However, I'm confident the decision wasn't about driver reluctance to go an extra 3kms as Roughan swallowed.

Yup that's not likely to be the only factor. It might be a contributing factor though.

Either way are about the same overall distance, especially if you are going west along the motorway…

That Invalids' Benefit thing cuts very close to home for my family

Seriously. If they try to make a certain member of my family work any more than the part-time job he has, we may as well kiss his hard-won ten-year sobriety goodbye. He just couldn't mentally handle full time…

Which ones would the government order should be handed over to a trust? How do you define a "news magazine"? Will we have a special government panel that defines what "news" is? Will the government then decree how editorial websites may operate?

The idea I've been mulling around would be…

I know I'd get a full body poo facial if I cross-posted this on Kiwibog and The Sub-Standard, but yeah... we have one party (Labour) that's slightly left of centre, and another (National) that's slightly right of centre. And even the Greens and ACT aren't as extreme as the…

You can't have that many fuck-ups so early in your term of government. These aren't peripheral issues, they're core.

If so, perhaps Labour could come up with a serious response. I probably shouldn't be giving the evil ones free advice :), but Goff could do us all a favour if…

I'm not entirely sure what would be better about going via Rosebank.

I'd defer to Joshua about cost being the issue, and I really don't know the detail.

However, I'm confident the decision wasn't about driver reluctance to go an extra 3kms as Roughan swallowed. Either way are about the…

And yet, these have yet to make a real impact on public opinion.

Even a basic rights issue like workplace breaks being rolled back doesn't seem to have found any purchase — listening to Helen Kelly of the CTU try and explain the issue to Jim Mora and Graham Bell…

Horseshit. He's just punching time until the bell goes off for the first round.

Perhaps Public Address' next publishing extravaganza could be an complimentary A1 sized poster for every politician and journalist's office wall:

THIS IS NOT A GAME

I have a problem with
this

IdiotSavant shares your disgust.

The benefit is, as you would expect from its name, for invalids – people unable to work due to ongoing sickness, injury, or disability. Its paid to terminal cancer patients, people with no limbs, and the totally blind. Work-testing these…

This is, I think, to understate Key's and National's polling margin.

Most people know nothing about public policy. Therefore, most people that answer polling questions are not sufficiently informed to have a considered opinion. So who fucking cares what the polls say. Most people vote for the party they think…

Labour just need to be patient and wait it out, simple as that. Sooner or later, the public will tire of National, some Nat MP will make a big, unpalatable boo-boo, but who knows when.

I suspect that unless Labour provides us with an alternative vision, "sooner or later" might…

You gotta problem with that?

Slightly OT but what the hey! I have a problem with
this and yep Aussies suck. :)

Are you saying the Aussies suck?

Like a Dyson 10000 Turbo XL running on three-phase. You gotta problem with that?

As Albert Eienstein put it, Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen

Or alternatively in bumper sticker form: common sense is neither

Only if your trusts have a new way of making their income. Staffing decline is a response to pressure on the whole business model.

Hastened, it must be said, by the big sucking noise coming from across the Tasman. The local Fairfax papers have done more than their share to…

You really think that is even possible in New Zealand?

Well, you could get elected on a centrist platform, appoint Keith Locke as minister of broadcasting then be forced to intervene to stop his plan of complete state control of the media...

Only if your trusts have a new way of making their income. Staffing decline is a response to pressure on the whole business model.

Well, I guess it depends what you mean by pressure on the business model. A not for profit NZHerald could have employed 200 journalists at 100k…

would go a long way to naturally re-populating our newsrooms with actual journalists.

Only if your trusts have a new way of making their income. Staffing decline is a response to pressure on the whole business model.

Strong reform of media governance laws

You really think that is even possible in New Zealand?

Are you in favour of a change to the system at all, Tom?

I would like to see the threshold lowered to 4%.

But politicians respond to what gets them votes. We are going down the British route of the surveillance state of CCTV and DNA databases because we've got…

You'd think that the concept of the right to a break being taken away, including the right to a toilet break, would be pretty simple to understand. I can't see what's complicated.

They seemed to think that there was a problem with the government "stepping in and regulating" these things,…

This isn't to say that the Labour Party itself is in a bad way — it isn't. A number of long-term activists have given it a rest, but I get the impression that things are quite lively at the grassroots.

Not necessarily a good thing. The grassroots level of the…

MMP is a great system for increasing diversity and making sure everyones vote counts. But it sucks when it comes to elections, because it has reduced them to Cadbury's vs. Whittakers.

Are you in favour of a change to the system at all, Tom?

I agree with you about the RWC. Major sports events are a bad news magnet (see many Olympics passim): stories of unfinished construction will be a media staple for the next 2 years.

The Big Owe, anybody?

The number of times Key has had to overturn or modify the intentions of his ministers is most interesting. I know people in the public…

You may recognise the logo, even if you haven't heard it referred to that way before.

If only spaghetti junction was as simple as the logo.

listening to Helen Kelly of the CTU try and explain the issue to Jim Mora and Graham Bell on The Panel last week was painful. Neither of them seemed to grasp what she was talking about.

You'd think that the concept of the right to a break being taken away,…

He's wedged on the ETS, he's left Smith to make a mess of ACC, Tolley's exposed in education...

And yet, these have yet to make a real impact on public opinion.

