Posts by Euan Mason
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"It was no coincidence that John Key got the most onerous grillings of his leadership exactly when he was knocked off balance by Dirty Politics."
Yes, "when he was knocked off balance". The issue hasn't gone away, but as he's no longer off balance he's not being grilled. This is a failing of the fourth estate. The issue is still there and yet it has disappeared from the media.
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Bias must be a major problem when some people don't respond. It would be interesting to know how pollsters deal with this.
BTW, my answer phone yielded a pre-recorded call from JK 48 hours before the election.
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Hard News: The sole party of government, in reply to BenWilson,
Ben, one of the few things that Labour got right was realising that the Internet/Mana alliance would fail to get public support. I have met so many centrist voters who have said that they are concerned about neoliberal policies but can't back a left coalition that might include "that criminal" Dotcom.
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Hard News: The sole party of government, in reply to Tze Ming Mok,
Tze, if they were planning to do as little as possible then I'd heave a sigh of relief. Look out for direct Ministerial control of universities, privatisation of education and prisons, lower taxes for the rich & corporates, lower wages for those at the bottom, and even more punitive rules for the down and out in our society.
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The Cameron Slater connection, suppression of democracy in Canterbury, and apparent political dallying with the OIA process are appalling. Couple those with failure in climate change policy, the abandonment of poor people, foul governance and diminishing democracy in education, the GCSB legislation, and unswimmable waterways, and these are not my leaders.
David Cunliffe is a good man, but he didn’t connect with voters and couldn’t foot it with JK, the master media manipulator. For the good of NZ he needs to resign as leader.
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And the beneficiaries of this are Winston Peters and (maybe) Colin Craig.
If JK can't form a governing coalition after the election then the corporate backers will drop him and find another, less tarnished face to sell their low wage/low tax/low regulation/state asset sale/socialize pollution costs agenda.
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Speaker: Telling Our Own Tales, in reply to Simon Lyall,
Seriously Christchurch people. Next time you open your mouths try and talk for more than a minute without saying how much you hate Auckland(ers) and Wellington(ians).
Simon, guess what? This very thoughtful article wasn't about you. I know that may be hard to stomach, but really, it wasn't.
Gerard, thanks for your excellent thoughts. We need more like you.
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Any claim that this sentence is a forgery is a forgery.
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Hard News: Why we thought what we thought, in reply to Angela Hart,
With everyone else, Palmer, the opposition, even Hooton, calling for a proper wide ranging and independent inquiry, do you think Key can still avoid it? Surely he has to capitulate, which would mean it’ll happen after the election. If not, it shows up some of the issues we have with the structure of our “democracy"- seriously inadequate checks on those in power. A limited inquiry will fool no-one and surely risk alienating honourable Nats, just digging a deeper hole.
We should also question the wisdom of allowing the GCSB to spy on NZers, given that Key says everyone talks to attack bloggers, and so "Ratf**king" political opponents is therefore perfectly acceptable behaviour in NZ.
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What happens next will be a test of our democracy.