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In defence of Ashley Bloomfield

Written By: - Date published: 8:27 am, June 22nd, 2020 - 155 comments

National and elements of the media have gone full on attack on the Government’s and Ashley Bloomfield’s Covid 19 performance.  Which is unusual given that there is still no examples of community transmission and all recent infections have been picked up through the quarantine system.

Aroha Ardern Poster Banned?

Written By: - Date published: 9:24 pm, June 21st, 2020 - 66 comments

A piece of street art has got the right’s knickers in a twist. But Love conquers all.

Things that will live

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, June 19th, 2020 - 14 comments

Despite downbeat economic predictions and an imminent global recession, the New Zealand recovery offers opportunities for entrepreneurial success that exceed anything we’ve seen for decades.

Todd Muller and the strange tale of the Leader’s Safe

Written By: - Date published: 8:45 am, June 19th, 2020 - 22 comments

The Herald has reported that Todd Muller’s staff used a safe cracker to open up a safe previously used by Simon Bridges, even though they had the access codes.

Responsible politics verses Gotcha politics

Written By: - Date published: 8:16 am, June 18th, 2020 - 215 comments

Michael Woodhouse has recently had a difficult ethical dilemma.  He received information suggesting that there were major weaknesses in the Covid quarantine system.  Should he do the responsible thing and point out these weaknesses to the authorities or should he play Gotcha politics?

National prepares to die in a ditch over racist American flag

Written By: - Date published: 4:10 pm, June 16th, 2020 - 26 comments

In politics there are two general theories, the conspiracy theory where events are the result of deep Machiavellian planning, and the f*ck up theory where things just happen because of human stuff ups.  Todd McClay’s decision to defend the use of the Confederate Flag is that much of a f*ck up there must be a deep Machiavellian reason for him deciding to do so publicly.

Advising the country about Covid19 is unfair to National

Written By: - Date published: 9:28 am, June 16th, 2020 - 30 comments

National is complaining that a Government Covid19 media account liked Jacinda Ardern’s instagram page.  And a National cheerleader wants all Covid 19 response advertising to stop.

Labour’s List

Written By: - Date published: 12:54 pm, June 15th, 2020 - 38 comments

The Labour Party has released its list lineup. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to refresh the caucus, and it’s down to one leader’s sacrifice and another’s steller performance.

Things that will die

Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, June 15th, 2020 - 90 comments

For three decades tourism has been the great tidal surge that has made many otherwise spiralling towns stablise, and in some cases expand.  Post Covid we are going to see some of these towns die.

Todd’s Odd Distress Signal

Written By: - Date published: 5:39 pm, June 14th, 2020 - 64 comments

How odd of Todd! A condescending gesture turns into a cry for help.

National has a discipline problem

Written By: - Date published: 12:03 pm, June 13th, 2020 - 28 comments

Yesterday saw two back bench National MPs unintentionally set National’s position on the Government response to Covid 19 and on Hamilton City’s decision to take down a statute that was repugnant to Waikato Tainui.  What has happened to their messaging discipline?

Chris Penk has been thinking

Written By: - Date published: 8:54 am, June 12th, 2020 - 59 comments

Chris Penk has written a book suggesting that the Government’s Covid 19 response has been terrible.  Because it was not quite perfect.

Strike Force Raptor is no more

Written By: - Date published: 12:20 pm, June 11th, 2020 - 10 comments

National has backed away from its policy of creating Strike Force Raptor Police Unit, a unit based on an Australian force dedicated to terrorising possible gang members.

Angry Ardern

Written By: - Date published: 12:10 pm, June 11th, 2020 - 86 comments

A challenging post where Ad challenges Jacinda Ardern and the Labour Government to do more.

NZ Police abandon Armed Response Teams

Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, June 10th, 2020 - 9 comments

We have a model of policing by consent and that means we need the vast majority of people to see as legitimate the style in which we’re policing and it’s been clear to me that there has not been acceptance of this as an appropriate style of policing in New Zealand. – Police Commissioner Andrew Coster

Thanks Jacinda – Zero cases of Covid19 in Aotearoa!

Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, June 8th, 2020 - 93 comments

Thanks to clear and decisive leadership, an intelligent government, the decision to go hard and fast, respect for science, and overwhelming commitment to local kiwis we can celebrate a milestone, Aotearoa has no current cases of Covid 19.

Dear Hamish please keep it up

Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, June 8th, 2020 - 39 comments

Hamish Price’s twitter game is proving to be a boon to Labour.

National Has Found a Moral Compass

Written By: - Date published: 3:46 pm, June 6th, 2020 - 34 comments

National has embarked on a moral crusade to not lose the Election.

How Covid 19 appears to be playing out

Written By: - Date published: 10:51 am, June 4th, 2020 - 108 comments

The politics of Covid 19 present difficulties for the opposition.  They cannot fault execution of the plan so far and have been reduced to complaining that the restrictions are not being loosened quickly enough.

Stunned Muller

Written By: - Date published: 8:01 am, June 3rd, 2020 - 85 comments

Todd Muller thinks it is up to Donald Trump to decide if Donald Trump is a racist.

The wood, the trees and the ETS

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, June 3rd, 2020 - 4 comments

It’s a brutal thing to propose more taxes and costs on business during our worst economic meltdown in a century. But yesterday the Government increased the cost of Carbon.  But we need to do more.

Is National Just Inconsistent or Incompetent?

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, June 1st, 2020 - 65 comments

National’s new job-creation scheme appears to be inconsistent with their desire to fully re-instate the 90-day trial period.

What has the Government ever done for business?

Written By: - Date published: 1:33 pm, May 29th, 2020 - 19 comments

Borrowing heavily from Monty Python’s Life of Brian Labour MP Deborah Russell sets out what the Government is doing for small business in these Covid 19 times.

Most leaders of the opposition are unemployed, they just don’t know it yet

Written By: - Date published: 10:21 am, May 29th, 2020 - 68 comments

Holy hyperbole. Todd Muller has claimed that most kiwis are unemployed although they do not realise it yet.  Although in one case he may not be wrong …

Labour and the Greens on welfare

Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, May 27th, 2020 - 79 comments

While Labour remain wedded to a neoliberal view of welfare as a necessary evil with deserving and undeserving poor, the Greens are standing up for the rights of all of us to live with dignity and have a meaningful standard of living.

New leadership same old tactics

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, May 27th, 2020 - 24 comments

National has released a social media ad suggesting that New Zealand’s per head of population Government debt figure will be worse than Greece’s by 2014.  But the data used presumes the effects of Covid 19 in New Zealand’s figure but no effects of Covid 19 in Greece’s figure.

Ko Paora Goldsmith tenei

Written By: - Date published: 9:11 pm, May 26th, 2020 - 33 comments

National’s new brains trust has not had a great day today.  They responded to claims that their front bench looked awfully white and had no Tangata Whenua by claiming that Paora Goldsmith was from Ngāti Porou.  The only trouble was that he wasn’t.  

Todd Muller is Simon Bridges with less personality

Written By: - Date published: 1:33 pm, May 26th, 2020 - 68 comments

Todd Muller has announced a front bench that resembles a National Party front bench from 30 years ago.  And his first live interview on national television did not go as well as he hoped.

Two Tier. Bull. Shit.

Written By: - Date published: 2:58 pm, May 25th, 2020 - 217 comments

I thought we were “in this together” or some such?

Todd’s MAGA hat

Written By: - Date published: 7:59 am, May 25th, 2020 - 119 comments

Todd Muller has spent the weekend not introducing himself to the country and talking about his ideas for our future but by defending the displaying of a MAGA hat in his office.

The current National party.

Written By: - Date published: 3:06 pm, May 24th, 2020 - 62 comments

The change of leadership inside of National is essentially meaningless. All it seems to have started is exposing the kind of internecine factional warfare that is lurking below their party surface. I can’t see the inexperienced National team, even with Amy Adams back in it, being able to make the kinds of long-term decisions required in a modern world.