Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Hayden Donnell raises my ‘grim’ Hamish to ‘furious’ Hamish
Delightful piece from Hayden Donnell at The Spinoff (how did I miss it?) — Huge opportunity: Could you be the guy standing behind the PM looking furious? OK, so I thought ‘grim’, right? But Hayden has brought receipts, as the saying goes… and his view is ‘absolutely ropeable’. Lol. “Usually though, Luxon is accompanied by […]
Hamish is out. Has had enough of Luxon role
Following on from my earlier post … ‘Hamish Rutherford always looks grim these days‘, well, it seems that enough is enough for Hamish Rutherford (and fair enough too). Stuff reports: [Rutherford’s] message said: “It has been an absolute honour to work for Christopher Luxon both in Opposition and for the year since the election, but […]
Hamish Rutherford always looks grim these days
The Prime Minister’s spin doctor Hamish Rutherford used to be a lot of fun. We were Twitter buddies back when he was working at The Dominion (later Fairfax); then he went to the NZ Herald as Wellington Business editor, for a wider circulation/better job security (ha!), I guess. There I noticed his tone got more […]
What does ‘entitlement’ look like, Chris Luxon?
Wow. A mortgage free apartment, but he claims ‘accommodation expenses’ (really a taxpayer-funded allowance) of $1,000 per week – on top of his $471,000 pa salary and other benefits, etc etc. The National Party CEO must be so used to the good life, eh? The Prime Minister will receive a $52,000 top-up to his $471,000 […]
Dark money has entered the New Zealand electoral scene at unprecedented levels
Radio NZ’s Farah Hancock has analysed the Electoral Commission returns of money paid to influence the 2023 NZ General Election. Her article $2m surge in election campaign spending by third-party groups (RNZ) shows that as well as the huge donations-directly-to-the-parties imbalance, previously reported, a large amount of untraceable dark money was expended by bodies established […]
Political propaganda dressed up as an opinion poll
Via one of my lovely Twitter sources, the sardonic and interesting @johubris … the following ‘poll question’ has been recently distributed: “Thinking about your life and your country now, what is the most important issue that you want to see the New Zealand Government addressing?” This qualifies as push-polling, as you’ll see, which is when […]
I hope next week’s anti-government protest doesn’t get as entrenched as the last one
I’ve been thinking about that 23 day protest at Parliament earlier this year, in the light of the Stuff Circuit ‘Fire and Fury’ documentary (highly recommended) and recent promotion by religious spruiker Brian Tamaki, and others, of another march to Parliament Grounds planned for next week. This one, apparently, promises mock “People’s trials” on the […]
Jane Kelsey, a lifetime of leadership
Here’s a fantastic interview by Moana Maniapoto talking with law professor and courageous public intellectual Jane Kelsey, on her retirement from university life. The whole 17 minutes is really worth watching. It’s good to place Prof Kelsey in context with this brief, accessible retrospective look. She has always struck me as an articulate, determined, fiercely […]
The juxtaposition in this screen shot of the ‘NZ Taxpayers Union Inc’ astroturf lobby group receiving a government-funded subsidy makes me chortle
Sure, we’re all entitled to put our hand out for government support in times of need. No question about that. But THESE GUYS*? What a joke. (Except it’s real. Check for yourself: COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Employer Search) – P * We’ve discussed them before, here, a little bit. UPDATE: Thanks to a reader, I’ve now […]
Jordan Williams, Colin Craig podcast series announced
“Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.” ― Martin Luther King Jr. A long and bitter court feud between former Conservative Party leader Colin Craig and Jordan Williams has been settled, with an apology and compensation from Williams. On Tuesday, Craig sent out a press release saying he’d […]
‘Manifest Observable Behaviour’ – Patreon CEO on Content Policy, Lauren Southern
Worth watching in light of the ‘free speech’ debate under way.
Matthew Hooton’s latest fevered conspiracy theory: lügenpresse
National Party loyalist and paid political propagandist Matthew Hooton stooped to another low strategy recently, responding to a news report embarrassing to the National Party’s Simon Bridges with allegations of ‘corrupt’ journalism. I’ve noticed that when he’s under pressure, Hooton seems to opt for breathless conspiracy theories and smears. The last one we discussed here at The Paepae, […]
More on the motivations of leakers
A while ago, in relation to Murray McCully’s emails, we discussed the motivations of leakers, particularly poltical leakers, and I suggested that Every source leaks for a reason, Patrick in a post I illustrated with this ‘The best hackers are Russian’ T-shirt – which seems ironic at all sorts of levels now. Today, Axios writer Jonathan […]
Poor @ProtonMail – smeared by its dodgy users
A side issue raised by the Cambridge Analytica exposé is the revelation that the subterranean dirty political operators use a feature of end-to-end encrypted email service ProtonMail – expiring messages (sometimes called ‘self-destructing’ messages, no doubt in homage to TV show Mission: Impossible and its classic line, “This tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds.”) Cambridge […]
