0 Quote of the Day - 12 July 2014

Chris Trotter expresses his dumbfoundedness over David Cunliffe's much-discussed apology for being a man last week. He's blogged this at Bowalley Road:

“PLEASE TELL ME I’M DREAMING”, texted a friend of mine. “Please tell me that David Cunliffe didn’t just apologise for being a man.” I stared at my cell-phone in disbelief. Was he joking? Why would the leader of a political party languishing in the opinion polls alienate at least half of the voting public? Why would he hand his opponents such an enormous cudgel? As if his party wasn’t already battered enough?

 

Later that day, at the pub, the guffaws and the jokes continued. I have to confess, I contributed my fair share of them. I would also point out that although all of my drinking companions were lefties, by no means all of them were men. This was equal opportunity ridicule.

 

So what was going on here? Why were a tableful of seasoned leftists – male and female – and all of them well-versed in the facts and figures of domestic violence in New Zealand so unanimous in condemning the opening sentences of David Cunliffe’s speech to last Friday’s Women’s Refuge Symposium?

 

When even seasoned lefties such as Chris Trotter's drinking buddies are swinging between criticising David Cunliffe for his comments and laughing at him because of them, it's pretty clear that the Labour leader missed his target by some margin. But that's hardly a surprise.

0 Quote of the Day - 11 July 2014

Rosemary McLeod has been part of the New Zealand journalistic landscape now for a very long time. She's not afraid to say what she thinks in a pretty emphatic manner.

And it's clear she doesn't think much of David Cunliffe's apology last week, introducing a new phrase to the lexicon in the process:

A man who's sorry for being a man: I'm impressed. That's almost as good as really being a woman. David Cunliffe's apology for his gender could have been a moving moment, even a comedic one, but the Rape Crisis people didn't leap up and give him a standing ovation, and nobody laughed, which was a shame.
Ricky Gervais could have mined it for laughs for long, cringing moments.
Perhaps too many in the audience were women and wondered what on earth he was driving at. It's weird to apologise for having a Terrible Thing in your underpants, so seventies somehow, such a reminder of the cads of that era who bowed to feminists' superiority while sliding a hand up their skirts.
It's not the Terrible Thing that deserves an apology, anyway, but the bullies and sex offenders who never say they're sorry and never change, and a justice system that doesn't take their threats seriously enough to make them stop.
I doubt very much that rapists and violent offenders will respond to Cunliffe's battle cry of "stop this bullshit!", fall to their knees and be better men, but it's the kind of posturing good boys do to remind us that they're not one of the baddies. It's a public pat on the back to themselves.
Bashing and raping women isn't bullshit. It's nasty and brutal and causes lasting pain. It's not, then, the word that more commonly alludes to falsehoods. But Cunliffe was probably aiming to please the voters - women, teachers, and whatever blue-collar workers and trade unionists he imagines remain from the old days, and electioneering hardly brings out the best in anyone. 

We don't want to allow our minds to dwell too long on Mr Cunliffe's Terrible Thing, or anyone else's for that matter. 

As impassioned as Mr Cunliffe's appeal to violent men was, it was delivered to the wrong audience. It would have been far better delivered to an anger management group or in a prison, without the TV cameras and journalists present. Then there would have been less doubt over its sincerity. 

0 Quote of the Day - 9 June 2014

We somehow don't think Sir Robert Jones has a very high opinion of Labour leader David Cunliffe; he opines:

