Search Results » @author AB

Agreed – but it can’t only be the tobacco industry. That wouldn’t explain why the TPU were so determined to kill 3Waters. It seems to me that there are three possible reasons why the TPU so cynically and easily leveraged provincial anti-Maori sentiment to …

I’d agree that in the long run it would be a good idea to end private residential landlordlism. It is a socially unnecessary extractive layer within the housing market that drives inequality both in the present and inter-generationally. It also diverts …

Yes – it’s not a problem with the structure of the market, it’s an ownership problem. To imagine that it can be solved by more competition via a third privately-owned player, is to assume that a market actually behaves like it claims to on the packet. You …

They’ve announced the announcement of the conclusions of an investigation. It doesn’t get more action-oriented than that – surely? This is what I would expect from Luxon, a man whose behaviour is most charactised by what I would call “performative high …

Anybody who ever thought that The Monroe Doctrine would always look only to the south, wasn’t paying attention. A nation that thinks such a thing as The Monroe Doctrine was in any way a legitimate expression of their national interest, is dangerously …

Why does National despise the poor? Because it is both ideologically and psychologically necessary for them to do so. If their own life success and relative affluence is to be protected from even moderate levels of taxation by the State, it must be viewed …

“But we live in an absolute food basket. We produce enough food to feed eight times our population”. There is no ‘we’. This is not a country, it’s a private investor-led economic zone.

Limiting their ability to release political polls is an improvement. You rightly raise the wider question of the TPU (or any big donor) poisoning the well of public discourse in some other way. None of what I suggested is done with an assumption that all …

Political donations and campaign financing are in urgent need of reform. Possible foundational points in such a reform – first thoughts anyway: all donations must come from named individuals who are enrolled on the NZ electoral roll. cap these donations …

Good work Ad. I hear that the Bayeux tapestry can de damaged at illumination above 50 lux. By the time I get to the local shops I am feeling quite unwell by exposure to only about 20 Lux on so many billboards. They obviously have truckloads of money. So, …

Once you start looking for ‘ideological positions’ in any corpus of compulsory professional education, you’re likely to find them all over the place, if you’re clever enough. So that in practice, any professional education will contain enough assumptions …

Dear Sanctuary Anyone between the ages of 27 and 41, with a partner of the same age plus or minus 5 years (of whom both must be in full time work, or one in full time work and the other working more than 15 hours.week), a minimum of three children of whom …

that a government increasing taxes will make inflation worse That’s an interesting take, and I see why you make it. If taxation takes the form of regressive levies that everyone has to pay, yes – it does increase inflation because some things cost more …

“And they cannot avoid having to pay for excess emissions.” I would have thought the logical place that their inaction leads to is reneging on our Paris Agreement commitments precisely to avoid making those payments and effectively withdrawing from the …

Oh – (Sir) Ian Taylor frothing with excitement at suddenly realising something that anyone with half a brain saw instantly years ago. Specifically, that when Seymour states that the basis of Maori rights under the Treaty is ‘race’ rather than indigeneity, …