John Armstrong, Tracy Watkins, and Fran O’Sullivan all write today about National’s plunging polls and the growing likelihood that this will be the first two-term National government. They take different approaches – Armstrong: there’s nothing for Key to worry about, Watkins: there was a problem but the tide’s turning back, O’Sullivan: yeah, Key’s fucked.
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The Maori Party has accepted an invitation extended by the Mana Party to enter into discussions on how they can work together on a kaupapa by kaupapa basis. Is this a further threat to National’s parliamentary majority?
NZ needs government legislation & financial support to maintain local screen productions. Steven Joyce makes some hollow noises about prioritising NZ-focused productions, while allowing the Auckland industry to decline. Lucy Lawless blames Joyce for NZ Film tax rebates & prioritising BIG Oil.
Granny supported little Johnny’s plan to go off to market and sell the family’s cash cow. But even she’s furious that what he’s come back with amounts to nothing more than a hill of beans. As Granny Herald notes, the Nats’ determination to push ahead with the remaining sales regardless is all about ideology, and the knowledge that they’re going to lose the next election.
Meridian’s share price appears to be under value and will no doubt ensure that shareholders reap an early bonus. With a rate of return of over 10% for the first year you have to wonder what economic genius decided to sell shares to pay down debt with an interest rate of half that amount.
Over in the UK the tories there have engaged in a similar exercise where Royal Mail was sold under value and shareholders watched as their shares went up in value by over 60% in a month.
I wonder if Key and English have been receiving lessons from the Tories?
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The NZ screen industry is in a precarious state, unable to compete with incentives in other countries to attract the crums from Hollywood productions, impacted by the currency high dollar rate. Innovative ideas needed for an independent NZ industry, linked with public broadcasting TV & online viewing. [Updated: Maori TV & Barry Barclay]
National’s trying to blame it on Labour and the Greens for the Meridian sale flop, which attracted only a quarter of the expected ‘mums and dads’ (rich ‘mums and dads’ who put in $18k each). But let’s just get this straight: the decision to sell was National’s. If they don’t think they’re getting the price that they should for the sales, then they should stop them.
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The Government has announced the results of the Meridian Share float and the results are all bad. The country will receive up to $1.1 billion less than the shares were worth in 2011 and overseas entities will own 13% of the shares. Remind me why we are selling the shares ?
It raised a few eyebrows when the Catholic Church appeared to back the SkyCity deal. Seamus Donegan appeared before the select committee for the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, saying they couldn’t find a link between pokies and problem gambling. Turns out that Donegan’s submission was the opposite of the Commission’s real position, and he’s National MP Sam Lotu-Iiga’s electorate chair.
Kennedy Graham’s post on NZ’s appalling record on climate change: ‘Atlas shrugs off climate change – a New Zealand policy failure of monumental proportions‘, includes a great quote about Key shrugging in the face of his (and “neoliberalism”) failures. So apt.
Greenpeace has released scientific modelling of what would happen if a major oil well blowout (like Deepwater Horizon) were to occur at either of the sites were Anadarko is preparing to start deepwater drilling. It shows the dramatic size that a spill could reach, affecting beaches and fisheries. And, remember, our response force for such an event is three dinghies.
At least one MP if not the whole of National’s caucus knew that the news concerning Len Brown and Bevan Chuang would break soon eight days before it did. Slater’s and Palino’s claims are becoming more and more difficult to believe. And in a comment yesterday Bad12 sums up why this is such bad news for National.
In the same week the government announces a five million dollar gift to a yachting syndicate, Child Poverty Action Group has revealed that 13,000 of our poorest families have had their income slashed.
Is the Prime Minister John Key who claims to know what Labour has supposedly said in secret talks with SkyCity (talks that Cunliffe denies have happened) because it’s ‘all over town’ the same Prime Minister John Key who couldn’t be bothered to read a police report on one of his ministers who is now going to be tried for the offences investigated in said report? Asking for a friend.
