NZ Politics Daily - 19 September (liberation)

The politics-free zone of the Rugby World Cup was supposed to deprive the Opposition parties of any significant media publicity in the main period leading up to the general election – but it might not quite work out as National intended. Instead Labour and the Greens seem to be enjoying the tournament immensely. Of course, the RWC opening night debacle has tarnished National’s competency reputation, and then other ongoing minor political stories about ministerial bad manners and so forth would have been of further delight for Labour. These issues have been very well covered in the last couple of days in John Armstrong’s McCully uses authority to keep Nats in power, Tracy Watkins’ Will nightmare turn to reality?, and more light-heartedly in Dave Armstrong’s National has dropped the ball - in any language.

Labour and the Greens are not just basking in National’s woes, however, but seem to be proactively attempting to get their messages out to the public while National has its mind on other things. During the last day or so, Labour and the Greens have been announcing all sorts of policies and campaigns. Labour’s policy on the Christchurch rebuild, in particular, might gain it some real kudos – see: Labour's Christchurch quake package revealed. There’s plenty about the policy details which might be challenged, but there’s no doubt that it directly answers a lot of concern that people have about the National Government’s supposed stingy and hands-off approach to the rebuild (in terms of red zone payouts and re-insurance).

According to Newstalk ZB’s Katie Bradford-Crozier, Labour and Greens are ‘set to make the most of the last parliamentary recess before the election and release a number of policies’ - see: Political Report for September 19. It seems that they’re going against National’s politics-free plans, and counter-intuitively supplying even more political news stories to the media during the RWC. And so Phil Goff is everywhere in the media at the moment – especially with profiles that attempt to show the public ‘the real Phil Goff’. The latest is Anthony Hubbard’s Sunday Star Times feature, Phil Goff reveals he has not given up hope.[Continue reading below for a full list of the highlights of NZ Politics Daily]

Below are the internet links to all the NZ politics material from the last 24 hours that are either informative, insightful, interesting or influential. This list and the links are taken from a fuller document, NZ Politics Daily, which is emailed out, Monday to Friday, to various researchers, academics, journalists, MPs and so forth. The document is purely for research purposes only, and if you would like to be on the subscription list, please email: [email protected]

Labour

Anthony Hubbard (SST): Phil Goff reveals he has not given up hope

Katie Bradford-Crozier (Newstalk ZB): Political Report for September 19

NZN: Labour offers longer parental leave, ditching 90-day bill

Katie Bradford-Crozier (Newstalk ZB): Labour to focus on pay equity