Posts Tagged ‘ACT’
Two comedians speak up against animal testing
The ACT Party’s sole MP John Banks faced mockery and disrespect for his stand against animal testing in recent Parliamentary debate about amendments to the Psychoactive Substances Bill. Some people questioned his sanity or his social policy ‘priorities’. That’s a pretty harsh assessment, I thought when I heard it, but fair enough. Fair comment. A […]
The ACT Party’s “rejuvenation”.
For some reason, listening to the ACT Party leader John Banks spouting slogans on Focus on Politics prior to the Party’s Saturday conference in art lover Alan Gibbs’ barn, I thought of this surrealist painting. What hope has ACT got of “rejuvenation” with John Archibald Banks (66) as their leader? His kind of political pragmatism […]
‘The Nation’ on the disintegration of the ACT Party
I watched this report on TV3’s The Nation this morning. It contains some interesting comments about the ACT Party and the toxicity of John Banks’ involvement, or, as the piece says, ACT’s narrowed focus in winning Epsom as their only hope of ‘survival’ and Banks’ ability to resemble a team player while ‘looking out for […]
Hollow Man Matthew Hooton recites his creed
Featuring extensive quotes from National Party sources, Nicky Hager’s The Hollow Men: A study in the politics of deception exposed and excoriated a cynical, deceptive team of politicians, spin doctors, professional deceivers and behind-the-scenes, shadowy political donors seeking political influence and ‘policy for sale’ — some of whom, judging by results, are still very much […]
Rodney Hide, boy genius.
I knew Rodney Hide back when he was still using a Cassiopeia and I was using Psion Series 3a. (We used to compare features.) While he’s a pleasant man, and I personally like him, he’s never struck me as an intellectual powerhouse… So it was intriguing recently to read in the NBR online his vapid […]
ACT: ‘Zero backing. Zilch, nil, nothing at all.’
John Armstrong attended the ACT Party conference over the weekend, with “80 or so party members present” … introducing his wrap up piece in the NZ Herald this morning like this: Act kicked off its annual conference on Saturday having just been kicked in the teeth. Delegates woke up to the news that the previous […]
Three faces of Eve … er, John Banks
One-point-one percent blogger Cactus Kate has written a well-worth reading column for the National Business Review website with the engaging title Who is John Banks? (I’m not kidding.) I agree with this part (below) and have said something similar for years: Three sides to Banks I believe there are at least three sides to John […]
Of goose and ganders. ACT on Campus referred to police for breaching the law
I was idly checking the 2011 election results on the Electorial Commission’s website tonight, to doublecheck my basis for recently referring to fringe political party ACT as the one-point-one percenters … they got 1.07% of the vote … and look: Referral to the Police 2 February 2012 The Electoral Commission has referred the following matter […]
Banks: Doing the basics very well
Experience counts. I appeared to briefly flabbergast John Banks on Friday when I asked him for a lift from the radio station to the venue for the now infamous ‘cup of tea’. Cheeky? You might say that, but it made sense: He’d just, at 2:00 pm, finished a session (along with ‘official’ National Party Epsom […]
Security footage of a burglary?
Authorities have released an image from security camera footage of one of the [alleged] perpetrators of an electoral ‘dirty-deal’ sealed in Auckland yesterday. Anyone with knowledge of the incident, carried out in front of about 40 journalists* and cameramen, should um … well, they should, er … gee … well, what can they do? * […]
Is it OK for Don Brash to call a journo ‘a deceitful bastard’?
Is it OK for ACT leader Don Brash to call a journalist ‘a deceitful bastard‘ and refuse to be interviewed by him? Yes. Absolutely. Damn right it is. Is it smart? No. In an election campaign? Even less so. Never mind. This (below) is how I prefer to see Don […]
Is there anything you’d like to share with the group, Cathy?
Was/wasn’t ACT list candidate Cathy Odgers (Cactus Kate) recounts the wearying psychological impact of poor opinion poll results on ‘tribal’ political party volunteers … from her own direct experience as a student volunteer in the early days of the minor right wing party (currently running something like 1.7% in the polls). Fine, emotionally honest writing […]
Cactus Kate: ACT Hollow Man or Black Widow?
ThePaepae.com ISN’T a political blog. There are plenty of those, and this year being election year in NZ, we will all be swimming (drowning?) in political commentary soon enough. (God help us.) Nevertheless, I want to share some thoughts and attempt to put a punctuation mark at the end of Cathy Odgers’ (Cactus Kate‘s) supposed […]
Agree or disagree?
A Member of Parliament admits he has a criminal past. But he does it very badly, slowly, and destroys his own credibility in the process. I agree with this comment from my old Press Gallery colleague John Armstrong: When he was asked on Tuesday if there was anything else in his past which warranted mention, […]
