Posts on government and governence at national and local level, political parties,politicians, and political participation
British philosophy professor Kathleen Stock being interviewed by Redline’s Daphna Whitmore on gender critical feminism and the sex/gender wars. Also, why being able to debate matters.
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.
Bernard Hickey calls Labour’s inaction a scandal, and it’s hard to disagree.
The Olympics is an opera that runs on one orchestrated symbol after another, and this Tokyo Olympics is a superabundant tragedy.
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.
Now that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has “opened up” the United Kingdom from many of the Covid19 strictures that it had undergone, there is a lot at stake to his reputation and indeed to the lives and livelihoods of its citizens.
The appearance of community spread Delta variant Covid in Australia has caused New Zealand to suspend the trans Tasman travel bubble.
People who rent their home shouldn’t have to get sick or complain before the safety of their home is tested and guaranteed.
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.
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.
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.
Explorations in debate culture, how to argue well, and what we do on The Standard.
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.
A dedicated space on The Standard for women’s debate.
The Groundswell farmers movement want the new freshwater policy scrapped, the “ute tax” removed, lots of imported labour for farm work, parts of the ETS dumped the new Significant Natural Area policy dumped, the draft policy on indigenous biodiversity scrapped and Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill stopped. How likely is this?
Why the proposed changes to the law relating to gender identification is not such a bad thing. The law allowing this has been in place since 1995, but the process is confusing, intimidating, and time-consuming.
Minister Roberston’s recent speech to the Trans Tasman Business Circle sets out both how this government is using the pandemic to reset whole sectors of the economy, and also how it is getting its head around economic and social challenges. The points made were unsurprising, but his intended direction was unclear.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
With the United States Supreme Court allowing individual states to choke voting rights into bare consciousness, that country is accelerating its democratic decline. That matters for every democracy including ours.
On Monday, RNZ reported that “Chinese Communist Party spies are infiltrating New Zealand universities”. Our guest poster views this thin and anecdotal ‘investigative’ reporting with deep suspicion. Was any of this activity was reported to the proper authorities. Or is it just the usual paranoia / racist dog-whistling or a paid story?
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.
A guest post by Clint Smith who has actually analysed the effect of the proposed changes and makes comment on the detail of what is proposed.
Its time for our local authorities (and other bodies such as NZTA) to come clean, and confess whether they allow the SIS to access their camera networks in this way. That would allow the people to judge whether it is acceptable, and hold them accountable if they feel it necessary. But I suspect that that prospect is precisely why the SIS has kept this secret for so long.
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.
Hate speech is about to get a lot more criminalised with much stronger penalties. It’s worth going back to what the Royal Commission […]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
One of the details announced in the budget was funding to explore a ‘social unemployment insurance’ scheme. This scheme has been pushed by the Council of Trade Unions and Business NZ, which will work with the Government in a newly set-up Tripartite Working Party. When we dig into it though, we realise it is no safety net. It’s a parachute that slows our drop, giving us time, before we hit that real net – down so far below.
A company wants to make a film about the Christchurch mosque massacre on 15 March 2019. Maybe it should do.
Jenny looks at extending public transport to include cyclists
