Search Results » nick smith acc
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Nat Civil War: The perils of monolithism
Despite losing nearly 1 in 4 of its supporters, 300,000 voters, in a little over 6 months according to the Roy Morgans, National’s 44% still looks superficially impressive. Until you realise they need to be able to form a majority more or less alone. The Right’s monolithism doesn’t just place extraordinary demands on National’s leader, it’s the root of the current civil war.
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Will the Greens lead the next government?
Two recent pieces in The Herald draw opposite conclusions from recent polls (one of them, alas, is drivel). Matt McCarten asks if National’s free fall, and the rise of the Greens, foreshadows a Green led government in 2014…
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Nat Civil War: Key backs Boag over Collins
John Key gave one of his least sure and most defensive interviews in five years on Q+A on the weekend. His goal was clearly to protect his personal brand and close the issue down. He failed. He failed because he refused to criticise Pullar and Boag, and refused to back Collins’ law suits. That puts him at odds with the Collins faction and onside with Boag’s.
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Confused? A guide to the letters & leaks in the Nats’ Civil War
The ever-growing list of letters, emails, and leaks in the National Party Civil War, that started off as an apparently apolitical privacy breach by ACC, is getting hard to follow. Here’s a summary of the various documents and their ramifications – so far.
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They eat their own
ACC denies leaking Bronwyn Pullar’s name. It’s not credible that they would act so high risk and so politically. Boag and Pullar clearly didn’t leak it. So, that leaves Collins and her office. Collins denied leaking the email to the media … but leaves a fair bit of wiggle room, doesn’t it? The tipline is, as they say, running hot – and the name on everyone’s lips is Lusk. More soon.
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Collins’ attack on Pullar continues
It’s strange watching National’s factions fight it out in the media- the Herald on Sunday running the Collins/Slater faction stuff and the Dompost running material from Boag/Pullar. Both sides are scum. Pullar received (somehow) the largest leak in ACC and passed to the media. Collins has imitated her fellow ministers by leaking Pullar’s private details in revenge.
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Who leaked Pullar’s name?
Nick Smith’s handpicked chair of ACC, John Judge, denies that ACC leaked Bronwyn Pullar’s name to the media after she made public the biggest leak of private data in history from the organisation. So, who did? Given the government’s track-record – Bennett vs the solo mums, Brownlee publicising Dalziel’s redzone offer – I’m betting it was Judith Collins.
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Nats’ Rena spin all at sea
The Nats are clearly at panic stations. They’re trying to minimise the Rena disaster by comparing the number of dead animals to those killed by other means. As one emailer put it: “it’s like saying the Christchurch earthquake was no big deal because more people die of cancer”. Meanwhile, Key visits oiled birds and says they’re the price of economic ‘progress’.
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NRT: Making the trains run on time
Eighteen months ago, in what can only be described as a coup, the government disestablished the democratically-elected Environment Canterbury and replaced it with a clique of hand-picked dictators. Nick Smith says that the percentage of resource consents being processed on time has skyrocketed but is that thanks to the dictatorship?
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Hansen calls for Key to lead on climate change
Visionary climate change scientist James Hansen has written an open letter to John Key.
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Key attacks another journalist
The Nats are obviously worried about public reaction to the recent revelations on the role of the SAS in Afghanistan. And as is usually the case when they feel threatened by a story, the Nats are striking out, trying to discredit or intimidate the source.
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Own goal by National flunky
Cameron Slater has the inside word on Murray McCully’s $75,000 trip to Vanuatu on a New Zealand Air Force plane that involved flying the 126-seater there and back to drop him and seven staff off, then there and back again the next day to pick them up. This story gets worse the more details come out.
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Climate change: Our $1.2 billion a year credibility gap
The United Nations joins those voices pointing out that Nationals”policy” on reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a complete sham. Reposted from No Right Turn.
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Hughes stood down
Darren Hughes has been suspended from his shadow portfolios due to the continuing police investigation. Goff probably should have done this earlier, despite the understandable wariness of a leader can’t punish an MP on the strength of a complaint alone. As Key did with Wong and Worth, Goff has waited until the media issue became too big.
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Doin’ nothin’: Foreign policy
Over at Dimpost, Danyl makes a pertinent observation: “Reiteration that we are ‘very good friends’. Zero development on trade or defense issues. I’m not even sure why she’s here.” There was nothing solid. The ‘Wellington Declaration is, in John Armstrong’s words, featherlight – a big name for less substance than a normal visit. More style over substance.
