The prime minister is no free-market ideologue or social traditionalist, but there is a conservative streak to her leadership, and that delights committed conservative Liam Hehir. Jacinda Ardern has advised us not to expect a whole lot of big promises from Labour this year. The announcement was undoubtedly frustrating for her more left-wing supporters. Regular … Read more
The Sir Julius Vogel Awards last Thursday were meant to be a celebration of some of our best genre writers. It didn’t turn out that way, as Casey Lucas, one of the winners, explains. This is the story of how the nominees and recipients of the 2020 Sir Julius Vogel Awards, New Zealand’s most prominent … Read more
The latest round of economic data won’t carry Judith Collins and the National Party into the promised land, and she’ll need to come up with something else to save her chances, writes political commentator Ben Thomas. The government has delivered an economic miracle! How else to describe today’s labour market statistics for the June quarter … Read more
The quest to create affordable housing in New Zealand is an interminable dilemma. But as Dan Heyworth writes, the issue comes from the old British feudal land system on which ours is based. Recently I was involved in a project that responded to government calls to use off-site manufacturing to bring affordability to the housing … Read more
The disability community should stop making excuses for candidates who don’t take the opportunity to hear from us directly – and that includes the prime minister herself, writes disabled journalist Michael Pulman. This time four years ago, forums promoting the disability vote gave the politicians who showed up a chance to hear directly about what … Read more
On Saturday the man behind Game of Thrones hosted the ceremony for the prestigious Hugo Awards. Sam Brooks recaps. In a blog post just over a year ago, American writer George RR Martin said that New Zealand had “formal written permission” to jail him if he didn’t have The Winds of Winter (the latest entry … Read more
Truly making a difference to New Zealanders’ mental health means addressing factors that go far beyond the health system’s remit. There’s a plan ready to go, writes Shaun Robinson of the Mental Health Foundation, and the next government must put it into action. “I need help.” That’s how many of the emails, Facebook messages and … Read more
When do we get a prime minister who looks like New Zealand, asks Laura O’Connell Rapira. I want a Māori prime minister. I want a trans Samoan deputy prime minister and I want a former refugee as speaker of the house. I want a Muslim mayor. I want a disabled deputy mayor and a late-life … Read more
People like me already don’t know when we will see ‘home’ again, thanks to the forthcoming border fees, writes Jai Breitnauer. We don’t need to be judged for it too. About eight weeks ago we got a message we had been dreading – my father-in-law was in hospital having been in a motorbike crash. Of … Read more
We can’t tell you who wrote this piece, or where they work. What we can tell you is it’s not Unity. A little while ago, I said to a friend that working at a bookshop kind of sucks. He was clearly bamboozled. “I thought working at a bookshop would be lovely and magical. Being surrounded … Read more
Without a capital gains tax, taxing inheritances is the best opportunity to address the entrenched inequalities of inter-generational wealth, argues Jonathan Barrett. The world’s wealthiest people will transfer US$15.4 trillion in assets to their heirs in the next decade, according to a recent report. Published by specialist data analysts Wealth-X, the report focused on the … Read more
Last month a group of wāhine Māori gathered in solidarity after a Māori woman reported she was racially abused on Ōwairaka in Auckland. Indigenous human rights experts Tina Ngata, Dr Arama Rata and Dilwin Santos outline the foundations of racism in Aotearoa, and the structural changes needed. Warning: the following article contains racist language. Under … Read more
The Operation Burnham inquiry found serious failings in how the defence force operated, but none of this ‘transparency’ would have come to light if it hadn’t been for two journalists fighting tooth and nail to hold those in power to account, writes Amnesty International’s Meg de Ronde. When attorney-general David Parker stood up yesterday morning … Read more
Judith Collins today unlocked the secret of her political comedic code. ‘When my eyebrow goes up, it’s a joke,’ she told reporters. Enlightened, we’ve gone back through her first speech as National leader, to excavate the punchlines. On a trip to the comedy capital of Palmerston North yesterday, Judith Collins announced that no one had … Read more
Finding yourself homeless is terrible at any age – but it’s even worse for those under 18, who are routinely turned away by emergency housing providers, writes Aaron Hendry. “Our response to Covid, on the face of it, had a very simple premise: stay home, save lives. That simple requirement forced all of us as … Read more
