Random Politics

[CCS]

The chart of doom for Andrew Little

David Farrar has posted the chart of doom:

Those are the preferred Prime Minister ratings of the last four Labour leaders. It is rather telling.

Andrew Little is now on a par with the worst years of Phil Goff and certainly worse than David Cunliffe (who was dreadful) and well under the lofty heights gained by David Shearer.

There is something interesting though, in election years the leader gets a boost. Phil Goff rose to the levels of David Shearer in the 2011 election and David Cunliffe rose to 14% in the 2014 election.

Andrew Little though starts below where Goff was and even Cunliffe in the lead up to the election, but crucially an election is only worth 6-8% boost in popularity, and not enough to win the treasury benches.

KiwiBlog

WhaleOil

[Ab]

How much do your Crosby Textor handlers pay you to shill like this?

[CCS]

Originally Posted by Juju

In-line with this, some of the comments on Facebook regarding JK announcing tax reforms that more or less get rid of provisional tax, are just .... well... here's a beut:

Hurray for KDS!

It's amazing, really. Seven years of Key Derangement Syndrome has resulted in great polls for Key and National and a probably fourth term.

Right now, Labour is strongly implying that John Key has been getting up to dodgy stuff with trusts and tax avoidance. They've got no proof of any wrong doing, not even a shred. They're demanding Key release his tax records and implying that he's got something to hide if he doesn't.

Labour is trying to conflate Key and therefore National with the Panama Papers. John Key is somehow responsible for everything, because Fuck John Key, right?

This shit doesn't work. Labour is the party of negativity and that just doesn't wash with New Zealander's general sense of optimism.

[CCS]

Originally Posted by Ab

How much do your Crosby Textor handlers pay you to shill like this?

Not enough to quit my day job, but some nice pocket money to put in my offshore trust

[Ab]

Rich people did some things in Panama.

Some of the things in Panama involved trusts.

Some of the things in Panama that involved trusts were schemes designed to minimise tax.

John Key is rich.

Therefore John Key is doing something in Panama involving trusts to minimise tax.

John Key is the Prime Minister.

Therefore John Key is personally changing the laws of New Zealand in order to blah blah Panama involving trusts blah blah tax blah blah new world order.

Therefore, fuck John Key.

[CCS]

I'll spare everyone a big copy/paste from Kiwiblog, but this stuff is worth reading:

2014 Election Study on Party Favourability

2014 Election Study on Party Position

[CCS]

Almost forgot this one:

2014 Election Study on Leaders

[Ab]

Remember the Government's announcement of the formation of the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary? How we were all "yay, environment, yay, oceans"?

Of course, since the Government announced it, Labour has to now be against it. Because Labour.

http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/arti...ectid=11621260

[pxpx]

Govt: "We want to mine this part of the ocean floor"
Opposition: "Mining the ocean floor is bad! Environment!"

Govt: "We want to protect this part of the ocean"
Opposition: "Protecting the oceans is bad! Wait, we can't say that, um.. uh.. There was no consultation! The process is wrong! Protecting the oceans is ba[internal turmoil boils over] FFS FUCK JOHN KEY"

(imo mining the ocean floor is bad, so is over fishing)

[crocos]

They're being all charlie-brown up in that place. That they're trying to take a neutral stand IMO makes them look worse - they'd be better off going "You know? No. No National, that's a bad idea and here's why, you need to address these points" instead of going "We're not saying we're withdrawing support for this, but there's other things to consider"

[fixed_truth]

http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/for-...s-strike-twice

[Ab]

"purely for the sake of argument"

nudge nudge wink wink

[blynk]

Interesting article.
I think CSS would like that article.

[CCS]

I don't really give a toss. It's all academic. Winston would've found his way into parliament anyway.

[Ab]

I don't think you're giving the article the consideration it deserves, Thomas.

[blynk]

The thing is, Winston was already in parliament. It's just that he got voted into the Northland electorate after the election.

[CCS]

Originally Posted by Ab

I don't think you're giving the article the consideration it deserves, Thomas.

Possibly not, I admit to skimreading it. Care to enlighten?

Originally Posted by blynk

The thing is, Winston was already in parliament. It's just that he got voted into the Northland electorate after the election.

I was referring to his original entrance into parliament, not Northland. Had the Hunua result not been overturned on his appeal, he still would have found his way in to parliament.

[blynk]

Originally Posted by CCS

GIMME SOME FUCKEN HINTS.

[CCS]

One other thing I'll point out is that as annoying an old prick as Winston is, and despite him being full of shit so often, he is these days often a more rational voice than many in Labour or the Greens.

And that's scary.

[CCS]

Originally Posted by blynk

If what you're trying get at is this:

All of which, I regularly inform my students with a great deal of glee, means that Winston Peters' political career was founded on a fundamental mistake.\

then you've not been paying attention to his career. His is a wiley old dog and as mirthful as it is that a legal cock-up got him into parliament originally, it is also plainly academic by this point some 37 years later. He would have ended up in parliament anyway and that takes quite a lot of the lolling out of the judicial cockup.

If there's something else that I'm missing, please point it out.

