We have been challenged to justify our view that we are not "right wing".
We are not aligned politically. To our knowledge none of The Hive team are members of any political party. QB certainly insn't a member of any party.
We fight policy not people (slight exception as far as Winston is concerned).
We have probably praised the PM, Goff and some other Ministers as regularly - or more regularly - than we have any figures in National. Likewise we do not hesitated to criticise National should we disagree with a policy proposal.
Since when is supporting orthodox economic policy right wing?
We see very little light between ourselves and someone like Phil Goff who is about to be Labour leader. We disagree on a few things (Auckland airport) but likewise we disagree with John Key and his team on a few things.
On social issues someone like Ian Wishart would see us as extremely left wing and part of some lesbian Comintern conspiracy.
Read our early posts challenging Newzeal on the NZ China Friendship Association.
We don't support George Bush often but are fully behind future President McCain. We hate much of the Clinton and Obama economic policy.
If we are very right wing then Treasury is very right wing, Mike Moore is very right wing, Phil Goff is very right wing, Helen Clark is running a very right wing trade policy, and most Nats must be crypto-fascists! ACT will be off the radar screen.
We are not climate change deniers and are actively promoting sensible policy responses that people should be taking more account of, as they have more chancee of achieving desired policy outcomes than the rubbish that is currently on the table.
We know that we are read regularly in Parliament, by many Ministerial offices and by opposition parties as well. We receive criticism and positive comment from all sides.
Maybe we are delusional. Please don't hestitate to comment on this - in a measured way please. Lots of comments will help pull us up in our one area of weakness in the new criteria used by Tumeke in ranking NZ blogsites. We have just left Kiwiblogblog in the dust (we are now ranked #8) and would like to do the same with the Standard. We are averaging 800 unique visits on workdays at present which pulls us neck and neck on that measure, but they get more comment (or is it abuse) than we do.
