The King’s Birthday Honours List shows there is something that needs to be said and, as a result, addressed. Who DIDN’T expect Jacinda Ardern’s name to appear? It seems it’s obligatory to give ex-Prime Ministers the highest honour whether they’re deserving of it or
With five months to the election National needs to ensure all their warrior MPs are in the same waka rowing in the same direction. On too many occasions the party has been demonstrating to the electorate that this is not so. Each time, the cause of disunity appears to be
I read, courtesy of Stuff, an article referring to a recruitment drive by the Department of Corrections. They were advertising on the back of buses in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty. The advertisement featured a smiling young Maori lady in a prison officer uniform. The ad asks candidates to
Mike Munro, writing in the Weekend Herald, would have us believe Christopher Luxon is going to lose the election for the Nats. He obviously didn’t attend Luxon’s recent meeting in the Northcote electorate. At that meeting Luxon gave a forceful speech and handled the Q&A brilliantly,
Andrea Vance has, in an article on Stuff, tried to advance the theory that ‘National is in the wrong fight’. According to her, National need to leave the Golf and Rotary Clubs (that comment is so last century) and get into the fight for the middle ground of politics leading
Opening the Canvas magazine, as is my wont on a Saturday morning, I was initially disappointed to see Sarah Daniell’s smiling face missing from her editor’s article on page three. I find a smiling face something of a tonic going into the weekend. Especially this weekend, as in
In the lead up to the budget, Chris Hipkins, in an interview with Mike Hosking, avoided most of the questions by answering along the lines of ‘only a few more sleeps to go Mike and you’ll find out’. When the big day came listening to Grant Robertson almost induced
The mayhem we are currently witnessing on the left tells us all we need to know about how a Labour/Greens/ Maori Party Government might ruin the country. While some unprintable words might best describe it, let’s just say it would be predictably worse than the current fiasco and
It is becoming increasingly obvious that electing a centre-right government is a must. We have an ever-changing political landscape and, from a right-wing perspective, the risk of not achieving this aim is becoming more apparent by the day. There is a very real chance of New Zealand
This government has proved beyond doubt that they are slow learners – very slow learners. And it appears they think the voting public are a ‘ship of fools’. That they thought they could get away with a bit of window dressing on a policy to which the majority of the country
First, it was the elite Maori and now it is the pro-trans groups who are trying to tell most law-abiding commonsense Kiwis that ‘it’s our way or the highway’. Once we allow minority groups to force their views on the majority then there is only one word
On Sunday evening following Christopher Luxon’s State of the Nation speech I browsed the comments on Backchat. Most were fixated on his announcement of a childcare rebate, calling it a policy more suited to Labour. On that point, it’s hard to disagree. However, following a comment from Carmel
Mike Munro in the Weekend Herald illustrated the political thinking of the left beautifully. It is both simplistic and dangerous. He was writing about Three Waters and the problem the government has in articulating its message. His view is that there is a simple fix to this thorny little issue.
In the (roughly) two weeks since Gabrielle struck, this Government has done precious little of the nitty-gritty of the monumental task of repairing roads and bridges, houses and people’s livelihoods. It looks like the job is beyond them. So far all we have seen via the news is
When it comes to comes to analysing a man who has already described himself as some kind of an ass it gets rather tricky. His surname though gives some insight into his actions. The man is as thick as a short plank. Perhaps a piece of 4×2 is more
In my last contribution I was critical of National and some of its MPs for the way Maureen Pugh was treated by the party. There has been sufficient written since in a similar vein to back up my stance. This is never likely to be an election issue and will
