The group are sitting in Pravda cafe, inner city Wellington. Mr. Blonde, Mr. Blue, Mr. Brown, Mr. Orange, Mr. Pink, Mr. White, Joe Cabot and his son, “Nice Guy” Eddie are gathered around a table.
Mr. Brown discusses his comparative analysis on Kelis’ “Milkshake” being all about the dick. More
ACC = Australian Cash Cow
This week National revealed one of their post-election plans to open up workplace accident insurance to private competition. Merrill Lynch, a company Key used to work for, released a report that suggests around about $200 million would go to Australian insurance companies if this happened. Key says they have no plans to privatise ACC, to which Helen Clark said that his promise is “not worth the paper it is written on.” More
Peter Dunne was interviewed by scoop’s political editor, and former listener journalist Gordon Campbell. Campbell is obviously no friend of Dunne, his intro to the piece is scathing. But perhaps this is to be expected from a journalist who worked as a media officer for the Green Party in 2007. That being said, he is on the money, the interview brings up some pretty interesting stuff, to which Dunne’s answers are fairly confusing.
Campbell: I’ve just noticed the Greens got more party votes in your Ohariu electorate last election than United Future – how did that happen ?
Dunne : Two reasons. One was the general meltdown in our vote. Second we have never, for obvious reasons, run a two-tick campaign in Ohariu-Belmont. We’ve always run an electorate vote campaign. So, we want the party vote everywhere else, but in that electorate we clearly want the electorate vote.
That seems particularly odd, why would Dunne not want to campaign for party votes in his own electorate. It doesn’t make much sense to want a party vote elsewhere, but not in the electorate which holds its strongest, and highest profile candidate. Sorry Peter, your reasons aren’t obvious.
Campbell: This time, even if National got enough votes to govern alone, do you expect they will choose to have partners, even if only to foster a sense of inclusiveness?
Dunne : I can’t speak for them, obviously. But I would have thought it would be wise to do so. The prospect of them getting enough to govern alone arte extremely unlikely – but even if they achieve that, in New Zealand’s political culture, it’s a one-term phenomenon. So I would have thought, from both the perspective of presenting a broad-based government, and from the sense of sending out the signals that you aim to be around for more than three years , you would want to do that. But that’s their call, not mine.
This is a very interesting question, and its one that should be posed to the Maori Party and New Zealand First. If John Key is clever (and if National does form the next government) then including parties who dont need to be included into formal alliances, coalitions, or confidence and supply agreements may be beneficial. Dunne is right in noting that its a future looking strategy, an important consideration in MMP. National can not expect to govern alone if they succeed a second or third term. Labour’s third termitis is enough to refute this. Also worth considering is the convention of collective cabinet responsobility. By including leaders of other parties into an agreement, the governing party can exact a modicum of control over the ability of other party’s to speak out on government issues.
Campbell: Do you think any of the Christian-based parties will cross the 5 % threshold this year?
Dunne : No. United Future is not in that camp, not any more.
Campbell: You’ve been through your prayer meeting phase ?
Dunne : Well, we were never really in it. I certainly wasn’t. But we had some people who imagined that United Future could become New Zealand’s version of the Taliban.
Campbell: Right.
Dunne : And they’ve now thankfully left to pursue their course to oblivion.
This is good news, Dunne is right to distance itself as much as he can from the maverick antics of political buffoons like Gordon Copeland et al. However, we all cant forget that Dunne was willing to work with these people, perhaps it was an error of judgment, or just badly placed political opportunism. But Dunne’s voting record on social legislation speaks for itself.
Campbell: But is it fair to your middle class constituency, let alone to the poor, that the vast bulk of your tax cuts should go to those already relatively affluent?
Dunne : You want a system that’s simple, that removes a lot of the dis-incentives, or incentives for people to avoid it. And that’s what we’ve tried to deliver. In that sense, the alignment of the top personal, trust and company is quite significant. Because that will deal to the huge, burgeoning increase in family trust and other arrangements in recent years for tax avoidance purposes.
What? No it wont, separate legislation to deal with dodgy tax accounting and family trusts would solve the issue of tax avoidance among the richest. The top tax bracket will still have dodgy accounting practices, and will be getting tax cuts. So Campbell’s original accusation still stands, Tax cuts under Dunne will be very top heavy. The current media focus this year is on Winston Peter’s last gasp in the Tauranga electorate. But the same applies to Dunne as well. United Future is heavily dependent on his electorate seat, and like Winston, his party was formed around his position as an established parliamentarian. Labour in Ohariu-Belmont may try to do what National are doing in Tauranga, deal a death blow to a small party which is dwindling and on current polling no longer exerts much strategic influence on government formation. The question is, like Winston, will Dunne go down fighting?