Even a basic rights issue like workplace breaks being rolled back doesn't seem to have found any purchase --…

As for Goff, I'm less worried. I really think it is irrelevant what the polls say this year or the next. New Zealand voters have at best a 12 month memory and mostly closer to 6 months.

It all depends on if they are getting sound advice. It may be…

Matthew, I would bet my house and several limbs that there will be an early election, pre-World Cup.

Possibly, yes. But National are then stuck with putting it closer to a Budget that is likely to contain unpalatable truths, and also to a change-over in ACC that will have Labour…

We have a President.

No we don't – we've got a brand. John Key is a creature of MMP. Under MMP it's the party vote that counts and so MMP is all about the nation-wide campaign. In a nation wide campaign a presidential style leader is central to what is…

motorway was once gazetted from the CBD to Mangere Bridge running somewhere to the east of Dominion Road. Let action-man Mr Joyce and his friends in the trucking lobby get to think resurrecting that is a good idea and you could be toast.

No, my present residence is still safe…

I…

He's anything but insensible, but pulling out pragmatic solutions to solve Ministerial bungles is not the same as anticipating problems. Nor is…

I would bet ...several limbs...

Afghan or kiwi?

Labour just need to be patient and wait it…

http://cmi.transit.govt.nz/html/cmj/home.htm

It's got at least a seven year history of being referred to as that in all advertising of closures, lane changes and works being done. You may recognise the logo, even if you haven't…

The RWC is shaping up to be a total shambles.

Matthew, I would bet my house and several limbs that there will be an early election, pre-World Cup. If the polls are good for National, then like Clark in 2002, Key will want to cash in (usual line: "media speculation…

he's very good.

Funniest thing I've read this month. zere standards are dvopping Colonel.

But it was soon very clear that western capitalism, too, deprived of its old adversary and imagining itself the undisputed victor and incarnation of global progress, is at risk of leading western society and the rest…

WTF is this CMJ that has entered the frame wrt the motorway?

Central Motorway Junction, aka Spaghetti Junction.

New Zealand voters have at best a 12 month memory and mostly closer to 6 months. There is no point in trying to win over voters now and Labour and Goff know that.

National are doing a spectacular job of setting themselves up as one-term wonders. Think it through. ACC…

his political vision has been quite parsimonious in my view

This

I have a good friend who is as far right in his views as I am left. We both agree on this point – John Key has no vision for New Zealand whatsoever. His only interest is to get…

So who are the real beneficiaries of the Waterview connection?

The residents of Epsom.

Epsom is the only suburb through which vehicles travel to the airport? Really? I'm sure the residents of Royal Oak, Mt Roskill, Hillsborough, Waterview, Avondale, New Windsor, Rosebank, New Lynn, Te Atatu and sundry other suburbs…

Also, if it's 4.8km from CMJ to Waterview,…

There’d be just as many people convinced she was more than just the finger puppet for that cabal too.

Want to know where to find them?

The residents of Epsom.

I am keen to see how Key's leadership pans out – whether he has enough control over the zealotry to maintain his 'aw shucks' image and not to unleash policy that might scare the electorate; or whether he really is the cardboard cut-out figurehead for the razor-gang.

There are people…

It's 4.8km from CMJ to Waterview, then another 30km to the airport. Going to Rosebank adds about another 12th onto the journey. At the usual 100km/hr on that stretch,…

Policy debates are for pointy-heads and politicians. We have a President.

Even those who most shamelessly fawned over Reagan's supposed political skills would have probably conceded, in their most private moments, that there was some truth in the claim that he could never have a Watergate because nothing that important…

seemingly willful dismissal of policy based on evidence and research in favour of what feels right

Roughan offers a perfect example about Joyce:

Auckland's western ring road had to come into Waterview rather that take the more obvious route along the Rosebank Peninsula, he explained, because it had to be the…

It was the same persona that graced his Letterman performance – and that's what charms the folks at home.

Cue soft focus and soothing voiceover: It's morning again, in New Zealand.

From the "been here before" file ... Time magazine, on Ronald Reagan, 1986:

"Here is Reagan, still getting away…

But at this…

But dont you think its a bit strange that Joyce is being lauded ...…

Key has read the mood of an electorate not hungry for radical change

This seems about right – he's a perfect "modern conservative" in some ways. He gently reassures the country that we're going to keep truckin on because everything's pretty much fine as is.
That doesn't work for me…

. I've even heard him refer with a laugh to his own muddly oration on TV news. He connects.

Just as, in a funny way, people connected with Helen Clark's rather flinty and awkward media persona as a sign of strength and seriousness. And I'm not being catty or misogynistic…

No spitting from me. I think there's something in that.

It worked under Helen Clark. It's not working now, because it only works when you're able to paper over disputes in the service of winning. About now would be a good time for Labour to work out some of these…

We'll hear "common sense" conjured as a means of diversion from troublesome advice – and perhaps we should be worried about that. Because sometimes "common sense" is the most dangerous thing.

Preach it, Russell! This is the main thing that really worries me about this government. The seemingly willful dismissal…

I'm probably going to get spat on for saying this, but aren't Key and Clark almost identical in this respect:

I'm not a fan of parlour psychoanalysis, but I don't think anyone has really nailed the extent to which Clark was determined the bloody civil war that FUBAR'ed the Labour…

If he doesn't display the obvious intellect of Helen Clark, he has made good use of a quality that often eluded Clark – charm.

I'm probably going to get spat on for saying this, but aren't Key and Clark almost identical in this respect:

I'm not a fan of parlour…