Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
The government’s undermining of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG) report: Whakamana Tangata has been masterful. WEAG was set up in May 2018 and reported finally in February 2019. After sitting on the report for months, the government manoeuvred the burying of it in the launch in May, with a fanfare of three miniscule crumbs to be implemented in 2020.
As I look ahead to the future, visibility is poor. The haze of Australian bush fires and the blather of…
What a way to end the extraordinary year of 2019, with the report that Sir Ron Brierley, the corporate raider, greed is good, mate of Roger Douglas, who shot to fame as a role model at the very beginning of the neo-liberal capture of Aotearoa in the 1980s, has been arrested with a laptop full of child abuse images on his way to Fiji, and has freely admitted liking young Thai girls.
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa is delighted at yesterday’s decision by the International Criminal Court to begin the process of opening an investigation into Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza strip.
HOW DID 2019 END on such a jarring note of neoliberal bi-partisanship? With the Coalition and the Opposition united in their backing for a lavish spend-up on roads, roads, and more roads?
The Government has announced a new approach to roadside drug testing. It seems like a good compromise, and evidence based.
Earlier this week I requested Marie Shroff, the Chair of the Electoral Commission Board, to investigate the election expenses return of Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel.
Christchurch risks having a “lame duck” mayor for the next three years after the big hit to Lianne Dalziel’s credibility from her election expenses fiasco.
Today for the first time in half a century there is a wave of revolt sweeping the world that seems pregnant with revolutionary possibilities that may finally allow working people to help lead humanity and the planet we exist on out of the hell-hole that capitalism has created for us.
Minister of Health David Clark has released the regulations for New Zealand’s medicinal cannabis scheme, and it looks like Kiwis will have one of the best medicinal cannabis schemes in the world.