political parties

The freedom to insult

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 5:37 pm, June 15th, 2019 - 149 comments

David Seymour is proposing a law change that would protect neo nazis from the effects of their hate speech unless the speech also incited or threatened violence.

Mark Richardson wants to be a Nat MP

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:17 am, June 14th, 2019 - 102 comments

Mark Richardson thinks he may have a future career and will be able to transform from overpaid TV personality to overpaid public representative.

An October election in the UK?

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 9:39 am, June 13th, 2019 - 27 comments

Boris Johnson declared his candidacy today. The Guardian’s Tom Kibasi speculates on his strategy – pick a fight with the EU, make Brexit the issue and call an election. Do a deal with Farage and save Britain from Corbyn. Will it work?

National keeps digging itself into a hole on budget leaks

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:57 am, June 12th, 2019 - 141 comments

National continues to attack the Government on its handling of the Treasury budget leak. But it still has not properly explained why its behaviour should be considered ethical.

National refuses to rule out coalition with Destiny

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:31 am, June 11th, 2019 - 124 comments

Brian Tamaki, recent victim of self/God?-inflicted burns. Don't be like Brian.

On the day that Brian Tamaki engaged in some rabid right wing dog whistling and talked about a clash of cultures Simon Bridges has refused to rule out working with Destiny Church’s Coalition New Zealand party.

Pollwatch: 9th June 2019

Written By: Matthew Whitehead - Date published: 4:00 pm, June 10th, 2019 - 27 comments

We had both major polls out yesterday, as noted in previous stories, and boy were the results a doozy! In addition to twice my usual talk about models, we’re going to get into the assumption some people are no doubt already making- that one of the polls is “wrong,” or more technically, rogue. For those […]

Deranged Jacinda syndrome

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:14 am, June 10th, 2019 - 105 comments

Mike Hosking has chosen to criticise Jacinda Ardern for touring the country and speaking to communities about the Wellbeing budget rather than flying across the world to take part in a photo opportunity.

Two polls out tonight

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 4:50 pm, June 9th, 2019 - 87 comments

The latest Colmar Brunton and Reid Research polls are out tonight and clearly they will be trying to measure what effect the Budget has had on public opinion. What will they show?

The Teachers’ strike

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:32 am, June 6th, 2019 - 77 comments

Teaching is approaching a crisis point. Sure it has taken 9 years of the last Government’s rule to wreck the system. But this Government is expected to repair quickly the damage that the last Government caused.

The Attack of the Snowflakes

Written By: Incognito - Date published: 7:00 am, June 4th, 2019 - 119 comments

National is playing the innocent victim of Budgetgate whilst being the aggressive attacker all along.

Bene bashing

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:27 am, June 1st, 2019 - 101 comments

National has engaged in the most crass form of beneficiary bashing in opposing Government changes to the benefit system announced in the budget and passed under urgency.

Budget commentary

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 12:23 pm, May 31st, 2019 - 65 comments

Has New Zealand’s social media spent too much time on gocha politics and not enough on the substance of the wellbeing budget?

The Wellbeing budget

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 1:42 pm, May 30th, 2019 - 169 comments

So what is in the Wellbeing budget and what do you think about it?

The Treasury website hack that wasn’t

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:30 am, May 30th, 2019 - 168 comments

The police has confirmed that a poorly secured website partially searchable through Treasury’s website’s search function was the cause of the release of sensitive budget information.

Same old dirty National

Written By: Incognito - Date published: 7:00 am, May 30th, 2019 - 179 comments

National is still embedded in Dirty Politics.

Who did the Treasury Hack?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:22 am, May 29th, 2019 - 292 comments

New Zealand Treasury head Gabriel Makhlouf has said that Treasury’s website was attacked 2000 times in 48 hours.

Simon Bridges – criminal receiver

Written By: lprent - Date published: 11:48 pm, May 28th, 2019 - 216 comments

You have to wonder about what kind of law Simon Bridges, a former criminal prosecutor, actually practiced. Because given the events of today – it seems questionable if he understands the legal basis of our criminal laws about computers. Do we really want someone so incompetent at his chosen profession before entering politics (or have a criminal receiver of stolen goods) to run this country?

The false left anti road narrative

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:24 am, May 28th, 2019 - 26 comments

Shane Te Pou has claimed that the Government is anti road and pro bike lane and light rail. But a look at the Government’s spending priorities suggests that roads still dominate.

Will National do a deal with the Coalition NZ Party?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 4:11 pm, May 27th, 2019 - 36 comments

Simon Bridges has refused to rule out doing a deal with Destiny Church’s Coalition New Zealand Party.

Bridges’ dodgy crime statistics

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:19 am, May 27th, 2019 - 26 comments

Simon Bridges is trumpeting some figures he has received from the Government as evidence that crime rates are increasing. But there is a slight problem. Police figures show that the number of reported offences is decreasing.

Religion and the threshold

Written By: lprent - Date published: 9:13 am, May 24th, 2019 - 59 comments

It has been pretty boring watching the coverage of religious conservatives trying to present a meaningful political presence for the next election. Haven’t the NZ Herald’s puff piece journalists ever read about the history of religious parties in this “no religion” state? They’re fractional parties incapable of getting to 5% without assistance, and they don’t grow the vote for the right.

Labour to relax fiscal responsibility rules

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:00 am, May 24th, 2019 - 72 comments

Grant Robertson has announced there will be a relaxing of the fiscal responsibility rules, although not until after the next election.

Will the Christian Conservatives rise again?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:07 am, May 20th, 2019 - 78 comments

Simon Bridges has conceded that his claim that talk about Alfred Ngaro setting up a conservative party was “rumour and speculation” was not actually true. And Ngaro has gone on the offensive describing abortion as an unholy holocaust.

The hard change of forestry

Written By: advantage - Date published: 10:41 am, May 18th, 2019 - 98 comments

Forestry is forcing an important tilting point between mitigating climate change and land use, and it’s going to affect the viability of some North Island towns.

In praise of Judith Collins

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 3:58 pm, May 17th, 2019 - 35 comments

In what is possibly a first ever occurrence the Standard is publishing a post in praise of Judith Collins for standing up for Green MP Golriz Ghahraman.

Is National thinking of a conservative puppet party?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:12 am, May 17th, 2019 - 251 comments

The Herald has reported that National is considering allowing Alfred Ngaro to form another break away party this time with a definite christian conservative bent and also to take over the Botany electorate.

Auf Wiedersehen Iraq

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 12:49 pm, May 16th, 2019 - 30 comments

The Germans and the Dutch have suspended training Iraqi soldiers citing increased tensions in the area. What do they know that Ron Mark doesn’t? Cabinet is due to make a decision shortly on our long-planned decision to withdraw, and he seems to want us to stay. Labour’s policy at the election was to withdraw, it should prevail.

Why Labour’s student debt policy is a success

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 1:56 pm, May 15th, 2019 - 85 comments

National has claimed that Labour’s tertiary fees policy is failing because numbers applying for it have not increased. But National clearly has failed to understand that the policy is about reducing student loan totals or it is deliberately misinterpreting the reason for the policy.