Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
The first panel at the hui in October 2018 on What an Alternative and Progressive Trade Strategy for New Zealand Should Look Like was on the Big Picture, with an overview on foreign policy, labour and women’s perspectives. This is the exchange on foreign policy issues.
Documents I’ve obtained under the Official Information Act, although heavily redacted, show our government really has no idea of the implications.
I really haven’t given a thought to what persons of the political right think of Jacinda Ardern. A story I heard, from my granddaughter of all people, gave me pause.
“[Unnamed relative of Palmerston North] says that Jacinda Ardern only got pregnant to make sure she became Prime Minister”, she said.
In the past week Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been a cheerleader for free trade negotiations with the United Kingdom and European Union, aiming the finish the EU one within the year.
THAT RICH, OLD, WHITE PEOPLE dominate decision-making in New Zealand hardly qualifies as news. Having taken barely a quarter-of-a-century to dispossess its indigenous Maori inhabitants; rich, old, white people set about creating a society and an economy in their own image. In terms of whose views count, the New Zealand of today differs only marginally from the New Zealand of 150 years ago. Why, then, was RNZ moved to produce “White Noise”?
Now here is quite a thing. What is being suggested, is that the primary users of any of these terms are supposedly Russian bots, or other vectors for material that can be ‘safely dismissed’ out of hand as “propaganda”.
Politics, much like the ethically-challenged tawdry celebrity gossip-rags it occasionally so closely resembles, is a field in which “Truth” (or even, simply, ‘internal cohesiveness’ of an argument or a position) is often only a tertiary consideration. With some measure of “effectiveness” (especially of a slur) as a secondary, and “the venting of highly emotive vitriol” an unabashed and unquestioned prime.
Last year was an absolute humdinger for cannabis, with legislative changes for hemp foods and medicinal cannabis, confirmation the cannabis referendum will be binding and held at the next election, and so much activity it was hard to keep up. It seems the stars are aligned and, although we must not become complacent, this is finally the moment when cannabis law reform can actually happen in New Zealand. Here are my predictions for what will play out this year.
So much for NZ Post assuring the public that it would not be “closing or downgrading” services to any areas. Provision of services now appear to be haphazard.
The Five Eyes, a part of what the NSA calls internally its “global network” have their dirty fingerprints all over the latest spying scandal engulfing New Zealand, writes exiled Kiwi journalist Suzie Dawson.