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Yesterday Annette King started talking with Standard commenters on a couple of threads. As I understand it this is part of a move to engage with the Standard. While I can't speak for other authors I welcome this as a good sign there's a real…
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Bryce Edwards has a useful roundup of the goings on at Waitangi: The Harawira family is holding the whole country to ransom. That's what the Herald has reported the Police as saying at Waitangi today - see: Yvonne Tahana and Claire Trevett's Key at centre of Waitangi…
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I wonder how the polls would look if the sampling included Kiwis who have fled the country? One of the biggest failures of the Key government is the continuing massive exodus to Australia. This was an issue that Key made a core focus of the…
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At the moment the Left and Right political blocs are poised more or less evenly in the polls. So how do we grow the Left vote to win in 2014? A lot of commenters here think the answer is for Labour to move to the…
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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Garner has revealed that 63% of Maori Labour voters don't know who the leader is. King responds by asking if they know who the PM is. Now, I'm no MP with 25 years' experience but I reckon it's pretty obvious that trying to deflect from…
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According to, Patrick Gower David Shearer has be confirmed in the leadership vote this morning. There's no sign of the voting numbers yet but this offers certainty going into 2014. Let's hope he shows some steel in his reshuffle and puts together the best team…
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Is an absurd public endorsement by someone as politically damaged as Trevor Mallard actually an endorsement or is Trevor trying to undermine his leader? That's a question I'm asking myself after reading Audrey Young's piece on the caucus vote today. A piece in which a…
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. Those stimulating links you wanted to share, but just didn’t fit in anywhere (no linkwhoring). This week:…
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There's a thought in some parts of Labour - in fact, only the Leader's Corridor, far as I can tell - that they need to 'put the Greens in their place', then they will get back the votes that the Greens have taken from them,…
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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Another day, another example of some unseemly looking stuff from the Nats. This time it's Judith Collins choosing Robert Kee - a friend of her husband - for a $200,000 a year taxpayer funded job. According to Fisher's article in the Herald: Mrs Collins appointed…
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One of the mantras of the current government is the importance of charity in society. The state is not necessarily the best deliverer of social services, they'll tell you. Which is why it's important to get the private sector involved. The assumption is that the…
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Oamaru lost 192 jobs on Thursday as its second-largest employer, Summit Wool Spinners, closed its doors. The knock-down effect could claim hundreds more in a town with a workforce of only 7,000. Events like this can cripple a small town and consign the workers to…
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Here we go with Poverty Watch for another year. December 2012 saw the release of two important reports, the Children’s Social Health Monitor 2012 Update Report, and the Children’s Commisioner Expert Advisory Group’s report on Solutions to Child Poverty (EAG Report). I hope to spend time over the…
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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Reprinted with permission from Frankly Speaking. Did we just hear Steven Joyce sh*t all over his colleagues?!?! Full story . Steven Joyce, “Steven Joyce revealed that Education Minister Hekia Parata, Finance Minister Bill English and former education minister Craig Foss approved the use of Novopay despite being…
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Greetings and Happy New Year. We have a big year ahead of us. We will be holding the Government to account and standing up for the hard working Kiwis that this Government has forgotten. But we also need to show New Zealanders there is a…
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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?
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Some good advice from an anonymous scribe in The Herald this morning: Editorial: Work in jail scheme will do more harm than good ...Then there is the notion of putting prisoners to work while they are behind bars. Not only will they no longer be…
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While National continues to deny there's a manufacturing crisis and the main opposition wastes its time plotting clever procedural tricks the high dollar claims another 200 Kiwi jobs - this time as Summit Woolspinners closes in Oamaru. The really depressing prospect is that this is…
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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As I indicated would happen in my post this morning on the Labour reshuffle, Mallard made a run for speaker today.* He and the Labour leadership tried to keep the fact he was running secret right to the last moment. Why not run an honest,…
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The latest Roy Morgan poll has National on 46%, Labour 31.5%, the Greens on 13.5%, and NZ First on 5.5%. It just amazes me the government can still poll close to 50% after stuff up, after stuff up. Were this reflected in an election then…
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While Labour flounders around talking about 4 bedroom houses for $485,000, Metiria Turei cut to the quick in a question to Key yesterday: "has he never visited his own electorate and taken a look at homes such as those on Hobsonville Road, Cyril Crescent, and…
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Today's announcement from the Reserve Bank states that inflation is still below its target band of 1-3%. It says: “Inflation remains subdued and is currently just below the bottom of the Reserve Bank’s inflation target range. This mainly reflects the impact of the overvalued New…
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Quietly in the background, David Parker is doing good work. In August last year he produced "National's Economic Road Test", an accessible 30 page summary of the mess that the Nats are making of the economy. He's now released an updated version which can be…
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Word is that Shearer's team has taken a cue from the media response from Key's reshuffle and is looking to bolster his new tough image by dropping some of the old hands in his own reshuffle (which will, of course, come after the caucus vote…
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One of the many big problems National is failing to resolve is the lack of jobs, as they provide a 14-year high in unemployment - even after exporting 180,000 Kiwis to Australia under this government. Indeed if we added them in, the unemployment rate would…