If National wins ...

[westerly]

In the chronological chain the theft of personal and private material by Rawshark comes first.... The point has been made elsewhere that there are one or two very large donors to Hager's "Defence Fund" who are desperate to conceal their identity in case it is disclosed in Police/legal opeartions against Hager. Wouldn't it be intriguing and interesting to see who they are? .... :-)

And where is Kim Dotcom these days?

The point has also been made elsewhere that the case will never get to court because no one involved wants the true extent of the dirty politics revealed in an open court.

westerly

[elZorro]

ElZorro, the reason I believe Hager to be a sanctimonious hypocrite is simple. In his book dirty politics he eschewed the dirty politics that the left are also engaged in and only showed the pieces that would make the right look bad. A journalist? Nah. A hit piece? Yeah I think so. Slater had plenty of "lefty dirty politics" in the stolen material but that was conveniently omitted.

You only have Slater's word on that, of course. When he says "plenty" that could mean anything. He's already shown how poor he is at maths and business when it suits him.

Slater: It appears that many, many, New Zealanders thought that Independently wealthy Nicky Hager was one such worthwhile cause. The fact that he has made around $500,000 from his sales of the book ‘Dirty Politics’ doesn’t seem to affect their desire to help him financially.

In that statement, designed to impress, he should have swapped the words "made" to "grossed", but of course a big margin of that was not paid to Hager, the retailers did the grossing and the NZ printers and binders had to be paid too. The publishers could have made more perhaps if they'd printed overseas in bulk, but Nicky has a long-standing deal with these NZ printers apparently. Good on him. Slater says Nicky Hager is independently wealthy huh? His worn clothes, the house he built himself, being an investigative journalist, I don't think so.

The main point is that Slater's blogs need serious filtering, if you are going to take anything real out of them.

Michael Bassett is quoted just up above on Whaleoil (I can't bring myself to link to that ugly site), saying that Helen Clark and helper Ruth Dyson employed similar systems when they were in power. But he, in turn, has a massive chip on his shoulder.

The Fourth Labour government enacted a major programme of economic and social reform, the economic arm of which is known as Rogernomics. Major social reforms included the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986. Bassett was a wholehearted supporter of the reforms, and when the government and party schismed over issues of economic reform, Bassett took the side of finance minister Roger Douglas, the main architect of the reforms. In 1990, Labour was defeated in another landslide election. Bassett did not contest the 1990 election, and retired from active politics.
He continued occasionally to be involved at an advisory level, for example unofficially advising Don Brash during his term as National Party leader.^[6] Bassett's switch of sides reflects the present-day Labour Party's semi-repudiation of Rogernomics.

Like Roger Douglas, he was more National than Labour in sentiment. What is perhaps more important is whether a line was crossed. Everyone knew that they needed to pull into line behind Helen Clark, and that was a policy that was good for the whole country economically, while it lasted. Contrast that with Judith Collins, who aspired to the top job, but with a policy to pay back 'double' if anyone crossed her. OIA documents were also passed to the bloggers in preference, probably by John Key or proxies. Again, that is stepping over a big line.

John Key has been careful to keep a written distance from Slater and Co, but he worked just two doors away from Jason Eade. It defies logic that he didn't know anything about all this, and he looked so shaky after Dirty Politics came out, that "guilty as charged" seemed to be written over his face.

[elZorro]

One of the biggest planks in David Parker's tilt at the leadership is the economy, and his idea that we don't just need an equal chance at getting ahead, we need to see an equality in the policies, or "fair economic outcomes for everyone".

This is what I think about too, that government always has a role in making sure that process is ongoing. So let's cut through the spin and have a look at what is really happening in NZ at the moment. The debt graph below encapsulates the difference between Labour's terms, and National's. Sure, the GFC is there in the middle of it (started in 2006, long before the elections in 2008), but it's now years later, and there is no excuse for ongoing poor trends. By now, if National was going to do anything smart, it would be showing up in these trendlines.

You can see Labour dropped back Crown debt while they were in, even as the GFC started. They almost removed core Crown debt. The steepest upward rise of any of these debt graphs belongs to the National govt after 2008, they outspent the entire housing sector of NZ with those increases. This borrowing was to meet their budget deficits, it wasn't as an investment. You'll see net investment bleeding out of the business sector, out of the agricultural sector, whereas before, under Labour, it was pouring in. Now investments in farms, etc is flat-lining overall, but there are record numbers of dairy farms on the market at the moment - they're worried, but not budging on price yet. Ideally, the farms would come on the market at a peak in dairy payouts.

In the property sector, investment bled out for a while, and now it is returning at nearly the same rate. Note that this is also the heaviest investment area, and it is relatively non-productive. (Average yield in Auckland is 3.63% on houses, interest rates are 2% higher than this).

These graphs show that National doesn't have a handle on how to grow the pie properly in NZ. They are trying desperately to cover this all up, with talk about flags and new policies, but in fact their main new policy is to sell off longstanding state assets again, this time it's the State Housing portfolio. Or in tweaking employee rights downwards, the first policy they brought in for debate, just because they could.

