I got a lead on a major party poll that had just been done in the Wairarapa, and which basically confirmed what I’d been saying. It ranked the contenders for the seat both in terms of their support out there in the electorate (i.e. how many folk were likely to vote for them) – but also in terms of their ‘likeability’, relatability, recognizability and such.
Maui and Hector’s dolphins are the world’s smallest marine dolphin, only found in New Zealand, and facing extinction from a…
The wave of derision, anger and outright fury directed at Bill English when he tried to spin his lines was so visceral that it actually stunned him a couple of times and he turned a lighter shade of grey. I’ve never seen person drown live on TV, but I suspect it looked like Bill.
‘Social Investment’ is a buzzword that is guiding the current National Government’s social policy decisions. What does it mean? What are the implications of increased ‘target efficiency’?
2011 and 2014 was dirty politics using Cameron Slater and David Farrar as the delivery vehicles, 2017 it’s dirty politics via the power of incumbency.
I’m not sure how widespread it is for government ministers to refuse attendance at public meetings when they are asked to front for unpopular policies but in the case of Minister of Social Housing Amy Adams it is certainly true.
Mediaworks sacked John Campbell for politically motivated reasons because of John’s attacks on John Key, Steven Joyce used to own the company and the National Government once gave Mediaworks a sweetheart finance deal on license fees they couldn’t obtain from the open market.
All of that history helped Bill English win the second debate, it’s up to the voters to decide if a foreign owned media company should be able to frame them up as easily as they framed Jacinda up.
If they can convince the waverers; the voters on the point of climbing aboard the “Jacinda Train”; that Labour’s numbers just don’t add up. If they can make them feel that if they’re not very careful, then a bunch of so-called “experts” are going to advise Labour to tax their land, their batch, their business, their petrol, their water, their financial transactions, and even their inheritance. If they can inflame suspicion and build mistrust, then – dammit – they just might win.
One of the things I’ve tried to work on over the last decade is getting Labour+Green Party over 51% without the need of including Winston and NZ First so that a genuinely left wing Government could actually implement the kind of truely progressive policy we desperately need.
Two days after two hikoi of 579 pairs of shoes (each) set off simultaneously from Cape Reinga and Bluff, bound for Parliament’s hallowed steps, the Chief Coroner announced the latest suicide figures for the 2017 financial year: 606.