Labour will claim both moral and tactical victories over National after this week's skirmishing over paid parental leave, and with some justification.
It would be easy to dismiss the campaign being spearheaded by Grey Power and the Council of Trade Unions for a referendum to halt National's partial state-asset-sales programme as the politics of gesture that will achieve nothing.
National's asset-sale plan passed its first legislative hurdle on Thursday with a warning it was necessary to avoid a Greek-style debt crisis, but the Opposition blames the Government for creating debt problems with its tax cuts.
The Government's proposed asset sales programme has implications for Waitaki River stakeholders, writes Elizabeth Soal.
National's "mixed ownership model" - the innocuous-sounding vehicle tasked with making the party's unpopular privatisation agenda more appetising - paradoxically may yet end up making the partial sell-offs of state corporations even less palatable to voters.
Social Development Minister Paula Bennett angrily dismissed suggestions she or Prime Minister John Key could have acted to halt horrific child abuse suffered by a 9-year-old Auckland girl whose mother was jailed yesterday.
Prime Minister John Key yesterday announced a business-friendly line-up of front bench Cabinet ministers, with the six top-ranked MPs set to drive the economy forward from their allocated portfolios.
Developing Whanau Ora, a ministerial committee on poverty and a new focus for Te Puni Kokiri are the centrepiece of an agreement reached yesterday between National and the Maori Party on confidence and supply.
The Government may want to consider following Australia's lead in establishing loyalty plans during the partial sale of state-owned assets, Craigs Investment Partners head of research Mark Lister says.
Dunedin-based National Party list MP Michael Woodhouse is tipped for a promotion early next week when Prime Minister John Key announces his new line-up of cabinet ministers.
Prime Minister John Key said yesterday he totally rejected any suggestion the National Party did not have a mandate to partially sell off the state-owned assets about which National campaigned.
Asset sales will start as soon as possible, returning Clutha-Southland MP Bill English says.
How will Finance Minister Bill English handle unhappy news next Tuesday when Treasury updates its Budget forecasts, as it is obliged to do before next month's election?
The Privacy and Education Acts would be amended, and schools would be forced to tell the Government when 16 and 17-year-olds left during the year, Prime Minister John Key announced yesterday.
Prime Minister John Key is not buckling in the face of opposition to partial state-asset sales, telling a National Party conference in Auckland yesterday they had to win the debate and be proud of the policy heading into the November election.
The National Party seems intent on trying to stage manage its way to electoral victory on November 26, judging from the secrecy surrounding the party's Mainland conference held in Christchurch during the weekend.
National and Labour were on a tax collision course yesterday as the 2011 election campaign took a tentative first step.
The National Party has named former broadcaster Maggie Barry as its candidate for the safe National seat of Auckland's North Shore for this year's general election.
The National Party received a $50,000 donation from an Auckland BMW dealership just days after the Government signed a deal to upgrade its BMW limo fleet, Labour says.
Former broadcaster Maggie Barry is seeking to stand for National in North Shore.
