Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
Now here’s a curious thing … right now the National Party is going absolutely hammer-and-tong attempting to attack the Labour Party’s Tax Working Group – for, among other things, the fact it’s set to be chaired by former Labour Finance Minister Sir Michael Cullen.
It’s taken faster than I thought possible, but the first post-election poll – from Roy Morgan – has the Labour-led coalition rising whilst National’s support is falling;
Can we expect any significant change from the Cullen tax working group?
When it comes to a repulsive cocktail of double standards, self-interest, and hypocrisy, National is the party that just keeps on giving…
Each time the Nats open their mouths to carp about the Coalition’s reforms, it is a delight to remind them of their own pitiful track record over the last nine years. And for Steven Joyce, I offer his very own:
THE SUPREME COURT has finally declared the deal struck between the Department of Labour and Pike River boss, Peter Whittall, “unlawful”. A moral victory for Sonja Rockhouse and Anna Osborne, certainly, but hardly a victory for the New Zealand justice system.
The Israel Institute of New Zealand, in an article entitled Post Election outlook for New Zealand’s relationship with Israel, noted with pleasure that Winston Peters was now in the position of ‘king maker’.
For my money, that’s the most heart-warming endorsement of our new Labour Prime Minister that I have read to date. If Jacinda, with just two words, can shake the very foundations of Wall Street, then it’s possible that a “return to the bad old days of the 70s” may turn out to be something more than this old socialist’s pipe dream.
Media freedom seminar: The Philippines is the country with the largest single massacre of journalists – 32 on the island of Mindanao in 2009, where a three-month urban siege against jihadists in Marawi City has recently ended with a toll on many newsrooms.
In spite of the fact that barely thirty days have passed since Winston Peters anointed Jacinda Ardern as New Zealand’s first progressive prime minister in nine years, John is ready to call the Left onto the streets in protest at her government’s refusal to walk away from the CPTPP.