Tough being the only White person
After taking our food orders we sit down to chat. He looks around and I can sense he’s feeling pretty nervous.
Setting the Agenda
Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
-
-
Arthur Taylor: Crackdown by Prison for watching my interview with Lisa Owen
Officer Anthony Prinsloo (a South African) has just officially charged me with breach of a prison rule after having found me in another inmates cell watching Lisa Owen interviewing me on “Newshub Nation” on TV3 on Saturday morning .
-
Does The National Party Know Anything About Genuine Conservatism?
IF THE NATIONAL PARTY was a genuine conservative party, Simon Bridges would no longer be its leader. In a genuine conservative party, the outcry against his performance on Radio Hauraki last Friday (22/6/18) would have extracted his resignation within 24 hours. A great many voices would have joined the outcry against Bridges’ boorish denigration of the prime minister and her family, and for a great many reasons. Let’s examine just a few of them.
-
US Withdrawal From UN Human Rights Council Is Cold War Caricature
The US having issues around ‘inconvenient truths’ on human rights being brought up at the UN is not exactly a new phenomenon. This cartoon from the height of the Cold War depicts then-US President John F. Kennedy facing off against then-Premier/First Secretary of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev.
-
A breath of fresh air for schools
The early signs are good for the government review of Tomorrow’s Schools.
-
Dr Liz Gordon – Hopes and fears
It is hard to know what to take from the US border crisis. On the one hand, the rhetoric and actions were so reminiscent of 1930s Germany that it would be easy to argue that Nazism has officially arrived in the White House. On the other hand, the embarrassing backdown shows that Trumpism is far from all-powerful and may be just a blip in the system, a passing fad.
-
A World of Fashion Crimes Seven Days in Dhaka
I awoke early on my first day in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to catch the women walking to work in droves. I must have seen thousands, not a child between them, all walking stoically toward the fenced factory doors, their brightly coloured dresses and scarves surreal in the bleak grey surroundings.
-
Zionists claim NZ sided with terrorists
While Israel and the US would have us believe that the Gaza massacre was simply an unavoidable act of self-defence on Israel’s part, the world knows otherwise, which is why the United States blocked the adoption of a Security Council statement that would have called for an independent probe into the massacre. There is simply too much for them to hide.
-
“Trade for All” in the EU NZ FTA Offers No New Direction
I urge the coalition parties in government to deliver the genuine change in the model of trade agreements that they promised before the election.
To date the promised review of trade strategy has involved outreach or information-sharing sessions on negotiations already underway, within the anti-democratic shroud of secrecy that shields the negotiations from scrutiny. There is no tangible evidence that the government intends to do anything significantly different.
-
The Many Mendacities of Mr Bridges – The ‘Claytons’ Apology
When National’s Simon Bridges, fronted up on Radio NZ on 5 June, he apparently apologised for his role in the unjust evictions of 300 state house tenants for meth-testing results that have been shown by Chief Science Advisor, Sir Peter Gluckman, as bogus.
Bridges said;
“I’m sorry that the advice we got was wrong and has made this situation what it is.”
Except – it’s not an apology for the wrongful evictions at all. It’s a lamentation that “the advice we got was wrong”.