Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
Last Thursday I exposed an allegation of serious fraud at the highest management levels in the Ministry of Transport. General Manager Organisational Development Jo Harrison is being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office over several hundred thousand dollars of public money going missing.
Emily Matasororo was on campus that fateful day last month in Papua New Guinea when heavily armed police in camouflage fatigues opened fire with tear gas and live rounds on the peaceful students. She tells her story and what needs to happen now.
New Zealand’s Representative at the Security Council said in his speech that Israel and the Palestinians should make compromises. That implies that the Palestinian people, under the duress of merciless military Occupation, should make even greater concessions to Israel to help it legitimise its violations of international humanitarian law.
The UN Declaration of Human Rights states in Article 25 that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for their and their family’s health and well-being including housing. As a signatory to the Universal Declaration and a number of human rights treaties the New Zealand Government is bound to ensure every citizen has the human right to adequate housing
We could start building such communities in Auckland today. Auckland city has thirteen golf courses. Just one of those in Remuera is 41 hectares of land in a prime central city location. It is occupied by a private club for a token rental that amounts to a fee subsidy of around $11,000 a year for each of its 1400 members.
Last weekend, we had our first game of Monopoly with the kids in the Carolan household. It was Oisin’s birthday present, and pretty soon both him and his sister Aoibheann were buying up the streets of the old London version, from his cheap 100 pounds fixer upper of the Angel, Islington, to her well appointed exclusive 400 pounds loft in Mayfair.
In a brilliant essay, published on ‘Buzzfeed’, McKay Coppins offers his insights into what motivates a man like Donald Trump to ascend the greasy pole of politics to take on the Republican candidacy in the up-coming U.S. Presidential elections.
THE COINCIDENCE of the Republican National Convention being broadcast alongside the re-make of “Roots” is fortuitous. Alex Hayley’s famous novel laid bare the blood at the root of the American Republic.
There are still nearly 18,000 people in Auckland on the verge of homelessness.
On Sunday’s Q+A (17/7/16) Corin Dann interviewed Stephen Jennings, the former Treasury official and New Zealand investment banker who took advantage of the collapse of the Soviet Union to make himself a billionaire.
