Medical Cannabis March – the election special!
NORML and Auckland Patients Group are holding their 5th Medical Cannabis Rally this Saturday 2nd September, and this time – since it’s the election – we are marching down Queen Street too.
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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Observations on the 2017 Election campaign thus far… (tahi)
So many little occurrences and huge events have transpired over the last couple of months, to brand this as one of the most intriguing (and tumultuous) of election campaigns in my life. Only the 1984 and the 2014 General Elections rank as memorable. In all three, there were two threads weaving through the campaigns;
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Stunning poll lifts prospect of a change in government
…if the Maori Party were to get two seats like now, which is certainly possible, then that would theoretically be enough to forms a Labour/Greens/Maori Party government. I believe the Maori Party would be desperate to form a government with Labour to prove they can go with either party – that they aren’t National’s poodle.
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Monarchy still constraining democracy in Tonga
Tongan politics are so poorly reported in New Zealand that it is hard to judge the actions of the various players in the latest political crisis.
However, we should be concerned that the monarch, King Tupou VI, has sacked the elected government headed by Akilisi Pohiva, an advocate of greater democracy.
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Tales From A Possible Future: The Mother Of All Scandals Breaks
THE STORY APPEARED FIRST on an offshore blog. After that, not even the best legal brains at Crown Law could prevent the voters from learning about the “Mother of All Scandals”. The Internet, as always, prevailed over the frantic machinations of desperate politicians.
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WTF – [W]inston’s Pension; [T]he #MotherOfAllScandals; and [F]ilthy Politics in 2017
Look “behind the curtain”, if you will.
The timing of events is, in politics, almost never coincidental.
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Public Statement on call by Prof Annette Beautrais for silence on Suicide
The attitude of Professor Annette Beautrais, of Canterbury University, and a suicide prevention co-ordinator for the South Canterbury DHB, is one of the primary reasons why it has been so hard to change the culture of silence about suicide, where news of it, and issues about it are swept under the carpet.
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Winston’s Latest “Scandal”: Bureaucratic Bungle, or “Political Hit-Job”?
THIS LATEST POLITICAL “SCANDAL” involving Winston Peters reminds me of The Godfather. Not the famous scene in which Sonny Corleone is assassinated at the toll booth, but the earlier scene in which Michael Corleone realises that there are no staff on duty in the hospital where his wounded father is being treated. The empty nurses’ work station, the silent corridors, the overwhelming sense of something being “off” – all of it communicates a single, unmistakeable message to Michael. This is a hit.
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EXCLUSIVE: My case against a secret NZ Police investigation that breached my privacy and my civil rights
It’s not important to like or dislike my work, but I think we can all agree that allowing the Police to conduct secret investigations into activists and political bloggers that then damage their reputation negatively based on spurious grounds isn’t acceptable in a liberal democracy.
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EXCLUSIVE: The Rawshark Investigation & secret Police mass surveillance program against 100 000 NZers
Here is what we know about the Rawshark Investigation: The NZ Police have lied about the scope of their investigation…