The police have announced early this morning that they have apprehended three men concerning the murder of Navtej Singh. Its great to hear that the police have acted quickly on this, however there have been some cries of police barbarism in thier efforts to locate these vile people.
Here is the transcript of Clinton’s campaign suspension speech that she gave yesterday. Some interesting points, she implies quite strongly that she’ll be back in 2012 using words like “ongoing” and “this time”. Also, she reinforced her backing of the labor unions. Something that fires a warning shot in front of the bows of Obama’s VP decision.
Clinton’s aides have hinted that she will be suspending her campaign this Saturday (our time) and endorsing Obama. It cant come soon enough. But it still highlights an interesting question — what was she doing talking to AIPAC this morning then? Was it some kind of thinly veiled valedictory to the Jewish Lobby which has supported her vigorously? Or just one last chance to try and best Obama?
Take this news with a grain of salt though, it has been broken by ABC, and does not cite any credible sources. But the writing is on the wall…
Barrack Hussein Obama is nearly over the threshold of votes required for the democrat presidential nomination. He only needs forty more votes to put him over the magic 2,118 needed. The last contests in the race have only parried each other, despite late stage showings from Clinton in states such as Puerto Rico. It seems that Americans really do want change, what ever that means.
My eyes glaze over as the treasury official hands me about two KG’s of paper thick with numbers, pie charts and line graphs. I am informed that the budget is embargoed till 2:45pm and that the Cullenator will be talking at 12ish. More
Heres a great clip of Winston Peters (NZFirst, List) having a crack at the National party during the budget debate. Say what you like about Winnie, he sure can put on a show.
The Family Party, the political party that formed from the ashes of DestinyNZ and Gordon Copeland’s failed bid at holy political matrimony, have released their new election video. It’s new leader, Richard Lewis, sure cuts a dapper figure in a white T and a leather jacket. Check it out after the jump.
Here are the national polls as of May 08. National are absolutely dominating, despite not yet announcing any seriously hard hitting policy initiatives. It looks like tired government syndrome has struck again. Poll results after the jump.
Hillary Clinton went up against Barack Obama in West Virginia today, and as predicted won a landslide victory in the predominately white lower class state.
Supposedly this has given her that extra kick to stay in the race, a strange move given the signals her campaign was giving off earlier in the week, with a “thank you” video. Never mind the fact that in an odd faux par Hillary refered to the new president elect to be, as a ‘he’. Hillary has said, I am more determined than ever to carry on this campaign until everyone has had a chance to make their voices heard, This race isn’t over yet.”
But dear Hillary, it is. Cant you see that? Super-delegates are turning to Obama in droves. And those that havent are only doing so out of fear that there would be a clinton backlash. As I blogged about earlier, every second you stay in this race, further harms the ability of the democrat party to present a united face come november.
Sure, her win today does indicate that she can win the ’swing states’. But thats acting on the assumption that swing states are going to be so crucial this time around. Obama leads McCain in the polls so far. This is not yet a Gore/Bush situation. If Clinton is going to move on this campaign, she needed to do it yesterday. Its time for her to stop being such a silly girl, and bow out gracefully.
I must preface this by saying that as a person who is deeply physically attracted to Helen Clark, obsessed almost, this book painted a new picture for me: a dirty picture, a Helen who was doomed to the eighth circle of hell. More
Thank you Michael Cullen for buying back the trains! Since my youth I have always dreamed of owning a train set. You have finally fulfilled my dream, although I am only one owner out of 4.2 million I relish the idea that I own one four millionth of the rail system of NZ. More
The Berlusconi show is back in town folks, and with it comes the whole fucking circus. Particularly the man tipped to be Italy’s new deputy Prime Minister - Roberto Calderoli. The leader of the anti-immigration Northern-League party.
Barrack Obama has finally clawed back a state in the latest round of voting for the democratic nomination in North Carolina. Winning it convincingly by 14 points over Clinton, with 99% of the vote so far counted. Its broken a deadlock for Obama, who has had a rough couple of months. The Jeremiah Wright scandal has been hurting his public image.
The good folks at Foriegn Policy blog, has just found a gem by the teenage rap duo Psikotic. Its a fairly lame rap singing the praises of the Economist magazine. I bloody love the economist, have a listen.
Tonight I attended the Business Roundtable forum on Policy — where the question of privatisation was specifically addressed. There were three speakers, Roger Kerr (of the NZBRt), Grant Robertson (Labour Wellington Central Candidate), and Dr. Roderick Deane (Former state services commissioner, and ex boss of three out of four of NZ’s best companies).
