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NZ Politics Daily - 31 December 2013: A year of downfalls, fiascos and failures

It was a tumultuous and colourful year in politics, littered with downfalls, fiascos and failures. The large number of politicians and other political figures who suffered embarrassments and scandals provided rich pickings for political commentators and especially satirists. In his end of year column Steve Braunias reflects on a year in which politicians made his job easy: ‘It was a vintage year for low farce and high foolishness in New Zealand public life, for shameful acts and disgraceful behaviour, for sheer stupidity and evil doing, and I was very grateful’ – see: The secret diaries of 2013. An introspective Braunias marvels at his quarry: ‘They offered no resistance. They came quietly. They were already ridiculous; it was as though they wrote the diary themselves’. [Read more below]

NZ Politics Daily - 27 December 2013: Some things you might have missed

A round-up of some important and interesting items in the mainstream media and blogosphere that you might have missed over the last few weeks. [Read more below]

 

NZ Politics Daily - 23 December 2013

The main issues in NZ Politics today are Len Brown, National, Labour, Avatar subsidies, and inequality and child poverty. [Read more below]

NZ Politics Daily - 20 December 2013

The main issues in NZ Politics today are Len Brown, asset sales, EQC, Nelson Mandela, the Urewera raids report, and inequality and child poverty. [Read more below]

NZ Politics Daily - 18 December 2013

The main issues in NZ politics today are Len Brown, Bob Jones, Avatar, the economy, and the Act and Conservative parties. [Read more below]

NZ Politics Daily - 17 December 2013

The main issues in NZ politics today are Len Brown, the asset sales referendum, Avatar, Nelson Mandela, and the Act and Conservative parties. [Read more below]

NZ Politics Daily - 16 December 2013: So, who won the asset sales referendum?

There’s been a battle over the weekend about how to interpret, sell, and spin the asset sales referendum results. Of course, this tussle has been mostly self-serving, with Labour/Green partisans declaring the referendum a resounding defeat for the Government, and National partisans promoting equal reasons to celebrate. So, who really won the referendum? Or did we all lose? [Read more below]

 

Top tweets about the asset sales referendum results

This is a selection of some of the tweets about the results of the asset sales referendum. As usual, the tweets below are in (rough) reverse chronically order – the most recent tweets are first. [Read more below]

 

Top tweets about the Len Brown report

This is a selection of some of the tweets about the official review report about Auckland mayor Len Brown. As usual, the tweets below are in (rough) reverse chronically order – the most recent tweets are first. [Read more below]

NZ Politics Daily - 13 December: Deception and integrity in politics and public life

New Zealand politics is ‘a dirty, disgusting, despicable game. And it involves dirty, disgusting despicable people at all levels’. That’s the view of National Party-aligned blogger Cameron Slater. Is he right? Some areas are obviously cleaner and more principled than others. The blogosphere – although a particularly valuable part of the ‘public sphere’ – is often also one of the dirtiest and more deceptive. This reputation will be further cemented by revelations yesterday that one of John Key’s spin-doctors, Jason Ede, has supplied content to Cameron Slater’s Whaleoil blog. For the best coverage of this, see Michael Fox’s Senior Key staffer's rubbish pic duty. [Read more below]

 

Top tweets about Whaleoil’s connection to the Prime Minister’s Office

This is a selection of some of the tweets about the relationship between the Whaleoil blog and the Prime Minister’s Office, following revelations that one of John Key’s spin doctors, Jason Ede, has supplied content to the blog. Rumours of the blog being financed and run out of the John Key’s taxpayer parliamentary Leader’s Budget have been around for ages, but there has never been any sort of real proof. Similarly, Jason Ede - who had a starring role in Nicky Hager's Hollow Men book - has long been alleged to write for the blogsite as part of his communications work for the PM, but there’s absolutely no public evidence of this. As usual, the tweets below are in (rough) reverse chronically order – the most recent tweets are first. [Read more below]

 

NZ Politics Daily - 12 December 2013

The main issues in NZ politics today are Nelson Mandela, paid parental leave, TPP, and the Census. [Read more below]

NZ cartoons on the death of Mandela

This is a collection of some of the cartoons published in New Zealand in relation to the death of Nelson Mandela and some of the domestic issues relating to it. [Read more below]

Murdoch - Dominion Post 7 December 2013

NZ Politics Daily - 11 December 2013: Who cares about poverty?

