If ACT were made up for a show like “The Thick of It”, or “Veep”, they would be dismissed as too ridiculous and extreme for the audience to swallow. “Last Week Tonight” with John Oliver would surely ask, “How is this still a thing?” And…
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I ran across this youtube video "Thirteen misconceptions about global warming" handling the basic myths used by our climate change dummies. Perhaps they should watch it before I and others have to waste too much of our time rubbishing their inane ideas (again and again and…
Official results. From The Herald: Final election result National: 47.04 (60 seats) Labour: 25.13 (32) Green: 10.70 (14) New Zealand First: 8.66 (11) Maori Party: 1.32 (2) Act Party: 0.69 (1) United Future: 0.22 (1) Conservative: 3.97 (0) Internet Mana: 1.42 (0) Some highlights: National…
The unaffordable housing crisis in Auckland (and elsewhere) continues, in spite of all the media coverage and government policies claiming to address the issue. The problem is not "tinkering" by increasing the supply of dwellings. that just plays into the agenda of the investors and…
By 2 pm today the Electoral Commission is expected to announce the final results in the 2014 election. The announcement could be interesting. There are potentially 330,000 special votes to be counted and if they break the same way special votes did last time then a…
Hone Harawira said "farewell" to Parliament yesterday, in a well attended event. He left behind him a challenge: Mana Leader Hone Harawira has said farewell to Parliament with a challenge to pass his "feed the kids" bill at its first opportunity. ... His bill, which…
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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?
(This post originally appeared at Boots Theory.) Oops, two posts criticising DPF in a row, that’s a little weird – a consequence of the Labour Party’s leadership dominating the news, and my reticence about wading into that issue, I suspect! But I have to correct him…
Like many on the left, I was disillusioned with the election result. It felt pretty hopeless on election night that despite record levels of poverty, home ownership being out of reach of more New Zealanders than ever before and dirty politics, John Key could romp…
So, John Key has quietly (secretly?) shifted the already dodgy SkyCity deal. Meanwhile, in Auckland, the Auckland Transport Authority has apparently done a deal to sell oversight of all of our daily lives to a US corporate, and thereby rendering the data accessible to the US…
Orwellian - "connotes an attitude and a brutal policy of draconian control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past". Yesterday members of the Labour Party received an email from president Moira Coatsworth which urges restraint and good behaviour during the leadership campaign. The…
Yesterday the Tertiary Education Union (TEU) released this statement: WHALE OIL’S DIRTY ATTACK ON OTAGO ACADEMIC The villain of Dirty Politics, Cameron Slater, used his post-election downtime last week to attack University of Otago nutrition scientist Lisa Te Morenga, calling her a ‘trougher’ and, ironically,…
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There appears to be some serious problems developing as far as New Zealand’s economy is concerned. Some thought when John Key announced that the general election was going to be held two months earlier than usual he was bringing the election as far forward as he could without…
It's the conference season in Britain. According to the Guardian, audio specialist Cassetteboy has rearranged cuts from David Cameron's Conservative conference speeches to Eminem's 2002 track Lose Yourself. Cameron can be heard rhyming “I’m hardcore and I know the score” with “I am disgusted by…
In case anyone had missed it amongst the nasty and vicious level of attacks on David Cunliffe, Karen Price has been on twitter having a go at the people attacking her husband. As Brian Edwards put it in "Shock! Horror! Wife defends husband!!!!" I suspect…
There are plenty of sources to read on the seriousness of the poverty crisis in NZ. This recent piece in The Listener (of all places) is an excellent example. Here's a brief sample: But it’s those other children, the ones living in cold, overcrowded homes…
The following is an email sent by Tim Barnett to party members. I am pleased to be able to inform you that New Zealand Council has made some key decisions about the timetable and process around the election of our Party Leader. On the key…
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I've just been digging through the statistics for the last couple of months here at The Standard on Google analytics looking back over the last 7 years (a lifetime in blogging terms). We did pretty well for a crew who are all volunteers doing this…
One of the few bright spots for Labour in the election was the renewed support of Maori. Labour now holds 6 of the 7 Maori seats. Only Waiariki was retained for the Maori Party by co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell. Combined with a party vote of…
John Key before the election: Key rules out sending troops to Iraq Prime Minister John Key has ruled out New Zealand military intervention in Iraq, barring an unlikely United Nations Security Council mission John Key after the election: Key: SAS could join Isis fight on…
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According to early reports (Twitter) David Parker is interim leader of the Labour Party, with Annette King as deputy. In my opinion a safe set of hands. Their first task should be to make sure that the leadership contest is positive and constructive, as the…
Reposted from yesterdays No Right Turn. National signed its confidence and supply agreement with ACT today. The headline news is that David Seymour get more patronage from National, in the form of being appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary to the Minister of Education and Parliamentary Under…
In a significant development Cameron Slater has brought his application for an injunction and for return of his personal information from various media outlets to and end and has opened himself up to a potentially significant order of costs against him. From Radio New Zealand:…
Labour's leadership process involves the members - democracy in all its participatory, messy glory. The Nats prefer to do things the old fashioned way - smoke filled rooms, their members content to be dictated to. Speaking of leadership, Key is clearly grooming Bennett for succession:…
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