political parties

The strange case of the missing text from Bridges’ speech

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 5:04 pm, November 27th, 2018 - 25 comments

National’s social media team have sent out a tweet with a quote from Simon Bridges that does not appear in the speech that he gave.

National and its no tax promises

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 1:51 pm, November 27th, 2018 - 38 comments

National have got out the old “no new taxes” songbook and are singing it as loudly as they can.

Bridges believes fictional character is definitely a male

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:22 am, November 27th, 2018 - 91 comments

Simon Bridges is going for the under 10 misogynist vote by claiming that Santa Claus is definitely a man.

Academic freedom and relationships with China

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:07 am, November 26th, 2018 - 108 comments

A number of prominent academics and researchers have signed an open letter to Jacinda Ardern urging her to take the allegations of Chinese involvement in crimes against Professor Anne Marie Brady seriously and to make a clear statement in defence of academic freedom in New Zealand.

Twyford’s big announcement

Written By: advantage - Date published: 12:46 pm, November 24th, 2018 - 71 comments

The government has just announced the creation of the most massive and powerful housing and land development agency that we have ever seen.

Judith is getting ready

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:40 am, November 24th, 2018 - 125 comments

Judith Collins appears to be ramping up a leadership campaign using Fox News type references to climate change, social change and young people.

Bridges Billion dollar bungle

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:42 am, November 23rd, 2018 - 126 comments

Simon Bridges has claimed that Labour’s Kiwisaver fund is $18 billion short of the amount needed to meet the Government’s goals of constructing ten thousand Kiwibuild houses a year. The claim has as much credibility as National’s claim that Labour’s budget figures had an $11.5 billion hole in them.

Simon who?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:52 am, November 22nd, 2018 - 43 comments

National MP Simon O’Connor is thinking of a tilt at Auckland’s mayoralty.

Another day and more Simon Bridges f*&k ups

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 2:30 pm, November 19th, 2018 - 54 comments

Simon Bridges has in the last 24 hours blamed Labour law changes for increasing rentals but has forgotten which ones, and has disagreed that an apology is owed to the families of the Pike River miners on the 8th anniversary of the disaster.

Will Andrew Little be responsible if the Pike River mine gets hit by a meteor?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:10 am, November 18th, 2018 - 102 comments

Stacy Kirk has made the outlandish claim that Andrew Little is prepared to risk someone’s life in his desire to have the Pike River mine properly investigated.

The strange case of the astroturfed Energy Voices organisation

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 3:34 pm, November 13th, 2018 - 18 comments

It has been discovered that the person behind the Energy Voices website is a National Party operative and former staffer.

Electricity again

Written By: advantage - Date published: 3:05 pm, November 12th, 2018 - 146 comments

It is time for the Government to down the electricity corporates and regulate them in the interests of the citizen.

Latest poll results – National in freefall

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:11 am, November 9th, 2018 - 81 comments

A recent UMR poll has put National support at 37%, deep in danger territory for Simon Bridges.

ILG, a Rock, and a Hard Place

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 6:40 pm, November 8th, 2018 - 91 comments

The Sroubek beat up is still with us. Why won’t National tell us what they knew and what they agreed to?

Proxy Music

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 5:37 pm, November 7th, 2018 - 39 comments

Jami-Lee Ross has passed his proxy vote to NZ First, elevating waka jumping to an Olympic sport. How bad does it have to get before the Tory caucus puts Simon Bridges out of his misery?

Simon’s sure fire way to deal with difficult questions

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 2:37 pm, November 6th, 2018 - 45 comments

Simon’s strategy is that cunning you could be tempted to pin a tail on it and call it a weasel.

Simon Bridges wants a new senior social media advisor

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 8:00 am, November 6th, 2018 - 36 comments

Simon Bridges has advertised for a Senior Social Media advisor.

A Democratic Cakewalk.

Written By: Bill - Date published: 12:52 pm, November 5th, 2018 - 48 comments

Cenk Uygur might be said to have “skin in the game” when it comes to the US Mid-terms, and given that much of this post revolves around, or bounces from his commentary and analysis – which may not be quite as objective as he thinks – that should be borne in mind when reading this post.

The Jami-Lee tapes

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:22 am, November 5th, 2018 - 141 comments

Newshub has released a further Jami-Lee Ross tape which contains a promise by Simon Bridges that if Ross stood down for health reasons he could come back in the new year and be promoted.

Jacinda Ardern’s speech

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 2:03 pm, November 4th, 2018 - 50 comments

The text of Jacinda’s speech being delivered to the Labour Conference in Dunedin today.

Labour Conference Random Notes

Written By: advantage - Date published: 4:20 pm, November 3rd, 2018 - 153 comments

Some notes from Ad about the Labour conference currently being held in Dunedin.

KiwiBuild doesn’t fly.

Written By: Bill - Date published: 10:29 am, November 2nd, 2018 - 215 comments

More than that, it needs to be torn down before it makes a serious bid at flight.

Extinction Rebellion

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:31 am, November 2nd, 2018 - 35 comments

In the United Kingdom, Extinction Rebellion, a new mass direct-action group modeled on Occupy, has emerged with the goal of forcing the Government to take urgent action on climate change.

Labour Party Conference 2018

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 10:04 am, November 1st, 2018 - 149 comments

It’s conference time! The NZ Labour party is into it’s second century and into Government. What can we expect from this weekend’s hui in Dunedin and what policies and positions do Standard readers think need to be pushed?

Our rail revival

Written By: advantage - Date published: 1:41 pm, October 31st, 2018 - 96 comments

Yesterday the government announced that it was reversing the previous government’s decision to kill off the electric trains. The decision is one of many recently made that suggests that the future of rail is bright.

What is up with National?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:53 am, October 31st, 2018 - 46 comments

National appears to be rattled and introverted right now. Is the continuing saga involving Jami-Lee Ross the cause?

National’s very bad day in the house

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:33 pm, October 30th, 2018 - 86 comments

National had a spectacularly bad day today in Parliament.

National’s Judith problem

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 4:54 pm, October 30th, 2018 - 50 comments

Judith Collins has landed herself in trouble for publicising details of a young couple who just bought a Kiwibuild home.

National badly wants Kiwibuild to crash

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:34 am, October 30th, 2018 - 339 comments

National is complaining that Labour is not solving the National imposed housing crisis quickly enough.

Eye of the storm

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:31 am, October 27th, 2018 - 106 comments

Simon Bridges thinks that he is past trouble caused by the Jami-Lee Ross incident. But the way things are developing he may be in the middle of things.