Author: Martyn Bradbury

The tip line has been running hot as to the real reasons behind Hekia Parata’s sudden decision to stand down from Parliament at the next election.

The bizarre gladiatorial orgy of gross absurdity between Clinton and Trump will damage the American psyche in a way I don’t think it can return from. Either candidate will inherit a White House that is smeared with lies and bitter resentment.

We can build private prisons, but we can’t build houses for the homeless. We can’t build affordable housing but we can build tax havens. We can give away billions in tax cuts but we can’t fund suicide prevent programs properly.

One of the most interesting things about the last 8 years in NZ has been the dumping of rational and empirical evidence based social policy. We don’t implement policy based on facts now, we implement ideologically extreme brain farts.

So Junior Doctors are on strike because of their insane work loads while at the same time Bill English manufactures a $1.8billion surplus by cutting back on the social infrastructure so the richest amongst us can get tax cuts.