At Greenpeace we’re not so big into war. We like peace, hence the name. But the US government’s decision to send a ship here marks something distinctly positive – a victory for the people of nuclear-free New Zealand, writes Russel Norman. If a US ship arrives in our waters later this year as part of … Read more
SkyPath makes a huge amount of sense, but that hasn’t stopped a lot of angry old people complaining about it. Leroy Beckett of Generation Zero explains all the reasons our councillors should ignore the whinging and agree to back the project today. Last January over 11,000 people supported resource consent for SkyPath, a long-awaited walking and … Read more
Strident remarks by Stephen Jennings, one of New Zealand’s wealthiest citizens, on housing, education and the economy suggest that the even the business community is tiring of the government’s endless softly-softly, writes Duncan Greive. Over the past few days we’ve seen a startling insertion into the public discourse of Stephen Jennings, a relatively low profile … Read more
Opinion: Making inroads against ISIS requires the West to rediscover its ideological confidence, argues Nicholas Ross Smith. In what is sadly becoming all too common an occurrence, the world is grappling with news of another horrific terrorist attack, this time taking at least 84 lives in Nice, France. While there has been no claim of … Read more
Greg Pritchard is just another person watching nothing be done about the housing crisis. We’re told it’s too complicated and impossible to fix – but, as he points out below, it’s actually terrifyingly simple. Millions of words have been written about the housing situation in Auckland. TV networks have screened countless hours of renovation shows whose clear subtext … Read more
The ruling from the Hague on the South China Sea is stunning. For the region the stakes are huge, and New Zealand’s response is notably more cautious than Australia or the US, writes David Capie. Last night’s decision by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague delivered a resounding legal defeat to China’s maritime … Read more
We edited John Key and Andrew Little’s words together into a surprisingly unified speech on the housing crisis. While I was putting together this impossible quiz, I noticed something surprising: John Key and Andrew Little were starting to make sense. Reading quotes by the pair on the housing crisis – Key’s from a speech in 2007, Little’s from interviews … Read more
We designed a quiz to test whether you can tell the difference between the Prime Minister of nine years ago and the Labour leader of today. It’s improbably difficult. It’s the End Times in the Auckland housing market. An average house is worth 10 times the average household income. Only four percent of sales are “affordable”. A … Read more
The very long-awaited and very weightily long Chilcot report, from the inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war, has just been published. We’ve read all 2.6 million words (we haven’t), and plucked out the bits that really tell the story. Sir John Chilcot took the stage at the Queen Elizabeth Centre in Westminster to … Read more
The NZ Uber wars are heating up with calls for a crackdown on non-compliant operators as drivers begin to challenge the company’s criteria and pay rates. We talk to one driver leading the charge. The NZ Transport Agency says the company’s revised rules, with drivers no longer requiring P-endorsed passenger licences or to undergo NZTA-stipulated … Read more
‘Don’t call me racist for voting leave,’ wrote expat Kiwi and controversy magnet Alex Hazlehurst earlier this week. How about we call you short-sighted, self-centred and sadly misinformed instead, suggests New Zealand-born Londoner Paul Gallagher. Dear Alex, The upheaval and recriminations following the EU referendum result have seemingly left everyone in the UK on edge. … Read more
Last time Generation Zero called for a rail link across the Waitemata, Transport Minister Simon Bridges told them off for not trusting in still non-existent autonomous buses. Soon after, the group commissioned a poll to test whether their old-fashioned rail theory had legs. Ryan Mearns reports on the results. Besides combating an increasingly terrifying housing crisis, deciding the future of … Read more
Amid Australia’s election deadlock, independent candidates have become a lightning rod for discontented voters, and there are lessons for NZ political parties, writes Jennifer Curtin. It might not be as internationally extraordinary as Brexit or Trump winning the Republican nomination, but the result of the Australian election has revealed a profound disaffection with both major … Read more
Arthur Grimes is former chief economist of the Reserve Bank. He thinks we should flood the Auckland market with 150,000 homes and aim for a 40% crash in house prices. In March 2016, the REINZ Auckland median house price reached $820,000. Four years previously, it was $495,000 – that’s a 66% increase in 4 years. … Read more