No Labour leader has ever been so unpopular as David Cunliffe, evidenced by the disastrous polls and also the Reader's Digest trustworthy survey bracketing him humiliatingly in bottom place with Dotcom and Harawira.
Cunliffe was installed against the strong wishes of those who knew him best, namely Labour's caucus. Now the public know him as well, resulting in a wider disdain. Two decades ago, employees voted with their feet, leaving the once powerful union movement a mere rump as a representative body. It's therefore no surprise that the rump's outlook is alien to the majority of voters. What's astonishing about this is the ignoring of Labour's history, not just here but also in Britain and Australia. National reigned here from 1949 to 1984, broken only by two single term Labour administrations. In Britain the Conservatives ruled the roost from 1979 to 1987 and in Australia, the Liberal coalition from 1949 to 1983, excepting the Whitlam government.
What changed was the advent of realistic Labour leaders, namely Lange and Douglas, Hawke and Keating, and Tony Blair. They threw off their party's debilitating union influence, acknowledged the failure of their socialist ideology and embraced the market economy, substituting the meaningless term of "social democrats" rather than socialists to henceforth describe themselves. The British and Australian labour governments then ruled for 13 years but Lange's subsequent change of heart created an irreparable schism which cut short a well deserved longer stint.
There's no popular support in all three countries for a return to a high taxes, big government socialist order, other than from the no-hoper entitlement to live off others sector, which is why it's extraordinary that Cunliffe should expound these propositions and have the gall to label them progressive. Perhaps he was influenced by the election of a nondescript individual as French President, who exploiting the politics of envy, promised punitive taxes on higher incomes. "You're welcome here," London mayor Boris Johnson told them and they came, and also went elsewhere. The President, now polling the lowest of any in French history, intends reversing the policy with a low tax regime to attract the job creators back in an endeavour to fix the moribund economy.
I know someone who, through much hard work, became wealthy in the last few years. He has a sentimental historic attachment to the Labour Party, as do many affluent individuals and he was planning a six-figure donation this year, chuffed at his new-found capability to do so. But he was outraged after hearing a Cunliffe interview following the leadership race. "Will you raise taxes on higher incomes?" Cunliffe was asked. "You betcha," the new leader exclaimed with gusto. My acquaintance was angry, for as he said, "I've worked my butt off and the tone of Cunliffe's enthusiasm to punish me for this was sickening."
"Will you now vote National?" I teased, knowing he'd never hitherto done so. "You betcha," he exclaimed.
We're now threatened with a disheartened wreckage of a Labour opposition, reflected by the head office-imposed, mostly tokenist no-names in their mediocre new candidates list.

Sir Robert makes a very interesting point here. We've heard rumours for months that the Labour Party is broke. Promising to tax businesses and high earners more is hardly the recipe to encourage those business owners and high income earners to pull out the chequebooks and donate with an attitude of gratitude. In a sense, Labour has cut off its nose to spite its face.

In the meantime, Labour's main backers will be trade unions, and we have already blogged about that particular link this week. In promising an election campaign free of "dirty tricks or dodgy deals; smear campaigns and a personality cult", Mr Cunliffe is obviously not planning to make any further cash for policy allegations against National, lest the hypocrisy of Labour's own cash for policy history catch up with it.

0 Quote of the Day - 6 July 2014

Trevor Mallard has certainly provided newspaper columnists and satirists with no shortage of material over the last few days. And Paul Little from the Herald on Sunday hasn't needed asking twice; under the headline Moa fantasy a dead duck (any idea where that might be going?!) Little opines:

In a speech that could be described as wide-ranging but would perhaps better be described as rambling, a senior member of the New Zealand Parliament advocated bringing the extinct moa back to life as a tourist attraction for the Rimutaka National Park.
Before we dismiss Trevor Mallard's suggestion out of hand - and we'll be doing that shortly - we should note that it raises an interesting question: was he tripping?
Let's assume not.
In fact, the science of de-extinction, as it's ungracefully called, is well advanced.
In 2003, scientists used stored cells from a specimen of the extinct bucardo or Pyrenean ibex to create a clone, although it survived only a few minutes, or slightly longer than the average lifespan of a leader of the Labour Party.
It's hard to understand the current mania for bringing back things that disappeared for very good reasons, a trend I date from the re-introduction of the Georgie Pie.

Once people accepted that, the door was wide open.
Although he admitted the scheme was "a bit Jurassic Park" - which it is, in the same way that terrorist group ISIS is a bit extreme - Mallard maintained it would perk up folk around Wainuiomata no end.
Attempting to head off his critics at the pass, he pointed out that people once laughed at those who said the kiwi would return to Wainuiomata.
They also laughed at those who believe jet vapour trails are poisoning us and many other funny people.
To be clear, Mallard is not talking about the biggest of the moa - max height 3.6m - beloved of children's picture books.
Why, that would be silly.
He has in mind something more bijou, with that elusive maximum cute factor. He wants something "that I could pat on the head".
He must be missing John Banks.
If Mallard thinks the moa will stand still to have its head patted, he doesn't know much about birds in general.
And of course, he says that now, but you know how these things work. Pretty soon the handbag-sized birds just aren't providing the same kick and you start wanting something a bit stronger. Before you know it, you're bringing velociraptors back to life and there are flocks of pterodactyls blotting out the sun and endangering low-flying aircraft.
Reviving the moa would be a step backwards in every sense. I've long said that everyone owes a great debt to Maori for hunting the moa to extinction.
Imagine what life would be like if they hadn't. The birds would be protected, for a start, able to roam with impunity wherever they felt like it, crashing through suburban vegetable gardens, getting tangled up in people's washing and tipping over prams.
Moa swallowed rocks to aid digestion, so within a matter of weeks the ubiquitous pebble gardens of Grey Lynn and Ponsonby would be transformed into a wasteland.

