Re: Chauvel on CERRA

A few days ago Charles Chauvel wrote a piece on Red Alert on why Labour voted for CERRA. I have two big problems with it. 1) Labour may have won concessions that improved CERRA but they didn’t get the key one. 2) There’s a dangerous mindset in the position that Labour had to vote for dictatorship or get pilloried in the media and lose votes.

Nats stand up for loan sharks

Disgraceful to see that National and Act have voted down Carol Beaumont’s moderate and sensible bill to take action against loan sharks.

All we got from National was weak spin and misdirection, while they sat there and committed to doing nothing. The result will be more Kiwis getting ripped off and abused.

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.

Herald cans fact-checking, opts for dogwhistles

The New Zealand Herald has never been shy of attacking blogs for their lack of journalistic standards and editorial rigour, but given some of their recent work you’ve got to wonder who they think they’re kidding.

Take today’s woeful piece by Dita De Boni pontificating about Charles Chauvel and those screaming kids on his plane.

Minister flees from journos

We’re used to Key and his ministers hiding from their duties. Now one of them has taken it to a new level. Journos wanted to ask Pacific Affairs Minister Georgina Te Heuheu about the rumours her ministry is getting the chop. At the sight of them, Te Heuheu ran away. Fran Mold reportedly said she’d never seen anything like it.

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.

Chauvel on the ETS

In his speech as Labour climate change spokesperson, Charles Chauvel confirmed the new information on the ETS that Jeanette Fitzsimons revealed today. It was […]