A primer on the “right to protest”. Contrary to the views of some there is no right to protest. Instead there are rights of assembly, movement and a right to freedom of speech. And there is no absolute right to do these things at Parliament.
Over the past two years we have lost so many things that are not coming back.
Some thoughts on the contribution of Phil Goff to Auckland during his term as Mayor.
Where will the votes come from to get Labour a third term?
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 text of Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern’s Waitangi Day speech
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.
The light rail route and mode decision this week shows something new. It’s in the nature of the state itself.
The entity making the most money out of threatening the Ukraine is the Russian Federation government itself. Follow the money.
… he is allegedly a very naughty boy.
Well known socialite, fashion blogger and apparent Constitutional expert Jamie Ridge thinks that the country’s MIQ arrangements are completely unconstitutional.
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?
The Standard server is going down for a few hours later today for maintenance. Some of the drives in the archive array are getting old. The SSDs in The Standard array are showing wear. Needs a good vacuum – for which I mostly blame the cat….
A few random predictions for 2022.
Today’s Herald editorial says New Zealand ‘wisely’ doesn’t punch above its weight in military activities. That’s not true – I remember sailing around the nuclear-powered USS Truxtun as it entered harbour in a Wellington gale. It was just one of many flotillas campaigning against nuclear weapons and nuclear war that resulted in a knockout – New Zealand’s suspension from the ANZUS alliance on a point of principle.
But Omicron may be loose.
What Starts off in Support of Alabama’s Miners turns into a homily from Beau on the power of getting community change going when and only when you have the organisational power to pull it off month after month after month.
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.
I had reason to visit Waitara in Taranaki recently, and I don’t want to sound like there’s a different world still operating … […]
Efeso Collins has announced that if Phil Goff does not stand as Mayor and Labour runs a selection process for the next Mayoralty he would be keen to nominate.
National needs a new leader of the opposition. The Standard has been leaked a list of the necessary qualifications …
There is no other explanation, and this week Paul Goldsmith gave the game away, National thinks that we should let the Corona virus rip.
While a core of farmers protested a few days ago against farm environmental regulation with long lines of tractors, the organised form of agribusiness, Maori and government working together have concluded that making a climate different isn’t possible.
Remarkably low Covid death and infection rates, good and improving vaccination rates, low unemployment and debt to GDP …
Staying safe from Covid-19 this summer can be as simple as a few basic steps.
The New Zealand state is gaining power again, but is it what we want?
Domestic tourism could become extreme tourism this summer.
In the next two weeks we will find out how many teachers in New Zealand are immune to facts, were happy to enforce vaccinations upon their children for multiple diseases over multiple decades but not themselves, and after decades enforcing state rules in daily attendance and behaviours of young people at school could not themselves be subject to that same force of state.
Modelling produced for the Government suggests that weekly new covid infections could plateau in the next two weeks. And the modelling so far has been remarkable accurate.
The deal is done. Together with lots of side-agreements, big-up pledges, finance, and no definite language the phasing out of Coal or fossil fuel subsidies.
Most of us have been diminished by COVID in 2020-21 so it’s time for everyone to prepare 2022 as an honest accounting of damage to our whole society.
Barry Soper has accused the Prime Minister of, wait for this, not taking her mask off when she was inside visiting a vaccination centre in South Auckland.
As a principle the right to protest is important. But the freedumb protesters making outlandish claims and at the same time plagarizing the language of progressive protest movements deserves to be called out.
Human rights are a pain in the ass. Yesterday’s protesters were rude, unfit to invite home to dinner, shouty, and so incoherent that you could’t make any sensible point with them. They were and are a pain in the ass. But they are OUR pain in the ass.
Well paint me red and call me Joseph Stalin. Cuba has not only developed its own Covid vaccines but it has vaccinated pretty well all of its people and driven back a Covid Delta outbreak that was threatening the island.
