political parties

Adequate gun control and (almost) complete party support.

Written By: lprent - Date published: 8:43 am, March 22nd, 2019 - 128 comments

Now that I’ve had time to look through what has been implemented and what is proposed to happen with changes to gun laws and think about it. I’m almost satisfied. Since that so seldom happens that I suspect a gotcha, I’m now going to keep debugging until I am sure that it is actually as good as it looks.

Westland Dairy sale

Written By: advantage - Date published: 12:08 pm, March 20th, 2019 - 30 comments

Westland Dairy has done a deal to sell out to Yili industrial Group of Mongolia. This company is the third largest dairy company in New Zealand.

The power of compassionate politics

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:20 am, March 20th, 2019 - 205 comments

Jacinda Ardern has shown over the past week that she is one of the country’s best leaders.

National’s unfortunate misstatement about its migrant petition

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:51 am, March 19th, 2019 - 76 comments

National has been caught out in what is euphemistically called a misspeak about when it took its odious anti UN Migration pact petition down from its website. It said it was weeks before the Christchurch murders but it appears the petition was still live after the event.

DPF does the right thing

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 5:05 pm, March 18th, 2019 - 101 comments

Kiwiblog comments have been turned off as David Farrar grapples with how to handle a crisis concerning hate speech.

Lets ban assault weapons – now

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:45 am, March 18th, 2019 - 284 comments

The Government needs to urgently change the law to ban the sale of military style semi automatic weapons.

Ardern backs students striking for climate change

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:43 am, March 15th, 2019 - 70 comments

Jacinda Ardern has publicly supported the School students strike about climate change and urged them not to underestimate the power of their voices.

James Shaw Assaulted

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 11:34 am, March 14th, 2019 - 188 comments

Green co-leader James Shaw has been assaulted near Parliament. The MP is in hospital and a man has been arrested.

Simon Bridges is distancing himself from Simon Bridges

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:01 am, March 13th, 2019 - 44 comments

Simon Bridges did the remarkable thing yesterday of distancing himself from his own party over events he had major involvement in.

Pretty Legal: SFO to Investigate Nat Donation

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 10:36 am, March 12th, 2019 - 77 comments

NZ Police have confirmed that the Serious Fraud Office is investigating donations received by the National Party.

Simon Bridges is rooting for the Greens*

Written By: Incognito - Date published: 4:12 pm, March 9th, 2019 - 28 comments

Simon Bridges makes a passionate plea for the environment and for a mate.

The tax debate – Dogwhistle time

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:07 am, March 7th, 2019 - 111 comments

National has resorted to race baiting in its attempt to denigrate the Tax Working Group’s proposed capital gains tax.

Young people and climate change

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:56 am, March 6th, 2019 - 50 comments

School students are planning national protests against climate change on March 15, 2019. The response of some politicians to this news is less than optimal.

National’s Tax review strategy

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:22 am, March 5th, 2019 - 107 comments

The Government is not due to announce its response to the Tax Working Group’s recommendations for a few more weeks. It appears that National using outrageous assumptions will take the opportunity to raise horror stories in the media on how bad the tax could be.

Sage gets the money

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:30 am, March 5th, 2019 - 47 comments

Greens Minister Eugenie Sage deserves praise for securing some solid funding increases for her Conservation portfolio.

The Green’s electoral law reform petition

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:47 am, March 4th, 2019 - 389 comments

The Green Party’s launching of a petition to seek changes to the electoral system has met with some Trumpian style rhetoric from the right.

MAFS National Style*

Written By: Incognito - Date published: 10:32 am, March 3rd, 2019 - 61 comments

National is grooming the voters for another dirty ACT.

National’s Maggie Barry problem

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:20 am, March 3rd, 2019 - 25 comments

The Herald has reported that there has been concerns at Maggie Barry’s behaviour towards staff has been raised on three separate occasions. And Parliamentary Services is at the suggestion of the Auditor General investigating claims of misuse of Parliamentary Services resources.

Lies damn lies and tax analysis

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 1:21 pm, March 2nd, 2019 - 67 comments

National’s claim that a capital gains tax would reduce the value of an average worker’s Kiwisaver account by $64,000 over a 45 year working life seems to be as valid as Steven Joyce’s claim there was an $11.5 billion dollar hole in Labour’s draft budget.

Simon Bridges’ twitter game

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 2:51 pm, March 1st, 2019 - 39 comments

Why is Simon Bridges’ twitter account liking and retweeting his own tweets?

Brownlee forced to withdraw ad with fake data

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:15 am, February 28th, 2019 - 32 comments

Gerry Brownlee has been obliged to withdraw a Facebook ad about tax bracket creep after it was discovered he had used grossly overinflated figures.

From dirty politics to compassionate politics

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:33 am, February 28th, 2019 - 43 comments

Newshub has revealed that Jacinda Ardern instructed her ministers not tp publicly discuss National’s problems with Jami-Lee Ross.

Why New Zealand needs a capital gains tax

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:16 am, February 27th, 2019 - 249 comments

Expert comment suggests that a capital gains tax will redress inequality, improve the economy and make housing more affordable.

Spare a thought for our poor impoverished landlords

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:17 am, February 25th, 2019 - 225 comments

Spare a thought for poor landlords who are aghast at the thought that they should have to share capital gains on properties they have purchased with no intent of making a capital gain.

It’s the kiwi way

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:41 am, February 22nd, 2019 - 74 comments

National is engaging in hysterical levels of hyperbole in its response to the Tax Working Group’s reform package.

The Tax Working Group proposals

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 12:38 pm, February 21st, 2019 - 339 comments

The Tax Party working group’s recommendations have been released.

Pollwatch: Colmar Brunton 18/02/2019

Written By: Matthew Whitehead - Date published: 8:29 pm, February 19th, 2019 - 13 comments

Do good things come in twos? This Pollwatch suggests that perhaps they do, and that maybe the news is rosier than the last one suggested.

What China crisis?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 12:58 pm, February 18th, 2019 - 52 comments

Claims that New Zealand is at a crisis point in terms of its relationship with China appear to be somewhat overegged.

The NZ National Party is the Wizard of Oz

Written By: Incognito - Date published: 2:57 pm, February 16th, 2019 - 32 comments

The National Party is a sad, confused, slightly dazed white old man behind the curtain.

The end of tenure review

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:45 am, February 15th, 2019 - 29 comments

Land Information Minister Eugenie Sage has ended the policy of tenure review, under which large tracts of land were privatised and onsold for huge profits and sensitive ecological areas wrecked.

Dead cats and silly sausages

Written By: Matthew Whitehead - Date published: 8:15 pm, February 14th, 2019 - 125 comments

Today in distractions: David Carter is covering for Simon Bridges’ polling results by upsetting the whole idea of non-partisan accountability of the Government to Parliament in select comittees, I give some free advice to the National Party comms team knowing they won’t pull it off, and Mallard has lost patience with non-answers