Written By: - Date published: 2:29 pm, June 7th, 2026 - 2 comments
Surging populist thinking is compounding neo-liberalism’s dislike of the public sector and our democratic institutions.
Written By: - Date published: 11:54 am, June 4th, 2026 - 114 comments
When it is a right wing astroturfing front.
Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, June 1st, 2026 - 30 comments
The timing of the recent suggestion by Chris Penk that New Zealand should review its nuclear free policy makes you wonder if the Trump Administration has applied pressure to do so.
Written By: - Date published: 9:24 am, May 31st, 2026 - 32 comments
Pete Hegseth has claimed that New Zealand is freeloading because it is not spending enough of weapons of war at a time of international chaos created by the United States.
Written By: - Date published: 8:38 pm, May 27th, 2026 - 15 comments
Christopher Luxon has implied that a junior staffer met major polluters and received submissions urging him to sink Mike Smith’s bid to hold them to account which were then hidden. But it was his Chief Policy Advisor.
Written By: - Date published: 3:13 pm, May 21st, 2026 - 7 comments
Palantir, founded by Alex Karp and New Zealand citizen Peter Thiel, is at the centre of an array of A.I. driven kill programmes for the US, Israeli and other militaries, including the NZDF.
Written By: - Date published: 2:42 pm, May 15th, 2026 - 4 comments
Some initial ideas about the integrated policy package Labour must consider if it is to meet contemporary challenges posed by emerging populism and the narrowing of the Labour vision over the past five decades
Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, May 14th, 2026 - 33 comments
Why is Chris Bishop wanting to review the cost of the City Rail Link while at the same time is happy to proceed with roads of national signficance that are very expensive but provide limited financial return?
Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, May 9th, 2026 - 23 comments
Anyone who thinks that New Zealand won’t be touched by the same rapid democratic pessimism as we see in our most comparable democracies, is like those who thought COVID could be stopped from reaching us.
Written By: - Date published: 5:54 pm, April 21st, 2026 - 65 comments
The world is turned upside down and challenges progressive politics to change gear.
Written By: - Date published: 1:26 pm, April 21st, 2026 - 36 comments
Any time a political leader has to put their position to a vote, they become a dead pigeon. David Lange knew winning the vote didn’t end the matter.
Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, April 6th, 2026 - 48 comments
As this Government’s inaction over the oil crisis becomes more pronounced more and more people are noticing that Christopher Luxon is missing in action.
Written By: - Date published: 12:36 pm, March 27th, 2026 - 23 comments
Nicola Willis and Shane Jones present the details in the current plan for the Hormz oill crisis.
Written By: - Date published: 5:04 pm, March 21st, 2026 - 24 comments
Don’t hold on to an old umbrella in a wuthering storm.
Written By: - Date published: 6:50 pm, March 20th, 2026 - 30 comments
In absence of a concrete leadership plan from this government to address the impending oil supply crisis, this post is for us to simply note down what actions we are taking ourselves.
Written By: - Date published: 3:36 pm, March 18th, 2026 - 10 comments
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be fired over the imperilment of the New Zealand economy by his government’s laissez-faire response to the coming energy shock.
Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, March 14th, 2026 - 43 comments
Jacinda Ardern led the country through some of the most taxing international crises imaginable. How would she deal with the potential oil shock caused by the Iranian war and how does this compare to Christopher Luxon’s response?
Written By: - Date published: 1:31 pm, March 12th, 2026 - 29 comments
Shane Jones has been making a song and dance about how the previous Labour Government was responsible for the closure of the Marsden Point Refinery. But a perusal of the cabinet paper he cites in support shows that this clearly is not the case.
Written By: - Date published: 11:31 am, March 11th, 2026 - 90 comments
In the short and medium term, what should this government do as a plan?
Written By: - Date published: 12:53 pm, March 9th, 2026 - 16 comments
Winston Peters has been in this scenario before. The brutal replacement of Jim Bolger as PM in 1997 eventually saw Peters walk away from the coalition. What will happen this time around?
Written By: - Date published: 11:44 am, March 5th, 2026 - 39 comments
Trump’s attack on Iran, in cahoots with, or in support of, his regional proxy, Israel, is illegal, but also unconscionable in moral and political terms. It is a resurgence of the post-war experience, in which the development of the rules-based international order was qualified by the arbitrary actions of “big players” in Iran, Suez, Cuba […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:56 am, March 3rd, 2026 - 22 comments
A prime minister who does not understand how vulnerable New Zealand’s economy is to a Middle Eastern war as we have now, is a Prime Minister who should be removed from office.
Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, March 1st, 2026 - 29 comments
Trump’s attack on Iran is one hell of a way to divert away from the Epstein files.
Written By: - Date published: 8:27 am, March 1st, 2026 - 42 comments
Trump’s attack on Iran has a high risk of turning into another Afghanistan in which the United States was utterly humiliated.
Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, February 26th, 2026 - 12 comments
Chris Bishop was forced to eat humble pie this week on his plan to make Auckland a more compact city. And the Government’s backflip on the number of new dwellings makes a mockery of Auckland Council’s recent consultation on Plan Change 120. How councillors are supposed to weigh the new proposal with open minds under that kind of pressure is anyone’s guess.
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, February 23rd, 2026 - 20 comments
Fining beggers will only increase their problems and moving them on will not solve the problem only spread it around.
Written By: - Date published: 5:31 pm, February 22nd, 2026 - 22 comments
All the signs are pointing to a new Shock and Awe campaign by the United States, with the goal of a fast knock-out of Iran.. War seldom goes entirely to plan.
Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, February 14th, 2026 - 79 comments
If you dismantle welfare, you push many New Zealanders into desperate poverty.
Written By: - Date published: 4:11 pm, January 30th, 2026 - 27 comments
There is no evidence of immediate improvement in our economy, or of this government improving it.
Written By: - Date published: 8:25 am, January 22nd, 2026 - 11 comments
Some NZ hospitals are going into critical status at least twice a day, turning away patients who are then as twice likely to die. Plus: National isn’t meeting its targets and election day announced.
Written By: - Date published: 6:09 am, January 22nd, 2026 - 44 comments
“The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.
But from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger, and more just.
…
The powerful have their power. But we have something too – the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together.”
Recent Comments