[winner69]

This guy reckons in the UK Labour about to implode as who they thought were loyal are deserting them. Sounds familiar

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...tion-the-cause

[artemis]

.... Whaleoil (I can't bring myself to link to that ugly site) ................

Keep your friends close ....

[elZorro]

This guy reckons in the UK Labour about to implode as who they thought were loyal are deserting them. Sounds familiar

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...tion-the-cause

W69, afraid I'm fairly ignorant about UK politics. I found this pictorial representation.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/ukparties2010

It's out of date, but at least it shows a trend (further down), of parties needing to move to the right to attract voters. This is part of a global trend, wealth is transferring to those with capital, they are mobilising the think-tanks and numerous other mechanisms to perpetuate this process. People like those behind Crosby-Textor. Thomas Tikketty has plenty to say on this, apparently.

While the masses are encouraged to vote to the right, their conditions are, in general, being clobbered in their workplaces. It doesn't make sense. If the easy money has all been made (cheap extracted oil), then this process could continue. I just hope that some disruptive innovations reset the balance in favour of most people.

[BlackPeter]

I just hope that some disruptive innovations reset the balance in favour of most people.

EZ, you just don't get it - do you? The people just have chosen (called a democratic election) and they said loud and clear that don't want Labour leadership and policies. The political balance is clearly where the people want it to be.

Now - why don't you just enjoy living (and working?) in one of the best places in the world and be glad that the people of New Zealand selected again a competent government.

Yes, it would be nice to have as well a capable opposition keeping the government honest, and it doesn't looks like Labour is currently capable in playing this role. So if you want to help and make New Zealand a still better place, than stop whining about National and CT, roll up your sleeves and turn Labour (again) into a credible opposition party. Analyse Labours sore performance and the reasons behind that. Help them to pick next time a trustworthy and competent leader and help them to start listening again to the very people they claim to represent.

[artemis]

............. Yes, it would be nice to have as well a capable opposition keeping the government honest, and it doesn't looks like Labour is currently capable in playing this role................

Being a capable opposition does not necessarily mean opposing every government policy, every government initiative and every person in, or aligned with, the government. That just comes across as unremitting negativity and clearly the voters don't like it, and don't believe that absolutely nothing the government is doing is any good at all.

The opposition parties, and Labour in particular, could pick some government policies they actually agree with and try being co-operative rather than automatically oppositional. Occasionally co-operation does happen but gets very little airtime.

[winner69]

W69, afraid I'm fairly ignorant about UK politics. I found this pictorial representation.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/ukparties2010

It's out of date, but at least it shows a trend (further down), of parties needing to move to the right to attract voters. This is part of a global trend, wealth is transferring to those with capital, they are mobilising the think-tanks and numerous other mechanisms to perpetuate this process. People like those behind Crosby-Textor. Thomas Tikketty has plenty to say on this, apparently.

While the masses are encouraged to vote to the right, their conditions are, in general, being clobbered in their workplaces. It doesn't make sense. If the easy money has all been made (cheap extracted oil), then this process could continue. I just hope that some disruptive innovations reset the balance in favour of most people.

Interesting diagrams from that link

Maybe NZ Labour needs somebody Lisa Gough Whitlam.

Good guy was Gough, RIP

[westerly]

This guy reckons in the UK Labour about to implode as who they thought were loyal are deserting them. Sounds familiar

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...tion-the-cause

Interesting article, however it was not just Labour but also the Conservatives who were losing followers.

"Though the second conversation often revolves around the linked issues of immigration, EU membership and Islam, I don’t think it is ultimately about these issues. The deeper issue is identified in special adviser speak as: “People who feel they’ve lost out from globalisation.”
Let’s deconstruct this phrase. Which people? It’s not only white people: those who cheered Nigel Farage in Heywood included black and Asian Britons. Aggregated polling data from YouGov, with a sample of 27,000 adults, shows 42% of Ukip voters polled were Tory voters before, with just 13% coming over from Labour.
In terms of “social grade” – the ABCDE scale – 29% of Ukip voters are from the DE low-income group, but 43% come from the ABC1 group marketers use as a euphemism for the middle classes. So it’s not just low-income people.
But the most striking thing about the Ukip voters polled was their educational background: 76% finished their education between the ages of 15 and 18. No other party comes close to being so heavily concentrated among voters who didn’t go to university. It has nothing to do with “intelligence” – a large percentage of people who vote Ukip simply took a non-academic route to their current place on the income scale.
If you combine this with the fact that Ukip votes spread across all income groups, you come up with the demographic whereby the 2015 election will be won or lost: people who’ve worked their entire adult lives have been shaped by unskilled and semi-skilled hard work.
So what have such people lost from globalisation? Materially, wages. "

If National continue with business friendly policies - removing meal breaks, morning tea breaks,
reducing job security etc then the tide could quickly turn against them.

westerly