Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
After the Christchurch massacre, there’s a rightful focus on the prevalence and public access to ‘semi-automatic military-style’ guns. It takes a crisis to create change but with the loopholes in our gun laws, and in light of previous governments’ missed opportunities and the current government’s previous plans to centralise gun registration inspections, in fact, reform is overdue. Shame it took a massacre to force this change.
When we in Australia and New Zealand cry, Lest We Forget our fallen soldiers, we should also never forget President Atatürk’s comforting words.
On a tour of New Zealand, Leima Martinez Freire, Asia Pacific director of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) says Cuba is in a position to offer support to Pacific nations, reports Michael Andrew.
Acts of love and solidarity terrify the racist, power-hungry leaders of Israel and its allies. The great unity that expressed itself in New Zealand, following the massacres at the Christchurch mosques, sent a strong signal of rejection to all who support race-hate and population control.Challenge their inhumanities.
Reveal and shame the silence that serves to cover for them!
The suspicion arises that in 2014-2015, in some unspecified, possibly unlawful, and highly secretive way, the country’s national security apparatus was working hand-in-glove with senior elements within the police to silence and punish a couple of outspoken critics of the National-led 2008-2017 Coalition Government.
While they continue to ride forth, pausing in their wild career, to salute with uplifted arms, and uplifted swords, “The Crusaders” cheering fans, deep racial memories, born of the bloody excesses of Pakeha New Zealanders’ ancestors, will stir and rise to the surface. The past has a dangerous way of intruding upon the present.
Here’s my ten picks for how to ensure patients can access medicinal cannabis as soon as possible. These can all be done within the regulations set to be developed this year. There are other measures which could increase the pace of patient access, such as allowing patients to provide for themselves (ie home growing, which I advocated for) and allowing patients with prescriptions to import cannabis medicines for their own use, however these would require changes to legislation and are outside the scope of what I’m proposing here.
Even worse is the realisation that it is not Martyn who is defending himself against criminal charges. It is the Police who are on trial for mis-using their powers by breaching a person’s privacy without due regard to the laws of this country.The police over-stepped and mis-used their powers of search and seizure. It was an illegal action, as Privacy Commissioner John Edwards stated with searing clarity, “that Police had collected his information in an unlawful way”.
Urge the Government’s representative at the United Nations to engage more actively with the United Nations Human Rights Council on the issue of war crimes and genocide of minority Tamils by the Sri Lankan Government.
I am sorry for what has happened to our Muslim fellow kiwis, and I am sorry we did not call out the hate speechers and gun nuts a long time ago, to help prevent this sort of attack. I am not going to keep making that mistake.