Welcome to memebers of parliament, a political column for people who just want the memes. In 53 days there will be an election and already there’s too much news. Too many politicians doing too many things. Who’s bothering to keep up with politics? Well, technically we all should because we live in a democracy and … Read more
Kathy Errington introduces a conversation with Anjum Rahman on online harm, an extract from the upcoming BWB text Shouting Zeroes and Ones, edited by Andrew Chen. Articulating what matters when we look to reduce online harm is becoming ever more important in a context where states are increasingly turning to regulation to address harms caused … Read more
In a week marred by parliamentarians and their neverending raru, the Alternative Aotearoa hui was a timely reminder that politics is more than what happens in the Beehive and that it is social movements that create real change, writes Laura O’Connell Rapira. On a sunny winter day in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara, 150 or so researchers, advocates, union … Read more
The Borrowdale case, which goes before a full bench in the High Court today, demonstrates a society taking its basic governing commitments seriously, writes Andrew Geddis. As time goes by, it becomes ever more apparent that New Zealand’s response to Covid-19 has worked as well as we could hope. We didn’t just flatten the curve, … Read more
Tonight’s Newshub-Reid Research poll has Labour on 60.9%, with National tumbling to a new low of 25.5%. But a giant Labour Party, governing alone, could be a nightmare of its own, argues Ben Thomas A poll is not an ironclad predictor of the future, but a snapshot in time. Newshub’s Reid Research snapshot was taken … Read more
Can the conspiracy theories of social media be coalesced into a party that makes parliament under MMP? We’re about to find out. Alex Braae attends the conscious conspiracy-theory-replete coupling ceremony. A covers band was smashing out a blistering version of ‘Higher and Higher’, on a stage packed with candidates. The flags were waving proudly over … Read more
Parents are increasingly being encouraged to talk to their kids about sex, and the unrealistic expectations created by porn. But how much information is too much? I’m walking with my daughters around glistening Lake Hayes during the school holidays. One is 20 and in a relationship. The other is 17 and single. We’re talking about … Read more
The crowd’s cheering, the lights are flashing. Two figures walk into the ring. It’s … the deputy prime minister and the leader of Act? If it weren’t for Andrew Falloon and Iain Lees-Galloway, this week would’ve belonged to Winston Peters and David Seymour. The leaders of the two lowest polling parties currently in parliament have … Read more
Sam Brooks reviews our capital’s most iconic stretch: Courtenay Place. Every city in the country has that one place that after a certain age, a certain income bracket, or a certain night, that you just know to avoid. If you’re in Auckland, it’s the Viaduct. Dunedin? The Octagon. Christchurch? The Terrace, formerly The Strip. Hamilton? … Read more
The number of active cases remains astronomical. Hopes of curbing community transmission of political disgrace in New Zealand are fading, with a succession of new reported cases raising fears that the so-called “Bowen cluster” is out of control. At a press briefing this morning the director general of parliamentary misconduct announced there was one new … Read more
Wendy Petrie, 49, has lost her job to Simon Dallow, 56. TVNZ’s cull is mystifying on multiple levels, writes Duncan Greive. There’s a genuinely moronic characterisation of newsreading which holds that it’s a low skill job that anyone can do. Just read off the autocue for an hour, collect your $500,000 a year-ish salary and … Read more
Both major parties now want people returning to the country to pay for mandatory managed isolation. Our fellow New Zealanders don’t deserve such cruelty, argues Alex Braae. Sarah has been trying to get home to New Zealand for months now. The eastern European country she is in locked their borders before MFAT started sending out … Read more
The court said a prison sentence was ‘manifestly unjust’, but it had no alternative, explains Andrew Geddis. In some New Zealand prison sits a man called Daniel Clinton Fitzgerald. He has been behind bars since December of 2016. Unless something happens, of which more later, he may stay there until December 2023. All because he … Read more
A few election cycles ago Judith Collins would have been a formidable political contender, writes the Dirty Politics author. Now she’s the wrong person, at the wrong time. Judith Collins, who starred in the book Dirty Politics two elections ago, is an intelligent and politically capable person. However, as many of her National Party colleagues … Read more