No, not gay marriage (though that might). What will end in tears is Labour/the Greens NZ Power policy. I have already blogged how the policy itself is economic incompetence. And, despite Brian Rudman and Bryce Edwards waxing lyrical about the policy being similar to the Pharmac model, I have demonstrated that this is also a [...]

Labour and the Green’s odd electricity price control policy has clearly been designed with only one real purpose in mind – to disrupt the sale of Mighty River Power and reduce the amount realised on the sale, to the detriment of National. This type of “scorched earth” thinking from the left is hardly unusual; Cullen’s [...]

Dear Mr. McCarten You seem to be a bit up yourself, lately. Your column in the Herald on Sunday absurdly compares the recent life-threatening, regime-changing protests overseas with the history of New Zealand left-wing protests. You even manage to include an entirely prospective protest against “asset sales”. Aside from the fact that this comparison is [...]

Not that she ever left, but it seems that Paula Bennett has taken back Waitakere on the judicial recount by a margin of 9 votes. The MacDoctor realises that Ms. Bennett (when the media finally ask her opinion on the matter) will likely be far more gracious about her victory than Ms. Sepuloni. However, the [...]

It is now more than 24 hours since David Shearer became the New Leader of the Labour party and, possibly, the opposition. I have been racking my brains to try and say anything about him. Good, bad, funny, witty. ANYTHING. Goodness, I thought Invisible Phil was hard work but at least he stuck his head [...]

The mask slipped briefly on Cunliffe yesterday. “if the Government is going to sell off precious state assets then we would not rule out re-nationalising some of them. And people need to be aware of that regulatory risk.” Today he is back-pedalling a lot: “At no time have I said that would have to be [...]

The MacDoctor has seen a plethora of reasons why people think Labour did so poorly in the elections. Arrogance, poor targeting of messages, same lineup as before, nasty to John Key, The thrill of Phil Goff etc. The MacDoctor think that most of this is baloney. Sure, Labour comes across as arrogant, distant and privileged. [...]

The MacDoctor confesses to much amusement over the sudden profusion of advice to Labour in the Media columns and the Right-wing Blogs about their leadership and resurrection issues. Even the stalwarts of the VRWC, Whaleoil and Cactus are getting into the act heavily coming down in favour of Cunliffe (which is probably the kiss of [...]

Like Helen Clarke, Goff and his sidekick Annette King have decided not to wait around for the night of the long knives and have resigned. Unlike Clarke, Goff is not naming a new leader – no one would listen to him anyway. There will now be a brief squabble between flea-bitten curs for the bone [...]

It seems that all the parties have produced mini budgets over the past couple of weeks, presumably to steal the thunder from National’s budget. Slim pickings there, then. As a service for those with little time for politics, the MacDoctor provides a brief summary of the various “budgets”: National: The “Nero” Budget Fiddle a bit [...]