They're at it again. David Farrar has a guest post from fellow VRWC member Charles Finny about FiveEyes, arguing that it's kept us safe in foreign wars and Labour did it too. Which of course is not the point of the current debate about massive…
Reposted from The Jackal I'm not sure how to break the news to all those desperate right wingers out there wanting the NZ First party to form a coalition government with National, but, despite the mainstream medias misleading coverage, it doesn't look like a realistic…
Reposted from No Right Turn So, John Key has decided to double down on Glenn Greenwald's revelations about GCSB spying, promising to declassify and release documents showing that a proposed panopticon was discussed but never implemented: Mr Key has admitted for the first time that…
Landline polls are a traditional gripe for lefties. But this election, more than any other, the polls look seriously out of whack with reality. They are bouncing around so much that no one knows what’s going on – is National at 55%, 50%, 48% or…
David Cunliffe has announced his final big policy. It's called NZ Inc and it's a bloody smart move. To quote Labour: NZ Inc will pull together the value of our resources, and use them to build a publicly owned asset base that drives long-term sustainable…
The positioning re Kim Dotcom's "Moment of Truth" has started this morning. The main claims will focus on spying: Tomorrow night, he [Dotcom] will "demonstrate the lying, what the moment of truth is all about", he says. "We are showing you the real face behind…
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Reposted from The Jackal It's been amusing to watch the right wing propagandists scurrying around looking for any tiny piece of information to use against left wing commentators in an attempt to bolster their own inadequacies. Not only do we have despicable people like Cameron…
Action Station is a digital community of NZ progressives which stands for a fair society, a thriving environment and transparent accountable politics. So it's no surprise that their members want to clean up politics. They're currently running a campaign to get a full-page ad in the…
Reposted from boonman at My Thinks Here we sit just a week out from an election. It’s a week in which you face a stark choice. Three more years of smile and wave dirty politics or a new direction. It’s important to remember that, despite…
Glenn Greenwald is in the country and has created a splash by alleging on TV3 that the GCSB is heavily involved in spying on our neighbours as well as engaging in mass surveillance of ordinary New Zealanders. Greenwald is the reporter who was trusted with…
John Key reckons increasing the minimum wage would hurt "the hairdressers in Levin or Foxton". So Rob McCann, Labour's candidate for Ōtaki, asked one how she felt about that. http://youtu.be/E_tDKMqmU3w
The main theme in Nicky Hager is the use of a two track strategy by the National Party and its associates. This strategy uses John Key as a smiley front man. Meanwhile behind the scenes a network of covert black ops people keep diverting and…
National is not interested in doing anything about poverty in NZ. They won't even officially measure poverty, because they don't want to know. The fig leaf that they hide their indifference behind is "work". Poor people just need to get off the benefit. They just…
For my sins I watched the Paul Henry analysis of the TV3 leaders debate. It was unsurprising to see the pundits question Cunliffe's authenticity and whether he really means what he says again. It's a meme repeated often enough that it is now 'a thing' with…
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I have just spent a interesting and happy hour reading the judgment of High Court Justice Asher. As the Paepae summarises it. Here are some relevant excerpts of a High Court judgment* released today on the vexed question of“Can PR attack blogger Cameron Slater hide his…
So after however many days, months and years spent tripping Labour at every turn, it now appears that the National Party’s dedicated ‘dirty network’ is switching attention to the Greens. Last month (as reported by NRT and Chris Trotter) , an outfit calling itself ‘The…
No its not our politicians, media or PR and pundits trying to make sense of what is happening here but this story from the Tatler via the Guardian is one for Robbie. The Scottish aristocracy is nervous. Change is afoot. 'As one whose family was involved…
If we, the electorate, reward dirty politics by re-electing a National government, we will be validating the most vile tactics this country has seen since Muldoon. We will be saying that it's OK to misuse government information, manipulate the OIA process, run political "hits", dig…
Frank Macskasy at The Daily Blog has a good timeline of the Donghua Liu OIA. And the times on the 18th of June - a date set for the John Banks resignation debate in parliament, and just 2 days after Jared Savage & Brook Sabin…
Two polls last night show Key's support ebbing. Most dramatic is the Herald Digipoll: Key support slumps in latest poll Prime Minister John Key has plunged in personal popularity dropping by 7.3 points and Labour leader David Cunliffe has jumped by 3.9 points, in the…
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The Electoral Commission has distributed a warning to parties which seems worth distributing widely: The increased interest in voters taking 'selfies' inside voting places is raising concerns about congestion and disturbance in voting places and potential non-compliance with rules in the Electoral Act regarding campaigning…
Twitter is something of a political institution now. More and more journalists use it as a medium to break and track stories. There are also a few "micro bloggers" who use Twitter very effectively as a means of communicating and developing discussions. Twitter's character limitation requires clarity…
With both Labour and the Greens supporting the plan, I/S at No Right Turn makes the case against... The left should not support prison slave labour Yesterday, the government announced that all prisons would become "working prisons", with their inmates forced to work for 40 hours…
Gordon Campbell posted an excellent piece yesterday on 19 Reasons Why We Can’t Afford Another National Government. The "headline" of each reason is below, go read the full article for the well argued support that Campbell supplies in each case: 1. The Key government is…
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Well that time rolled around again today some time. We are now past 800,000 comments. It seems like only yesterday that we were at 700,000. But it turns out that was just over 6 months ago. I think that we are slightly ahead of the schedule…