Last Straw

Nice idea: the NZ Greens have a website for creating your own online billboards: voteforus.co.nz
My favourites: freedom to dance, young girl, native bush, Tuis, lakes, to glide, unspoiled beach, cabbage trees, swimming as kids, romance on the beach, the rope bridge, young lasses, earth, and, my favourite, living in harmony.
(via No Right Turn)
Update: added mine: kayaking down [...]

No Right Turn on why the Maori seats matter. Quite something.

I hear the NZ National Party and the NZ Herald have been fostering the idea that the party with the most votes should lead the government, even, it seems, if that party can’t form a coalition to represent the will of the majority of voters.
Suppose for a minute that we didn’t have two major parties [...]

No Right Turn on Rodney Hide’s recent comments about the Maori Party and its potential to influence the next government.

No Right Turn:
Espiner agrees that the election is now all about trust, but he characterises it as trust in economic management. I’d characterise it differently. Recessions aren’t about poor macroeconomic statistics, but about people - people who are going to lose their jobs, and need to fall back on the state in their time of need. The [...]

No Right Turn on the NZ National Party’s plans to gut the Resource Management Act, and take NZ back to the Muldoon years:
How would National change this? Firstly, they would amend the definition of “environment” to include only “natural and physical resources” – so existing rights to amenity values such as peace and quiet, clean air, clean water, or [...]

No Right Turn on the arbitrary end of all historical Treaty of Waitangi claims.
How can you put an end to seeking redress for breaches of a treaty? It’s an absurd contradiction. Either breaches exist and they need to be investigated and redressed or they don’t exist. Arbitrarily ending the formal process for these investigations to take place [...]

The NZ Herald has published a remarkable editorial today which offers rare insight into just how well our “free” media system serves to undermine democracy, while the background story offers great insight into how much National Party politicians deplore democracy and how deplorably dishonest they can be in the lead up to an election.
As an aside: the only politicians I [...]

The Standard points out National’s record on wages (via No Right Turn).
Vote for National to lower your wages people.

It appears the New Zealand Police are soft on serious crime. The U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, travels to New Zealand this weekend and I’m ashamed to say she’s able to without a promise from the NZ Police that she will be arrested and charged with war crimes, including torture and the “supreme international crime,” initiating [...]