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Where Is The Real Green Party?

Written By: - Date published: 8:47 am, September 17th, 2021 - 48 comments

Where’s the hairy knuckle-dragging woke when you need them?

New Zealand Superconductors

Written By: - Date published: 8:10 am, September 8th, 2021 - 18 comments

Just to note a little sadness at the sale of New Zealand’s High Temperature Superconductor business out of Scott Technology (a robotics specialist company based in Dunedin sold to a Brazilian meat company a few years back).

The politics of the New Lynn attack

Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, September 4th, 2021 - 111 comments

Early days so far but the New Lynn attack will spark a debate about the adequacy of the country’s terrorism suppression laws and about citizenship rights.

Fuck-knuckles, cock and piss, balls does not breach BSA guidelines

Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, August 26th, 2021 - 14 comments

The Broadcasting Standards Authority have ruled that the use of the words “Fuck-knuckles, cock and piss, balls” by student radio station 95bfm does not breach standards of good taste and decency.

Matt King caught blowing anti vaccination dog whistle

Written By: - Date published: 11:15 am, August 23rd, 2021 - 22 comments

Former National MP Matt King has been publicly posting anti vaccination propaganda under the ruse of only wanting a conversation.

Peak Globalisation

Written By: - Date published: 3:26 pm, August 22nd, 2021 - 72 comments

The first great era of globalisation from roughly 1840 through to 1914 took place inside a framework that we can now view as the last hurrah of empire. The logic of empire extends back to the invention of agriculture – a technology that fundamentally demands access to fertile land, rainfall and sunshine. This meant all […]

The importance of Jacinda’s 1 pm press conferences

Written By: - Date published: 11:50 am, August 22nd, 2021 - 130 comments

Jacinda Ardern has resumed the 1 pm briefings where she communicates effectively the country’s current situation and what the plan is.  But National and some elements of the media are complaining, presumably that she is doing too good a job.

Farewell Dr Michael Cullen

Written By: - Date published: 1:52 pm, August 20th, 2021 - 21 comments

Dr Michael Cullen has died, and with him goes a real standard-bearer for Labour for three decades.

RIP Michael Cullen

Written By: - Date published: 10:41 am, August 20th, 2021 - 15 comments

Former Labour Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen has died.

The antidote page for all those chickens

Written By: - Date published: 3:15 pm, August 19th, 2021 - 32 comments

This is the page that I read at least once a week. With a clean brevity it gives me almost all of the strategic summary information about the progress of the vaccinations in NZ. Even it’s title is clean and clear. COVID-19: Vaccine data. But I’m trained in operations and rather more interested in reality rather than the average untrained pundit or politician who run around like a Chicken Little saying the equivalent of “the sky is falling” every other week. Thankfully they were ignored.

Here again, but Delta gives less latitude. So give less latitude.

Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, August 18th, 2021 - 31 comments

We’re back in a Covid-19 lock down. Until we get to a very high level of vaccinations >80-90%, something that no state has yet achieved, this is our only realistic defence against outbreaks. Delta is way more infectious  than previous variants. It infects the vaccinated to act as spreaders. Don’t know about anyone else. But this time I intend to exert my right to give less social latitude to idiots.

We are stuck

Written By: - Date published: 7:13 am, August 12th, 2021 - 45 comments

New Zealand has one of the most concentrated and oligopolistic economies in the world, and also one of the least commercially protected societies. Will we ever be able to break out of it? If you look across our society, it is the relationships of less than 20 main companies with our government that form a […]

Judith’s last stand?

Written By: - Date published: 8:04 am, August 4th, 2021 - 43 comments

Judith Collins has decided to attack the Government on the use of the Te Reo name for New Zealand even though the last National Government regularised its use.

We Need Better Politicians!

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 pm, August 2nd, 2021 - 24 comments

With the right people in power, we will get the answers we deserve, and our problems will melt away and scatter in a warm worriless wind.

Nurses refuse pay offer

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, July 30th, 2021 - 28 comments

NZNO members who work in district health boards (DHBs) have voted by clear majority to reject the latest offer in their negotiations with the DHBs, saying it fails to address the chronic and systemic safe staffing issues in a way that would ensure and protect the future of the health system.

What If Boris Is Right?

Written By: - Date published: 11:51 am, July 24th, 2021 - 80 comments

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.

Act likes some rights but not others

Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, July 22nd, 2021 - 37 comments

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.

The billionaire race into space

Written By: - Date published: 8:06 am, July 12th, 2021 - 90 comments

UK billionaire Richard Branson has won the rich man’s pissing competition by being the first billionaire into space even though 12 months ago he was urgently seeking Government grants while at the same time paying no tax because of his tax residency status.

The Covid Crisis – the perils of half hearted responses

Written By: - Date published: 4:59 pm, July 11th, 2021 - 40 comments

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”.

Hate speech wide-eyed scaremongering

Written By: - Date published: 11:13 am, June 30th, 2021 - 111 comments

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.

Oppose this new hate speech bill

Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, June 26th, 2021 - 206 comments

Hate speech is about to get a lot more criminalised with much stronger penalties. It’s worth going back to what the Royal Commission actually considered, since that’s the basis of proposing this law. The Royal Commission in fact found that trying to protect religion from very strong opinions is simply not a good idea: … we acknowledge that there […]

Let the Mills die

Written By: - Date published: 1:03 pm, June 24th, 2021 - 13 comments

From Kawerau to Nelson to Tiwai Point, our accelerated decline of heavy mass manufacturing factories continues.

Public transport, to complement cycling?

Written By: - Date published: 7:23 am, June 17th, 2021 - 51 comments

Jenny looks at extending public transport to include cyclists

The America’s Cup is just another spinoff

Written By: - Date published: 7:18 am, June 17th, 2021 - 36 comments

We need less presumed hold over Team New Zealand, and more encouragement of more spinoff businesses that make their way in the world.

Fear and loathing in cycleland

Written By: - Date published: 3:52 pm, June 15th, 2021 - 32 comments

I am pleased the right have moved on from overtly racist attacks on minorities. But I am bemused by the current level of vitriol that has been thrown at a group who apart from wearing lycra is doing nothing wrong.

Government to issue an apology for the dawn raids

Written By: - Date published: 7:33 am, June 15th, 2021 - 23 comments

The Government has announced it will publicly apologise for the treatment of Pacific people in the 1970s when they were harassed and discriminated against by the Police because of the place of their birth and the colour of their skin.

Auckland’s Northern Pathway

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, June 11th, 2021 - 144 comments

Last week’s announcement of major changes to the New Zealand Upgrade program in my view was welcome.

National’s culture problem

Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, June 4th, 2021 - 29 comments

National’s week from hell is further evidence of a culture problem that will not be easily solved.

Why did ACT reject Lisa Lewis’s membership application?

Written By: - Date published: 3:29 pm, June 1st, 2021 - 7 comments

Two political blogs have asked why ACT turned down Sex worker Lisa Lewis’s application for membership of the party.  Here at the Standard we have what we believe is the best answer.

Cummings: Boris is unfit for the job

Written By: - Date published: 8:37 am, May 27th, 2021 - 20 comments

Former top aide Dominic Cummings has accused UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson of being unfit for the job, and of making constant U-turns, “like a shopping trolley smashing from one side of the aisle to the other”.

Cycling Politics Is Damn Serious Business

Written By: - Date published: 7:12 am, May 26th, 2021 - 73 comments

Don’t knock local politics until you’ve had to stand up and defend a cycleway in public.