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100% PURE…going…going…gone…
When the 2009 ‘streamlining and simplifying’ amendment to the RMA was rushed through parliament last year, many concerns were raised about new abilities for the Minister for the Environment to use National Environmental Standards (NES) to override local government regulations. Now an NES on forestry is being pushed through. It’s scary stuff.
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Key’s culture of impunity
Despite a slew of scandals, Key has not enforced any ethical or professional standards on his ministers (apart from Worth, for whatever he did). Ministers know that Key will keep his personal brand clean but won’t do anything to pull them into line. This has created a culture of impunity in the government, which has started to spread wider.
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Roads of National Party Significance Continue…
Transmission Gully: A road that makes no economic sense, that will now be forced through extra fast, with reduced consultation.
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Our Water Our Vote
Sunday saw another big protest against the government. An estimated 3000 people turned out in Christchurch for the “Our Water Our Vote” rally to protest National’s attacks on Canterbury’s democracy and environment.
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Govt’s instances of abuse
Over the weekend, I read the right wing blogs with interest and their frequent references to left-wing politicians troughing at the taxpayers expense and other such instances of abuse. I then lent my mind to the National-led Government and how they have fared in this regard over the last 18 months.
This is what I came up with:
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Understanding and trust
Nat MP Michael Woodhouse was speaking on the amendment bill weakening workers’ rights to a break and said “I was heard it said that political discourse requites two things: trust and understanding. And it’s certainly true here. Labour don’t trust us and we sure as hell don’t understand them”. I think it’s very enlightening that he chose to put it that way.
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Nats plan to subsidise greenhouse polluters
National is predictably planning to put the cost of polluters’ actions on to the rest of us by canning the major parts of the ETS. This stupid game of pass the buck is played out all over the world – polluters refuse to accept their responsibilities, governments refuse to act – as more greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere, locking us in to economic and ecological devastation.
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Help a brother out
Nick Smith’s brother, Tim Smith, was up on 21 charges from Environment Canterbury at the same time as Smith was ramming through the abolishment of the democratically-elected council. Smith should have told us of this apparent conflict of interest. I guess when you’re part of a government that’s hiding the fact its 3 strikes law will encourage murders, this seemed like a small thing.
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‘Dig & hope’ – Nats’ great plan
National’s mining policy is ‘dig and hope’. That’s the only conclusion one can draw after Gerry Brownlee and Nick Smith admitted National has no idea of the value of the minerals supposedly under the protected lands they want to dig up. Remember, this is National’s lynch-pin economic policy. They are we have dig up these protected lands for the sake of the economy but have no idea of what’s there.
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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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Public rage at govt policies and lies
On Nightline just now there was coverage of a meeting held by Nick Smith in St Heliers. Two interesting things: 1) there was […]
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CCDs. Worms perhaps?
It has been fascinating over the last few days watching the CCDs (Climate Change Deniers) make an another attempt to scale the bastion […]
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Harawira and Katene to cross the floor?
National wants to get its shambolic ETS through the House this week. It’s not quite clear what the hurry is; there’s no actual […]
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Lunch time quiz
1) What the hell is John Key trying to say here? “Maori are not getting special preference, if you go back to those […]
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Government of Fantasyland
This is Nick Smith in Parliament yesterday, replying to a question on Treasury’s re-calibrated $50 billion costs of Nationals ETS Bill: Hon Dr […]
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Bikoi
Just got away from the bikoi at Parliament. What a sight. At least 6,000 people they reckon. The lawn and half the forecourt […]
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Key’s $155b subsidy to polluters
A month ago, I wrote that National’s moves to gut the Emissions Trading Scheme would increase government debt by $73 billion by 2050. A Treasury […]
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The resistance
A very well-produced youtube vid on National’s distortions over ACC The clever thing National has done is set up ACC as the agent […]
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Give the snip snap to the zip zap plastic fantastic? Yeah right!
Brian Fallow has a great post over at Granny Herald this morning. “Emitters on bludger’s end of deal” deals with the way that […]
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It’s called politics, Colin
Colin, I think we need to discuss your work: the conspiracy theory peddled by Labour and the EPMU (i.e. Labour) that somehow this […]
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Oldest trick in the book
How do you get someone to change their mind about something they like? Simple, find one negative element to it (nothing is perfect) […]