In the last few days there has been a wealth of evidence and examples pointing to the existence of widespread poverty in New Zealand. Given that growing inequality and poverty has been a significant problem for decades now – under both Labour and National governments – is it any wonder that it tends to be put in the ‘too hard’ basket. [Read more below]

The politics of poverty in New Zealand – images

The politics of poverty in New Zealand can be communicated in numerous reports, blogposts, speeches and articles. But sometimes the visual images such as cartoons convey the issues very well too. Here's a selection of cartoons and photos relating to poverty in New Zealand. [Read more below]

 

Scott - Dominion Post 11 December 2014

 

 

NZ Politics Daily - 10 December 2013

The main issues in NZ politics today are inequality and child poverty, Nelson Mandela, the Maori Party, Maori politics, and resource extraction and the environment. [Read more below]

NZ Politics Daily - 9 December: New Zealand debates about Nelson Mandela

You can’t take politics out of the death of one of the world’s most significant political figures. South Africa is a long way from New Zealand, yet the anti-apartheid struggle and the life of Nelson Mandela has greatly influenced our country’s politics. Inevitably, then, the death of Mandela has given rise to some very important and interesting political debate. [Read more below]

 

Philip Ferguson: Mandela and New Zealand: our ‘Diana moment?’

With a huge outpouring of ‘homegrown Mandelamania’ in New Zealand at the moment, one leftwinger with a history in the anti-apartheid movement, Philip Ferguson, attempts to explain in this guest blogpost what the reaction here to Nelson Mandela’s death means. He draws parallels to the British response to the death of Diana Spencer, but also argues that the deification of Mandela in New Zealand represents some very important facts about the political left – especially its preference for liberalism over socialism. [Read more below]

 

The Maori Party is in trouble, and Chris McKenzie is not enough to turn things around

The selection of Chris McKenzie as the Maori Party candidate to replace Tariana Turia in the Te Tai Hauauru electorate shows just how much difficulty the party is now in. The party is fighting for its life, and is in the midst of an attempt to replace its most important leaders, yet its having trouble selecting impressive candidates. This doesn’t bode well for its future. McKenzie is certainly a competent candidate, but to survive, the party probably needs to be finding higher-profile candidates. [Read more below]

 

NZ Politics Daily - 6 December 2013

The main issues in NZ politics today are Nelson Mandela's death, Act Party, Colin Craig, child welfare, education, Chorus, the Constitutional Review, and spying. [Read more below]

Top NZ tweets about Nelson Mandela’s death

This is a selection of some of the more interesting tweets from the NZ twittersphere in reaction to the death of Nelson Mandela. As usual, it’s in (roughly) reverse chronically order – the most recent tweets are first. And inclusion does not indicate any endorsement. More will be added. [Read more below] 

  

NZ Politics Daily - 5 December 2013: Is NZ really the least corrupt country on earth?

Never before has the word ‘corruption’ been in so much use in New Zealand politics. The legal trial of John Banks is just the latest political scandal that involves allegations of corruption being asserted. There are plenty of other political controversies at the moment where allegations of corruption are a factor. Yet, today the Berlin-based NGO Transparency International has declared, once again, that New Zealand is the least corrupt nation in the world, ranked equally with Denmark. You can see the Transparency International report here: Corruption Perception Index 2013. For further details and discussion of the results and what they all mean, see my blogpost, Political corruption in New Zealand – 2013. In this I point out that an apparent paradox exists whereby New Zealand has experienced an explosion of political finance scandals over recent years, yet Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) suggests New Zealand is relatively immune from corruption. I look at some of the reasons why this might be. The blogpost also includes some information on how the use of the words corruption and corrupt have exploded within the media over recent years. [Read more below]

NZ Politics Daily - 4 December 2013

The main issues in NZ politics today are education, John Banks, GCSB, spying, corruption, Colin Craig, and Chorus. [Read more below]

NZ Politics Daily - 3 December 2013: Blogs, media and democracy

Democratic politics depends on the existence of a healthy ‘public sphere’ in which debate, ideas and information flows freely. Traditionally the media is seen as the vehicle for this ‘public sphere’. Currently, however, there are a number of important debates about the state of the media and public debate, and the blogosphere which bring into question the health of democratic politics in New Zealand. [Read more below]

 

Political corruption in New Zealand – 2013

Transparency International has once again ranked New Zealand at number one in the world for its lack of corruption (alongside Denmark). Its corruption perception rating is 91 out of 100, suggesting that the public sector and politics is free of the type of financial dishonesty, bribery, fraud and sleaze that is more commonly found in other western liberal democracies such as Italy, Spain and France. Certainly New Zealand politics has not traditionally been characterised by political corruption scandals. Yet over the last decade there have been a quickly growing number of high profile controversies relating to political money – especially in terms of politician behaviour and electioneering. Thus, an apparent paradox exists whereby New Zealand has experienced an explosion of political finance scandals over recent years, yet the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) suggests New Zealand is relatively immune from corruption. What is the truth? Do the scandals that have recently dominated domestic politics fall outside the definition of political corruption? Is there more sound and fury than substance in these scandals? Or is the TI CPI missing out on the measurement of the increasing appearance of corruption? I’m doing some ongoing research on these issues, and this blog post is a chance to provide an update on some of the issues involved. [Read more below]

 

NZ Politics Daily - 2 December 2013

The main issues in NZ politics daily are the Christchurch East by-election result, the Green Party leadership challenge, media law about bloggers, deep sea oil drilling, and forestry worker safety. [Read more below]