Australia wakes to discover it can’t make its mind up. Elle Hunt recaps the action from Sydney It’s the campaign that never ends, it just goes on and on, my friends… After an eight-week campaign and a neck-and-neck contest in which not very much happened, the Australian election was expected to be a close-run thing, … Read more
Charity may start at home, but it shouldn’t stop there, writes Amnesty International’s Grant Bayldon I spent a recent chilly Thursday night sleeping in the car with my son at Mangere Town Centre. It was the Park Up For Homes event, raising awareness of local homelessness. I can’t pretend it was a great hardship for … Read more
The long, long, long campaign has come to an end. Miss anything? Fear not: in a dispatch from Sydney, Elle Hunt breaks down everything you need to know. While New Zealanders have been shivving each other for avocados and living in abandoned cruise ships, Australia has been weathering its longest campaign since 1969. Prime minister … Read more
Economist Shamubeel Eaqub, Auckland mayoral candidate Vic Crone, Alan Johnson of the Salvation Army Policy Unit, and Leonie Freeman from Goodman Property Trust discuss the crisis of homelessness and affordable house prices with Guyon Espiner. The latest Ika Table Talk, titled “Can’t We Fix This Housing Thing?” sold out within hours of being announced. On Tuesday … Read more
The father of Imran Patel, the 26-year-old Aucklander convicted for distributing extremist videos, tells Yasmine Ryan he fears that jail risks turning a silly boy into a serious threat. When Imran Patel shouted, “Tell John Key to stop being a slave to America, and to get out of Iraq. Allahu akbar!” after being sentenced last … Read more
This morning, John Key conceded some of his loudest and most persistent critics are right – about one thing at least. Tim Murphy was there to watch the Prime Minister change tack. John Key this morning conceded the government is not spending enough on the nation’s most vulnerable. In the midst of a political winter dominated by homelessness … Read more
The Brexit vote is entirely understandable. In Britain and across western democracies, some sense of democratic renewal is needed to avoid alienation, writes former NZ prime minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer Brexit resulted in my view from a break down in accountabilities. It is entirely understandable. Having spent most of February in the UK when the … Read more
By Jove, it’s only the hotly anticipated return of Gone By Lunchtime, the Spinoff’s epoch-defining politics pod with Annabelle Lee, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire The Gone By Lunchtime podcast team has been roused from its slumber to fearlessly tackle the big political topics of the day/week/month/etc. Equipped with nothing but Lemsip, ginger beer, some … Read more
Yes, it is a crisis: a profound and persistent crisis, bedevilled by distractions. Economist Eric Crampton takes a deep breath and works his way through the factors. The word crisis gets thrown around a lot. New Zealand has managed to have several crises in alcohol use over the past decade, despite official statistics showing generally … Read more
Don’t bet on special treatment for Kiwis in post-Brexit UK. The time remains ripe for a New Zealand republic, writes Lewis Holden It’s no coincidence that the idea of a New Zealand republic first entered mainstream political debate in 1973. That year the United Kingdom joined what was then known as the European Economic Community … Read more
In defiance of most predictions, the UK has opted to quit the European Union, prompting David Cameron to stand down as PM. Reaction from Neil Cross, Rawdon Christie, Noelle McCarthy, Bryan Gould, Andrea Vance and more Paul Brislen: A victory for old Britain Fog in Channel – Europe cut off. I blame Morecambe and Wise. And … Read more
The government’s change of heart on charging for use of Auckland roads at last releases the handbrake on planning for the region’s transport future, writes Matt Lowrie. Auckland’s transport problems are pretty well known, even to those outside the city. They are the result of a toxic mix: decades of political bickering, poor decision making … Read more
Kamal Reddy is going to jail following the successful use of the controversial ‘Crime Scenario Undercover Technique’. What does our highest court have to say about its use? Sorry, you’re not allowed to know that yet, writes Andrew Geddis Kamal Reddy is an undeniably bad man. Last month a jury decided that, back in late … Read more
The spotlight in the latest Auckland debate belonged to a National Party insider already being tipped for the deputy mayoralty. Tim Murphy introduces Desley Simpson, and marks the candidates’ efforts out of 10 One name dominated the latest Auckland mayoral debate in a church foyer in Meadowbank – and it wasn’t any of the five … Read more
The Unconditional Basic Income – a guaranteed sum of money for every citizen, no matter their other income – is an idea whose time has come, say Geoff Simmons and Gareth Morgan. So why aren’t we talking about how it would be funded? Try explaining the Unconditional (or Universal) Basic Income (UBI) and the most common … Read more