[CCS]

Unless you are pointing out that someone in Northland likes rubbing feet. I'm unaware of the full details of that case and had been led to believe from another website that the fellow from Northland is an entertainer who had been born in the 70's, hence my confusion.

[fixed_truth]

Home truths: Here come the Jafas, buying homes in the regions

[CCS]

First it was the chinks, now it's the jafas. Yay scaremongering.

[Lightspeed]

Why? Is the status quo being reported as if its news? Rather than a genuine shift in the ownership of social resources, which might actually be newsworthy.

[Cyberbob]

"82.8% of homes in Hamilton bought by people outside of Auckland"

Hamilton homes being bought by Aucklanders was near 25% this time last year. That figure's actually gone down. It's not news.

[pxpx]

That "high quality, compact city" vision from Len and his army of town-planners has really worked out great!

[CCS]

How many NZers outside of Auckland are buying Auckland houses? Probably a lot. It's not just chinks creating demand in Auckland, it's other people in country moving to the big city for work.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Cyberbob

"82.8% of homes in Hamilton bought by people outside of Auckland"

Hamilton homes being bought by Aucklanders was near 25% this time last year. That figure's actually gone down. It's not news.

What about 10 years ago, 25 years? I could totally believe that this is just click-bait non-news from the NZH. But I could also believe this is a shift in the nature of home ownership that we might want to be aware of so we can do some intentional decision making.

[crocos]

Originally Posted by pxpx

That "high quality, compact city" vision from Len and his army of town-planners has really worked out great!

It's still a very good idea, but pressure from special interests will prevent it ever happening.

[fixed_truth]

One of the problems is that just increasing supply only makes more houses available for investors.

[CCS]

This video is a great metaphor for Andrew Little leading the Labour party.

Everything about it is so apt. Watch as he drives head on into floodwaters with no idea of what he is getting himself into. "Why are you doing that? Why are you doing that?! Ugh. God...da...”

Watch him flail as he struggles to understand his predicament. "DUDE, you gotta get out of the car. You gotta get out!"

“What do I do?” He's out of his depth at this point.

"SWIM. LEAVE THE CAR. SWIM."

The strategy direction isn't clear to him despite plenty of straightforward advice from the sidelines.

“Stay in the car?”

"SWIM. SWIM. LEAVE THE CAR. SWIM."




Courtesy

[CCS]

Scenic Group founders consider legal action

Scenic Hotel Group founders Earl and Lani Hagaman are considering legal action over Labour leader Andrew Little's claims about the timing of a donation from Mr Hagaman to the National Party a month before the hotel group was awarded a contract in Niue.

"I can assure the public that for us the only thing that will 'stink to the high heavens' will be smell of roses which blossom from the fertiliser Andrew Little likes to spread around to gain his own notoriety."

Mrs Hagaman said it was a "political beat-up" by Mr Little.

"We are not interested in being Mr Little's political football. These nasty and unfounded allegations need to stop and I would urge Andrew Little to stop wasting tax payer money on trying to promote his own political party and ego."

Mrs Hagaman said in the past the couple had voted for Labour.

"One of the privileges of being a New Zealander is the ability to have freedom of choice and vote or donate to any political party one chooses. In the past both Earl and I have voted Labour but that was when the party had strong morals and direction and did not practice bully tactics on innocent people."

[blynk]

I think its fair enough for the question to be asked.
Maybe he could have tried to find out more in private first to get anymore info.

But a large donation to a party, which then awards them with a contract and now are spending large sums of money doing up the place, that can easily be viewed as dodgy

[CCS]

blynk, you'd make a wonderful Labour leader.

[blynk]

Thats the plan. I'm 10th in line so I should be in by next xmas

[CCS]

Do you think Little has handled this well?

[Lightspeed]

Who cares.

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by blynk

I think its fair enough for the question to be asked.
Maybe he could have tried to find out more in private first to get anymore info.

But a large donation to a party, which then awards them with a contract and now are spending large sums of money doing up the place, that can easily be viewed as dodgy

Bryan Gould presents his opinion

The facts can be simply stated. The owner of Scenic Hotels, Earl Hagaman - a well-known and perennial donor to the National party - made a donation of over $100,000 to the National party, and a month later his company was awarded the valuable contract to manage a resort on Niue.

The contract turned out to be even more valuable than had appeared at first sight when $7.5 million of taxpayer-funded aid money was paid to Scenic Hotels to upgrade the resort.

In any other country, and especially in those where such deals are commonplace, no one would be in any doubt as to what had really happened. In New Zealand, however, we are naively inclined to accept the blank-eyed, slack-mouthed assurances that it was all a coincidence and that nothing untoward had happened.

[Juju]

I like it how the KDS sufferers, like Gould, could never fathom the possibility that the Scenic Hotel Group, just might have been, *gasp*, the most suitable company for the contract?
Who's to say the losers of the contract didn't also donate to National? You wouldn't hear about that...

[Lightspeed]

It's not a delusion that somehow a resort in Niue has trumped community health services in NZ in the competition for tax payer funding.

It's not a delusion that National are muzzling organisations that raise issues of national significance that are inconvenient to the party. The Problem Gambling Foundation and Fish & Game being the most clear examples.

And yet the default stance seems to be National is completely on the up and up. The narrative seems to be stuck on an ineffective opposition.