We should all celebrate the Commerce Commissions surprise decision that the corporate media can’t do what they want and form a newspaper monopoly, the audacity is that Fairfax and NZME thought they could get away with it in the first place,
While I was walking 4 kms around Hamilton Lake on Saturday, in the company of 500 other citizens aiming to draw attention to the high and worsening rates of suicide in New Zealand, a press release from Health Minister ‘Dr’ Jonathan Coleman arrived in my in-box.
Following up on my 6 months out from the election analysis, here’s the run down 5 months out.
It was amazing watching so many supposedly ‘liberal’ twitter accounts gleefully attacking Willie Jackson last night based on a story from corporate media pundit Vernon Small that Willie Jackson had thrown a wobbly and flown to Wellington to get a higher place on the Party list.
New Zealand’s reputation in Japan has been damaged by revelations that our GCSB has been spying on its government communications. “New Zealand spied on Japan to help US at 2007 whaling confab” read the 26 April headline in the Japan Times.
The line that the sleepy hobbits of muddle Nu Zilind seem to believe without ever even questioning it is that National are far better economic managers than Labour.
By splitting the Maori vote again and taking party vote support, the Greens just made it easier for the Maori/MANA alliance to beat Labour and in doing so provide an alternative path way to Parliament where the Greens have actual political power and not what Winston will allow them to have.
I’m guessing National’s defence to being sued by Eminem is that they’ve spent 9 years stealing ideas from Labour so they thought it was cool.
IT IS NEVER ADVISABLE, when writing political commentary, to get angry. Powerful emotions distort our judgements and make the already difficult job of political analysis even harder. Sometimes, however, giving vent to our anger is the right thing to do. Sometimes, maintaining a calm and dispassionate analytical posture serves only to give despicable behaviour a free pass. Some people are only deserving of the most forthright and unequivocal condemnation.
Jenny Shipley is one of those people.
In the past few weeks, we have been in touch with a close friend who lives in Berlin, having moved there from New Zealand several years ago.