A monument to Winston Peters and Think Big projects would both boost the economy, but Argentina learned the hard way they can also impoverish a nation, writes Tony Burton. Everyone who loves New Zealand should visit Argentina. There are more similarities than you might think – large areas of wild natural beauty combined with agricultural … Read more
One man set the tone for a nation divided over rugby and apartheid South Africa. Halt All Racist Tours (HART) founder Trevor Richards writes on Muldoon, politics, sport and culture in 1970s New Zealand. Read Trevor Richards on the birth of a movement that divided New Zealand and changed us forever here. For many in … Read more
Two women who entered parliament at the age of 23, albeit 42 years apart, discuss their parliamentary experiences Read an extract from The Political Years by Marilyn Waring here When Chlöe Swarbrick is introduced at events, she finds herself hailed as the youngest person to be elected to parliament since Marilyn Waring. “I’m very sorry. … Read more
Today it’s babies and playgrounds, but parliament’s early days were more like a drunken party. This story was originally published on RNZ On the night of 14 June 1984, a drunken Prime Minister Robert Muldoon staggered down a Beehive corridor and announced a snap election to a moustachioed, beige-suit-wearing press pack. “It doesn’t give you … Read more
Every week Chartlander travels back through time, landing in a different year on the official New Zealand singles chart in the hopes of (re)discovering forgotten Top 40 gold. Today we continue our tour of classic general elections in the mid-1970s. The date is November 29, 1975 – almost as far back as the official New … Read more
These days ambitious NZ politicians are more likely to be crafting a Facebook post than a memoir. Danyl Mclauchlan gets absorbed in the towering 1974 book by the man who would become the most powerful PM in modern NZ history. “When I was five I tore a cheek muscle in a fall and acquired a facial … Read more
The former National MP whose decision to support anti-nuclear legislation led to the 1984 snap election writes on the transformative influence of the passionate Australian physician Helen Caldicott, who speaks in Auckland this week If you were growing up in New Zealand and Australia post World War II, there’s a chance you knew about the … Read more
Well, not literally. But a 1976 NZ judgment involving PM Muldoon and a public servant has played a cameo role in the English High Court ruling that the prime minister, Theresa May, cannot bypass parliament in triggering the UK exit from the EU. Asher Emanuel explains. New Zealand, late 1975. A television ad warns that … Read more