No, you leave YOUR ideology at the door
There’s all this rubbish at the moment about people moving beyond ideology. At the Jobs Summit, attendees were harangued to ‘leave your ideology […]
Emigration still trendy
Herald: “Almost 1000 a week leaving for Australia. The flood of migrants across the Tasman continues unabated, with latest figures showing New Zealanders […]
I wish my house was clean coal clean
Re: cycle
According to Stuff: “Another idea on the table [at the Jobs Summit] is a $50 million cycleway built the length of the country. […]
The cost of doing (next to) nothing
Bill English is holding the country’s purse like an old woman on the subway. Far from doing what every other country is doing, injecting […]
Views from the Job Summit
– “Very clear that this is all about showing a consensus behind Key. That’s the mood among my colleagues. Seen some unionists about, […]
Airbrushing at will
Via Farrar’s site I’ve come across this a lovely piece of Government spin. It’s a PDF document checking off everything National’s done in […]
Previewing the jobs summit
Tomorrow, John Key’s much anticipated jobs summit will take place. It’s a big deal, it’s got a logo and everything. Unfortunately, John seems […]
A component of a component
A regular reader of The Standard, Adders, has sent us in this cartoon, inspired by Key’s answers in the patsy interview with the […]
Electives
If the 20 new elective surgery theatres Health Minister Tony Ryall has announced were going to be funded with new money, I would […]
Conferences are wasteful, unless you’re hosting
Lyndon Hood does it again: The National Government has cancelled another conference, with Prime Minister John Key describing it as “a waste of […]
Now comes the hard part
I get why the government is riding so high in the polls. John Key looks confident amd relaxed albeit a little goofy sometimes […]
Herald: “we’ll dig our way out of this hole”
The Herald is again demonstrating its economic ignorance with its call for spending cuts in today’s editorial: Something has to give. If National […]
‘Iconic’ bailouts
Bailing out a company like Air New Zealand is one thing. It has a multiplier effect on the local economy in tourism marketing, […]
What’s Bill planning?
Yesterday, Finance Minister Bill English made a big deal over the loss the New Zealand Superannuation Fund incurred last year. When you don’t […]
Brian Easton’s DL talk now online
For those of you who missed Brian Easton’s recent talk on the recession at Drinking Liberally Wgtn (or just couldn’t hear over the […]
Act MP caught out
Rethinking Crime and Punishment Director, Kim Workman, has caught Act MP David Garrett being less than honest about how many extra prisoners his […]
Tax cuts no help for those worse off
According to RNZ: Official papers confirm low income families will be worse off under the National Government’s tax cut package, compared with Labour’s. […]
Shepard Fairey
Good Copy Bad Copy (repost)
I posted on this in the early days of The Standard but now might be a good time to check it out if […]
Once bitten
After his gaffe last time Key’s made a point of openly announcing his next meeting with the Tories’ deputy chairman, strategist and largest […]
Don’t kill the Cullen Fund
Michael Littlewood has made a career of advocating superannuation privatisation and is part of an international organisation called Pension Reforms dedicated to the […]
The ink’s red, there’s less of it, and no-one’s reading it
New circulation figures show that the number of papers sold by the major dailies continues to slide. In 2007, the big three (Herald, […]
S92A deferred
Looks like the introduction of s92a has been deferred… It is still a bit of a rumour (at least until I find the […]
DL Wellington with Grant Robertson
Under Patrick’s iron fist, things seem much more organised with DL Wellington. For just about the first time ever, there will be a […]
Judith Collins – nascent Minister of Embarrassment?
Should have seen it coming Judith Collins has been vying politically with Rodney Hide to become the NACT’s Minister of Embarrassment (and Comedy). […]
Flashback from way back
Anyone else read Audrey Young’s interview of Bill English in the New Zealand Herald and get a massive feeling of deja vu? Here’s […]
Fitzsimons to step down from Greens’ co-leadership
Jeanette has announced she will be stepping down at co-leader of the Greens. Technically, she will just not be putting her name up […]
Being stupid on the economy
Brian Fallow has some extraordinarily good analysis of the economic situation in his piece today. Here’s some important passages (and my, unfortunately, extensive […]
Protest mode on Section 92A
This Saturday, February 28th, Section 92A of the Copyright Act is due to come into force. It is currently unworkable. This website has […]
Granny’s baked some patsies for you, dearie
Can you spot the question that wasn’t asked of Key by Armstrong and Young in their six page interview with him in today’s […]
Education lesson from UK
Last year we saw how unpopular National’s “national testing” policy was going to be. Now a major study in the UK is highly […]
A sign of the times?
This item in the Brisbane Times caught my eye as to how the whole nature of campaigning is changing – and the mixed […]
The praiseworthy and the pitiful
The praiseworthy and the pitiful is our weekly post on the little things that caught our eye but didn’t lead to a full […]
Actions speak louder than words
Remember this infamous PowerPoint presentation from National’s 2005 campaign? Remember the Nats’ vote-winning strategy of targeting female voters as outlined in The Hollow […]
Clare Curran on s92(a)
Yesterday, Labour’s communications and IT spokesperson, Clare Curran, sought Parliament’s leave to introduce a Bill to attempt to fix s92(a), the ‘guilt by […]