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National’s civil war continues
In an extraordinary move National’s board has reselected Peter Goodfellow as Party Chairperson and this has caused former MP David Carter to resign as board member and express no confidence in the leadership or in National’s chances at the next election.
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Judith’s last stand?
Judith Collins has decided to attack the Government on the use of the Te Reo name for New Zealand even though the last National Government regularised its use.
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Why aren’t Labour acting on the housing crisis?
Bernard Hickey calls Labour’s inaction a scandal, and it’s hard to disagree.
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Our modern Olympics
The Olympics is an opera that runs on one orchestrated symbol after another, and this Tokyo Olympics is a superabundant tragedy.
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What If Boris Is Right?
Now that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has “opened up” the United Kingdom from many of the Covid19 strictures that it had undergone, there is a lot at stake to his reputation and indeed to the lives and livelihoods of its citizens.
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Act likes some rights but not others
Following on from its campaign to protect freedom of expression Act has come out with policy on gangs which if enacted would involve some pretty egregious attacks on freedom of association and movement and due process.
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Freedom day
As infection rates of Covid in the United Kingdom surge Boris Johnson has announced that today will be the UK’s Freedom day and will be removing pretty well all mandatory Covid restrictions, even the wearing of masks and social distancing.
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Trump and Russia
The Guardian has reported on claims of a leaked Russian Government paper which on the face of it confirms Russian support for the Trump 2016 election at the highest level.
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Why Not Support The Farmers?
The Groundswell farmers movement want the new freshwater policy scrapped, the “ute tax” removed, lots of imported labour for farm work, parts of the ETS dumped the new Significant Natural Area policy dumped, the draft policy on indigenous biodiversity scrapped and Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill stopped. How likely is this?
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If a thousand baby flamingos die in the desert does anyone hear them howl?
Farmers aren’t the problem here, they’re the mirror New Zealand is holding up to itself. We say we want change, despite the evidence.
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All the right words on climate have already been said
So I was just driving around thinking, “Ugh it’s hot. Ugh there’s a new fire starting near me at least every other day. Ugh, how is this my life, also this is just the beginning, I feel like I should be waking up from this nightmare at some point and yet I am not,” when the editor finally reached me.
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Judith Collins is not John Key
I honestly am not sure what Judith’s game plan. Supporting someone who on twitter called for the lynching of a person with a contrary view is not a way to reach to the middle of New Zealand politics.
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Oppose this new hate speech bill
Hate speech is about to get a lot more criminalised with much stronger penalties. It’s worth going back to what the Royal Commission […]
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Todd’s going … who is next?
Yesterday National suffered further damage to its ranks when Harete Hipango was outed as the MP with Parliamentary Services resources issues and Todd Muller announced that he will stand down as an MP at the end of this term nominally so that he can eventually spend more time with his family.
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Make the film and be damned
A company wants to make a film about the Christchurch mosque massacre on 15 March 2019. Maybe it should do.
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The Government’s Feebate scheme
climate change, Environment, global warming, greens, labour, michael wood, national, science, transportLabour and the Greens have announced the establishment of a Feebate scheme to incentivise the purchase of electric vehicles and disincentivise the purchase of gas guzzlers.
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The Climate Commission Report
As they said they would, the Government has today released the full advice from the Climate Commission, taking into account all the submissions and all the big fat evidence.
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Colonisation and widespread theft of Maori land is apparently good for them
Paora Goldsmith, who last hit National headlines for botching up National’s alternative budget, has again hit the headlines and for the wrong reasons. And this time members of his caucus publicly disagree with him.
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Where Did Business Go?
Back in the day when we had useful Opposition, business leadership could be relied upon to think as if they had interests in common as business. This budget, their ability to think let alone lead has deserted them.
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Reality has a left wing bias
Fresh from a claim that the Ministry of Education is trying to persuade kids not to eat home made lunches, David Seymour has taken aim at a new target, a radical education policy that intends to teach our kids about racism and inequality and what has happened in the country’s past.
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Hang Facebook
The decision by the Oversight Board of Facebook to continue banning Donald Trump is one of the biggest moves against free speech and the modern definition of its limits that the world has seen.
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About the public service pay freeze
A few of us on the left have issues with the public service wage freeze announced yesterday. By setting the salary level so low, at $60,000 per annum, the threat is that previous gains for teachers and nurses will be undermined.
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Regenerative agriculture and climate solutions
Research is now showing the advantages of regenerative agriculture. Are we wise enough to make best use of them?
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Boris Johnson’s and Dominic Cummings’ very public fallout
Over in the UK Boris Johnson and his former chief advisor Dominic Cummings have had a very public fallout. And ever since it happened there have been very public leaks of damaging information which incredibly have not as yet damaged the Conservative Party’s standing.
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The politics of the Covid vaccination roll out
Poor National. Faced with a Government response to Covid that has been superb it is reduced to criticising the Government for not rolling out the Covid vaccine quickly enough.
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Click bait frenzy
Media has been awash with discussion about Mike Hosking’s recent interaction with Jacinda Ardern. She was invited onto his show, agreed to appear, was grilled on isolation facility beds, and gave responses. End of story you would think.
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National’s leadership problem
Chris Luxon’s maiden speech last week and another example of multiple leaks of details of a caucus meeting highlight how precarious Judith Collins’ tenure as National Party leader is. But does someone have the numbers to replace her?
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Dirty politics denouement
Another chapter of dirty politics has reached its conclusion with Carrick Graham offering an abject apology to Doug Sellman, Boyd Swinburn and Shane Bradbook for smearing their reputation via the Whaleoil website.
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The case for mandatory legislative review
You can’t read legislation for very long without finding instances of weird edge cases. But is also why we have kids trying to walk or bike on gravel roads with no sidewalks to get to school. When modern cars travel these narrow lanes at up to 100km/hour. Parliament has no systematic way to review obsolete legislation.
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Who’s the wokester?
Simon Bridges has repeated claims that Police Commissioner Andy Coster is “wokester” and has underlined how weak National’s caucus discipline is.
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Texas’s power crisis
Over in the US of A in the great state of Texas and in surrounding states locals are experiencing unusually cold weather and are suffering from the effects. But instead of blaming their not fit for purpose electrical systems they are blaming the Green New Deal, even though it has not been implemented.
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Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi …
Yesterday Jacinda Ardern chose to use decidedly undiplomatic speech to address Australia’s removal of its citizenship from a Jihadi bride leaving her as New Zealand’s problem, even though her link to New Zealand was tenuous and she was for all intents and purposes Australia’s problem. And even though Ardern had previously asked Scomo to be careful with the issue.
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Will Technology Solve Climate Change?
What if we actually planned to reduce energy usage significantly while revamping the economy to promote happiness and well-being? Then it would be far easier to replace our remaining energy usage with renewable sources. – Richard Heinberg
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Parliament’s tie issue
Not wearing a tie in Parliament is a weird issue for the Maori Party to get ready to die in a ditch about. But the rules should be changed.
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Reasons to abandon NZ’s Five-Eyed Folly
australian politics, China, Culture wars, defence, economy, Free Trade, john key, spin, Spying, surveillance, telecommunications, trade, uk politics, us politicsWayne Brown’s recent suggestion “Is it time to sell our seat on FiveEyes?” is from someone well placed by experience to form an educated opinion. “Trade sanctions of the type Australia is facing are a weapon used by both USA and China. So let’s have a debate on whether we need Five Eyes, or whether it’s time for us to trade on independently.”
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Trifold Politics and Boundaries
Over the past year I’ve outlined in the comments an alternative triplet political model to the standard left/right description that’s the usual default. […]
