Thousands of magazine subscribers are out of pocket following the closure of the New Zealand arm of the Bauer publishing empire. Cat MacLennan is one of them, and she has a message for the company’s German chief executive and majority owner, Yvonne Bauer. Tēnā koe Ms Bauer, I am one of your magazine subscribers in … Read more
A climate change court challenge against some of Aotearoa’s largest corporates will go ahead after the High Court on Friday refused to strike it out, reports Cat McLennan. Over the past few years, court proceedings have been mounted in a number of countries to challenge lack of action on climate change by both government and … Read more
Time to place parties on an even footing and make elections a contest of ideas, not dollars, argues Cat MacLennan in this post, originally published by RNZ. Read more in The Spinoff’s Money Talks series on donations and electoral finance here. For donations to two of New Zealand’s largest political parties to be investigated by … Read more
As New Zealand suffers from drought and the effects of climate change become more severe, now is not the time for New Zealand to be shipping water offshore, writes Cat MacLennan. At the bottom of the Pacific’s Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the world’s ocean, explorers in 2019 found four new species of crustaceans … Read more
In 1994, New Zealand sent a cross-party delegation of five MPs to Timor-Leste on a fact-finding mission. It made a real difference, and could do again for West Papuans, writes Cat McLennan. When France refused to halt nuclear testing in the South Pacific and continued to detonate bombs at Moruroa Atoll, New Zealand sent a … Read more
John Key insisted that the CEO of the bank had been treated in the same way a junior teller would be. Can anyone take that seriously, asks Cat MacLennan When I was a lawyer at Manukau, we used to sit in the lawyers’ room and marvel at the lenient sentences given to the rich, to … Read more
The Christmas season is upon us and that means Women’s Refuges face their busiest time of the year, writes barrister and anti-violence advocate Catriona MacLennan for RNZ. This year, a new law will give police more power to protect women who need help most. While some families will be enjoying presents and parties this festive … Read more
The High Court has slammed the MSD after it ‘misconceived’ the rules around beneficiaries borrowing money. It should now halt all High Court debt recovery, says Catriona MacLennan In what parallel universe would the agency charged with assisting our most vulnerable citizens cut a mother’s benefit because she borrowed money from her family and her … Read more
From State Services to Russell McVeagh, from the Human Rights Commission to the Labour Party, a clear pattern emerges in sexual harassment stories across NZ, and it reveals we just don’t take the issue seriously, argues Catriona MacLennan. Sexual harassment is still not regarded a serious issue in Aotearoa. That is what we have learned … Read more