Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
National’s new Environment Policy Discussion Document released this weekend in Raglan has plenty of virtue signalling, and motherhood and apple pie. But despite the Party’s claim of an ambitious approach, it fits neo-liberal solutions to ecological problems, and in many ways reflects business as usual.
On the 13th February The Salvation Army launched its 2019 State of the Nation report. I wrote this report for the Army as I have for the past 11 years. This year’s report has picked up on the theme of wellbeing and is titled ‘Are you well? Are we safe?
THE LABOUR-GREEN TECHNOCRATIC LEFT is clearly preparing to die in the very same ditch in which the Right hopes to bury the proposed Capital Gains Tax (CGT). This is unfortunate, since one of the more annoying, if unintended, consequences of such folly is likely to be the fall of the Coalition Government. Assuming, of course, that Winston Peters and NZ First are willing to die alongside their Labour and Green comrades. The sheer improbability of that happening is really the only ray of hope illuminating what is otherwise a pretty dreary situation.
The US government has done everything within its power to cause the Venezuelan economy to suffer a deep recession combined with high inflation as the price of oil fell. This began under US President Obama and have been intensified by Trump.
The panel on a sustainable world at the hui in October 2018 on What an Alternative and Progressive Trade Strategy for New Zealand argued for major changes to address pressing environmental issues. Executive Director, Greenpeace NZ, and previous co-leader of the Green Party, Russel Norman, urged us to adopt the identity of global citizens.
The GCSB’s and the government’s scaremongering about the danger of Huawei spying through 5G can be summed up in two words: gross hypocrisy.
From an email recently received;
Dirty dairying still trashing our rivers.
Waikato DHB’s announcement this morning that it is halting its appointment process for a permanent CEO “due to current challenges facing the Board” is further evidence that the bad publicity arising from their attempt to reopen the Nicky Stevens Coronial process is causing a chaotic leadership situation in the organisation.
LATER THIS WEEK, the recommendations of the Tax Working Group will become public. It is highly likely that a Capital Gains Tax (CGT) of some description will be near the top of the Working Group’s “To Do” list. How should Labour handle this extremely hot potato? The tax which all the experts tell us we have to have has much to recommend it theoretically, but, in the bluntest of practical political terms, it could very easily destroy this government.