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Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Mike's Minute: It was our fault Covid turned into a "thing"


I watched an interview the other week with Marama Davidson.

It came after the elevation of Chloe Swarbrick to the leadership. Davidson wasn’t at the press conference, Chloe told us, because it turns out she had Covid.

In watching the interview, although Covid ridden, Davidson looked and sounded perfectly well, although she was isolating, which is what we do, isn't it?

Cam Slater: A Battle of Wits with an Unarmed Man


Chris Hipkins really is as politically stupid as he appears. In his infinite wisdom, he decided to have a battle of wits with Winston Peters, a battle that I might add he is singularly ill-equipped to deal with. But he went there.

Tony Orman: Natural Climate Change

An article in a recent farming paper entitled “Carbon Credits a Discredit” by Leo Cooney rekindled questions about climate change, the ETS, indeed the whole matter of climate change formerly known as global warming. There arises much confusion in the manipulation by proponents of global warming to any modicum of thought and pondering.

I have pondered why the term "global warming” reverted to "climate change"? That in itself is confusing because climate change has always been happening in cyclic fashion. There’s scientific evidence.

Brendan O'Neill: Fatah is right – Hamas is to blame for the war in Gaza


It’s time we called out the woke left’s neo-imperial belief that Israel is to blame for everything.

So, there you have it: Fatah is now taking a more grown-up line on the Gaza war than most of the woke left. Where Western radicals are still running around damning Israel as a uniquely barbaric state that is carrying out a genocidal pillage of Gaza, Fatah says that, actually, a certain terror army called Hamas bears vast moral responsibility for this calamity. It was Hamas’s ‘adventure’ of 7 October that lit the fire of this war, this ‘horrific and crueller [Nakba] than the Nakba of 1948’, Fatah says. It’s true – so why can so few in the West see it?

Ele Ludemann: Anti-social tenants no longer tolerated


Anti-social tenants will no longer be tolerated in state houses:

Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. . .

David Farrar: Labour’s hysteria


Newshub reports:

Chris Hipkins has doubled down on his accusation the Government is acting like a dictatorship.

The labour leader took his troops on a soul-searching field trip today where one MP even momentarily likened the Coalition to russia's regime.

Geoffrey Miller: Wang Yi’s perfectly-timed, Aukus-themed visit to New Zealand


Timing is everything.

And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment.

The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 17.3.24






Tuesday March 19, 2024 

News:
Tiaki Taonga - Protecting taonga Māori

That question is at the heart of the groundbreaking WAI 262 claim.

The claim was lodged at the Waitangi Tribunal in 1991 by six claimants on behalf of six iwi - Ngāti Kuri, Te Rarawa and Ngātiwai from Northland, Ngāti Porou and Ngāti Kahungunu from the East Coast and Ngāti Koata from the top of the South Island.

Bob McCoskrie: The child transgender agenda is crumbling


It was a good week for biology, the medical profession and children with gender dysphoria last week. The narrative that children can change their sex with the aid of social transitioning, puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, chest binders and tucking is exploding before our eyes. Around the world, medical professionals are finally waking up to a radical activist experiment on our most vulnerable children, Unfortunately New Zealand is still to come to the party – courtesy of an atrocious mainstream media who refuse to discuss this issue as they protect the radical ideology and its adherents. But we’ll tell you. The house of cards has started to fall.

Kerre Woodham: Do you really expect tax cuts?


I wanted to get into this on Friday when the IRD released it’s figures about the online gambling tax, and we were overrun by events. So, let's have a look at this today for the first hour at least because the Government books are open, the numbers have been crunched, and reality is starting to bite.

Brendan O'Neill: Ireland and the terrible truth about wokeness


Ireland’s latest referendum exposed just how zealous and reckless the elites’ culture war has become.

Hands down my favourite part of the referendum revolt in Ireland last week was the discovery of ‘miraculous medals’ among the ballot papers.

 Monday March 18, 2024 

                    

Monday, March 18, 2024

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 18/3/24



Peters holds his ground on co-governance, but Willis wriggles on those tax cuts and SNA suspension looks like a SNAFU

Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today.

Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the government’s official website. Not news that the Beehive website has recorded, at least.

Clive Bibby: Apocalypse Now

First the bad news.

As a species, we appear to be at a stage where a number of international conflicts that have the capacity to involve the whole world are the precursor to a war that could destroy us all.

The Nuclear option in the hands of maniacs who have no sense of humanity in the way they promote their own selfish interests is an alarming, undeniable feature of what is at stake here on planet Earth.

But the zealots promoting their own ideological persuasion are just as frightening when it comes to building resistance that might save us from ourselves.

Caleb Anderson: Questions Over the Separation of Church and State

Thought that maybe we had separation of religion and state in New Zealand?

This is sent as part of an information pack by one of our tertiary institutions seeking workplace experience for their students:

“The cloak of the creator, the cloak of peace has been spread upon us. Ranginui above, Papatūānuku below.

NZCPR Newsletter: A Media Reset


The declining fortunes of the mainstream media has been dominating the news over recent weeks. The industry is waning, and the weaker players are facing closure.

While this is grim for those who face job loss and financial uncertainty, there’s not a lot of public sympathy for the media sector these days. And, if we have a quick look back, it’s not hard to see why.

Gary Judd KC: On Judicial Imperialism


why judges must ‘stay in their lane’

Provoked by the Supreme Court’s decision in Smith v Fonterra and others [2024] NZSC 5, Professor James Allan, Garrick Professor of Law at the University of Queensland, a Canadian who taught law at Otago University for 11 years before moving across the ditch, has published “New Zealand’s imperial judiciary Who gave them the power? They did” in Spectator Australia on 2 March. He says:

Simon O'Connor: NZ's Chat with China this week


A few notes for NZ's foreign minister as he prepares to meet his CCP counterpart this week. With trade always so dominant, I thought it would be useful to refresh the memory of a few other matters.

Sir Bob Jones: The Golriz Ghahraman case


Regarding the Golriz drama the NZ Herald quoted a Wellington clinical psychologist, Dr Dougal Sutherland, ungrammatically saying, “If there is an irrational behaviour it suggests that perhaps all is not well”.

Try it again Dougal without the “an”. More important, wake up about the physical nature of the human body.

We have two counteracting brain lobes, one delivering emotion, the other logic.

Ele Ludemann: Black week for Greens


Last week was a black one for the Green Party.

One of its former MPs, Golriz Ghahraman, was in court where she entered a guilty plea to shoplifting and one of its new MPs, Darleen Tana, has been accused of migrant exploitation.