Oh no; not the gardens of Ponsonby and Grey Lynn. That would be an unmitigated disaster, especially if moa also became entrenched amongst the mid-range do-ups in Herne Bay. Imagine the angst if one got away amongst the chickens, cats and bees in Marine Parade!

Paul Little is dead right. Trevor Mallard's plan is indeed a dead duck, which with a tight electorate contest beckoning in just over two months could become a self-fulfilling prophesy for the Hutt South MP.

0 Quote of the Day - 2 July 2014

This was sent to us overnight by an alert reader. It's Bill English's answer to a supplementary question during Question Time yesterday:

John Hayes : What reports has he seen supporting the Government’s approach to investing proceeds from the share offer programme in new public assets?

Hon BILL ENGLISH : I have seen reports from an unlikely source: an alternative budget that was issued in the last week or two. The reports indicate that this alternative approach to the Government’s finances will continue the current Government’s approach of using proceeds from the share offer programme. The Opposition budget includes the $4.7 billion proceeds from the asset sales being spent on public assets, which was rather a surprise given that they had spent 4 years vigorously opposing the policy. 

This one seems to have snuck under the radar just a tad, as answers to patsy questions from Government backbenchers often do.

But this one is particularly significant. Labour appears to have factored in the proceeds of partial asset sales into its "alternative budget". Doesn't it make all the hot air generated by the Greens and Labour as they railed against asset sales all seem a little hollow, if Labour is simply going to go an a spending spree with the loot?

We guess it answers one question though. There is clearly going to be no buy-back of the shares in Air New Zealand, Mighty River Power, Meridian and Genesis, because Labour can only spend the money once. 

And wasn't a buy-back of assets a bottom line for Winston Peters in potential coalition negotiations? Has Labour slammed the door in Mr Peters' face to go on a spending spree with the Greens?

David Cunliffe and David Parker are economic hypocrites. They should not be allowed within a bull's roar of the Treasury benches.

0 Quote of the Day - 28 June 2014

OK; it's a fair cop. This is yesterday's post. But we were so wrapped up in the Hurricanes' gutsy win over the Crusaders last night that we clean forgot to post it.

But Steven Joyce takes the coveted Quote of the Day for this effort:

Campaign chairman Steven Joyce warned delegates that the campaign was "still a little puppy" and that anything at all could happen in the next 84 days before the election - the wackiest thing imaginable, he said.
"A retired Maori activist who has become an MP working with a hard left unionist and let's just throw in a wealthy German millionaire right-winger, they could form a political party," said.

"That's the sort of wacky thing that could happen between now and September 20.
"If Laila Harre, Hone Harawira, Pam Corkery, Kim Dotcom, Russel Norman, Metiria Turei, David Cunliffe, Matt McCarten, and John Minto are the answer, can we please have another look at the question?"

It's an oldie, but in 2014, it's a goodie, and a very relevant goodie at that. 

0 Quote of the Day - 21 June 2014

Whilst this entire Dominion-Post column from Duncan Garner is well worth a read, the opening in particular stood out. The piece is headed Don't follow the leader: Cunliffe's demise will be Granted and Garner opines:

Labour ditched former leader David Shearer because he struggled to string two sentences together on a good day. So surely it couldn't have got any worse, right? Wrong.
It's a train wreck under David Cunliffe and Labour's MPs are grumpy, nervous and wondering what they may be doing for a crust after September 20. The prospect of losing your job and the $150,000 salary always focuses the mind.
This week Labour slumped to 23 per cent in Fairfax's stuff/Ipsos poll - under Shearer it was in the low 30s when he was dumped.
Cunliffe has taken the party backwards when he promised to take it forward. Could Labour be on track to record its worst-ever election defeat? Yes.
When Cunliffe utters a word or two these days the collective intake of breath among his MPs is simply frightening.
He's had a host of gaffes this year - and the best he's looked was when he shut up and stood in the background while his wife, Karen Price, talked about the birds (chickens) and the bees in an interview at their home.
Cunliffe was parachuted into the job of leader, not because his MPs really wanted him - most dislike him - but because Labour Party members and union affiliates were desperate for someone to articulate their values.
To say he's been a disappointment is an understatement. After this week's horrors he looks unelectable as the next prime minister. He's genuinely gone from bad to worse. 

Garner certainly hasn't pulled any punches in his op-ed this morning. And we don't imagine that David Cunliffe will have felt any particular fondness towards the RadioLive host and former 3News political editor as he read the piece this morning over his bircher meusli with honey (freshly gathered) and trim latte at his Herne Bay "mid-range do-up".

