The political process is not working, the public doesn’t care and may never do so. So where does that leave us, asks Danyl Mclauchlan There’s this science fiction novel by Paolo Bacigalupi called The Water Knife, and of all the possible climate change futures its is the most bleakly realistic. It’s set in the American … Read more
Is Simon Bridges working out as National leader? Probably not, says Danyl Mclauchlan, but where is the alternative to catch the caucus eye? “I’m at the ‘intriguing stranger’ stage of the breakup,” a friend once said to me, while contemplating the terminal phase of an unsatisfactory relationship, explaining, “I have no immediate plans to end … Read more
It is useful for NZ First to race-bait by grandstanding about immigration but never useful to ever do anything about the issue, reckons Danyl Mclauchlan New Zealand First used to have this guy called Peter Brown as their deputy leader. Brown was (a) fiercely anti-immigration and (b) a migrant, having been born in the UK. It … Read more
Danyl Mclauchlan examines the latest work of one of the most famous public intellectuals in the world. Five years ago, Yuval Noah Harari was a humble academic, quietly lecturing at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he specialised in medieval history. In 2014 his fourth book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – originally published in … Read more
The National position on compensation over the meth contamination scare is incompatible with the party’s values, and reeks of weak and desperate leadership, writes Danyl Mclauchlan Let’s take a stroll over to the National Party website and cast our eyes over their core values. They’re the kind of thing you’d expect a conservative, centre-right party to … Read more
The Tax Working Group’s first report cautiously backs a capital gains tax, but has been stymied from the start in addressing a massive and inequitable loophole, writes Danyl Mclauchlan The government’s Tax Working Group, led by former deputy prime minister and finance minister Michael Cullen, released its interim report today. What does it say? Depends … Read more
Not for the first time, NZ First has scuppered government plans – and the party’s leader keeps proving he has all the leverage, writes Danyl Mclauchlan Well, it happened again. Back in June the justice minister, Andrew Little, announced plans to repeal the Three Strikes legislation, only to have Winston Peters publically humiliate him by … Read more
Following the New York Times‘ hard-hitting exposé on Jacinda Ardern, Danyl Mclauchlan reports that life isn’t all trips down the road or chasing ducks in the park with her ragtag bunch of mischievous friends. New Zealand – or, as the locals good-naturedly call it, HairyMaclaryLand – is a small, adorable little nation state all tucked up and snuggly … Read more
The dear old Book Council has released its annual survey of New Zealand reading habits, and claims that on average we read 35 books a year. Thirty-five! Danyl Mclauchlan asks what the devil is going on. What do other people read? I wonder about this all the time. If I see someone reading a book on … Read more
The upcoming visit of the US intelligence whistleblower appears to have some on the right reassessing their commitment to free speech and open debate. How quickly they forget, writes Danyl McLauchlan. Back in the very distant past of two weeks ago, amidst the clash and clamour of the Great Debate about freedom of speech provoked … Read more
The Single Object is a series exploring our material culture, examining the meaning and influence of objects that surround us in everyday life. In the second piece in the series, Danyl Mclauchlan visits the Reserve Bank to inspect Bill Phillip’s MONIAC. It looks like an artifact from an alternate timeline. MONIAC is about two metres … Read more
The function and frailty of liberalism has been thrust to the fore as New Zealand debates the meaning of free speech. Yet the biggest threat to liberalism may be the failure of elites to make the systems and institutions of modern liberalism work for the rest of us, writes Danyl Mclauchlan If, like me – … Read more
Likability was the catalyst that made new government possible, and it’s hard to sympathise with National’s recently discovered attachment to the importance of substance, writes Danyl Mclauchlan A year ago this week, Andrew Little resigned as leader of the Labour Party. “He’d have been a good prime minister,” one Labour operative said to me at … Read more
This school holiday Danyl Mclauchlan caught the bus to Wellington Zoo. It was not fun. Update 19/07: This post has been amended to include a response from Greater Wellington Regional Council, which oversees Wellington’s bus network. “Please,” I pleaded, standing in the door of a bus at Wellington’s Railway Station, my six-year old daughter’s tiny … Read more
Phil Goff’s decision to ban two right wing Canadian provocateurs from Auckland council venues has a lot of us re-examining our views on hate speech, free speech and censorship. Danyl Mclauchlan sat down with Danyl Mclauchlan and Danyl Mclauchlan to debate the issue. Liberal Danyl: Okay, let’s try and think our way through the whole … Read more
