Written By: - Date published: 9:40 am, July 29th, 2021 - 81 comments
National has responded to the impending return to New Zealand of Suhayra Aden by hinting that they may follow Australia and breach human rights by bringing in laws allowing countries to arbitrarily remove rights of citizenship.
Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, July 27th, 2021 - 31 comments
Leader of the Opposition David Seymour has proposed that private enterprise should provide quarantine services. The recent experience of Melbourne where private security firms failed dramatically to properly managed quarantine facilities suggests that this is a really stupid idea.
Written By: - Date published: 3:05 pm, July 25th, 2021 - 32 comments
A review of Des Gorman’s comments about Covid over the last 15 months, pretty well all of which have been negative, makes you wonder how it is possible that we have been able to maintain an effective Covid free status in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, July 24th, 2021 - 32 comments
The appearance of community spread Delta variant Covid in Australia has caused New Zealand to suspend the trans Tasman travel bubble.
Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, July 22nd, 2021 - 37 comments
Following on from its campaign to protect freedom of expression Act has come out with policy on gangs which if enacted would involve some pretty egregious attacks on freedom of association and movement and due process.
Written By: - Date published: 8:17 am, July 20th, 2021 - 78 comments
With record floods in Marlborough, half of Westport evacuated, disastrous flooding in Germany and the North East and the threat of record bushfires in the North West of the United States Mother Nature is passing rather cruel judgment on Groundswell NZ’s recent protest.
Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, July 19th, 2021 - 58 comments
As infection rates of Covid in the United Kingdom surge Boris Johnson has announced that today will be the UK’s Freedom day and will be removing pretty well all mandatory Covid restrictions, even the wearing of masks and social distancing.
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, July 18th, 2021 - 41 comments
The Guardian has reported on claims of a leaked Russian Government paper which on the face of it confirms Russian support for the Trump 2016 election at the highest level.
Written By: - Date published: 7:38 am, July 16th, 2021 - 13 comments
Last week’s final between England and Italy showed that there is still an ugly racist underside to what should be a beautiful game.
Written By: - Date published: 7:22 am, July 14th, 2021 - 37 comments
Simeon Brown in his attack on the Government for allegedly funding the Mongrel Mob has shown a disturbing ability to understand how Government works and an even more disturbing inability to perform basic maths.
Written By: - Date published: 8:13 am, July 13th, 2021 - 52 comments
In two separate leaks it has emerged that Judith Collins privately briefed Don Brash on National’s demand the debate campaign and that Brash wrote to wealthy donors seeking $300,000 for an Iwi Kiwi style billboard response.
Written By: - Date published: 8:06 am, July 12th, 2021 - 90 comments
UK billionaire Richard Branson has won the rich man’s pissing competition by being the first billionaire into space even though 12 months ago he was urgently seeking Government grants while at the same time paying no tax because of his tax residency status.
Written By: - Date published: 4:59 pm, July 11th, 2021 - 40 comments
The New South Wales’ half hearted response to community outbreak has seen infected numbers increase while in the UK Boris Johnson is planning to remove all restrictions something top scientists describe as “dangerous and premature”.
Written By: - Date published: 12:06 pm, July 6th, 2021 - 94 comments
The debate about the Government’s consultation on proposed changes to hate speech laws continues, with the level of heat increasing, but the level of actual understanding of what is being proposed in critical shortage.
Written By: - Date published: 7:52 am, July 2nd, 2021 - 168 comments
I honestly am not sure what Judith’s game plan. Supporting someone who on twitter called for the lynching of a person with a contrary view is not a way to reach to the middle of New Zealand politics.
Written By: - Date published: 9:11 am, June 28th, 2021 - 81 comments
So far there have been no discovered cases of community spread of the Covid delta variant in Wellington following the recent visit by an Australian tourist who was infected with the variant. Meanwhile in Australia the authorities are trying to stamp out community flareups that are appearing in different parts of the country.
Written By: - Date published: 7:58 am, June 25th, 2021 - 84 comments
The details of a particularly brutal National Party caucus meeting that resulted in Todd Muller announced his pending retirement from Parliament have been leaked in detail to the Herald’s Claire Trevett.
Written By: - Date published: 7:31 am, June 24th, 2021 - 67 comments
Yesterday National suffered further damage to its ranks when Harete Hipango was outed as the MP with Parliamentary Services resources issues and Todd Muller announced that he will stand down as an MP at the end of this term nominally so that he can eventually spend more time with his family.
Written By: - Date published: 8:08 am, June 23rd, 2021 - 38 comments
Oh dear. There is yet another story about yet another National MP in trouble because of their born to rule impulses. Update: the Herald has reported that the MP is Harete Hipango. These blue on blue attacks are getting out of hand.
Written By: - Date published: 7:57 am, June 23rd, 2021 - 10 comments
David Parker has shown a deft handling of the Oceans and Fisheries portfolio and in the past week has announced the accelerated roll out of cameras on fishing boats and a suite of actions designed to address the failing health of the Waitemata Harbour.
Written By: - Date published: 7:56 am, June 21st, 2021 - 30 comments
For the first time since the election Winston Peters has reemerged. But instead of talking about the country’s problems such as climate change, child poverty and recovering from the global pandemic he chose to concentrate on the “over” use of Te Reo, cycleways and gangs.
Written By: - Date published: 3:52 pm, June 15th, 2021 - 32 comments
I am pleased the right have moved on from overtly racist attacks on minorities. But I am bemused by the current level of vitriol that has been thrown at a group who apart from wearing lycra is doing nothing wrong.
Written By: - Date published: 7:33 am, June 15th, 2021 - 23 comments
The Government has announced it will publicly apologise for the treatment of Pacific people in the 1970s when they were harassed and discriminated against by the Police because of the place of their birth and the colour of their skin.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, June 14th, 2021 - 70 comments
Labour and the Greens have announced the establishment of a Feebate scheme to incentivise the purchase of electric vehicles and disincentivise the purchase of gas guzzlers.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, June 11th, 2021 - 144 comments
Last week’s announcement of major changes to the New Zealand Upgrade program in my view was welcome.
Written By: - Date published: 7:53 am, June 9th, 2021 - 78 comments
Paora Goldsmith, who last hit National headlines for botching up National’s alternative budget, has again hit the headlines and for the wrong reasons. And this time members of his caucus publicly disagree with him.
Written By: - Date published: 12:20 pm, June 8th, 2021 - 117 comments
On the weekend Andrea Vance gave the Government a bit of a serve about its record on openness and transparency. But a deeper dig into the issue suggests that the cause may have nothing to do with the Government’s preferences and everything to do with the volume of information requests made by the opposition.
Written By: - Date published: 11:12 am, June 6th, 2021 - 5 comments
This week has seen the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to suggest that Australia is adopting a principled stand and New Zealand has sold its soul to China for trade. But the comments by Morrison and Ardern made after their Queenstown meeting suggests the opposite.
Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, June 4th, 2021 - 29 comments
National’s week from hell is further evidence of a culture problem that will not be easily solved.
Written By: - Date published: 2:41 pm, June 2nd, 2021 - 15 comments
Jake Bezzant was meant to be one of National’s bright new things, having last year been selected in then safe Upper Harbour. If things were normal he would be in Parliament right now. Instead an internal leaking campaign destroyed his chances and it now transpires that he has engaged in behaviour that is certainly immoral and should be illegal.
Written By: - Date published: 8:39 am, June 2nd, 2021 - 40 comments
Last night the story about Nick Smith’s issues that caused his resignation finally broke, or did it?
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