The change of leadership inside of National is essentially meaningless. All it seems to have started is exposing the kind of internecine factional warfare that is lurking below their party surface. I can’t see the inexperienced National team, even with Amy Adams back in it, being able to make the kinds of long-term decisions required in a modern world.
Catherine Delahunty recounts an impression of Todd Muller from her days as an Green MP. “The road to polite and personal good will is worth driving when there is no urgency and no deep changes required. It is good to arrive somewhere without personal damage and with genuine good will but it is not the base for addressing the most critical issues of our time.”
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Is Todd Muller the solution to National’s inability to deal with Jacinda Ardern?
Emerging from the current crisis, what kind of state can be envisaged that could do the opposite of this consciousness deflation, by enabling and encouraging an empowered citizenry, and harnessing public intelligence, creativity and ingenuity for the common good?
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The Nation holds its breath as the dullest political leadership race in a generation snores to a close. Who will win by losing? Who will lose by winning? Who cares?
UPDATE: It’s Mullertime!
UPDATE: Bennett dumped!
Jacinda Ardern has floated the idea of a four day working week and Grant Robertson wants to change the future of work. Maybe they should get on and do it.
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Results will be posted as soon as they are through. Update: Simon is in trouble.
Tomorrow the National Party caucus meet to decide on a leadership challenge mounted by Todd Muller and Nikki Kaye. Both parties obviously think they have the numbers. Which MPs are misleading them?
Hopefully, this post-legislative scrutiny will provide a chance to correct any excesses.
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The Herald’s misleading, clickbait sound-biting of Labour MP Tamati Coffey isn’t even close to what we need in reporting from the Epidemic Response Committee.
More than 110 nations have backed a call for the World Health Organisation to investigate the origins of the Covid-19 virus outbreak.
The media is reporting there will be a vote of no confidence in Simon Bridges’ leadership at next week’s National caucus meeting.
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Michelle Boag thinks that Mark Richardson should be the next National leader after Simon Bridges. Here at the Standard we wish to endorse this proposal.
The latest Newshub/Reid Research poll is a bloodbath for National- but who are the likely victims? Pollwatch is back, this time with a model for electorate winners and losers to add onto the party vote stats.
Last night’s Reid Research Newshub poll result will be reverberating through National’s caucus. And raises the question, do they gift Epsom to ACT and maybe get a right wing MP or do they preserve every seat they can for themselves.
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The May 2020 Newshub/Reid Research poll is astonishing. You’ve have, quite literally, never seen anything like it.
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Yes lefties, there is, and it’s not rocket science.
Taking a break from the apocalypse to talk about the problem with the Democrats and rural voters.
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School’s back on Monday, but the medical community is still struggling to understand covid 19
Just when we thought liberal democracies meant real freedom was an absolute written into human rights stone, by mid-March this year almost all OECD countries had implemented the most draconian reversal of lockdowns on every single human to combat Covid19. Except Sweden. How is it working out?
In terrible news, our feline masters can both get covid-19, and they can infect other cats. Fortunately so far they have largely been asymptomatic apart from some big cats.
We don’t know if there can be cat to human transmission. But I suspect it is likely. Obvious implications about being a issue for breaking transmission chains.
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A round up of the Green Party’s achievements in the 2020 Budget: funding for nature, the commitment to ending violence, and public housing and insulation. And a look at the pragmatics of what the Greens can currently accomplish.
Like measles, covid-19 could become endemic. Never dying out entirely. Needing to be controlled in human denser populations into the indefinite future. That is the warning from top World Health Organisation officials. Like me, they’re looking at reported research into covid-19 immunities and the picture isn’t encouraging. This is no time to be complacent.
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The budget site is up and running. Some links here along with Robertson’s speech. This post may get updated if authors feel like it. Otherwise commenters can praise or criticize. Preferably constructively rather than with mindless waffle.
Viruses and other diseases simply don’t care about abstractions like ‘human rights’. They just want to breed. We need a better legislative toolkit to deal with epidemics. There is only so long that a draconian state of emergency should be maintained. Like 1918 we need to start thinking about the future Health Act with reserve powers like level 2 and 1. In the meantime, we’ll deal with the virus with this imperfect act as a tool.
Text of a pre budget speech given yesterday by Jacinda Ardern.
