Garrick Tremain: Grave Diggers

 Here is Garrick Tremain's latest cartoon commentary!

The Darkening Clouds of Totalitarianism

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

In this week’s NZCPR newsletter, we examine the Government’s radical plan to criminalise free speech and regulate political opinion, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Chris Trotter questions the Government’s implementation of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Christchurch shooting, and our poll asks whether you support Jacinda Ardern’s plan to criminalise free speech.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
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Breaking Views Update: Week of 18.04.21

Thursday April 22, 2021 

News:
DHBs scrapped and new Māori Health Authority announced
"The system must work in true partnership with Māori... Māori still suffer, on average, worse health than others."

There will also be a new Māori Health Authority, sitting alongside that, to both set policies for Māori health and to decide and fund those who will deliver services.

GWPF Newsletter: China unlikely to make new climate pledges

 

China says climate onus is on the US

In this newsletter:

1) China unlikely to make new climate pledges
Associated Press, 17 April 2021
 

2) China says climate onus on US in John Kerry talks
Agence France-Press, 17 April 2021

Gerry Eckhoff: Golf Lessons

It’s often said that golf is merely a good walk spoiled yet there are so many life-lessons to be taken or just observed from the game of golf. 

The Masters golf tournament recently finished after four days of intense focus by lovers of the game who appear to value all the aspects of golf which are entwined in the game of life as well.  

That is – a skill set of determination, nerve, success, failure , respect, ability - not to mention all of the participants playing strictly by the rules. 

Golf is a sport where success is applauded even by the opposing side or player. 

Clive Bibby: Nothing surprises me anymore

I used to think and was led to believe by those who should know that we have nothing to fear from Maori moves towards greater involvement in how this country is run - especially in the control over the use of our natural resources.

Like most kiwis wanting a peaceful path towards reconciliation and meaningful compensation for past mistreatment of Maori by agencies representing the Crown, l have been proud of the settlements that in most cases appeared to be fair, recognising as we must, that nothing will ever truly compensate for some of the significant losses that have occurred.

It is clear that none of the settlements that have been negotiated would have happened without the large amount of goodwill contributed by Maoridom itself.

As a nation, the progress we have made towards reconciliation (which is light years ahead of any other county on the planet) is almost entirely due to the genuine desire by both parties for a shared future. Hopefully those aspirational attitudes will continue until we reach a stage where we can all claim that justice has finally been served.

Only then will we be free to move on towards a society that allows equal opportunity for all who would benefit from the egalitarian model that is within our grasp.

Unfortunately, recent events suggest we are fools if we think any of that is possible.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Foreign Minister's speech suggests a move away from China

 

If you are a business exporting to China, you’ve just been given a warning: You need to start diversifying away from China. 

That’s the message came through loud and clear from foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta in her speech to the New Zealand China Council today.

She said: “In thinking about long-term economic resilience, we also understand that there is value in diversity.

"It is prudent not to put all eggs into a single basket". 

Karl du Fresne: Why we should be sceptical about Kris Faafoi's grand broadcasting project

In a previous life, I served for two years as a member of the Library and Information Advisory Commission (LIAC).

You’ve never heard of it? That’s hardly surprising. Not many people have. It was established by Helen Clark’s government for the purposes of, among other things, “maintaining a strategic overview of the library and information sectors” and “providing stakeholder perspectives on issues and proposals”. Make of that what you will.

Rodney Clifton: A Meaningful Job is the Only Way Forward for First Nations People

There is little doubt that the condition of Indigenous people is desperate in Canada, especially for those living in the 600 or so small isolated First Nations communities.

Most Canadians know some facts about the quality of lives of the people in these communities, but let’s refresh our minds with a few statistics. 

First Nations have the highest rates of incarceration, homelessness, poverty, and welfare dependency. They also have the highest rates of infant mortality, suicides, and the lowest life expectancy of any racial or ethnic group in Canada. As well, reserve communities have the highest rates of sexual abuse, single motherhood, and alcohol and drug abuse.1  

Breaking Views Update: Week of 11.04.21

Saturday April 17, 2021 

News:
Taranaki te ao Māori advocates 'disappointed' with McDonald's over continued use of 'Naki' packaging
Te ao Māori advocates have called on burger giant McDonald’s to immediately stop using packaging containing an offensive abbreviation for Taranaki.