We do suggest that you read the whole piece, which ends by suggesting that Grant Robertson could roll David Cunliffe right now, but that he and Jacinda Ardern will wait until after the election. Whilst Robertson's lack of action now very likely condemns Labour to a third term in opposition, you can hardly blame him.

0 Quote of the Day - 17 June 2014

Danyl at the Dim-Post has been collating results of all the political polls around the place. And as he has added this morning's Herald-DigiPoll to the mix, he makes this pithy observation:

Updated the tracking poll to include the Herald digi-poll and last Roy Morgan poll, both of which are ‘bad for the left’. Bias corrected version below. Non bias corrected over the break.
What jumps out at me here is the comparison with the last election. Labour are trending down, just like last time – but now their votes are (mostly) going to National, not the Greens. Which makes sense to me: we have no idea what National plans to do in its third term, but that lack of vision is still preferable to being governed by a collection of left-wing parties who all hate each other but want to run the country together.

Now given that Danyl is not exactly a supporter of the parties of the political Right, this is a very candid admission on his behalf with regard to the parties of the Left. He is however (and Rex will not approve of us saying so, but it's our blog!) right on the money.

0 Quote of the Day - 16 June 2014

We don't often agree with Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn, but one is seldom left in doubt as to his opinion. And he has launched into the Labour Party this afternoon; under the headline Dear Labour, I don't work for you I/S opines:

So, following this morning's post about David Cunliffe's finding his spine on Iraq, I received an email from Rob Egan, "Senior Strategic Communications Advisor" in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition, who assured me that Cunliffe didn't focus group his position and that "the release was not delayed pending “testing” but was released as logistics allowed."Right, so Cunliffe isn't a focus-group led mollusc, just so useless and lacking in political instincts that he can't say what he thinks on an important issue without having to effectively retract his original position within 24 hours. Glad we cleared that up. Meanwhile, there's this bit:

I realise that the speed of social media means that misunderstandings can arise rapidly, and that part of the value of blogging is that it captures reaction quickly and without mediation, but I would really appreciate it if get in touch with me about any serious concerns you have such as this. You can reach me by phone or email most of the time.

To which I've already tweeted my response: Dear Labour: I don't work for you. I don't work for anyone. I voice my own views. If you don't like them, you can go fuck yourself.

Once again, David Cunliffe has given different responses to the same question on different days. Idiot/Savant may not have been right about Labour's use of focus groups with regard to troops to Iraq, but he is right on the money in criticising the mixed messages from the party's leader.

One day we may find out what David Cunliffe really stands for.

0 Quote of the Day - 13 June 2014

Fran O'Sullivan's Herald column today is about political donations, and the expectations thereafter. Headed Cash donors have expectations it concludes thus:

Justice Wylie's judgment is also notable for the light it sheds on SkyCity's relationship with Brown. SkyCity had not previously donated to an Auckland mayoral campaign. But in 2010, Brown's campaign team approached the casino company for a donation.
SkyCity's board and CEO Nigel Morrison agreed to make the donation and one of a similar size to Banks. SkyCity did not want either of the two $15,000 donations to be made anonymously.
The Banks saga is still to finally play out. But what is notable is that Brown - who was publicly perceived to be concerned about the social cost of casinos - was quite prepared to have his campaign team pursue SkyCity for a donation.
As the EY inquiry disclosed, Brown benefited from free nights at the casino operator's hotel. Brown also gave his support to the Government's "pokies for convention centre" deal with SkyCity.
It's not easy to hold back a tsunami of disbelief that donor cash doesn't buy influence when looking at the sequence of events.
I've questioned before why Brown wanted to take power off the Council Controlled Organisations and centralise it in the mayor's office. There are some good commercial brains on the boards of the CCOs. But they have been subject to too much dictate from the centre.
At a national level, Labour's Andrew Little was right on the button with his call for an independent inquiry into the police decision not to prosecute Banks. But Little shouldn't stop there. The bigger question - which far outweighs Banks' transgressions - is why the police didn't file a legal prosecution against Labour Party identities after Labour raided parliamentary funds to back its 2005 campaign for re-election.
That question still remains.
Banks has paid a price for a crime which is substantially less than that committed by the country's then ruling party.

Fran O'Sullivan's comments about Len Brown and his relationship with SkyCity reawaken the events surrounding the outing of his affair with Bevan Chuang, and the investigation which followed. They will do nothing to dispel the lingering suspicion that Brown is unfit for the office of Mayor of Auckland on several levels.

