Radio silence after massacre on the border of Gaza
The people of Gaza are prisoners in a giant cage made by Israel. And Israel is shooting at them.
Setting the Agenda
Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
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MUST READ: Piling-On The Pressure
Can liberal democracy survive if the news media abandons evidence-based judgement and simply piles-on “as one” against a prime minister and her government? And what if it isn’t just the timing that’s consistent, but the message as well? What then? How is the public to avoid the impression that the news media is rooting for one side and not the other?
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MUST READ: Yes it could happen here. Facebook, Cambridge Analytica & the poisoning of electoral democracy
Under MMP our small voting public effectively constitutes a single manipulable seat. The psychographic dispositions of swing voters could be identified , targeted and manipulated without difficulty. Certain offshore and resident billionaires could easily meet campaign research expenses and hide their contributions behind blind trusts. In place of Cambridge Analytica would be another similar organisation with a friendlier sounding name. Election campaigns centred around the issues of tax, national sovereignty and/or oil, gas and coal exploration would certainly draw the attention of the one-percenters .
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The huge white elephant landlord in the tax living room
Labour’s ring-fencing is just tinkering. Losses from one property are still able be to be offset against others that make profits or carried forward and written off eventually.
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Nothing Sensible Nor To Trust In Garth McVicar’s Sentence On Shooting
If McVicar’s a genuine enthusiast for summary executions in lieu of judicial process [and I’m *not* saying that that’s what yesterday’s occurrence was, by any stretch of the imagination – simply that that appears to be the logical next step to McVicar’s public advocacy], then that’s his business.
And a sorry business it is, too.
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What’s up with Richard Griffin and National’s Melissa Lee?
The recent furore over the so-called “secret” meeting between broacasting minister Clare Curran and RNZ’s Carol Hirschfeld revealed that Board chair and former National government advisor, Richard Griffin, phoned National MP, Melissa Lee to inform her that Ms Hirscheld had tendered her resignation. This barely reported event raises several questiins that have yet to be fully answered;
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TPPA: From a Market Economy to a Market Society
By supporting the TPPA, NZ First, the Labour and the National party all said yes to protecting investors’ rights over and above the interests of an ordinary citizen.
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For NZ First De Nile Is A River That Runs Through Warkworth
Marcroft is supposed to have asked for a meeting with Mitchell, turned up, and bluntly laid out that Mitchell was to cease his support for a particular river restoration project if he wanted it to see funding from the Government.
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MUST READ: The Politics Of Public Service Broadcasting
Once appraised of Curran’s hopes and fears, and quite possibly, of her intentions vis-à-vis the reappointment – or not – of RNZ Board Chairperson, Richard Griffin, did Hirschfeld suddenly find herself in possession of information as sensitive and compromising as it was potentially career-destroying? Did the Right and its media allies, informed of Curran’s meeting with Hirschfeld, simply seize an opportunity to kill two potentially very dangerous birds with a single stone?
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MUST READ: The Government’s new ‘Employment’ Contract Existential Crisis
The government has got it badly wrong with the new Policy Targets Agreement, its contract with the Reserve Bank about monetary policy. Perhaps inadvertently, the emphasis is now on maximising employment, not living standards. Maximising employment is not the same as minimising unemployment.