Search Results » farrar
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Pro-choice responses to Chadwick’s Abortion Bill
Been a bit disappointed that there hasn’t been a post up here yet on the news out on Saturday that Steve Chadwick is […]
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The reverse midas touch
David Farrar leapt to a “they did it too” defence of the taxpayer-funded ‘survey’ that National MPs are sending to selected voters around the country. I reckon he wrote the questions. It was Farrar’s dodgy polling that convinced National to run Melissa Lee as the candidate in Mt Albert. I guess Lee getting caught out with a dodgy ‘survey’ is just Farrar’s reverse midas touch striking again.
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Yet more abuse of Urgency
accountability, democracy under attack, democratic participation, local body elections, Parliament, policeThis week, the Government slammed through the Policing (Involvement in Local Authority Elections) Amendment Bill. It lets Police stand for local elections under the same rules as other public servants. It’s an issue that deserves to be debated. Instead, it was rushed through by this government in yet another shameful act of disregard for transparent government and active democracy.
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Nats’ smear machine steps up attack on Len Brown
The National Party smear machine is stepping up its attack on soon-to-be Auckland mayor Len Brown. Worried that Key’s handpicked candidate John Banks is falling behind, the right is resorting to smearing his left-wing rival. The National Party’s David Farrar is even suggesting a “cover-up” and “fraud” at the Manukau Council. Is panic setting in at the thought of losing Auckland?
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On the credit card play
I wasn’t going to comment on the credit card witchhunt as I think it’s prurient. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favour […]
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Mondayise Anzac, Waitangi (& Matariki)
The dearth of long weekends this year has made me feel cheated. And now with Queen’s Birthday over it’s a long wait till Labour weekend in October. That’s not fair dammit. It’s time to give Matariki its due and celebrate with a Monday off in July.
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Anatomy of a right-wing smear
With Len Brown beating Banks in the polls the right have come out swinging.
Let’s take a quick look at the anatomy of this dirt digging beast.
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An early election in 2011?
Recent posts and comments on the Standard have suggested that National may call an early election in 2011 because the Rugby World Cup’s […]
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A big hand for DPF
A shadowy cabal calling themselves “The NZ Bloggers Union” set out to create a grass-roots “Air NZ” blog award. Apparently a bunch of blogs have entered, The Standard might even be one of them, which is pretty organised for us! But we were deeply disturbed to hear that DPF will not be entering, apparently because he does not believe in awards. What’s up with that? Well, we’re from The Standard, and we’re here to help…
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Key’s wine excuse hard to swallow
TV3 has reported tonight that John Key admitted on video to owning an Otago vineyard, and providing free wine to “people that help me”. This, despite Key telling the public all his assets were in a blind trust. Key, painted with his Tranz Rail eyes, has responded by still insisting he doesn’t know about his assets – but that’s a hard excuse to swallow in wake of solid contradictory evidence. [UPDATE: video added]
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No answers on the tough questions
Hmm, so another bad, bad week for the directionless Key Government. Lucky a major newspaper steps in with a chance to make the PM look cute and adorable. It’s pretty telling that National Party pollster David Farrar chose to highlight a joke question from Valerie Vili and a joke answer; the answers to real questions are amazingly weak.
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Shed some sunlight on a limp response
David Farrar has finally made a comment on my “Hey Chubby…” post. It raises more questions than it answers. So I ask some of the obvious questions, and conclude that he has forsaken the principles of “free speech” that he so enthusiastically espoused only a few years ago.
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Hey “Chubby”…..
It looks like Nationals favourite pollster and blogging spinster has been sniffing around trying to find out who our authors are. So I guess I’ll have to gently castigate him yet again. Such a child, always reaching for the cookie jar..
In the process it appears that he has pissed off some journos, and it appears that David has acquired a new nickname.
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Straw clutching on mining
In 2000, Labour gave permission for two companies to carry out traditional gold-panning for tourism purposes on Schedule 4 land. National seems to think this is a great scandal. As if zero-impact gold-panning in rivers is comparable to gold cast mines and massive tailings lakes. They’re really getting desperate, aren’t they?
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On GEO group, conservative politicians, lobbyist groups, and prisons
accountability, corruption, election funding, International, law and "order", national/act government, prisons, The Standard, us politics, youtubeIn Florida, a legislative plan to close as many as five state prisons and ship inmates to a private prison run by GEO Group was scaled back last month.
The feds may be searching to see if former state House Speaker Sansom received any kickbacks from the company. The GEO group are also contenders for running private prisons here.
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Goff stands up for democracy in Auckland
accountability, assets, auckland supercity, democracy under attack, democratic participation, phil goff, referendumFresh from promising to restore the top tax rate that National is set to abolish and give the revenue to the poor, Phil Goff has outlined his vision for fixing National’s undemocratic Supercity. National and Act have ridden roughshod over Auckland democracy in the interests of their corporate allies. Phil Goff has made it clear that Labour will restore local democracy.
