The Standard

Deep stuff

Categories under Deep stuff

  • No categories

Wrecking the country’s climate change response

Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, November 8th, 2025 - 17 comments

If you thought that your contempt for the current administration had peaked let me disappoint you. This week they have taken steps to undermine the Climate Change Commission and the ability of the public to influence future emission reduction plans.

Tax: the debate must continue

Written By: - Date published: 10:35 am, October 28th, 2025 - 46 comments

Today’s leak of Labour’s tax policy is unsurprising. The later Robertson and long-term Parker views are lost. And this position is at odds with much of the thinking in the Labour Party.

Psy-Op Alert: The Four Horsemen of the Linguistic Apocalypse

Written By: - Date published: 2:03 pm, September 11th, 2025 - 11 comments

‘Shared values,’ ‘like-minded partners,’ the ‘rules-based order,’ and the ‘Indo-Pacific’ have become the Five Eyes nations’ favourite rhetorical weapons in their contest with declared adversaries.

The Curious Case of Central Otago

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, August 18th, 2025 - 31 comments

How can a region be so pretty, so rich, but so poor? 

Good, Democratic, Easy-To-Support Energy Policies

Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, August 11th, 2025 - 16 comments

How to make fundamental changes to the country’s energy systems to ensure that future supply is sustainable and democratically controlled/

The Rainbow Warrior 1985-2025.  Part 2: Nuclear refugees in the Pacific: the evacuation of Rongelap

Written By: - Date published: 4:30 pm, July 10th, 2025 - 1 comment

On its last voyage the Rainbow Warrior evacuated the entire population of Rongelap. Cancers, birth defects, and genetic damage had ripped through the population after US above-ground nuclear explosions.

State-run food stores anyone? 

Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, June 30th, 2025 - 26 comments

What if we broke New Zealand’s grocery misery with our own grocery store?

National Wants to Increase Retirement Age to 67

Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, June 28th, 2025 - 75 comments

If Luxon and Willis go ahead with it as a policy platform for the 2026 election, and win, a raise in the age of entitlement for national superation will most likely be implemented.

Louisa Wall – Project 2025 Is Silencing Māori Dissent — and It Didn’t Even Start Here

Written By: - Date published: 3:11 pm, June 4th, 2025 - 3 comments

The attempt to punish Te Pāti Māori MPs for a haka protest is not just an internal matter—it reflects a broader, global effort to suppress dissent, erase cultural expression, and centralise power under the guise of order.

The existential moment we are in

Written By: - Date published: 10:44 am, June 2nd, 2025 - 26 comments

As the world re-entangles and pushes our interdependence to the foreground, we need a new thesis on freedom.

Our growing stress is everywhere

Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, May 24th, 2025 - 22 comments

We don’t know where this country is going and it’s getting worse. 

Get ready for the Regulatory Standards Bill

Written By: - Date published: 10:47 am, May 11th, 2025 - 24 comments

Following on from the undermining under urgency of the current Pay Equity scheme the Government intends to introduce the Regulatory Standards Bill which if passed would have a significant adverse effect on collective rights and environmental action.

After ANZAC Day

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, April 29th, 2025 - 29 comments

ANZAC Day 2025 is just so dark in the face of a hot war in the Ukraine, and the real lack of commanding peacemakers left on this earth. 

Atlas and the Treaty Principles Bill

Written By: - Date published: 12:58 pm, April 27th, 2025 - 4 comments

It is time to reflect on what happened with the Atlas Network and the Treaty Principles Bill.

Farewell Pope Francis

Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, April 22nd, 2025 - 10 comments

“Let us not be afraid to say it: we want change, real change, structural change. The system has imposed the mentality of profit at any price, with no concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature.”

Its the end of the Media as we know it …

Written By: - Date published: 10:42 am, February 28th, 2025 - 42 comments

Two recent media related stories made me wonder if there was now formal acknowledgement that the concept that media should fearlessly and impartially report the news is now dead.

Radio NZ’s bizarre handling of the Bayly fiasco

Written By: - Date published: 4:08 pm, February 25th, 2025 - 42 comments

This morning on Radio New Zealand there was sharp questioning of Christopher Luxon by Ingrid Hipkiss and sharp analysis by Jo Moir. But they allowed Brigette Morten air time to spin the issue in a National friendly way.

The World has too many Oligarchs

Written By: - Date published: 3:27 pm, January 19th, 2025 - 14 comments

In his final speech Joe Biden has warned the world about the dangers posed by Oligarchs supporting the right into democratic power. He is right.

Reviewing the Cook Strait Ferry fiasco

Written By: - Date published: 1:07 pm, January 16th, 2025 - 35 comments

A review of the history of the Ferries issue suggests that this could be coalition ending and career ending.

The Left Went That Way

Written By: - Date published: 8:38 am, January 14th, 2025 - 37 comments

In the past two decades, election results in western Europe, Australasia, and North America have been framed as a crisis of the left. But in reality are things that bad?

The Pogues wrote the best Christmas song ever

Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, December 25th, 2024 - 16 comments

It is Christmas time and the eternal debate about who wrote the best Christmas song ever is being debated yet again. For me there is only one possible contender.

Electric Shock

Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, December 2nd, 2024 - 29 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 8:53 pm, November 20th, 2024 - 14 comments

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.

A new Labour electricity policy

Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, September 9th, 2024 - 70 comments

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?

About David Parker’s and Labour’s debate about taxation

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, August 31st, 2024 - 69 comments

Guest post by Nigel Haworth discussing recent publicity given to the Labour Party’s debate around tax reform.

Luxon’s Support for AUKUS 2 is Against Our Interests

Written By: - Date published: 9:29 am, August 18th, 2024 - 21 comments

Three NZ prime ministers talking to Zelensky

It is well time the Prime Minister set out how it is in our interests to move against China by buying into AUKUS.

The Promises of Lange, Moore, Bolger, and the WTO

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, August 4th, 2024 - 26 comments

In 2024 we ought to ask if the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s has delivered on what was promised. 

Making up for lost time

Written By: - Date published: 8:34 am, May 22nd, 2024 - 39 comments

Guest post by Nigel Haworth where he discusses Labour membership’s desire for taxation reform and why it is important that Labour decides on its position as soon as possible.

Are we drifting away or falling apart?

Written By: - Date published: 1:53 pm, May 18th, 2024 - 16 comments

What is the antidote for our socio-economic problems and how do we deal with this coalition government?

The first Ministerial scalp?

Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, April 14th, 2024 - 27 comments

Already we have what looks like an odds on favourite for the first Ministerial scalp.

The future of UK Labour and what it means for Aotearoa

Written By: - Date published: 10:09 am, April 2nd, 2024 - 55 comments

It appears almost inevitable that Keir Starmer will be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. But his taking the party to the right and an active drive to rid the party of left wingers raises the spectre that his Goverment would be a pale immitation of its predecessors.