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NZ Politics Daily - 28 February

‘The Christchurch earthquake will have massive repercussions throughout New Zealand politics. It will change the political course of 2011’ – that’s the opening statement of Mark Blackham’s monthly political report for the clients of Senate Communication Counsel. In an insightful analysis of those political ramifications, Blackham looks at the likely impact on the government’s operations, the likely delays to projects, the impact on this year’s budget, and how the ‘earthquake is likely to dominate the election campaign’ – he even suggests that the Marine and Coastal Area Bill might even get shelved as a result. The performance of the political leaders during the crisis is also surveyed, with John Key and Phil Goff not always passing the political test for crisis politics. [Continue reading more about this and other highlights of NZ Politics Daily below]

NZ Politics Daily - 25 February

New Zealand continues to be mostly a ‘politics-free-zone’ due to the ongoing Christchurch earthquake disaster. Writing in the Dominion Post Vernon Small deals exactly with this in his excellent column, ‘A politics-free zone but not as the country would want it’ (Not currently online): ‘NEW BMWS? Asset sales? Welfare reform? Public sector cuts? Even the CTU's planned new initiative to boost membership?  The normal business of politics that at 12.51pm on Tuesday seemed to be picking up pace for election year suddenly seems so irrelevant in the face of the quake and the mounting death toll.  Politics has, for now, been cancelled due to its relative unimportance in the face of the loss of life, the rescue effort and the huge logistical challenge ahead to get Christchurch back on its feet. And politicians from both sides of the House have tacitly agreed to the temporary suspension of hostilities’. Small also quotes ‘one senior MP’ as saying ‘the legislature is temporarily irrelevant’. [Continue reading more about this and other highlights of NZ Politics Daily below]

NZ Politics Daily - 24 February

The wheels of the government machinery are now in full movement to deal with the Christchurch earthquake disaster – especially with the Government declaring a National State of Emergency. Therefore today’s political reporting, analysis and blogging mainly deals with the re-configuring of the government machine and what exactly it all means. The must-read item of the day is probably Otago University’s blogger/professor Andrew Geddis’ post entitled Sometimes an emergency really is just an emergency. Although the immediate objective of Geddis’ post is to critique the posts on No Right Turn – which allege the Government is acting draconically – it is actually a useful analysis of what the National State of Emergency actually means, and how the Civil Defence management works. [Continue reading more about this and other highlights of NZ Politics Daily below]

 

NZ Politics Daily - 23 February

The Christchurch earthquake is naturally taking up everyone’s attention at the moment. (I’ve also been somewhat fixated on it too since I felt the quake here in Dunedin; and have been relieved to hear that my brother and sister and their families in Christchurch are safe, even if though their houses are not). In terms of the political nexus to the tragedy, there will be plenty to discuss as time goes on. The most obvious at the moment, is that Parliament has just adjoined for almost two weeks in response – see: TVNZ: Parliament to adjourn for nearly two weeks. [For further highlights of NZ Politics Daily - read more below]

NZ Politics Daily - 22 February

The following blog post, highlights the best of political reporting, analysis and comment in New Zealand politics for yesterday – 22 February. Until the tragic Christchurch earthquake hit, the biggest story of the day had been the release of the Welfare Working Group’s report. Prior to the report’s release, Colin James had a useful article in the Dominion Post, The long view of reforming welfare illness. James says the major question of welfare reformed is based on whether the government looks to the short-term solutions or the long-term ones, and whether they have an ‘investment’ mentality or a cost-cutting one. [For further highlights of NZ Politics Daily - read more below]

NZ Politics Daily - 21 February

The following blog post, highlights the best of political reporting, analysis and comment in New Zealand politics. 

