labour party Archive

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  The Greens’ principled announcement - by frog

  
  
  
  While most of the analysis of the Greens’ announcement yesterday that we could not support a National government has focused on the power dynamics (‘what were the Greens thinking cutting down their options like that?’) very few have noted the principled position that underlay it – the right of voters to know beforehand.  Although the [...] read more
  October 21, 2008 1:02 pm - 19 Comments
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  Greens’ preference for post election talks - by frog

  
  
  
  From the Greens Press Conference this afternoon: Co-Leader Jeanette Fitzsimons says: “However our analysis showed us that on the whole National would take New Zealand in the wrong direction, in fact, many policies headed off down a dead end street. This means that we can not form a Government with National, or support them on [...] read more
  October 20, 2008 12:28 pm - 80 Comments
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  The donations scandal - by frog

  
  
  
  No I’m not talking about not Ian Wishart’s one. The fact the both major parties are currently so lacking in major donors seems a scandal. It’s now only three weeks to the election and yet, as of ten days ago, Labour hasn’t declared a single received donation over $20,000 this year to help fund its [...] read more
  October 18, 2008 11:05 pm - 19 Comments
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  Finally, some support for Country of Origin Labelling - by frog

  
  
  
  I’ve just noticed on the Hand Mirror that at least one Labour Party candidate disagrees with his party’s policy on refusing people the right to know where their food comes from – Paul Chalmers from Whangarei: Question 10. Women do the vast majority of cooking and shopping, and increases in food prices are a burden [...] read more
  October 15, 2008 3:42 pm - 11 Comments
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  Campaigning on waste - by frog

  
  
  
  For some reason Labour is saying on its campaign website that it is: putting forward a Waste Minimisation Bill which will encourage producers to develop better designs and cleaner production processes to improve a product’s sustainability. That seems an odd sort of thing to do given the Greens have already got a Waste Minimisation Act [...] read more
  October 14, 2008 9:53 am - 10 Comments
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  Assessing the old parties - by frog

  
  
  
  Russel and Jeanette have just announced the criteria that they will be using to judge which of the ‘old parties’ the Greens would prefer to work with after the election. Labour and National will be assessed against the Greens’ four charter principles – environmental sustainability, social justice, peace and democracy; and in accordance with these [...] read more
  October 9, 2008 8:56 am - 148 Comments
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  Who will it be? - by frog

  
  
  
  Triennially the question goes on to all the MMP parties: So who’s it going to be, who will you go with? This time, with the exception of the Maori Party, we pretty much know the answer, or will know the answer before the election for all of them.   But what we don’t know is [...] read more
  September 25, 2008 8:29 am - 53 Comments
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  Car Free Day’s antithesis – the Road Transport Forum - by frog

  
  
  
  If the public wonders why we seem to consistently get crazy things like this situation Russel was talking about on Thursday: A new report, released today, says there will be a 75 percent increase in freight over the next 25 years but predicts little – if any – difference in the way freight is moved [...] read more
  September 20, 2008 8:10 am - 18 Comments
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  Big donors - by frog

  
  
  
  At the very bottom of the Herald’s story on the CTU leaflet which might affect Labour’s election expense declaration is a small piece that says there have so far only been eight declared donations of more than $20,000 to the Electoral Commission. Five of them have been to the Green Party (totalling $162,000) two to [...] read more
  September 17, 2008 10:58 am - 23 Comments
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  Voting for the wrong party - by frog

  
  
  
  I don’t want this to turn into a boring blog feud but can I just highlight how outdated and nonsensical this kind of thinking is.  National’s been trying it on for quite a while with it’s ‘a vote for Labour is a Vote for New Zealand First’ theme.  And now Labour’s fanboiz, 08wire, have responded [...] read more
  September 17, 2008 8:46 am - 56 Comments
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  Helen Clark on Checkpoint - by frog

  
  
