Author: Curwen Rolinson

I’ve taken awhile off commenting on a .. certain area of New Zealand Politics for personal reasons; but looking at my newsfeed for the past 24 hours, it’s pretty clear a number of things need to be said about the Green Party’s recent comments on New Zealand First.

There’s just something about living in a small, insular ‘everybody-knows-everybody’ kinda place that makes attempts at pulling off a genuine “cover-up” something of a fool’s errand.

Todd Barclay, apparently, is that fool.

There’s a point to be made on this whole ‘Anti-Smacking’/s59 debate which New Zealand First has brought back to the limelight, that I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else making.

The ‘draft’ iteration released some weeks ago has already inspired considerable debate [and/or jeering]; and it is interesting to note that the finalized version put out yesterday appears to ‘double down’ on some of the things which rendered the previous List such a lightning-rod for commentariat controversy.

Earlier this week, somebody asked Judith Collins what she thought of Gareth Morgan. Ever the diplomat, her curt response was that if she wound up having to deal with him … she’d “probably take up drugs”. No word, as yet, on whether she’d also find this necessary working with Winston.

The ongoing travails of our nation’s convenience store and dairy operators have grown to such a scale that even those perennial champions of Ostrich Economics in our Government are unable to ignore them.

I will be genuinely surprised [and inestimably pleased] if any of our political class dare – as part of what’s set to become this year’s election debates – to name the specter whose rapacious possessionary antics have fed so perniciously into the mental health crisis of today.