Open mike 22/11/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Laws and police priorities
While the police are executing a search warrant at the Herald on Sunday at John Key’s request, perhaps they might be able to spare the time to follow up Section 174 of the Crimes Act re Michael Laws on Radio Live advocating shooting their journalists. It carries a ten-year prison sentence. Doesn’t need a fishing expedition either.
The other state house issue
Key’s poodle blogs are barking about Labour’s state house attack ad. Key told us again tonight on TV3 he too was “brought up in a state house.” What it taught him though is that “it was a great marketing ploy.” What a fraud.
TV3 debate: clear win to Goff
A clear win to Goff – Bravo!
The Goldsmith Gambit
This will be one of the dirtiest political and anti-democratic tactics ever designed in NZ history. It has the potential of delivering a second John Key term, gifting Epsom to ACT and of discrediting MMP in one foul swoop: a true Tory Trifecta.
Police delay searches
In what seems a very wise move, police are holding off their searches of four media organisations until the legal situation has been clarified. See also some notes on the legal situation prior to Tuesday’s hearing.
3rd World New Zealand
25K Kiwi kids get infections like rheumatic fever and scabies each year. Disease sthey haven’t seen in Sweden since the 70s.We treat our kids like an expense, not an investment. Then we wonder why we have unhealthy, uneducated, unskilled adults and our country gets left behind. We’re becoming a 3rd world country. It’s 3rd world thinking that’s getting us there.
Truth in advertising
Debate tonight – smartphone worm app
Tonight is the TV3 Goff-Key leaders’ debate 7pm – 8:30pm. Remember “the worm”? It’s back. And (in a move that is a gift to National’s demographic) this time it’s packing a smartphone. Here’s how to get the app if you want to take part.
Fearing Winston
National is getting increasingly hysterical as its internal polling shows its majority slipping away and New Zealand First above 5%. National is lashing out, saying Winston could trigger a snap election because he wouldn’t sacrifice his principles like the Maori Party and ACT. Invent your own anti-NZF scare line for National:
Five days to Save our Assets
Phil Goff said yesterday we had “Six days to save our assets” – now we have 5. Here’s what University of Auckland’s economics professor thinks about asset sales, and some more reasons why we desperately need to avoid a National-led government on November 27.
Open mike 21/11/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
More lameness from the man with no ideas; wave goodbye to Aroha
John Key has announced today that if Winston is re-elected, New Zealand will be forced to go back to the polls within weeks.
Meanwhile elsewhere on the limping catastrophe that is the John Key Campaign, Aroha Ireland has decided to leave New Zealand and join the record numbers of kiwis leaving permanently for a Brighter Future in Australia.
Integrity or hocus pocus
I have no sympathy for politicians complaining about their ‘private’ political conversations being made public. What politicians say on politics is inherently of public interest. Don’t say different things in private then in public, and you won’t get caught out. It’s a matter of integrity. We can now reveal what John Key really thinks about climate change.
What would he have thought?
New Goldsmith signs go up
Apparently, Paul Goldsmith is not even handing out his business card in Epsom any more. And Imperator Fish reports on the extreme lengths he is going to in an effort to lose. But his popularity cannot be quelled. #hipstersforgoldsmith is big on Twitter. And new, completely legal, campaign posters are sprouting up. Can’t wait for Goldsmith’s victory party.
Open mike 20/11/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Ambrose to sue Key for defamation
Bradley Ambrose, the cameraman widely maligned by John Key and his pudgey lapdogs David Farrar and Cameron Slater for daring to hold the PM to some basic standards of accountability, is demanding an apology from John Key or he’ll take the PM to court for defamation.
UPDATE: The final week of the campaign will kick off with a police raid on the Herald Monday morning.
ACT have been very stable
We missed this at the time – thanks to toad in comments (and link to g.blog) for the heads up! Especially relevant now that John Key has personally tied himself to ACT with his endorsement.
