damn good summary of what's missing here.

We did have a semblance of public service TV, but even visiting Australians were often appalled by the studied parochialism of NZ's newspapers. Unity Books' approach to the Wilson & Horton Herald over its lack of serious book…

And I always feel honour-bound to point out to overseas visitors (complaining about our MSM's woeful quality) that…

eg: only 15 episodes of Media Take funded this year.

I don't think so Ian. I may have mentioned this before but Kim Hill had a great interview last year with Piv Bernth, head of drama for Danish TV. They have a population of 5.5m and each household pays a broadcasting fee…

I noticed that in France and…

(1) Like other recent polls on the flag referendum (including your own One News Colmar Brunton ), they find that younger voters are a little more opposed to change than the older cohort.

(2) They find…

They've been measuring public support for each option, certainly.

If I'd been asked to predict the referendum result using…

From wiki:

and it bears a stylized red maple leaf at its centre

and

__The number of points on the leaf has no special significance;the number and arrangement of the points were…

For real, or is that a joke I'm missing?

Boring, boring boring...

On the communications and management side, it's true they…

When they were minors, there was no attention paid to them at all. That reflects well on John and Bronagh Key, who clearly wanted to protect them from unwelcome publicity. Adolescence is hard enough without living it…

And everytime I read or listen with distrust. I've known a few dodgy people in my time and every time someone from National is a talking head, I feel like I'm being conned…

I do suspect much of the anti brigade would be…

Spending a fortune on constant polling underpins the government's rather flexible direction. But they also do a better job of digesting, framing and feeding the media than the left.

It all costs money but for some reason even operators like…

out manouevered, out messaged and out thought by the National comms department

There really isn't some brilliant National Party comms department. There's only John Key and his extraordinary retail political talents. When he is absent, the…

I have no obsession with Key
but as that is what this thread is ostensibly about
naturally one looks to where he came from to…

eg: those " I'm a Key person" teeshirts? Replaced with ones that just say "youngnationals". Preparing for leadership change already.

Sometimes I sigh at how much focus there is on his past, like those depressingly repetetive folk banging on about a statement to the SFO over twenty years ago as if they're Woodward…

One assumes The Right maintains this page’s fact base?
In 1998, on learning of…

Second half of that sentence was more than a little tortuous.

Bugger, bugger, bugger !

http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-06032016/#comment-1142635

I agree. It's easy to pretend that it's specifically Key-hating when any number of Stuff, Herald and Facebook threads get substantial portions of comments expressing disgust at John Key (sometimes misspelled), even if he…

thought it was by Boag – hence little Cam's loyalty to evil Judith's faction instead.

my (Beatles-adoring) mum would love you for that reference.

Media weren't thrusting hungry microphones at them though.

Hear! Hear! That was the first problem and the fact that Opposition were never allowed to engage started the…

Well, the Greens could have taken a look at it. It was a little amusing that James Shaw's position on dealing with the TPP in government turned out to be a better-worded version of Little's "we'll have a look…

Yeah, you're prolly not that sorry. But the original post is snarky too.

If I was put in charge it would be “haters gonna hate syndrome”, but that’s not original either…

It seems to be a widely agreed line of argument, because it…

Yes. Imagine if Labour had figured out where they stood beforehand?

not even Gareth Hughes?
(haven't checked recent pronouncements)

Just reply to it. I delete genuine trolls, but I don't want to prevent argument.

I actually think it got used in a Key-Derangement way too. Informed opposition was dismissed as mere partisanship. And, yeah,…

Interestingly applying my argument above to "Key derangement syndrome derangement syndrome" results in a diferent result than one might think

No, argument made in good faith, I think. Not trolling.

Play the ball not the person

To be fair, I didn't think some of the people John Campbell interviewed had much of a handle on the facts either.

Sigh. Greens are with you on that too, dude. Please ditch that dinosaur FPP stance and respect your future coalition partners.

Increase acquisition and building of state housing units by at least 3000 units a year for the next…

That's nothing mate.

When Clark was PM succesive National Party leaders were organising protests about the Foreshore and Seabed claiming Iwi were going to stop people having bbqs on the beach. What was that all about?

Some shows, true. Others had no trouble finding articulate protestors. Funny, eh?

It was voted in by the parliament after a prolonged controversy. I'd suspect that a factor in its favour would have been that even conservative Quebecois would have favoured a flag change.

Also, it was a Liberal government – I'd suggest that a government from the left of politics…

If I was put in charge it would be "haters gonna hate syndrome", but that's not original either...

Are you suggesting that the process should be similar to countries like Canada, South Africa, Sri Lanka, India etc where the change was decided by parliament or by a government appointed committee?

I don't vote for Key but…

Yes, that's the most irritating thing about the term. Not that the Right use it (breaking news – "politicians attack opponents, with name-calling") but that its origins are ignored. It's not original, it's not clever, it's as tired as "PC Brigade",…

It's not all about Key, no matter how much he and Hooton might want it to be. It is, however, slightly sad that a Prime Minister could see a flag change as his big legacy.

Your phrasing seems designed to encourage selective quoting, and reads unusually to me. "Labour has also taken a strong stand…

Did we? News to me...

It must be really infectious then because it's spread to New York and infected John Oliver.

Yeah, like much of the NZ online right's lines you lifted it straight from the GOP. Just be careful you don't trump yourselves. :)

We on the right have been observing "Key Derangement Syndrome" for years, and have been calling it by that name for almost as many years.

It started in 2008 when we noticed Labour…

That’s one way of putting it. You could also argue that Labour has decided to throw money at a drug multinational (presumably) over other health priorities such as GP availability or diseases…

What do you mean by this, Rob? Increasing funding for Pharmac, or trying to influence Pharmac's decision making processes?

Big fan of the three years free training action, to put it mildly, I enjoyed free tertiary education and want (demand and expect) others to have similar opportunities, also a tad selfishly as we have two high schoolers in our household, both…

I care less about the final design as the process – one of the best chances in a long time for us as a nation to discuss who we think we are was…

can we talk policy?