random stabbing or shooting and also that on our…
Post
There are a few odd times that I wish I was living in Wellington instead of Auckland (not often).This is one of them. There is a lecture by one of the leading researchers looking at the geology of the West Antarctica ice sheet (WAIS) and…
Post
As CycleWatch hits 100 days, John Key's been caught with his pants down. As No Right Turn explains a few days ago: [There has been no cost-benefit analysis] and now it seems to have abandoned its own timetable for beginning the project. Either that, or…
Post
Former journalist John Armstrong runs National's line on health today: The Cabinet's loosening of rules on district health boards farming out non-urgent surgical operations to private hospitals is the logical step to take for a Government trying to get more from less...Monday's decision is a…
Post
Fran O'Sullivan, who championed National most ardently in Opposition, has become disillusioned with Key as PM. She savages him today, saying he has a "deep need" to be "Mr Popularity": Prime Minister John Key's practised inclination - crack a few jokes about daughter Steffie usurping his credit card…
Post
I have to disagree with my comrade ayb on his post calling for Labour to come up with a more detailed program. Though I understand the desire to see Labour come up some new and inspiring left-wing agenda, now is not the time. Sure, maybe…
Post
A short video from the NZEI from Tuesday's pay equity rally at Parliament. There are also a bunch of photos on flickr from the CTU, EPMU and TEU.
Post
So we've got a government of incompetents, ideologues, and sloths. At least things are going better in America. The Democrats now have a super-majority in the Senate: The Republicans are imploding. Their ineffectual anger is getting so ugly they're turning off anyone sane:
Post
Government's put out this press release: "Finance Minister Bill English has welcomed news that the Budget operating deficit of $7.2 billion for the 11 months to May 31 is lower than the forecast $8.4 billion... Most of the $1.2 billion variance was due to higher-than-forecast…
Post
I reckon Red Alert, the Labour MPs' blog, has been a huge success. It's great to see MPs unscripted and it's good for them to get the instant public reaction in the comments. It's also a bit of a political risk. When you're allowing instant,…
Post
The Left continues to have luck with the private member's bill ballot, getting both of the bills drawn today just like a couple of weeks back (well, not so much luck, most of the bills in the ballot are from the Left). Metiria Turei's Marine…
Post
Further to my post yesterday, a reader sent in this quote from 2004: Mr English's view was not [National's] official line. As expressed by strategist Murray McCully, it is that the bill is a "charter for blackmail and rent-seeking by Maori interests". Let's be clear.…
Post
The woman has dropped her criminal complaint over Worth. Says she is satisfied now the scumbag has lost his career. Police are expected to drop the investigation. Now, can we (pretty please) know why a minister in our government lost his job? Can Key, just…
Post
Yesterday in Question Time, Bill English sent a message loud and clear to teachers, police, doctors, nurses, and all other public servants ('frontline' or not): under National, you'll be getting pay-cuts, don't expect cost of living adjustments, watch as your pay-packet buys less and less.…
bill english education health john key national/act government public services Unions wages workers' rights
Post
MAF has released the final report of their investigation into the pig farm owned by former Pork Board Director Colin Kay, exposed on the Sunday programme in May. As all those who knew anything about the Animal Welfare Act and subsidiary Codes of Welfare predicted,…
Post
Our first comment was on our second day, August 17th 2007 "Where will it lead? " by trythisone on our third post... who never showed up again. Number 100 was on September 15th, 31 days in, John laughing at Jacqui Dean for wanting to ban…
Post
Remember the hip-hop tours 'scandal' the National Party used over and over and over again to attack the previous Labour-led government? They went as far as to put it in their 2005 election billboards. It was a minuscule amount of money, yet National used it…
Post
I reckon there's a mood developing. People are getting sick and tired of what feels like a government that's got the country in reverse. But what they're looking for is an alternative. Increasingly people are starting to ask of the opposition "So what are you…
Post
Six years ago the Neocon Bush administration invaded Iraq, on the pretence of looking for "weapons of mass destruction" (that were never there). Steve Pierson at The Standard covered the Fifth Anniversary, and some aspects of the death and misery caused by the invasion. Now…
Post
Dear Labour I'll be the first to admit that sometimes my attention span isn't the greatest. Between Twitter and Facebook and texting it's frankly a wonder I have time for much of anything else. I'm mostly in a hurry and I think that's probably part…
Post
I'll be glad to see the back of the Foreshore & Seabed Act. For many on the Left, including myself, its been a monument to Labour's failure of nerve in the face of a campaign by National to exploit the underlying racism of Pakeha New…
Post
First, it was 'we're going to do everything we can to keep Kiwis in jobs' Next, it was 'yeah, OK, we haven't done anything significant to keep people in jobs (we borrowed a couple of small programmes from the Greens and the unions, though) but…
Post
Stuff reports that McDonald's is getting up to $16,000 of taxpayer money per person it recruits from the benefit. I doubt this per-person maximum is reached that often but it does seem that a lot of public money is going to the extremely profitable fast-food…
Post
National is overseeing the most dramatic rise in unemployment on record (yep, 2000 a week is more than the 1980s, more than the 1990s). They've got no answers, no ideas. All they can talk about is what Goff said 20 years ago and laugh. Like…
Post
When we talk politics we often use words like positioning, frame, context - words are a vital part of the programme of political communication. Here's a really interesting thought from US academic Lera Boroditsky, who asks How does our language shape the way we think?…
Post
This post by Scott Yorke over at Imperator Fish amused me. It is such an apt description of the differences between the two major political partisan blogs in New Zealand. I like to visit The Standard now and then. There's an occasional gem to be found…
Post
Richard Long, the main man behind Don Brash's racist Owera speech is just about the poorest propagandist you get: "Why only two to a cell? When that suggestion replaced the blackboard menu outside a cafe in Ngaio, Wellington, a few months ago, it was clear…
Post
The Foreshore and Seabed review panel have reported back with the recommendation that the law be scrapped and people be allowed to attempt to prove ownership rights over the foreshore and seabed in court as they can with any other land. Good. Ever since the…
Post
This goes out to all the dispossessed emos of Manners Mall, the forgotten victims of Wellington City Council's new bus lane: [Hat tip: the wellingtonista.]