Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Major milestone reached in Pike River story, report paints damning picture of parliamentary bullying, and Alfred Ngaro builds profile with abortion comments. For the families of those men killed in the Pike River mine explosion, yesterday was a culmination of years of hard work. Almost nine years … Read more
The Coalition win in Australia has dealt a blow to the hopes of more than 800 refugees stuck on Pacific Islands, writes RNZ Pacific’s Johnny Blades. Refugees in Australia’s offshore processing centres on Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island had their hopes pinned on a Labor victory yesterday. Labor’s leader Bill Shorten had promised … Read more
Following a terrorist attack targeting NZ’s Muslim community, Scott Morrison has been keen to hug his NZ counterpart, and talked of a ‘bright stream of light to come from the darkness’. Until he overhauls Australia’s immigration and deportation policy, it’s nothing but platitude, writes Janet McAllister Ostensibly, the Aussies were there to support the Kiwis, … Read more
Luke Buda and Don McGlashan have today released “Children Don’t Belong in Jail”, a protest song about the refugee children detained on Nauru. The song, released in association with trans-Tasman advocacy group Mums 4 Refugees in the leadup to Universal Children’s Day on 20 November, seeks to add energy to and raise funds for calls to … Read more
Treating the types of conditions and injuries which present in this era requires doctors to become advocates as well as healers, writes Dr Jin Russell. Last Thursday, the National Rifle Association (NRA) posted a deeply provocative and surprisingly idiotic tweet about doctors in the United States. This move was a retaliation against an email from … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Secretly recorded tape raises huge questions for National, Austrian company gets oil exploration extension, and govt won’t close ‘back door’ for Nauru refugees. The question was asked yesterday – what fresh horrors await National? Well, we got our answer, with the release of a taped phone conversation … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: National party knife-fight gets extremely bloody, Naura detainee refugees may be allowed to come to NZ, and a shake-up coming for Māori media. The developments at Parliament yesterday are almost without precedent, as renegade National MP Jami-Lee Ross threw astonishing accusations at his party leader Simon … Read more
As the number of New Zealand citizens deported from Australia grows, so too does the death toll. Don Rowe reports on the rising human costs of Australia’s immigration reforms. This feature was made possible thanks to reader contributions via Spinoff Members. See here for more. In June 2017, at the Anchor Baptist Church in Lower … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: PM starts new week after three on the back foot, Herald launches economic inequality series, and huge house building programme announced for Mt Roskill. The Prime Minister starts the week after a few that she’d probably rather forget. Three weeks in a row now have finished with … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: PM put on the back foot over refugee quota, police reject pay offer, and some juicy local government drama unfolds in Cromwell. Plans to increase the refugee quota appear to be in jeopardy, after a public intervention from deputy PM Winston Peters, reports Newshub. Mr Peters set events … Read more
The prime minister has come under fire over a decision to fly to the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru for 36 hours. Parents editor Emily Writes listens and learns from the chorus of angry man broadcasters The sound of grunted angry crowing filled the air this morning. It was clear what had happened. An appalling … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Spy agencies want ways around encrypted devices, rift opens in government over refugee quota, and Bridges rules out supporting compulsory te reo. Internet NZ has issued a warning against a Five Eyes push to force vendors and service providers to give law enforcement more access to … Read more
Jacinda Ardern flies to Nauru this week for the 49th Pacific Islands Forum, and the host nation is already making headlines way beyond the official agenda. Don Rowe explains Fifty years after it became the world’s smallest republic, Nauru plays host this week to the 49th Pacific Islands Forum amid international outrage over the treatment of … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Greens have their weekend in the spotlight, sharp rise in international visitor spending, and drums beating for Fonterra breakup. The Green Party have had their annual weekend in the spotlight, and have pushed out some new policy wins. They’re areas where the party has promised to make … Read more
Over two years in Nauru, I met many of the 119 children who have been left languishing by Australia and Nauru on the island. At the Pacific Island Forum, Jacinda Ardern has an opportunity to take a stand, and to change these kids’ lives, writes James Harris of World Vision From 2012 to 2014 I … Read more
We were all horrified to see children ripped from their parents’ arms at the US-Mexico border last month. Sadly, this kind of thing happens in Australia, too, under their mandatory detention policies. Thalia Kehoe Rowden talked to a human rights lawyer about one family that has been separated for the last three years. Content note: … Read more
New Zealanders are outraged at how the United States is treating asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border. Thalia Kehoe Rowden reckons this is a good time to figure out if we want to be the good guys or the bad guys, here in Aotearoa. Whenever New Zealanders criticise other countries’ treatment of refugees, someone on … Read more
New Zealanders have been rightly horrified by Trump’s camps separating children from their parents. Are we similarly outraged by the illegal detention by the Australian government of babies and mothers? Thalia Kehoe Rowden spoke to some mums living in Nauru, waiting for years to be welcomed to a new country. Content note: this article contains … Read more
In order to be a good friend we don’t owe Australia our loyalty – we owe them honesty, writes Graham Cameron. The deputy prime minister of Australia, Barnaby Joyce, is grumpy with Jacinda Ardern because she offered a place to 150 of those refugees that Australia illegally imprisoned and then abandoned on Manus Island in … Read more
Mike Hosking has made another big mistake, this time on the UN’s refugee convention. Amnesty International New Zealand’s Grant Bayldon gives him a lesson in international law. In alarming misrepresentation of international law in today’s Mike’s Minute, Mike Hosking has applauded the Australian prime minister’s rejection of New Zealand’s offer to help resettle refugees from offshore … Read more
President Trump reportedly called his fiery conversation with Malcolm Turnbull “the worst call so far” and later tweeted he would “study this dumb deal” to allow into the United States 1250 refugees currently being held in Australian detention centres. To help out student of international diplomacy Donald Trump – and the rest of us – Tracey … Read more
Canberra’s offshore detention camps can be seen as an example of ‘necro-politics’, argues Janet McAllister. This week, The Spinoff published Amnesty International’s piece calling for New Zealand to protest Australia’s offshore detention centres, and then The Guardian published mountains more evidence of abuse and atrocities on Nauru. It costs Australia billions of dollars every year to violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights so spectacularly. But simply … Read more
We have rarely seen such a sustained, and successful, attempt to hide abuses from the outside world as the Australian government is perpetuating right now in its ‘offshore detention’ policy, writes Amnesty International’s Grant Bayldon There is a basic principle of human rights work: when lawyers, families, journalists, doctors and official monitors are prevented from … Read more
On the second anniversary of her migration to the Lucky Country, Di White is moved to tears by Chasing Asylum, an acclaimed new film about Australian refugee policy. It’s been two years since I moved to Australia. I arrived on a plane on 4 June 2014. I remember the day well. I was moving between … Read more
Hundreds of refugees remain stranded in Nauru, some in one of Australia’s controversial detention camps, others now in the community. 28 refugees on Nauru have appealed to New Zealand, seeking resettlement under a 2013 deal with Australia. One of the Nauru refugees details conditions in the camp and on the island, and why they wish … Read more
