President Biden’s Accomplishments
It’s common these days to see the rapid 2024 exit of multiple global social democrat leaders as just a post-COVID symptom of democratic impatience. But Biden achieved far more than his age-related decline obscures.
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Winston’s Next Job
While he scoops up behind Minister Willis’s Cook Strait ferry disaster, he’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and our primary lead on the rise of President Trump and boy does he have a job ahead of him.
President Trump makes a new Middle East Possible
U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump makes more things possible in the Middle East than the Biden administration.
Electric Shock
New Zealand is one of the slowest countries in the developed world to transition from combustion to electric vehicles. The shocks we are seeing in Europe to car makers and car buyers herald more trouble ahead.
The Fast Death of Our Major Forestry Mills
2024 is the worst-ever year for our forest export industry as a whole, with most of our largest sawmills closing and the loss of hundreds of jobs.
The New Zealand left are in the worst place in a century
New Zealand has the most right wing government it’s had since Governor George Grey determined to eradicate all Maori power by systematic war and then systematic legislative theft in 1863. But the left shows no sign of unifying.
A new Labour electricity policy
Proposed policy for the Labour Party. New Zealand’s power system should empower the people in their lives and systems, secure electricity use and production for New Zealand in perpetuity, and make the electricity system serve New Zealand not the other way round. How do we achieve this?
Let’s Talk About Tax
Yes, Labour can restore its woeful tax position.
Power and Speed
We are in a power crisis and the government has had to respond, but will their response make any difference?
Where Does Labour Rebuild?
It won’t come from the working class. But we know where it will come from.
Luxon’s Support for AUKUS 2 is Against Our Interests
It is well time the Prime Minister set out how it is in our interests to move against China by buying into AUKUS.
Gender Essentialists Hate the Olympics
The Olympics are a real persistent problem for gender essentialists.
Israel is in Serious Trouble
Israel’s failure to solve its own problems, its weakening democratic institutions, fraying civil patience, massive wastage of global patience and U.S. aid, and inability to plan for civic success following military conflict, point to a country in very serious trouble with no apparent way out.
The Promises of Lange, Moore, Bolger, and the WTO
In 2024 we ought to ask if the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s has delivered on what was promised.
How Northland Became New Zealand’s Deepest Shame
Last week Northland had a power pylon simply fall down on a still day. 100,000 properties lost power. Quickly restored, it underscored how vulnerable the Far North is.
What the Aratere Grounding Means
The grounding of the ferry Aratere is potentially a political gift to National.
Is Shane Jones Right About Mining?
Maybe Shane Jones is at least partially right about mining.
A Deliberate Recession
It is sickening to see how economic power is being used against ordinary New Zealanders right now.
Fonterra’s Brand Sale Continues to Drag New Zealand Down
Fonterra is a complete construct of the New Zealand state, but it is pulling our entire country down.
NZ White Rural Rage
What is really going on in the minds of
New Zealand Needs a Security Alliance Fast
Who will defend us when the military chaos now expanding in the world finally hits hard in our region, because that is what is really happening.
The list
Making a major infrastructure deal happen takes years of planning, exceptionally qualified people on all sides, and in New Zealand it takes about ten years of your life. Until now.
Forget this Trump trial
In the Trump felony trial now underway, there’s a yawning gap between media attention paid to this and the actual scale of the […]
News and New Zealand Democracy
How do we prevent the decline of broadcast tv news being a deep wound to our democracy?
Dune 2 and Gaza
What if life followed fiction and Gaza was explained by Dune 2? Sigh. It isn’t.
Newshub Closes
One can hate the mainstream media but OMG you sure will miss it when it’s gone.
What’s Left?
From Election 2023’s result through to February 2024 there has been massive loss and damage to the Parliamentary capacity of Labour and Greens. Who still has the capacity to lead? What’s left?
National and the Gutting of Local Democracy
We have remarkably little democracy left in New Zealand.
A Trump-led Withdrawal from NATO
Just as he did in 2017, Trump is clear in 2023 that the United States should withdraw from NATO.
Are Road User Charges for every vehicle actually fair?
New Zealand is one of the most car-reliant and petroleum-reliant countries on earth. So how we are taxed to travel on land has huge equity implications.
Labour and the Democrats
Both the US Democrats and NZ Labour need to take hard looks at themselves. Failure is not inevitable. But there is now only one English-speaking centre-left democracy left in the world: that is the state of where we are now.
What If Trump Wins Again?
New Zealand has gained prosperity over 40 years within a free flow of trade under peacetime supported by minor attacks to shipping and planes, low international trade costs such as tariffs, and confidence that international trade disputes will be settled by law rather than by might is at risk: all of that required a United States President prepared to support that.
The Coming Oil Crisis
An expanding Middle East war that puts the Red Sea and Suez tanker route at risk is a major risk to us because it could hit the global price of oil.
Our Resistance
There are still groups of people in New Zealand who can and do organise to resist the damage of the right.
Darkness Towards Peace
Can Israel lose a moral battle in Gaza and yet still win?
New Year’s Resolution
With the left out of power, one of the most useful things we can do in 2024 is simply let people know where they can join in and do good.