Fonterra’s Capital Restructure
Fonterra is in the middle of a big restructure of its capital. It is still the case given its dominance over us that where Milk Supertanker Fonterra goes, we go.
advantage
What National Needs To Do
Since the left are experts at internal knifing, National should learn from the left about how to recover. What National needsto do to recover.
He Waka Eke Noa?
While a core of farmers protested a few days ago against farm environmental regulation with long lines of tractors, the organised form of agribusiness, Maori and government working together have concluded that making a climate different isn’t possible.
Is This The New State We Want?
The New Zealand state is gaining power again, but is it what we want?
The Mandate To Say Goodbye
In the next two weeks we will find out how many teachers in New Zealand are immune to facts, were happy to enforce vaccinations upon their children for multiple diseases over multiple decades but not themselves, and after decades enforcing state rules in daily attendance and behaviours of young people at school could not themselves be subject to that same force of state.
COP26 Results
The deal is done. Together with lots of side-agreements, big-up pledges, finance, and no definite language the phasing out of Coal or fossil fuel subsidies.
The 2022 We Are Heading Towards
Most of us have been diminished by COVID in 2020-21 so it’s time for everyone to prepare 2022 as an honest accounting of damage to our whole society.
Freedom Protesters are a pain in the ass
Human rights are a pain in the ass. Yesterday’s protesters were rude, unfit to invite home to dinner, shouty, and so incoherent that you could’t make any sensible point with them. They were and are a pain in the ass. But they are OUR pain in the ass.
New Zealand’s New Low Carbon Economy Stays Difficult
Southland Mayor Gary Tong has justified felling a forest to construct a coal mine by saying “[w]e all want to make a cleaner, greener planet, but we can’t do it in five minutes.”
The Rules To Save The World
Beyond the NGO emotion and singing and joyous arm waving, country leaders at COP 26 actually have to achieve stuff this week.
Covid alters Auckland
With in-person shopping about to re-start in Auckland next week, this is the best moment we will have to reinvent Auckland: one customer at a time.
COP26 is on
The show is now on for Conference of Parties 26 (COP 26), where countries show each other how they will achieve the Paris […]
Good Again
COVID has reminded us how good New Zealand is, and we should remember how we were reminded.
In December 2022 We Will Be …
A year ago we were preparing for the America’s Cup and threading our way through the latest crisis quite well. What will we be planning next year?
Friday will change Us As Citizens
While we may have been lifted out of martial lockdowns and some rights have been reinstated in limited form, we have surrendered to another more pervasive power. The power of big data.
Get Ugly
Kindness will not get the country to meet its Covid vaccination goals. It is time to change the tone.
Jacinda Ardern: Tear Down This Wall
In the coming months Fortress New Zealand will be dismantled. What will take its place?
Why Can’t We Do More?
The Government’s dramatic action taken over the past 18 months to respond to Covid and the population’s overwhelming support suggests that it should be taking similar drastic action to address poverty and climate change.
More Promises from Prime Minister Morrison
So, the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is preparing for a November resumption of international air travel.
China and Real Estate Developers
Speaking of contagion, China is dealing with an outbreak of real estate market ebola.
China, Australia, and Coal Energy
China, which previously banned coal imports from Australia, is running out of coal. Will Australia uses the resumption of coal supply as a diplomatic play?
Highway to the Danger Zone
I never thought I would see the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of the United States military essentially being a witness against the previous President of the United States. Yet here we are.
Germany Votes: Where To Now
Germany is up for Federal election tomorrow and it’s pretty important for the stability of the European Union.
The Golden Ticket
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern claimed yesterday that a very high vaccination rate in New Zealand would represent a “golden ticket” and make level 4 lockdowns redundant. What could that mean that’s positive for New Zealand?
CPTPP V Nuclear Submarines
In a piece of incredible timing, on the same day as Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom announced their defence technology procurement pact and pissed off ally and competitor alike, China formally applied to join the Comprehensive and Porgressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Where Is The Real Green Party?
Where’s the hairy knuckle-dragging woke when you need them?
COVID, We Need To Talk About Class
We’ve never seen a nationwide disease illustrate class and deprivation like the future of the country depended on it. Not like this. This should change us.
Is this the post Covid world?
Just as we did with travel security after 9/11, we are about to get our next set of global regulations to control crisis.
New Zealand Superconductors
Just to note a little sadness at the sale of New Zealand’s High Temperature Superconductor business out of Scott Technology (a robotics specialist company based in Dunedin sold to a Brazilian meat company a few years back).
Can The Terror-Injured Citizens Hold the New Zealand Government To Account?
While Prime Minister Ardern is an empathic Prime Minister, good for the country in a crisis, and is genuinely caring, there’s also a time for citizens to say that the state must pay to right wrongs.
The Top 20 Biggest U.S. Military Interventions, Best to Worst
With the last flights coming out of Kabul, it’s time to review whether this US attitude to the world is a good idea.
How Far Ought The State Go In A Pandemic?
Even in a time of crisis, people have human rights that must be upheld.
Ardern Needs to do More Than Manage Crisis
For a country that has sought to form advantage for itself with strong and hard COVID-19 lockdowns, we’re not gaining any more advantage than yet another binge-purge cycle of supply tension and shortages, rapid economic downturn softened by tens of billions of subsidy, followed by unsustainable booms, over and over again.
Farewell Dr Michael Cullen
Dr Michael Cullen has died, and with him goes a real standard-bearer for Labour for three decades.
The United States Retreat from Afghanistan
President Biden is about to get a Jimmy Carter-scale shellacking with tv footage coming of Afghani Taleban going through Kabul and in short days rifling through the U.S. Embassy as they finally take over the entire country. You don’t win re-election with defeats and withdrawals, and you won’t be thanked for it in the mid-term Senatorial races either.
We are stuck
New Zealand has one of the most concentrated and oligopolistic economies in the world, and also one of the least commercially protected societies. […]