Chris Luxon’s public commitment not to negotiate with the Wellington protestors has been called into question by a Facebook from Maureen Pugh claiming that members of the National Party were talking to the protesters on an almost daily basis.
Wellington protestors recent activities in torching a 100 year old Pohutukawa, burning a kid’s playground and threatening to occupy Wainuiomata Marae suggests they are being given PR advice by Vladimir Putin.
We will probably never get over the feeling that somehow, if enough people just banded together, it would all get better again, like we did when the United Nations charter was struck.
Efeso Collins has announced his first Mayoral campaign policy and it is a biggie, free public transport for Auckland.
Jacinda Ardern said yesterday that everyone is over Covid. She is right. We all want this to end.
There is something of a manufactured chorus of calls for the Government to sit down and negotiate with the protesters. Here are four reasons why negotiations would be a complete waste of time.
Some thoughts on the contribution of Phil Goff to Auckland during his term as Mayor.
Phil Goff has announced that he will not seek re-election as Auckland’s Mayor.
Where will the votes come from to get Labour a third term?
Complaints that the police are unnecessarily interfering with the Wellington Convoy’s right to protest appear to be vastly overstated.
Roche, a major manufacturer of RATs, issued a statement to media on Tuesday night saying none of its stocks had been diverted or seized by the Government.
“RAT kits have been, and will continue to be, supplied to all New Zealand customers, including the Ministry of Health, in the sequence that purchase orders were placed,”. Chris Bishop MP is still claiming mythical evidence from local suppliers.
The full text is worth perusing across multiple areas, but Prime Minister Ardern’s speech in Parliament yesterday gave useful hints about how the economy and climate change are being integrated into a single economic strategy.
I am going to channel my Matthew Hooton left wing alter ego in the writing of this post. The latest Newshub poll shows a resounding level of support for the Labour Party and there are murmurs of discontent about Chris Luxon after support for the right plummets.
NZME owned entities including the Herald and Newstalk ZB appear to be on a mission to change the Government.
The text of Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern’s Waitangi Day speech
David Seymour has responded to slumping poll results by claiming that the Treaty of Waitangi should be trashed.
With Prime Minister announcing effectively the beginning of the end of state control of COVID, the question that has to be asked is how will the end of COVID change us all?
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced a phased reopening of the country’s border. Update: video of the speech is added.
With Ardern getting a good-old media beat-down, remember here’s how to change a country for good like no one else but Labour can.
It may not be apparent from the wall to wall sound emanating from the opposition and from the media but this Government’s Covid response has been exceptionally good and way better than that of pretty well every other major country in the world.
The light rail route and mode decision this week shows something new. It’s in the nature of the state itself.
Worrying news emerged this morning with a report that Jacinda Ardern is a close contact of an Omicron case on an Air New Zealand flight.
The latest Colmar Brunton (now Kantar) poll has now been released and some of the commentary and analysis is pretty ordinary.
It appears that social media allegations against Jacinda Ardern are becoming more and more extreme.
Robert Ayson’s advocacy of a sanctions regime for New Zealand in case of a Russian invasion of Ukraine is a bad idea based on poor intelligence.The “Russian invasion” narrative was always a beat-up, and there is no support from major players in Europe for sanctions such as removal from the SWIFT payment system. Russia’s claim for border security is reasonable and essential for peace.
So far the country has fought back and eliminated the original Covid infection, won a couple of skirmishes and then and fought and quelled the Delta incursion. But it looks like Omicron is coming …
Labour are doing the things about the housing crisis they said they would. It’s not working.
Boris Johnson’s reign as UK Prime Minister may be terminal after news of a Downing Street party held during lockdown was leaked to the press.
Climate, ecology, welfare, housing – we are now at the point for the Greens to go ‘fuck it, time to go back to our radical roots’.
Harete Hipango is in the news again, this time for posing with a group of anti vaxxers and posting a photo and making some pretty way out there comments on social media.
With over 61,000 new Covid cases reported yesterday Australia is in the midst of an infection surge that it has not seen before. What lessons can New Zealand learn from Australia’s handling of the pandemic?
A few random predictions for 2022.
It is that time of year where nostalgia kicks in and the desire to review current events dims. So much has happened this year. It has truly been twelve months of the praiseworthy and the absolutely pitiful. And it is time to reflect on the personalities who made us smile, made us frown and made us raise our eyebrows to breaking point.
Ministers Wood, Shaw and Parker (Energy, Climate Change, and RMA reform respectively), must pull their eyes downward from the misty clouds of climate change and stuff multiple decades away and down into the jagged, shadowy deal-by-deal path of the transition to clean energy.
Coming up surprising quickly in 2022 is the Australian federal election – and Labor has a good shot.
As the country rebounds out of partial lockdown the Treasury’s recently released half yearly Economic and Fiscal update suggests that the Country’s accounts are in remarkably good shape.
