Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
At the heart of this blog is the triangular relationship between the law, trust in government and human freedom. All three elements are important. The corpus of the law represents the current status of justice in Aotearoa (for good or bad), including challenges, Judge-made law, common law and the intentions of Parliament.
Human rights advocates and civil society groups are voicing their condemnation of Papuans being held in crowded and risky Indonesian jails for taking part in peaceful demonstrations and a “Free West Papuan political prisoners” campaign has gone viral on social media.
A South Auckland businessman is under siege by police who are using laws designed to target gangs and drug dealers to come after his family business, his home, and even his children’s assets. At a time when we’ve handed police extraordinary powers to deal with a health pandemic, Matt Blomfield argues that trust is being betrayed.
Prising corporate hands from the throat of our democracy is more important than ever. The public mood does not favour going back to “business as usual” after the pandemic where we all work hard to increase the wealth of the one percent. But any break from “business as usual” will be extremely difficult because our main political parties are heavily reliant on corporate donations to fund their election campaigns.
Last week the world lost one of the heroes of the South African anti-apartheid struggle when 87-year-old Denis Goldberg died.
On 20 April, Netanyahu and his political rival, Benny Gantz, reached an agreement to annex parts of the West Bank,…
WHY IS IT, that of all the party leaders only Winston Peters fully understands the economic ramifications of the Covid-19 Pandemic? Perhaps it’s his age. That might sound snarky, but it isn’t. None of the other party leaders are old enough to possess a solid mental picture of what New Zealand was like before the Neoliberal Revolution of 1984-1993.
April 29: Day 2 of Level 3…
THE COVID-19 LOCKDOWN has exposed weaknesses in New Zealand journalism that have hurt and surprised many New Zealand journalists.
. . April 27: Day 33 of living in lock-down… Five more cases, only one of which has been confirmed….