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Politics

Posts on government and governence at national and local level, political parties,politicians, and political participation

Categories under Politics

Budget day

Written By: - Date published: 9:55 am, May 18th, 2023 - 49 comments

Today is Budget Day with the proceedings kicking off at 2 pm.

National's Policy Machine is a thing to behold

Written By: - Date published: 12:06 pm, May 16th, 2023 - 99 comments

National’s latest policy brainstorm is to print out and mail to every taxpayer information they could obtain by using Google and MyIRD.

Luxon’s days are numbered

Written By: - Date published: 8:08 pm, May 14th, 2023 - 70 comments

The latest TV3 Newshub poll results are out. The major parties are neck and neck.  No surprise there. But what is stark is the public response to Christopher Luxon. Basically he is tanking.

Countering Conspiracy – the Green Party is not in a Civil War

Written By: - Date published: 4:20 pm, May 14th, 2023 - 54 comments

Trust in academics is on a downslide, as is trust in general. This is exacerbated by academics hiding a personal-political agenda when they dabble in the public domain.

NZ history of voting systems in elections

Written By: - Date published: 12:46 pm, May 13th, 2023 - 33 comments

A guest post by Seddonville Miner outlining the history of voting rights in New Zealand and how Christopher Luxon’s recent claims about our voting system are hopelessly incorrect.

What Do The Maori Party Want Anyway?

Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, May 12th, 2023 - 174 comments

Since they’re touted as 2023’s electoral ‘Kingmakers’, it’s time to understand what the Maori Party really want.

Iwi Kiwi 2.0

Written By: - Date published: 1:53 pm, May 10th, 2023 - 54 comments

In 2005 the National Party went full on racist with attacks on supposed Maori privilege which almost won the party power. Looks like they are going to try this tactic again.

Really Small States in Really Big Conflicts

Written By: - Date published: 8:01 am, May 9th, 2023 - 16 comments

In case we just missed it, New Zealand really has picked a side. Prime Minister Hipkins will head to the NATO summit in Lithuania together with Australia, Japan and South Korean leaders. Also Vladimir Zelinskyy is intending to go as well.

Yes, A Constitution

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, May 6th, 2023 - 50 comments

We are mature enough to have our own leader. Own our own shit.

Late Game Bench

Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, May 6th, 2023 - 8 comments

Last minutes of this parliamentary term and all teams are subbing out.

Kerekere quits Greens

Written By: - Date published: 8:46 am, May 6th, 2023 - 65 comments

Elizabeth Kerekere has announced that she is quitting the Green Party, will stay on as an independent and not stand again at the next election.

The Future of the Monarchy

Written By: - Date published: 12:46 am, May 5th, 2023 - 111 comments

Support for the monarchy is largely based on sentimentality. Democracies are not enhanced by feudal relics performing old-fashioned ceremonies and living in castles. These quaint traditions and displays are all rather nice, and for the most part fairly benign and harmless in themselves. But to pretend that they are in any way relevant to the modern world is absurd.

How Labour Does Less And Still Wins

Written By: - Date published: 11:21 am, May 4th, 2023 - 21 comments

Prime Minister Hipkins has put Labour on course to win a third term. Here’s how.

Meka Whaitiri is moving to the Maori Party

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, May 3rd, 2023 - 138 comments

Meka Whaitiri has quit Labour and confirmed that she will stand for the Maori Party in this year’s election.  She intends to stay on as an MP and sit with the Maori Party.

Fuel efficient cars and National’s tacky little culture war

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, May 3rd, 2023 - 36 comments

Recent days have provided a further example of why Aotearoa’s response to climate change has been compromised by politics.

National keeps making shit up

Written By: - Date published: 8:34 am, May 1st, 2023 - 33 comments

National has been caught out misrepresenting official data by claiming that 19,000 nurses had left public health when they knew that the figure includes transfers between health boards and the number of employed nurses actually increased by 4,108.

National’s weird tenancy policy announcement

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, April 30th, 2023 - 73 comments

This week Chris Bishop announced National’s landlord policy and made the extraordinary claim that making evictions of tenants easier was a progressive pro tenant policy.

Where Is New Zealand Extremism Going?

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, April 28th, 2023 - 78 comments

I’ve worked my way through two books recently, both on extremist sects, one about New Zealand groups and one about those in the United States of America. It’s startling.

Poor Regulation Is Burning This Government Down

Written By: - Date published: 10:41 am, April 28th, 2023 - 37 comments

This government has within its power the ability to alter the crippling cost of living increases we now face. If they don’t do the political job they can do with prices, they will lose power at the election.

Why a Capital Gains tax is necessary

Written By: - Date published: 8:09 am, April 27th, 2023 - 186 comments

With the release by David Parker of a report showing that  the wealthiest New Zealanders pay tax at much less than half the rate of other Kiwis is it time to again debate the virtue of a comprehensive Capital Gains Tax.

Taihoa on AUKUS Pillar 2

Written By: - Date published: 10:16 pm, April 24th, 2023 - 63 comments

Andrew Little says our government is willing to “explore” participating in AUKUS Pillar 2, but “foreign or local voices would not be a factor.” Our leaders will decide he says. I say “taihoa.”

Debate of the Day: should farms be regulated to centre climate action and nature?

Written By: - Date published: 10:57 am, April 24th, 2023 - 44 comments

In election year, National’s farming regulations bonfire flies in the face of climate action and ecological restoration.

The Murdoch’s very bad week

Written By: - Date published: 12:58 pm, April 23rd, 2023 - 16 comments

The Murdoch family’s decision to pay record damages to Dominion Voting Systems and to capitulate in its defamation case against Cricky Media suggest that they have had a very bad and a very expensive week.

The patriarchy is not inevitable

Written By: - Date published: 8:51 am, April 23rd, 2023 - 40 comments

One of the prime tasks of feminism is to teach women that the patriarchy is not inevitable.

Much ado about nothing

Written By: - Date published: 11:16 am, April 22nd, 2023 - 44 comments

Right wing twitter thought it was onto something big yesterday after there were revelations that Human Rights Commissioner Meng Foon had donated funds and cheap premises to Kiri Allan’s election campaign in 2020.  But there was one rather significant problem with this expose, he had also donated to the National candidate in the same election.

National despairs as inflation rate drops

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, April 21st, 2023 - 36 comments

Yesterday Statistics New Zealand dealt a rather large blow to National’s election chances when it announced that the latest rate of inflation was 6.7%, a significant drop below the previous rate.

Stephen Jack is cancelled by the National Party

Written By: - Date published: 8:38 pm, April 20th, 2023 - 28 comments

So National has yet another candidate problem. His name is Stephen Jack and he clearly has difficulties in negotiating reality.

Really Small States in Really Big Conflicts

Written By: - Date published: 7:50 pm, April 20th, 2023 - 10 comments

We didn’t need the Russian invasion of Ukraine to tell us that great power competition is back, since China and the United States  and Russia had been going at it well before even COVID temporarily messed up the multilateral trade system upon which we had built our little country. But it’s made it worse, and so we’re picking a side, and that side is NATO.

Lonely on the right side of history?

Written By: - Date published: 11:07 am, April 17th, 2023 - 18 comments

Musing after the recent IMF/World Bank meetings, Former White house economist and US Treasury secretary Larry Summers said “it’s looking a bit lonely on the right side of history..as others are increasingly banding together in a whole range of structures.”

Extinction Rebellion: The Big One

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, April 17th, 2023 - 6 comments

XR are back. New strategy, same smart and bold action.

National’s problem with its candidates

Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, April 16th, 2023 - 58 comments

Another day, and yet another report a National candidate has done something really stupid.