The burghers of Wellington have been lashed by storms, almost certainly because the whale is angry about something. How might they seek absolution? Danyl Mclauchlan with this dispatch from the watery part of the capital A crowd of policy analysts and government communications advisers numbering in the tens of thousands marched along the Wellington foreshore … Read more
Danyl Mclauchlan reads the 1977 book Bob Jones on Property, and wonders about the role it played in creating today’s distorted housing market. Sir Bob Jones has been in the news a bit recently. In February he published a column in the NBR suggesting that Waitangi Day be abolished and replaced with “Maori Gratitude Day”, in … Read more
Some ministers are already displaying the election-losing arrogance that it took National’s Cabinet three terms to achieve. The PM’s parental leave is a risk – but also an opportunity, writes Danyl Mclauchlan. For nigh on three decades there’s been a soothing, tide-like regularity to New Zealand politics. Every nine years we elect a new government with … Read more
From meth-test evictions to mental health treatment, the impact of the last government is being felt across NZ. It is only a matter of time, suggests Danyl Mclauchlan until the National opposition launches a fund-raising campaign In the wake of shocking revelations about Housing New Zealand’s meth testing evictions, a crumbling health service, surging numbers … Read more
The scrap between the National Party opposition and the Labour MP speaker is an example of the Nash Equilibrium, and it leaves Danyl Mclauclan reflecting on a deeper sorrow and madness National deputy leader Paula Bennett is unhappy with the Speaker’s rulings during Question Time. This is not an important issue and you don’t actually need … Read more
How to explain the way the story around the prime minister’s partner exploded? Danyl Mclauchlan counts the ways As a National Party smear campaign As far as the Labour Party is concerned: they’ve been here before. Last time Labour were in government a group of National Party activists and their fellow travellers on the right … Read more
The country is changing. And in contrasting herself from her predecessor and advocating for this change, the PM is wielding her awesome and terrible powers of virtue-signalling. It’d be odd if she wasn’t, writes Danyl Mclauchlan. As The Spinoff recently documented, virtue-signalling is the opposition’s favourite attack line against the Labour-led government. Why “virtue-signalling”? It’s … Read more
Claims in Deborah Hill Cone column cast doubt on the prime minister and her squeeze, who stands accused of being cringey and having a name ending with the letter ‘e’. Danyl Mclauchlan digs deeper. Early this morning the New Zealand Herald published a hard-hitting piece on Clarke Gayford, a fishing show reality TV star and … Read more
Even if you admire the ends, the who and what of tax is pretty loathsome, argues Danyl Mclachlan. Last week was tax week at the Spinoff. It celebrated companies that pay tax, interviewed Sir Michael Cullen, argued that tax is love and that we should stop talking about it as a burden, and gave a … Read more
If you remove statistical models and computational algorithms which reveal discriminatory assumptions or outcomes, you’re not removing discrimination, you’re just making it less transparent, writes Danyl Mclachlan. Imagine you’re the head of Immigration New Zealand. Part of your job is to deport people who are in the country illegally. You have limited resources: you can’t … Read more
Danyl Mclauchlan makes the case that what the new leader of the opposition doesn’t say matters – and what he does say probably doesn’t. The new National Party leader Simon Bridges seems like a smart, talented guy who will only become prime minister through sheer dumb luck. For now he’s leader of the opposition and the … Read more
Revelations of alleged sexual harassment by a former partner at Russell McVeagh underscore the unique privilege of the legal profession. “Abusers don’t need to tear through the law because their very relationship with the law protects them,” writes Danyl Mclauchlan. A lawyer at a party told me. I couldn’t remember where he worked so I yelled … Read more
‘The world is divided into two principles: order and chaos. Order is male and chaos is female.’ Danyl Mclauchlan investigates the strange philosophy of number one best-selling author and thinker Jordan B Peterson, author of 12 Rules for Life. Professor Jordan B Peterson is having a moment. I’d never heard of him – such is the … Read more
No one has ever produced a political exposé quite like Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, writes Danyl Mclauchlan. Journalists are supposed to protect their sources. But not all sources deserve to be protected and the best journalism, Janet Malcolm famously observed in The Journalist and the Murderer, often comes from … Read more