Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Peter Shirtcliffe’s campaign against MMP (MkII)

I watched Sandra Grey of the Keep MMP group pretty much wipe the floor with Dr Who’s faithful assistant Jordan Williams (right) in a brief discussion panel/debate about the MMP referendum compèred by Sean Plunket on TV3’s The Nation on the weekend. (video here) Poor Jordan ducked and dived, bobbed and weaved. He didn’t want […]

Getting a narrative going

Sometimes, especially in an election campaign, the political reporter’s role is to stand out of the way and let the protagonists slug it out. Really, all we need do in some circumstances is let them say what it is they’ve prepared, report it accurately, and let the public decide. Like most people, I’ve never seen […]

Green Gorilla: What? No authorisation statement?

OMG, don’t let Cameron Slater see this! After last week’s brain fart he might blow a gasket. I don’t know exactly which Green Party candidate it’s promoting — who is the ‘Green Gorilla’? Does anyone know? Russel Norman? Bu-bu-but I couldn’t see an authorisation statement anywhere! Gee, they’re cunning, those Greens. Very cunning … – […]

Dodgem or dipstick? The miraculous rehabilitation of Chris Trotter from scheming Labour flunky to honourable lefty

David Lange once described Mike Moore as not so much having a train of thought but ‘Dodgems of thought‘. In a way it was a compliment, because Moore was unquestionably an ideas man — he generated lots of ideas. Ideas spilling over each other. The trouble was, as someone who I can’t remember said, that […]

Putting fuel on the fire

Enough with the sheep jokes, already! As a Kiwi with Australian friends, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to be a good sport over so-called ‘jokes’ about New Zealanders and sheep. (Example: “Q: How do NZ’ers practice safe sex? A: They paint an ‘X’ on the back of sheep that bite.”) Especially when I’m visiting the […]

Drunken yobos spit in MP’s face, then skite to their mates like idiot schoolboys

Just yesterday I said “As I see it, [Trevor] Mallard cops flak from haters and nutters simply for being part of Labour’s online presence…” Here’s a case in point, from last night — via Cameron Slater and Twitter. How it looks to me: A pair of adolescent drunken yobos (Clint Heine and anonymous ‘inventory2‘) hassling a […]

Hansard can be a real bitch, eh Mr Key?

Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers, Questions to Members 4 October 2011 – Hansard Hon Phil Goff: Is it correct that New Zealand’s credit rating with those two agencies is now the same as Spain’s—a country that National has constantly derided as being an economy in trouble? Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I cannot […]

A character reference for Trevor Mallard that I find more plausible

Long-serving Labour MP Trevor Mallard cops a fair bit of hateful abuse from the attack dogs in the NZ political blogosphere. He’s routinely denigrated and slandered by people with an obvious axe to grind — partisan political activists. You know the type. As a point man in the Labour Party he’s obviously a target for […]

A rich Green comedy performance from Matthew Hooton

STAND UP COMIC Matthew Hooton — he works part-time as a political commentator — had me howling, breathless with laughter at his latest comedy routine on RadioLIVE earlier in the week. Under the deeply ironic title of ‘The Political Panel’, talkback radio hosts Willie Jackson and John Tamihere sometimes give a platform to budding comedians […]

Cameron Slater’s defective moral calculus

‘I’ve been told things. I’ll repeat them as if they were true.’ Cameron Slater, the right wing ‘blogger whose poos don’t smell‘ is at it again. Cameron parasitically relies on the mainstream media for source material to feed his abusive narrative against anything remotely ‘pinko’. He has the ill-grace to frequently berate the very same […]

Sue Kedgley on trench warfare and the value of MMP

A worthwhile interview between Sean Plunket and retiring Green MP Sue Kedgley was broadcast on The Nation today. I’d seen reports of her valedictory statement with ‘parting shots’ about Parliamentary ‘trench warfare’ and nodded in agreement. Much of the time it’s trench warfare in here,” she told Parliament. “The aim is to do battle, to […]

Newly political Peter Leitch – timing is everything

There’s been a dose of opprobrium directed towards a Labour MP Darien Fenton for her Facebook comments (yawn) in reaction to ‘The Mad Butcher’ businessman/philanthropist Sir Peter Leitch publicly endorsing the National Party in the lead up to the General Election. Some of Labour’s political enemies have sought to make it a litmus test, describing […]

Lawyers (and lab rats) have their uses

Despite all the jokes about lawyers (some of them very funny, like Q: Why do some experiments use lawyers instead of lab rats? A: Because there are more of them, there are some things even rats won’t do, and the experimenters prove less likely to become emotionally attached to lawyers than rats) there are times […]

Formative experiences

Reflecting on why I oppose the National government’s proposed rushed legislation to retrospectively sanctify unlawful police surveillance actions, I found myself remembering back to when I was a sixth-former in Wellington and got a holiday job at the Supreme Court — coincidentally just as an appeal was being heard against the double murder conviction of […]

Laura Norder a surprise election issue?

The Supreme Court’s decision last Friday to declare covert police surveillance videos unlawful unless properly authorized by a court had big implications. Under this country’s Bill of Rights Act, citizens have a right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure by the forces of the state. It seems some aspects of the police’s search […]