political parties

What should ACT’s new name be?

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 3:29 pm, August 13th, 2018 - 42 comments

The authors at the Standard are proposing that readers suggest what ACT’s new name should be. Keep it seemly.

The end of ACT

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:03 am, August 13th, 2018 - 238 comments

With his proposal to reduce the effectiveness of Parliament David Seymour is clearly looking for relevance.

Who protects us from water companies?

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:00 am, August 10th, 2018 - 78 comments

New Zealand seriously needs a water regulator. Something that will show that each catchment can withstand having that much taken out of it, and that it is being sold for a fair price, and ensures everyone has access to beautiful-quality water.

Of course Judith should #DeleteTheTweet

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:00 am, August 9th, 2018 - 69 comments

The Project has called on Judith Collins to delete her tweet retweeting a link to a fake news story falsely claiming that France had legalised paedophilia at the behest of an international network of liberal activists determined to normalise paedophilia.

We need more radicals coming here

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:31 am, August 9th, 2018 - 68 comments

We need more radical voices again here. But it’s like MMP has turned us once again into the passionless people. It always looks like “hate speech” when you hate it.

Let him speak

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 3:04 pm, August 7th, 2018 - 308 comments

Don Brash should be allowed to speak at a University about politics.

Dan Bidois just wants to count cars

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:46 am, August 7th, 2018 - 26 comments

Rookie National MP Dan Bidois has chosen to get up early and count the number of cars using Northcote’s T3 traffic lane.

Pollwatch: 5th August, 2018

Written By: Matthew Whitehead - Date published: 8:30 am, August 6th, 2018 - 40 comments

The most likely result from Colmar Brunton's 5th august poll as a pie chart: 7 Greens, 51 Labour, 6 NZF, 1 ACT, and 55 National MPs.

The Return of the Pollwatch: Are Labour getting a baby bump? Are National in decline? Are the Greens in existential danger? And do all the previous questions have the same answer?

Colmar Brunton poll; Simon Who?

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 8:07 pm, August 5th, 2018 - 94 comments

The 1 News/Colmar Brunton poll is out. The Government sails on serenely while Simon meets the people.

VSM – why it needs to go.

Written By: nickkelly - Date published: 8:35 am, August 2nd, 2018 - 62 comments

In 2010 the ACT Party with the help of National managed to pass a piece of legislation that damaged student democracy, and blatantly ignored public opinion. Voluntary Student Membership or VSM sounds like a horrendous STI, and its impact has been to screw student democracy. Prior to 2010 students had a choice as to whether […]

Reason #73 why charter schools are wrong: they teach creationism

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:46 am, July 31st, 2018 - 78 comments

Newsroom has reported on claims that Villa Education Trust, which opened up National’s conference singing Hallelujah, has taught creationism in science classes as a preferred theory of evolution.

There’s nothing vague about National’s education policy announcement *

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:30 am, July 30th, 2018 - 30 comments

* according to Simon Bridges.

Bridges and his cheerleaders

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:46 am, July 29th, 2018 - 112 comments

National is pulling out all stops to suggest that Simon Bridges is not so bad as a leader.

National is jamming cannabis law reform

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:47 am, July 27th, 2018 - 82 comments

So National be getting pretty liberal with the Marijuana stuff.

Redeveloping Public Housing

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:07 am, July 26th, 2018 - 116 comments

The Government is getting ready to battle the most rapacious economic force in this country, real estate capitalism, for the good of people.

Sanctions for beneficiary bashers

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:00 am, July 25th, 2018 - 76 comments

Simon Bridges, who is clearly struggling for relevance, has decided to try and improve his political position by bashing beneficiaries.

A right, Left problem

Written By: Bill - Date published: 1:17 pm, July 24th, 2018 - 78 comments

A post suggesting that the traditional descriptive lens of “left and right” isn’t up to capturing current political realities.

Brexiting the EU

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:57 am, July 24th, 2018 - 75 comments

In the United Kingdom Theresa May is facing a confidence threatening Brexit crisis, the organisers of the Vote Leave campaign are facing prosecution, and an opinion poll suggests that a significant proportion of the electorate are willing to shift right to achieve a hard Brexit.

Scrap the spending cap

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:45 am, July 23rd, 2018 - 152 comments

Economist Ganesh Nana and Alan Johnson from the Salvation Army have urged the Government to relax the fiscal straight jacket imposed by its budget responsibility rules.

The UN is shocked by NZ’s child poverty rates

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:40 am, July 22nd, 2018 - 89 comments

Earlier this year the United Nations expressed shock and concern at New Zealand’s rates of child poverty, homelessness, incarceration and violence. What is this Government doing to address these issues?

Government with a plan

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:00 am, July 22nd, 2018 - 46 comments

Labour and New Zealand First Ministers under the first term of the sixth Labour government sitting in the Cabinet office.

The polls are great. Top work. But I’m getting worried about the entropy of this government already. Matthew Hooten and Karl Marx agree with me.

What has happened to Simon Bridges?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:40 am, July 19th, 2018 - 42 comments

You would think that while Jacinda Ardern takes time out to properly introduce baby Neve to the world opposition leader Simon Bridges would be striding throughout the country like a colossus and really make a name for himself. But of late he has been rather invisible.

Wool. Eyes. Pull.

Written By: Bill - Date published: 5:52 pm, July 16th, 2018 - 8 comments

As though politicians with a social democratic bent don’t have enough to contend with…

No Mates National

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 1:10 pm, July 15th, 2018 - 68 comments

Peter Dunne has some sage advice for National; phone a friend. If you can find one.

Topped

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 4:31 pm, July 9th, 2018 - 36 comments

The Board of The Opportunities Party (TOP) has decided to request that the Electoral Commission cancel TOP’s registration as a political party

Smile!

Written By: Bill - Date published: 4:45 pm, July 7th, 2018 - 98 comments

The extent and limits of current politics.

Apparently Labour was to blame for the global financial crisis

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:00 am, July 5th, 2018 - 65 comments

These sorts of debates do my head in. Essentially because they are so removed from reality that anyone with any sense would know that Labour was not responsible for the last global financial crisis. But apparently the opposition spokesperson does not understand what happened in 2008. Does this seem a bit harsh? Well it is […]