James Shaw assaulted in public – a sudden political chill on a Summer day
…let’s hope this is some dreadful random violence by a disturbed person as opposed to a targeted political attack – the former is depressing, the latter terrifying.
New Zealand Politics
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By Other Means
When the US Government warned the rest of the world that, when it comes to securing regime change in Venezuela, “nothing is off the table”, most observers assumed it was talking about some form of military intervention. (An impression encouraged by a video-clip of National Security Advisor John Bolton’s hand-scrawled aide memoire “5,000 troops”.)
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The irony of the SFO investigating National
What a week to be progressive in NZ.
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Why Shane Jones & NZ First must be destroyed
Every neoliberal hawk and Feudal Public Service Lord want to trip Jones up and see the Provincial Growth Fund fail because NZ First’s desire to force actual change with public money threatens all their vested interests.
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Jamie Lee Ross Battleship: He’s hit National hard
If the cloud of SFO investigation hangs over a leader who is tanking in the polls, it is only a matter of time before a nervous National Party turn to the Winter Queen of Doom, Judith Collins.
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GUEST BLOG: Geoff Simmons – Davidson is Wrong: Capital Gains Tax Will Hurt the Poor
Marama Davidson has come out claiming that a Capital Gains Tax should be just the start of tax system reform that favours the poor. The trouble is that a Capital Gains Tax excluding the family home actually helps the middle class. It doesn’t help the poor, and will probably even hurt them.
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Dr Liz Gordon – Climbing Everest: gender equality
Ever since Mary Wollstonecraft wrote the ‘Vindication of the Rights of Women’ in 1793, there has been a women’s movement in the English -speaking world. Mary, you will remember, was famous for arguing that women’s apparent inferiority to men stemmed from their lack of education, not their nature. She argued for a social order founded on reason, not gender.
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GUEST BLOG: Bryan Bruce – Thousands protest water bottling in Christchurch
If you rely on mainstream media for your news then you may well have missed the fact that an estimated 5000 Canterbury folk attended a protest march in Christchurch last Saturday against the granting of more water extraction rights to the Chinese owned firm Cloud Ocean Water Ltd
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GUEST BLOG: Bryan Bruce – Citizens shall be seen but not heard.
Anyone who has attended a Parliamentary Select Committee hearing in recent years will have sensed there is something rotten in the state of our democracy.
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GUEST BLOG: Gerard Otto – Trial by media
Is trial by media in the court of public opinion the new low standard we all should adopt as our sole source of conviction about the guilt or innocence of anyone accused of a crime?