The most interesting political news and commentary from the last few days has probably been on the issue of John Key and National’s political management – especially over the BMWs and their orientation to those in poverty. Anthony Hubbard had a good column in the Sunday Star Times, suggesting that due to the political (mis)management, the prime minister ‘is wide open to the charge that he's a plutocrat’, and ‘Key's grin was National's greatest asset and enabled him to reach out to the workers as well as National's middle class. But now the government is moving Right and Key's friendliness collides with his policies’ (see: Beemers but not smilers). The NZ Herald also had a strong editorial on the matter (see: Flippant line bad look for Key), highlighting the fact that Key failed the ‘leadership test’, and is starting to show ‘the face’ of ‘a man who didn't give a stuff what people thought’: ‘We don't expect Key to read every report that comes through his office. But what we do expect from a Prime Minister is leadership. And in this matter Key's leadership has been shown to be woefully wanting’. [For further highlights of NZ Politics Daily - read more below] 

NZ Politics Daily - 18 February

The following blog post, highlights the best of political reporting, analysis and comment in New Zealand politics. 

The main politics news over the last 24 hours has been the announcement by Act MP Roger Douglas that he’s retiring from Parliament (for the second time). Derek Cheng covers it here, reporting that Douglas has found Parliament frustrating because he had the answers to the economic slump but few have been listening. He also laments the lost of ‘the camaraderie of the old days. "There was more of the club atmosphere. Government and Opposition members used to have breakfast together. We went to the bar. "Now I'm sometimes the sole MP in there. They're scared that the journalists will be up there and someone will say something out of line." Cheng also finally comes up with some hard news about the rumoured new rightwing political party, now known to be titled Reform New Zealand, which has a website and is trying to recruit the necessarily 500 members (as well as a leader) to get registered for this year’s election. [For further highlights of NZ Politics Daily - read more below] 

NZ Politics Daily - 17 February

Below are the internet links to all the NZ politics material from the last 24 hours that are either informative, insightful, interesting or influential. The main topics covered relate to the Auckland Maori Statutory Board, welfare, poverty, asset sales, NZ-Australian relations, Maori Party, and the new Government BMWs. The highlight of today’s reading is the opinion piece entitled ‘Harawira tussle exposes wider pan-Maori issues’ by the Dominion Post’s Vernon Small. [Read more below]

 

NZ Politics Daily - 16 February

Below are the internet links to all the NZ politics material from the last 24 hours that is either informative, insightful, interesting or influential. The main topics covered relate to the foreshore and seabed issue, the Government's purchase of new BMWs, alleged welfare wastage and reform, the Auckland Maori Statutory Board funding, the visit of Australian PM Julia Gillard, Maori Party, Hone Harawira, and political use of social media. Items that are particularly worth reading are those by Chris Trotter and Gordon Campbell, as well as a Parliamentary Library report on parliamentarians' use of online social media [Read more below]

NZ Politics Daily - 15 February

Below are the internet links to all the NZ politics material from the last 24 hours that is either informative, insightful, interesting or influential. The main topics covered relate to the Maori Party, Hone Harawira, the foreshore and seabed legislation, the Auckland Maori Statutory Board funding, the visit of Australian PM Julia Gillard and the decision not to allow her to speak during Parliament, the performance of government ‘boot camps’, the apparent wastage of money on a welfare programme, proposed partial state asset privatisation, and the interaction of politicians with gay politics. [Read more below]

NZ Politics Daily - 14 February (Introduction)

Since the start of the year, I have been compiling a document entitled NZ Politics Daily and emailing it out to about 100 subscribers who work and research in the field of New Zealand politics – mainly academics, political journalists, bloggers, unionists, and public relations consultants. The document is in the form of a PDF, and contains all the relevant publically available material pertaining to NZ Politics – mostly from newspapers, radio, television and the blogosphere. I try to include all the material that is either informative, insightful, interesting or influential (and thus there is absolutely no endorsement of any of the material). This Monday-to-Friday PDF ranges from about 50 to 130 pages a day. The idea is to put all the content relating to NZ politics in one place for researchers during election year. It’s an ongoing experiment, and as a trial, I’m going to try posting the links from the document as a daily blog post here on liberation (but I’m not going to publish the actual full daily PDF online, as this raises too many problematic issues). I'll try to include various contemporary images too, such as the cartoon on the right. [Read more below]