In memoriam
It’s a year since the explosion at Pike River killed 29 men. Just people like you and me doing their job. It seems some semblance of justice may be delivered to those who let this disaster happen. But the lasting legacy must be a change of culture and regulations to put people’s lives before companies’ profits. So no more suffer the fate of the Pike River 29.
How bad are National’s internals?
Some say the tea tapes haven’t hurt Brand Key. In fact, National is down 2% last week and those polls were largely taken before the tea tapes hit overdrive. It also takes time for impressions and media narratives to bed in. The 26th will be the first poll to really tell us how much the tea tapes have hurt. But the internals could give us a clue.
Nats and climate change deniers
The teapot tape fiasco has forced the Nats to pretend that they are interested in policy. It’s screamingly hypocritical of them, since they couldn’t even be bothered returning answers to Radio NZ’s policy survey. But let’s not waste this new opportunity. Let’s start with asking them why they’re endorsing a party of loony climate change deniers.
John Key: Berlusconi of the south pacific
Open mike 19/11/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Weekend social 18/11/2011
Weekend social is for non political chat. What’s on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever. No politics, no […]
Small target
Outraging families of suicide victims. Insulting the Police as layabouts. Declaring war on the media. Negative teapot stories every day, now spreading to over coverage. The Nats are spinning this was planned; that they decided to go nuclear on the media as a vote winner. What a joke. They were successfully running a small target campaign until a week ago.
International Federation of Journalists condemns Key’s suppression of media freedom
The International Federation of Journalists has condemned police demands for media organisations to hand over information about the tea tapes.
Much as some of us have enjoyed watching Key squirm, this has gone too far. Time to call off the cops and release the tape.
Unbridled power
Kazakhstan police have ordered four media organisations to hand over evidence of an alleged illegal recording of President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The police said they would carry out searches to get the material. Opposition politicians have accused Mr Nazarbayev of trying to gag the media in the run-up to an election next weekend.
Spare time
John Key says that it’s OK for the Police to waste time trying to intimidate the media on his behalf because they have “spare time” with the drop in crime. There were 220,000 unsolved crimes last year including 8 homicides. The cops solved 15,000 fewer crimes than the previous year. Don’t tell me they’re sitting around waiting to do the PM’s bidding.
Mood of the Boardroom distinctly undemocratic
The Herald reports CEOs are moaning that MMP won’t let them ram through unpopular policies. I can’t think of a better reason to vote MMP.
Key loses plot under election pressure
John Key has a history of choking under pressure but this time, calling on the police to raid the premises of our national broadcasters TVNZ and RNZ, and our major privately owned newspapers – he’s cracked under the pressure of the campaign and the spectre of losing it all. There’ll be no knighthood if Key becomes the first National PM to lose after just one term.
Teapot fiasco becomes an international embarrassment
The teapot fiasco has become an international story.
And it’s making us look like a banana republic.
Is this what John Key means when he says he’s “ambitious for New Zealand”?
Main parties down minor parties up
The two TV polls last night had both major parties down, and The Greens on the rise to 13%. The Herald poll has NZF on 4.9%. I would expect the Nats to fall as the bungled and aggressive handling of the teapot tape fiasco has time to impact the polls. It’s going to be an interesting week.
Open mike 18/11/2011
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to […]
Search warrants against the media
Interesting looking at the current law on getting and using search warrants on media organisations. There are some quite clear guidelines from a 1965 case.If the guidelines are adhered to it is hard to see how warrants could be obtained. Reading and publishing the search warrants and the supporting materials looks to be the only way that the public will be able to decide if John Key is walking down the path of close cooperation between the police and the current prime minister used by other ‘democratic’ countries.
National declines to discuss policy
RNZ has a great Policy Q&A site up. Labour and the Greens have replied to the questions (most parties have or will do so), so you can find out where they stand on the issues. But National’s non-participation shows that they’re too arrogant to even bother engaging on policy.