But it is her comments on Labour and the 2005 Pledge card scandal that are the most telling. We warned Andrew Little last week to be careful what he wished for. Now the Pledge card rort is back in the news, and Labour will have to go into damage control all over again. 

This time though, they are doing the damage control from the Opposition benches, so any time spent putting out nine-year-old fires is time that Labour ISN'T telling New Zealand what it would do for the next nine years.

0 Quote of the Day - 10 June 2014

Scrubone blogs at Something Should Go Here, Maybe Later. And in a post entitled Reminder: all politicians play games he makes this very important point about coat-tailing and strategic voting:

But the silliest thing is that parties do not own votes. Voters do – and they’ll vote for whoever they want to.

Scrubone is quite right. A majority of New Zealanders voted at the last election to retain MMP. We were not amongst that number. The will of what was a significant majority prevailed.

By all means, let Labour campaign on removing the coat-tailing provisions of MMP. But David Cunliffe would be very unwise to presume that he knows better than the voters whose support he seeks.

Well said Scrubone.

 

 

0 Quote of the Day - 5 June 2014

John Armstrong helpfully points to the hole that David Cunliffe has dug for himself over his determination to ban coat-tailing:

Of more immediate pertinence, Labour could yet need Internet Mana to secure a majority in the next Parliament. But bringing more MPs into Parliament alongside Hone Harawira will likely require that the new umbrella party's leader hold his Te Tai Tokerau electorate.
If Harawira lost, Internet Mana's party votes would go down the gurgler to the huge disadvantage of the centre-left in what is shaping as a very close contest.
But Cunliffe is now hamstrung. If he drops even the slightest hint - even a coded one - that Labour voters should opt for Internet Maori in Te Tai Tokerau, Cunliffe will be deemed an absolute hypocrite.
Not the kind of label you want to be carrying during an election campaign.

John Armstrong gets this one absolutely right (sorry Rex!), especially with the news this morning that Labour is prepared to do a deal with MegaMana if that is what it takes. To enable coat-tailing when you are promising to do away with it later would be complete and utter hypocrisy. 

It would seem once again that David Cunliffe has managed to seize disaster from the jaws of triumph!

0 Quote of the Day - 2 June 2014

Karl du Fresne is one of a dwindling band of old-school journalists; the kind who don't simply recycle the many press releases that cross their desks each day. And his comments on MegaMana are interesting; under the headline Mana ties knot with eye on cash du Fresne opines:

Whatever else you might think of Sue Bradford, she sticks to her principles. You have to respect her for walking away in disgust from the Internet-Mana pantomime.
Who, other than the most gullible, is going to believe these two parties have genuine shared concerns? They are united only by rank opportunism.
Hone Harawira needs access to Kim Dotcom's bank account, while Dotcom seems driven by a personal grudge against Prime Minister John Key and a need for political friends who might help him avoid extradition. These are hardly a sound basis for a credible political party.
In his desperation to make the merger look honourable, Harawira argues that internet access is a pressing issue for young Maori.
This is a convenient but very recent conversion. When I last looked, digital access wasn't even mentioned on the Mana website.
The $200,000 that Dotcom reportedly put into the Internet Party is a far more likely explanation for Harawira's enthusiasm. But at least he had the decency to grin cheekily when he admitting coveting his new ally's resources. Like Winston Peters, he often gives the game away by grinning when he knows no-one is fooled.
Unfortunately, a mischievous grin can't disguise the notion that this alliance is a cynical exploitation of a flawed electoral system. Theoretically at least, there is a possibility that Internet-Mana will end up in a position of power that bears no relationship to its voter support.
What's more, the two parties have undertaken to review their relationship six weeks after the election. So if they get into Parliament, all bets will be off. Take that, suckers.
The best we can hope for is some entertainment as the inherent tensions boil to the surface and Internet-Mana blows up like Krakatoa. How long, for example, before Mana office-holder John Minto – a conviction politician in the Bradford mould – spits the dummy? He can only fool himself for so long that the merger is in the best interests of the proletariat.
Even on their own, Far-Left parties such as Mana have a glorious history of disembowelling themselves. Who knows what bloody mayhem could result when the hard-core Left hitches itself to a wholly incompatible ally like the Dotcom party? 

Of course, since du Fresne penned his column we have discovered that Herr Dotcom has put a lot more than $200k into the Internet Party. The generally accepted figure now is $4 million, with $500,000 of that being paid to Hone Harawira's cult party as a dowry.

