Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
There has been a spate of commentary by male media people recently going on and on about how Jacinda needs to become a “tougher” Prime Minister. The two New Zealand role models often cited as ‘tough’ are Robert Muldoon and Helen Clark.
The rights of working people will thus be traded back and forth like chips on the political poker table. Neither National nor Labour are really interested in hearing how workers themselves would prefer the modern workplace to be organised, or in ways that the twenty-first century economy, with all its technological miracles, might be so regulated as to ensure that the benefits of robotics and artificial intelligence accrue to the whole population – and not just the shareholders of the transnational corporations who own the patents.
The headline tells the end of the story following an attempt by myself and others to take a Norwegian fishing boat loaded with medical supplies to the Palestinian territory of Gaza.
A seasoned professional like Jane Patterson, working for the most respected media outlet in this country, should know better. Dumping on a person when they are down and out, at their most vulnerable, has no other name: bullying.
Taking a view on 1080 is almost guaranteed to cause disagreement with at least half your friends. Indeed, it seems nothing causes strange cleavages across the political spectrum, like talking about 1080. But the subject is like a spectre – and if we don’t talk about it fundamental disagreements will never get reconciled; and we let untruths continue, misunderstandings prevail, malintentions inform.
In an age of tracking by online corporations like Google and Facebook; by the apps in our smartphones; by CCTVs in buildings, streets, offices, etc – we have reached a surveillance state far surpassing anything envisioned by George Orwell.
GEORGE LIFTED HIS HAND in greeting as Martyn entered the bar. At two o’clock on a rainy afternoon in early September the place was virtually empty.
The New Zealand Government has repeatedly offered to take at least 150 of the refugees marooned on Nauru. The Australians have brushed aside all such offers with sneering contempt. After all, what can the Kiwis do about it? What can the Kiwis do about it? Nothing. What could the Kiwis do about it with a radically re-configured and re-equipped NZDF? Plenty.
You know, it is the most curious thing. I opened my newspaper earlier in the week (not in a web-browser,…
This isn’t rocket science, and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. To get a good medicinal cannabis law, we just need to focus on patients.