I ordinarily have a lot of time for Frank Macskasy. His pieces are usually trenchantly researched and thorough. On top of that, he was the first journalist to ever give me a proper interview.
About a month ago, I lodged an Official Information Act request with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. The object of my inquiry was to attempt to discover just how many of the people applying for New Zealand Residency were actually on the long-term skill shortages list.
I got quite annoyed on Tracey’s behalf with some of the media framing around her proposal. Airing comments by Steven Joyce suggesting that the extra cost of our scheme would run into the “billions of dollars” without pointing out that the true increased cost of the scheme is a mere few hundred million dollars over the extant (and wasteful) status quo, as Jo Moir has done over at Stuff, is just plain irresponsible journalism.
As I covered in yesterday’s part one of my NZ First Convention writeup, ours is a party often bedeviled by…
One of the unique privileges of my position in the NZ politisphere is that I straddle two worlds. I’m a…
Late last month, US Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton made world-sweeping headlines for a campaign stump-speech in which she called out – by name – the previously internet-bound phenomenon known as ‘the Alt-Right’.
Earlier this week a number of media outlets started running stories about something called the “New Zealand People’s Party” – a new electoral vehicle apparently set up by members of the Indian and Chinese communities in a bid to ensure better representation for those communities’ interests in our politics.
Accept no imitations. The only time National’s generally serious about bolstering the number of ‘boys in blue’ is when they’re out electioneering to increase their Caucus.
Last week, retirement-savers from around the country were shocked to discover that their hard-earned investment funds were potentially going towards funding the invention, sale and distribution of land mines, cluster munitions, and other nefarious products. Nuclear weapons are also apparently on the portfolio-books.
Earlier this week, a poll came out indicating that a majority – almost two thirds – of New Zealanders are allegedly in support of either decriminalizing or legalizing cannabis. This is hardly significant, as it is merely a reification of what many of us have either known or strongly suspected for some time.