  
  I’ve just been listening to the Prime Minister’s interview with Mary Wilson this evening and have got three comments I’d like to make.  First she said in relation to her not disclosing her knowledge about the conflicting evidence in relation to Mr Peters’ story relating to Mr Glenn’s $100,000 donation: It wasn’t my job to [...] read more
  September 12, 2008 7:47 pm - 38 Comments
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  Doing deals - by frog

  
  
  
  To me the most interesting bit of Owen Glenn’s testimony yesterday was the involvement of Mike Williams in signing off the $100,000 donation to Winston Peters.  The obvious question is why would a Labour Party president direct $100,000 towards another a politician in another party that competes for the same share of votes? And the [...] read more
  September 10, 2008 8:30 am - 2 Comments
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  Minor tinkering - by frog

  
  
  
  The Minister of Climate Change, David Parker notes this afternoon: “The difference between Labour and National that is clear to everyone is that Labour has a track record on climate change you can trust, whereas National has a track record of denial, obstruction, and delay.” Yup, here’s a graph of Labour’s track record you can [...] read more
  September 4, 2008 3:47 pm - 39 Comments
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  They must be dreaming - by frog

  
  
  
  08wire has a video that reckons Helen Clark and Jeanette Fitzsimons dream the same dream.  It’s a shame that Helen Clark doesn’t do much about it when she wakes up.  The video says that Labour is ‘against poverty, against waste, against pollution… against excess’. That’s certainly true of its rhetoric, but so far its actions [...] read more
  July 16, 2008 2:25 pm - 21 Comments
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  Mother Coke and Father Pepsi - by frog

  
  
  
   It looks like someone at the LA Weekly has been reading Russel’s Mother Coke and Father Pepsi speech about the National and Labour Parties. So here’s a discussion point the cartoon raises: which set has more in common – the Labour and National parties, or Barack Obama and John McCain? I reckon MMP has an [...] read more
  July 8, 2008 8:25 am - 5 Comments
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  Formulaic answers - by frog

  
  
  
  A while ago the Greens got a leaked copy of Labour’s strategy for answering oral questions in the house.  The funny thing is that, after having watched a few question times, you don’t really need a copy to work out what Labour is going to answer to any given question.  Yesterday when Jeanette was helping [...] read more
  July 2, 2008 8:42 am - 5 Comments
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  Stuck in 1968 - by frog

  
  
  
  Colin James previews the Green Party Annual Conference at Auckland University this weekend by comparing the Greens to Paris’ 1968 student revolution. In doing so James tries to date the Green Party as a movement that has been left behind as other parties moved on with the times. (For example he falsely attributes the Greens [...] read more
  May 27, 2008 9:32 am - 45 Comments
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  Balancing environmental and economic interests - by frog

  
  
  
  I have just listened to both David Parker and John Key on National Radio roll out the phrase ‘a balancing of environmental and economic interests’ when describing their race to backtrack on the Emissions Trading Scheme.  I thought The Inconvenient Truth and the Stern Report may have covered off this topic in popular culture, but [...] read more
  May 19, 2008 8:16 am - 31 Comments
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  Jeanette throws down her gauntlet - by frog

  
  
  
  The Government will have to look to the National Party to support its Emissions Trading legislation if it is watered down to the point where it provides no significant environmental benefit. “We are not in this game just so some can make money speculating on carbon prices. Emissions reductions need to be real and soon, [...] read more
  May 6, 2008 11:06 am - 30 Comments
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  Greenpeace’s Politics of Climate Change - by frog

  
  
  
  Greenpeace has just released political survey: Politics of Climate Change; Where New Zealand’s Political Parties Stand on the Biggest Challenge We Face. The Greens do well in the survey getting climate friendly rankings in all of Greennpeace’s twenty criteria.  But it looks like Green MPs may be struggling to find a similarly responsible party to [...] read more
  March 31, 2008 11:31 am - 7 Comments