Johno Smith has appeared today in the Waitakere District Court charged with trespass after his climbing of the Paturoa Road Kauri in an effort to save it. He has pleaded guilty to the charge. He has released a press release that sets out his reasons why…
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Republished by request, and permission from Stephanie Rodgers at Boots Theory [Content note: mentions of transphobia, sexual violence and violence against people of colour] This was a line of thought which fell out of yesterday’s post, but that was getting quite long enough. The article…
The government's insistence on ramming through the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement is adversely affecting its relationship with Maori. From Te Karere: Ngāpuhi kaumātua and spokesperson for Te Tii Marae [Kingi Tairua] says the Government will not be welcome at Waitangi if a proposal to sign…
This statistic was doing the rounds everywhere yesterday: Richest 62 own equal wealth to poorest half of world The inequality gulf has widened to 62 of the wealthiest people owning all the wealth of the poorest 3.6 billion people combined. Astonishing. The latest inequality report…
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Depressing reading on falling enrollments in tertiary education in this piece in the Dom Post yesterday: Skill shortages tipped as student numbers plummet ... Data released to the Sunday Star-Times shows the number of people studying at tertiary level students has fallen 20 per cent…
A good summary in The Herald yesterday: Expect radical changes to economic policy, says Robertson Grant Robertson says New Zealanders can expect a radical shift in the Labour Party's economic policy ahead of the 2017 election as his party looks to prepare workers for huge…
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There's a lot of nonsense written about research, most of it by those with an ideological objection to some set of facts, or a financial interest in denying them. Slater's Whaleoil blog - which carries paid-for attacks on science (and lashes out blindly at "troughers")…
The Herald has had some difficulties recently with the quality of some contributions provided by former ACT candidates. Hot on the heels of Jamie Whyte's unfortunate regurgitated missive on poverty came this opinion from climate change denier and number three on ACT's last list Robin Grieve. He…
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An excellent piece on poverty by Lizzie Marvelly in The Herald this morning: The only debate is what to do about child poverty Kiwi children are suffering right now. Believe it. ... In a country where an unacceptable number of children live below the much-debated…
In a scenario put out late last year by the International Energy Agency, the price of oil might not again reach up to the US$50 to $60 range until the 2020s. Maybe won’t get back to US$85 until 2040. Right now it’s selling at $33 per…
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Now maybe it's because I'm a bloke, but looking at this graph I couldn't help but think: wouldn't it be better to close the pay gap for women by increasing their wages rather than decreasing men's? Women's wages have actually gone up slightly since 1990 (no thanks…
It's been a hardy annual finding of late - the pay gap between males and females is getting steadily worse. 2012 "Gender pay gap widens in New Zealand" *. 2013 "Pay gap between men and women slowly widening". 2014 "The pay gap between men and…
Over at Kiwiblog David Farrar has criticised AUSA for not agreeing to endorse and support Pro Life Auckland in its quest to help young mothers. Apparently Pro-Life Auckland wanted to set up a fund to pay for the child care costs of solo mother students attending university…
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A number on the site from both right- and left-leaning persuasions have commented about the sustained and consistent overall policy position that New Zealand governments have taken since 1984. Whether good or bad. What if it didn’t? What if something else happened in 1984, sufficient…
One issue that hasn't died down over the Christmas break is controversy over the TPP. News that it is to be "signed into existence" in NZ in February was leaked by South American media, denied by the Nats, and then confirmed. The date mentioned in…
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Republished with permission from Stephanie Rodgers at Boots Theory. Via my personal idol Anat Shenker-Osorio, an interesting article from The Atlantic on the Working Families Party, who are finding fascinating new ways to drag the political conversation back to the left left-of-centre vaguely non-fascist end of…
The global sharemarkets continue to decline on the basis of poor growth figures coming out of China. And the deck of cards that is our financial system is reaching that perilous state that the respected Royal Bank of Scotland is advising its investor clients to…
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“My entire career, I’ve only really worked with the same subject matter. The trousers may change, but the actual words and subjects I’ve always chosen to write with are things to do with isolation, abandonment, fear and anxiety, all of the high points of one’s…