National’s first dirty tricks operation of the 2011 election campaign has ended in an embarrassing own goal. But they’ll be back with more of the same. Because the last thing National wants is an election campaign focused on the issues.
My jaw dropped when I heard this listening to Question Time yesterday. Mallard: “Does he understand that real average wages go up when high-income earners get massive tax cuts-$1,000 a week, in his case-and low-income workers lose their jobs?” English: “No, I do not understand that, because it is not true.” Can’t English do simple maths?
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ianupnorth was interested in the Right’s frequent cries that ‘socialism’, even in its mildest forms, will destroy New Zealand. So, he looked at another small first world country, with much in common with New Zealand – Belgium – to see how its statistics compared to ours, in light of its more socialist policies. What are the Belgians doing right that we refuse to do?
“Substitute the words “convention centre” for “suitcase of cash” and the transaction looks very clear.”*
National wants to change the rules for another foreign corporate. Wouldn’t move an inch for Kiwirail jobs. Maybe that’s because Kiwirail didn’t donate 100K to National (and Labour) in the past decade like SkyCity did.
An attempt to promote asset sales in yesterday’s Dom ended up falling on its face. The author takes the government line, that Contact provides the template for ‘mum and dad’ investors buying SOEs. But the article admits the truth: only a tiny fraction of Kiwis ever invested in Contact, less own it now, and even they may soon be forced out.
National’s raid on Labour donor data was a grubby, amoral little operation, with no point except to intimidate innocent individuals.
Unfortunately for the Nats it has blown up in their faces.
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Could be worth watching Native Affairs on Maori television tonight at 8:30. The Te Tai Tokerau candidates will be debating and it appears there may be a very interesting poll result in the offing. The Herald’s story today on a different sort of poll is headlined “Voters back Harawira, but only by a whisker.” It could go down to the wire.
Update: Hone 41, Kelvin 40
The nastiest quakes since February. A 5.5 closely followed by a 6.0. Damage, injuries, utility outages reported. How much more can Christchurch take?
There has been a repeated question over the last few days coming up in comments about auto-moderation. Well there is a battle against spam comments raging on the net. You’re getting caught as collateral damage.
So you support Maori being paid less than Pakeha for the same work? What about men being paid less than women? No, that would be discrimination, eh? Same work, same pay. So, what about paying a 17 year old less than a 18 year old for the same work? That’s what National is planning if we are stupid enough to give them a second term.
Auckland has 250 licenced gambling venues. SkyCity wants to build a $350m casino/convention centre but only if it gets a law change. Key has agreed to the law change. Calls it progress. Yet no help for Kiwirail jobs. National doesn’t believe in real jobs like manufacturing. Picking the pockets of gamblers is more in line with National’s economic vision.
It looks like the Labour party site was breached from National HQ.
Does this mean National are still laundering their dirty tricks though their pet bloggers?
At 9am today Slater is probably going to publish a list of some of the donors to the Labour Party. A big thank you to every person on that list! To anyone who is angry at being named, please don’t blame some hapless web admin working for Labour. Please blame the people who took this information and illegally made it public.
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Watch Kelvin Davis on Q+A with Hone Harawira. He was superb. He says the message he is giving about being part of the future for Maori is resonating around the Tai Tokerau. I’ll bet it is. The by-election result could be very interesting indeed. I liked his take on leadership too – it’s about being focussed on the objective and doing what is necessary to achieve it. Couldn’t agree more.
Although the latest “scandal” the HoS and a couple of bloggers are getting excited about is a damp squib it does raise a few issues about the accountability and transparency of parliamentary services.
I think it’s time to add parliamentary services to the OIA.
National knows that the public oppose its agenda of asset sales, lower wages, and service cuts. So they’re going to campaign dirty. They’re running this week’s muck-throwing via sickness beneficiary* Cameron Slater. The Nats breached the Labour Party website and stole a list of online donors. Hardly the stuff of scandal, just an attempt to intimidate.
The Nats, a party which runs as a franchise of an Australian company (Crosby Textor), reckon that the presence of a mate from Australia at a regional Labour Party meeting shows that Labour is “subject to foreign influence”.
Amongst the many vacuous claims made in relation to the last budget, the claim that cuts to KiwiSaver would encourage savings always struck me as the dumbest. Now the facts are in, and guess what…
Bill (and John and the entire National caucus) have been telling us that we are required to borrow $380 million each and every week. Apparently we aren’t.
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Remember John Key’s Hardtalk interview? He wilted under real questioning. How would he handle 22 minutes with New Zealand’s most feared interviewer, Sean Plunket? Seems the $43 million bailout of Mediaworks bought a lot of soft questions. 22 minutes of pap. If you can be bothered, don’t watch, just listen. Picture Plunket cradling Key like a newborn. [cheers for the pic, William Joyce]
John Armstrong reckons Key has the “Midas touch”. Ahh, no. Or at least, not in the sense that John meant…
More incisive hilarity from Danyl: “It works like this: Paul Holmes gets to live in a state house for a year with a one year old baby, surviving on only the $288 dollars/week allocated to beneficiaries on the DPB, and at the end of the year Paul gets to decide whether he chooses to ‘breed for cash’….”
A little over a year ago the biggest single protest march in this country since 1938 put the final nail in the coffin of the Nats’ amateur hour plans to mine our most precious conservation land. Or so we thought…
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A few overlooked videos from plumedekiwi. The short and potty history of the pavlova going to its awful conclusion and a similar look at the Wellywood sign.
There are far more similarities than differences in the Hughes / Goff and Worth / Key affairs, but that doesn’t stop the Right trying to rewrite history and blame Goff!
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?
Joyce was told that building the new train cars at the Kiwirail workshop in Dunedin would bring half a billion into the economy. Joyce insisted Kiwirail go with the ‘cheapest’ option. China. Now, another 40 jobs have been axed. Not to mention other economic losses. Joyce is unrepentant. Blind to the cost of ‘cheap’. Aussie’s do it smarter than Joyce.
The Budget is unravelling at a startling rate of knots. Bill English is floundering to explain his dodgy asset sales numbers that count the benefits but not the costs. Now, a senior minister has admitted that John Key’s claim that “there are 170,000 new jobs being created as a result of this Budget” is a lie. We actually really do deserve better than this.
The Nats haven’t got a clue how to run a successful country, and most of the things they do try just make matters worse. We’re drifting…
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The latest Roy Morgan is the first poll taken after the Budget has had time to sink in. Nat+ACT+UF fell from 55.5% to 51% while Lab+Green went from 38% to 42.5%. Labour rose a massive 8%. New Zealanders do not want asset sales, fewer work rights, and National’s nasty agenda and are realising they have to vote against that ‘Nice Man Mr Key’.