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Bob Jones has produced another disgusting “opinion piece”, and the New Zealand Herald has once again been disgusting enough to publish it. I […]
Cunliffe talked of moving from a “from a cost-based to a values-based” strategy. We need a new narrative: valuing all, including children of those on benefits; about long term benefits for all of less inequality & poverty, and more affordable housing & better public transport, & more.
Lord Nicolas Stern, who wrote a ground-breaking report on the economic costs of climate change against the costs of stopping it (conclusion: stopping it is cheap compared to the cost of not), has changed his mind. Climate change is getting worse, faster, and heading to worse results than he thought. It’s no longer a matter of avoiding disaster, but how bad it gets.
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I’ve been trying to think of a way of expressing my complete and utter distaste for the arsehole of the local blogs and politics. But someone beat me to it. Hamish Price has been attacked in the usual way by Cameron Slater. Here is his facebook statement in response.
This rings quite true to me from what I know of the people and timelines.
Winston Peters’ KiwiFund proposal would nationalise KiwiSaver. Russel Norman supports it, but in competition with private schemes. Cunliffe is open to negotiation. Key is dismissive, but says Peters is so untrustworthy he is likely to back down & form an alliance with National anyway.
It is clear that there is significant concern within the National Party with the behaviour of Cameron Slater and there is worry that a New Zealand version of the Tea party is forming. There is an interesting battle developing between the civilised cautious wing of the Party and the Tea Party take no prisoners approach of Slater and Lusk. The future of the National Party is at stake …
Who says the ‘threatening texts’ in the Brown/Slater/Palino came from Brown’s camp? Didn’t the threatening text push Chuang into the affidavit, after weeks of being pressured by Palino advisor, Wewege? Doesn’t that make those texts awful useful for Slater/Palino? Do you believe Palino knew nothing of the affair, as he claims? If the purpose of the affidavit had been to present it to Brown quietly and get him to resign, wouldn’t that be blackmail?
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You can get buried in the minutiae of policy detail, House speeches and daily news cycles, thinking that success there will win an election. Outside the Thorndon Bubble however, nothing is further from the truth. A reconnected Labour Party presenting gutsy alternatives using a narrative quite different to the old neoliberal consensus is starting to get serious voter attention. Now is the time to press ‘turbo boost’.
National led the combined Labour+Green vote for 76 successive Roy Morgan polls. But how times have changed. The Left’s led 10 of the last 14 polls, and all the last five. With solid vision, policies, and a credible candidate for PM, the Left finally has the goods to win. Watch for the cracks to appear in the Nats as they position for a post-Key future.
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Slater’s track record speaks for itself. As the Brown-Chuang-Wewege-Palino story unfolds, his angle on the story shifts, and the contradictions abound. On The Nation this morning, Slater lays it out: politics is a dirty game, and that’s the game he’s playing.
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Of course John Palino did not know about the Len Brown Bevan Chuang relationship despite Chuang’s boyfriend who knew of the relationship being on his campaign team and despite Cameron Slater’s father being Palino’s campaign manager. Update: The Herald this morning has reported that Chuang claims to have met Palino for 90 minutes two days before the news of the affair was made public where the disclosing to Brown of the news was discussed.
Last week there was a Fabian debate between Wayne Mapp and Jane Kelsey about the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement that New Zealand started originally as a free trade agreement. Bearing in mind the short notice there were a quite credible audience. However to enhance the audience, Lyn Collie was inveigled into filming and editing the debate. Here is the film of the debate..
Weekend social is for non political chat. What’s on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever. No politics, no […]
It’s starting to look pretty shredded. Increasingly, it seems that John Banks has “got nothing to hide” – behind. The key question is what Banks knew when he signed a declaration recording known donations as anonymous. Paul Holmes did put the question directly to Banks on Q+A last year. He didn’t get a straight answer; Banks tried the cabbage boat defence.