Karl du Fresne is dead right (sorry Rex/Edward/Judge); this is indeed a "cynical exploitation" of MMP. And if Labour overtly or covertly instructs Kelvin Davis to not try too hard in Te Tai Tokerau, it too will be a party to this dirtiest of dirty deals.

 The Left has lost the right now to criticise electorate deals done by any other parties. Having so staunchly defended MMP when New Zealand last voted on its system of democracy, who would have ever expected it would have been the parties of the political Left who exposed just how flawed MMP is, and gave us convincing reasons to demand change?

In the meantime, let's just stand back and wait for the ritual disembowelling to begin!

0 Quote of the Day - 1 June 2014

The Herald on Sunday has chosen Martyn Bradbury to be its leftie of the week, and he doesn't disappoint, confirming what everyone already suspected; MegaMana is hardcore left-wing:

Some on the left call this a sell-out. Principled opposition is admirable, but who will tell the 285,000 children in poverty we wouldn't replace the Government because we couldn't agree on which version of Marx to follow?
If Labour and the Greens are to defeat Key's National, Act, United Future, Maori Party coalition, they need every ally they can get. A political party aimed at the group least likely to vote doesn't risk splitting votes on the left. With the Internet Party's resources and flax-root networks of Mana, the possibility of this being the parliamentary maths game changer is high.
If Harawira, Harre, Sykes and Minto are the "sell-out", sign me up.

Interestingly Martyn, not everyone is signing up. We spotted this on Twitter last night:

We suspect that Dylan Reeve will not be the only one to delete Kim Dotcom's app, as people start to understand the political motivation of the Internet Party, and its place in the political landscape.

0 Quote of the Day - 30 May 2014

John Key sees right through the MegaMana sham. And he's telling the country; this, via the Herald:

Prime Minister John Key has ramped up his criticism of Kim Dotcom in the wake of the union of the internet Party and Mana Party, saying Dotcom was trying to "buy influence" and there was nothing Dotcom had in common with either Laila Harre or Hone Harawira.
He said he had little doubt Mr Dotcom was simply trying to get politicians in place who might be able to help block his extradition.
"You've got a guy who can't buy a house in New Zealand, but he can buy a political party. I think most New Zealanders would look at that and be pretty cynical about it. No one should be under any illusion.
"This is a very wealthy guy trying to buy a political party to stop himself being extradited."
He said Ms Harre and Mr Harawira had "zero" in common with Dotcom.
"Kim Dotcom lives in a house that is probably worth about $25 million. FBI records show the hundreds of millions of dollars that came with him.
"And you're telling me he's a natural bedfellow of Laila Harre and Hone Harawira? If you believe that then you believe Santa Claus is going to turn up 12 times a year just to make New Zealand a more joyous place."
The internet Mana deal is aimed at maximising the number of MPs Harawira can bring into Parliament with him if he holds his Te Tai Tokerau electorate.
He said he had not known the law allowed parties to stand as joint force and then split into separate parties after the election and "it seems a bit of a rort."

Key is dead right. And he's not finished either; read on:

He said the internet Mana Party's first joint policy of free tertiary education was "unaffordable and New Zealanders will know that."
"That's what you're going to see from the far left of politics. You'll be led by Russel Norman, Kim Dotcom, Mana, David Cunliffe, you're going to see extreme examples that New Zealand can't afford and fundamentally promises they can never meet."
Mr Key said he was not worried about the impact of the internet Mana Party on National because it would take votes from the Greens and "disaffected Labour voters" rather than National.
"From National's point of view it's of no great relevance. But if you're Metiria Turei, Russel Norman, maybe David Cunliffe, you might be just a little more worried."

David and the GIMPs will halt New Zealand's economic recovery in its tracks. Their big-spending policies will fuel inflation, and taxes and interest rates will go up. The people they purport to represent will take the biggest hit. Waitakere Man and his wife will be paying more at the pump for their gas as David and the GIMPs meddle with the Reserve Bank Act and force the exchange rate down. Food prices will soar, mortgage rates will go up, and the plunge in the exchange rate will make the family holiday that Waitakere Man had been saving hard for unaffordable.

Fortunately though, Waitakere Man realised in 2008 that Labour had lost its way, and he and his missus voted for John Key. In 2014, they have joined the National Party, and they are now campaigning to make sure that Labour gets the message as to how far it has strayed from what used to be its core constituency.

As for Kim Dotcom, Waitakere Man knows a rort when he sees one.