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Dead even in Auckland
Sam Cash takes a look at John Banks’ latest poll and doesn’t find too much to crow about for the Mayor for Remuera – noting he has only managed to draw even with Len Brown in spite of the huge profile lead he has over his challenger.
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Nat-onomics: $30 million up in flames
Vernon Small calculates that if the Cullen Fund had continued getting its monthly contributions, rather than just the one-off $250 million the government gave in July, we would be $30 million better off by now. Predictably, the financially illiterate Key apologists are having a cry about being shown to have stuffed this one up so badly.
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Espiner on the right-wing smear machine
The Nats run orchestrated smear campaigns coordinated with ministers’ offices, bloggers, and tame journos. National doesn’t want to and can’t engage in real political debate on the issues. So it is reduced to mud throwing. Some brave journo needs to shine a light on what is going on here. It is not good enough for the government to get away with using its proxies to wage secret smear campaigns.
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Fabians seminars on the budget.
There are a second set of seminars in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch over the next week on Choices and Consequences of the 2010 budget. Based on the Bold Choices seminar that I attended last weekend in Auckland (there are later ones in Wellington and Christchurch), they will be well worth attending. There are some materials on-line from that seminar.
Oh and David Farrar was shocked to find that Kiwiblog had been advertising the seminars
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Fabian seminar gets big tick
The first Fabian Society seminar in Auckland last weekend attracted a good crowd watch an participate as some of New Zealand’s top economic thinkers debated how to get the economy working for us. It has been judged a huge success. The next seminars will be in Wellington on Sunday 28 March and in Christchurch on 18 April.
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Cynical denialism will cost us all
David Farrar is not stupid. Like everyone with a brain, he knows that climate change is a real and dangerous threat caused by human greenhouse gases emissions. Yet he persists in making denialist dog-whistles to his readers, always being careful never to outright deny climate change himself. He and all the leaders of denialism are telling what they know to be lies to people they know to be idiots.
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Hysterical media coverage
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On the Chauvel beatup
Stuff.co.nz’s decision to turn an anonymous, politically motivated smear from an ACT Party activist into a front page tabloid screamer is gutter journalism for sure, but it’s only the latest example of a worrying trend.
It’s what happens when the right-wing smear machine meets an increasingly tabloid news media.
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Tolley losing the plot?
Anne Tolley put out an odd media statement on Friday. She reckons Trevor Mallard, opposition spokesperson for Education, dominated two public meetings in Auckland on her Government’s unpopular national standards policy. Which begs the question, was she actually all there at either meeting?
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Andrew Little eyes New Plymouth
I didn’t actually realise that the fact that Andrew Little is considering standing for Labour in New Plymouth in 2011 was news to anyone. I would think that New Plymouth is a natural seat for him.
Farrar’s analysis makes the old mistake of looking at the party votes instead of the candidate votes.
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Who were the Nat leakers?
Michael is dead right. The most important thing about the Hollow Men is not how Nicky Hager got the information but what the information is. It reveals National’s modern politics in all its unprincipled ugliness. Nonetheless, which Nats gave Hager the information is a subject of legitimate interest. I have some theories.
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Garrett: Sterilise the poor
ACT MP David Garret has called for a programme to sterilise the “likes” of Chris Kahui and Maxine King. By which we can only assume he means poor, brown, people. Sack him.
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A Power grab?
The Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill would allow Simon Power to appoint a new Chief Electoral Officer and new Electoral Commissioners for the 2011 election. This is wrong. These officials must be completely independent, they must not be or be seen to be political appointees.
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On the news value of questioning Ministers’ shares
A certain National Party pollster is having a cry over the story I ran yesterday on Murray McCully’s shares in Widespread Portfolios.
The story got widespread media coverage because it raised legitimate questions that needed to be answered.
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Supercity: Who’s gonna vote?
Recent polls highlight how important turnout will be at this year’s local body election.
Sam Cash takes a look at recent history and how attitudes to the supercity and the themes of this election could increase participation.
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Right turns a blind eye to middle NZ
In their attempts to justify putting up GST on all New Zealanders to give huge tax cuts to the wealthy few, the Right are going so far as to argue that middle and low income New Zealand doesn’t even exist.
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Evidence on drugs ignored
Minister of Justice Simon Power has unfortunately decided to completely ignore recommendations made by the Law Commission on drug reform. This is an […]
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Nats eyeing up youth minimum wage?
Over the last month or so National’s pollster David Farrar has been running a series of posts desperately trying to pin the spike […]
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Goff’s response to Key
Even National Party pollster, David Farrar, could only give Key’s speech a B Goff says that it’s ‘Alan Bollard 1, John Key 0’. […]
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National, time to put your dog on a leash
As surely an endorphin high fades, Cameron Slater was going to do something to get his name back in the media. He’s been […]
