Is it possible that opinion polling, like black-and-white television, was something peculiar to a particular historical era? To a time when everybody had a landline telephone; read the same newspapers; watched the same shows, at the same time, on television; and were limited to a choice between two very large and broad-based political parties?
Buried amid the many very sensible suggestions for making this country as self-sufficient as possible, I noticed one proposal that sent a chill down my spine. There must be, according to Martyn, a “large scale increase in Navy, Army & Airforce”. Clearly, like so many survivalists, Martyn anticipates the arrival of unwelcome visitors, and he is determined to be ready for them.
WHAT ARE THE TAMAKIS trying to do? Is the “Coalition Party” a serious political project? Or, is it merely another example of the flim-flam for which religious hucksters the world over are notorious? Certainly, Brian and Hannah Tamaki would not be the first evangelical religious pairing to enlist the aid of politics when too many of the seats in their expensive megachurches remain unoccupied.
SIMON BRIDGES this morning delivered the political performance of his career. Controlling his anger (but not hiding it) he sheeted home the blame for one of the most spectacular political omnishambles New Zealanders have witnessed for many years. Quite rightly, he demanded the resignation of the Treasury Secretary, Gabriel Makhlouf, and (with only marginally less justification) that of the Finance Minister, Grant Robertson.
HAS SIMON BRIDGES been set up? Or, has he set himself up? Whichever explanation you prefer in relation to the Budget Leak/Hack, the conclusion is unavoidable. Bridges is simply too dumb to get out of his own way. Labour must love this guy: while he leads the National Party, Jacinda Ardern has nothing to fear. For Opposition MPs, however, the time has surely come for Bridges to be replaced by Judith Collins. The man’s political judgement is appalling. His response to bad news is to make it worse. He has to go.
The Christian Right seeks only to put rocks in voters’ hands. It bids them use their ballots as weapons – to punish the sinful.
I KEEP REJUVENATING my fellow travellers. Looking through their grey hair and sagging flesh for the younger men and women they used to be – back in the 1960s and 70s. I do the same, now, in psychic self-defence, whenever I stand in front of a mirror. Cruising the Ionian and Adriatic Seas with a boatload of baby-boomers will do that to you.
RUBBISH AND CHURCHES. Grandeur and decay. Italy is an old place – and it shows. Rome, a world city, is full of skips and wheelie-bins overflowing with uncollected trash. Romans pass by these eyesores without so much as a second glance. It’s not desirable, they seem to say, but it’s the best we can do. Refuse collection, like so much else in Italy, is a racket. Somebody is making a lot of money out of Rome’s rubbish – but far too few people are being paid to collect it. And so, as is customary in the Eternal City, things pile up.
In that universe, Ghahraman would be calming down her more zealous followers: warning them that unreasoning zealotry is always the problem – never the solution. She would also be reassuring them that New Zealand’s statute books already contain plenty of legal remedies against dangerously hateful expression.
THE 720,000 SUBSCRIBERS to the “Neighbourly” social media platform recently received a letter from the Chief Human Rights Commissioner, Paul Hunt. In it he offers advice on how to call out racist behaviour and who to call if you think it crosses the line.