0 Quote of the Day - 29 May 2014

The Dom-Post manages to send a strong message to David Cunliffe and Labour whilst barely naming them. Under the headline Immigrants aren't scapegoats the Dom-Post opines:

Immigrants are easy prey for political vultures. Demagogues can win votes by using foreigners as scapegoats, as has happened repeatedly in New Zealand's history. So the argument about the effect of immigration on housing could easily turn poisonous. It's important not to let that happen.
The Budget's big surprise was the revelation of a turn in the usual tide of migration. The outward flow has turned into a net inward movement, mainly because fewer Kiwis are moving to Australia. Now there is concern that the inflow will push up house prices.
Panic measures will not help with this problem, as Labour seemed to realise soon after pledging a cut in net immigration. Asked exactly how big the cut would be, Labour faltered and fudged.
Immigration flows cannot be turned off and on like a tap. The present trans-Tasman inflow could quite quickly reverse as the rebuilding of Christchurch reduces, our growth rate falls, and Australia's economy rebounds. Big cuts in immigrant numbers would then exacerbate the renewed outward flow.
The country is entitled to control immigration and there might be room for some temporary reduction in immigrants. This would have to be done carefully, together with other measures to control house prices, such as interest rate rises. The danger is that immigration will become a hot topic and governments will over-react.
The effects of a moral panic about immigration go much wider than the immediate issue of house prices. National's scapegoating of Pacific immigrants in the 1975 election caused great harm to race relations. It led directly to the dawn raids and an outpouring of repressed prejudice.
Winston Peters' anti-Asian campaigns in the 1996 and 2002 elections also caused unnecessary alarm. There is always a receptive audience for this kind of trouble-making, especially among the older, the frightened, and the bewildered.
All the loose talk about the "Asian invasion" and the predictions of racial trouble turned out to be hollow. Auckland now has a large Asian population, but there has been no bloodshed, no ethnic violence, no outbreaks of hatred. New Zealand has shown that it is on the whole a tolerant and welcoming society which copes well with change.
Immigration has, in fact, made the nation a more interesting and vibrant place, and this is probably a more cogent reason for liberal immigration policies than any strictly economic one. A major report last year by the OECD on immigration concluded that the effect on public finances of immigration is "small, generally not exceeding 0.5 per cent of GDP in either positive or negative terms". 

It's hard to disagree with the sentiments expressed here. Winston Peters' past xenophobic scaremongering has no place, and the signs that David Cunliffe is trying to out-Winston Winston are alarming. Helen Clark in particular would be disgusted at Cunliffe's recent anti-immigrant rhetoric.

If Labour loses significant support in places like South Auckland this election, it only has itself to blame. Leave the xenophobia to Mr Peters, who if nothing else has at least been consistently xenophobic, not a latter-day convert like Mr Cunliffe.

0 Quote of the Day - 28 May 2014

We've just been having a look around the traps, having been out all day. And DPF's short piece about Laila Harre had us chuckling:

NBR and the Daily Blog both report that Laila Harre is the Leader of the Internet Party.
I think this is great. Laila is a good politician, but she will attract zero votes from National supporters. She will however attract votes from the Greens – the party she worked for just a few months ago.
I also love the hilarity of a life long unionist getting paid a whopping great salary from the multi-millionaire convicted criminal who was accused by his staff of not even paying them minimum wage.
I also don’t think Laila has ever shown any interest or involvement in Internet issues. She is a staunch unionist and hard left activist. Laila becoming Leader of the Internet Party because she presumably uses the Internet is like me becoming Leader of the Greens because I eat them sometimes.
Next we’ll see Rajen Prasad being announced as the new female co-leader of the Maori Party.

DPF hits the nail on the head. The fight for votes on the Left between Labour, the Greens, MegaMana and Winston First is on in earnest, and it's going to be great fun to watch the fall-out.

0 Quote of the Day - 23 May 2014

Today's Quote of the Day belongs to Finance Minister Bill English. In his right of reply to end the Budget Debate he lambasted Labour over its confused immigration and compulsory savings policies; this, via Hansard:

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well, let us discuss some of the member’s proposals that came up in this Budget debate. Here is one. Here is a question: what is the Labour Party’s immigration policy?
Hon Member: They don’t know.
Hon BILL ENGLISH: All I would say is: “Don’t ask them because they don’t know.”, because I think, as Phil Twyford said, they were going to cut immigration to a net 5,000. So I expect that this weekend at the ethnic functions in Auckland, Labour members will be getting up in front of the Indian community and saying “There’s far too many of you. We’re going to cut the number. We’re going to slash the number—no more Indians.” Then, because they are true to their word, they will be going off to the Chinese celebration and saying “Ahh, too many Asians in housing auctions around Auckland. They’re all Chinese. We’re going to slash the numbers.” And then they are going to go down to the Pasifika function. That is right, and they are going to say “No more family members from the Pacific Islands.” That is because Phil Twyford and David Cunliffe said on the radio: “We are going to slash immigration in order to control the housing market.”
Hon Hekia Parata: That’s what it means.
Hon BILL ENGLISH: It is not just what it means; it is what they said. It is what they said. Labour’s immigration policy is to slash migrant inflows. I think it is a bit weird. I think it is a bit weird from a party that has traditionally regarded itself as the representative of the migrant communities. But we will be there, Ms Collins will be there, Sam Lotu-Iiga will be there, Kanwal Bakshi will be there, and they will write down what Grant Robertson says to those people. But then it is not weird when you think about what they are saying to low-income New Zealanders.
Chris Auchinvole: What do they say?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: I will tell you what they are saying to low-income New Zealanders. They are saying—I thought you might be interested—“We’ve got this really bright new idea, which is to increase KiwiSaver contributions so that the Chinese buyers don’t have to pay higher interest rates.” OK? Or so that the Indian buyers do not have to pay higher interest rates. So we have asked a simple question: by how much would you need to increase KiwiSaver contributions in a compulsory scheme to offset a 1 percent increase in interest rates?
Chris Auchinvole: And what do they say?
Hon BILL ENGLISH: They do not know, so we have done our own calculation and it is 15 percent—15 percent. In the weekend Labour members are going to be out in the Ōtara market, saying to women who have the second job in a household and are doing 25 hours’ cleaning in the middle of the night during the week in order to feed their family: “You have to join compulsory super, and we are going to take 9 percent of your gross income off you. That’s not enough, because when the Chinese drive the interest rates up, we’re going to put it up to 15 percent.”, and we will be listening.

Bill English is dead right. Labour's immigration policy is confused, and Labour MP's are contradicting one another over what Labour will, will not, might, or might not do. It's yet another "yeah nah" policy from David Cunliffe and his team where different messages are being given to different audiences.

If Labour chooses to go to the electorate in September with a policy to slash immigration numbers, it is going to have some explaining to do to a constituency that under Helen Clark Labour claimed as its own. And we all know that when you're explaining, you're losing.

0 Quote of the Day - 17 May 2014

We won't copy vast tracts of Fran O'Sullivan's excellent column in this morning's Herald. We simply suggest that you go here and have a read for yourself.

But this portion stuck out, and is our Quote of the Day (with our emphasis added):

These post-Budget lunches are a marquee event on the business calendar. They are where Key not only explains the Budget but also charts the future in a compelling way designed to engender confidence so business people keep on investing, venturing out into the world to tackle tough markets - and employing staff.
The protesters outside the Sky City Convention Centre didn't get this.
The people who slagged off the guests (for instance - the business organisation leader accused of being a "bloated capitalist") don't seem to get it that business success ultimately underwrites jobs.
The protesters disregard the fact that many New Zealand businesses were put through the wringer by the Global Financial Crisis. People have worked hard to get their firms on to a sufficiently sound footing that they are now confident enough to take a few risks and grow their businesses.
It's a good space for New Zealand to be in.
The protesters were so dumb that they hadn't worked out that the business guests who openly walked past them to take another route into the centre were doing so for a purpose.
Instead they charged a door that was never going to be opened to them or anyone else.
This misjudgment is not confined to protesters.

Fran O'Sullivan is spot on. The protestors yesterday seem to have forgotten that the Budget invests $500m into families via  a range of measure. There wasn't much in it for the "bloated capitalists" who do most of the employing in New Zealand. As one wag put it yesterday, that's what happens when you organise the post-Budget protest pre-Budget!

And Labour has misjudged John Key ever since he entered Parliament almost twelve years ago. The underestimated him as he became National's Finance spokesman where he frequently got the better of Michael Cullen, and when he became Leader of the Opposition. 

Helen Clark thought that the Leaders' Debates against Key in 2008 would be a doddle. Instead it was she who lost the plot, famously accusing the PM-in-waiting of having to shout down his family at home. Key saw of Ms Clark, followed in quick succession by Phil Goff and David Shearer, whilst David Cunliffe shows no signs of having learned anything.

Long may the Labour Party continue to misjudge and underestimate John Key.

0 Quote of the Day - 16 May 2014

We won't inflict 15 minutes of Winston Peters on you this morning. But the NZ First leader did, perhaps unwittingly, provide on of the more memorable quotes yesterday with this piece of logic:

"We're going back to the glory days of the past for a better tomorrow" 

Mr Peters was talking about how a Winston First government would reform the economy, We're still not quite sure exactly what he means!