The company's Angus burger boxes contain a blurb about the beef it uses, and that it is made into patties in “The ‘Naki”.

Mike Hosking: How are officials this useless and still in work?

 

So the border worker didn’t get a jab despite missing two appointments – and now the border worker hadn't even been tested since last year.

It's good to know the Government and Health Ministry can still surprise us, even as a growing number of us thought the levels of ineptitude couldn't possibly get any worse.

Remember last year and the outrage over the port workers who weren't getting tested?

Remember the woman at the centre of the last lockdown, the border worker at Sky Chefs, who had missed her test?

Remember all the promises made about tightening things up - or as Bloomfield and Hipkins were so often heard to say - this is the system learning?

Learning what? How to out-do yourself in terms of incompetency?

Francis Menton: Lessons In Woke "Science" - Covid-19 And Climate

Over time, I have had many posts on the scientific method, most recently in January 2021 here. You posit a falsifiable hypothesis. Then you collect and examine the evidence. If the evidence contradicts your hypothesis you must abandon it and move on. Really, that’s the whole thing.

Then there is woke “science,” most visible these days in the arenas of response to the Covid-19 virus and of climate change. Here the principles are a little different. In woke “science” there is no falsifiable hypothesis. In place of that, we have the official orthodox consensus view. The official orthodox consensus view has been arrived at by all the smartest people, because it just seems like it must be right. The official orthodox consensus view must not be contradicted, particularly by the little people like you. Based on the official orthodox consensus view, those in power can take away all your freedom (Covid) and/or transform the entire economy (climate). After all, it’s the “science.”

Bob Edlin: The rot of local government democracy

Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta’s intentions were plainly proclaimed soon after the Ardern Government began its second term.  She was determined to remove legislative machinery that enabled public polls to be conducted when councils attempted to create Māori wards.

The headline on an RNZ report summed up her commitment: Mahuta vows to clear obstacles to creating Māori council wards

She has been dismayingly successful, from the perspective of citizens anxious to buttress democratic electoral and governance arrangements against the fast-spreading erosion when special provisions for Maori are introduced.

Peter Williams: Plans for a co-governed New Zealand you should be concerned about

I want to talk about a very important issue. It’s called democracy.

As Winston Churchill once said, apparently, “no-one pretends democracy is perfect. In fact, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

But the question I think we should be asking in this country is this: is democracy under threat? 

Garrick Tremain: Waves

Here is Garrick Tremain's latest cartoon commentary!

NZCPR Newsletter: Defending Our Democracy

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

In this week’s NZCPR newsletter, we examine the implications of the Government’s plan to implement the UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by 2040 and we re-launch our Declaration of Equality to defend New Zealand democracy, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Tony Sayers outlines the importance of pushing back against separatist control, and our poll asks whether you believe all race-based preferment be abolished from New Zealand Statutes.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
*To register for the NZCPR Weekly mailing list, click HERE.  

GWPF Newsletter: COP Out? Boris Johnson battles to save COP26 climate conference

 

China, India & Brazil reluctant to cave in to US pressure on climate

In this newsletter:

1) COP Out? Boris Johnson battles to save COP26 climate conference
The Sun, 14 April 2021

2) China’s Xi Jinping has not committed to Biden’s climate summit. 
New York Post, 13 April 2021

Matt Ridley: The Unexpected History and Miraculous Success of Vaccines

At a time when the miraculous success of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 has transformed the battle against the pandemic, it is fitting to recall that the general idea behind vaccination was brought to the attention of the western world, not by brilliant and privileged professors, but by a black slave and a woman.

His name was Onesimus and he lived in Boston, as the property of Cotton Mather, a well-known puritan preacher. Her name was Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu, the literary wife of the British ambassador to Constantinople.

Some time around 1715 Onesimus seems to have told Mather that back in West Africa people were in the habit of deliberately infecting children with a drop of “juice of smallpox” from a survivor, thus making them immune. Mather then came across a report to the Royal Society in London from an Italian physician, Emmanuel Timoni, working in the Ottoman court in Constantinople, which described the same practice in combating smallpox. The Ottomans had got the idea from either China or Africa.

GWPF Newsletter: Emerging nations join forces to oppose ‘carbon border tax’

 

Why Net Zero won't happen

In this newsletter:

1) Emerging nations join forces to oppose ‘carbon border tax’
Times of India, 10 April 2021
 
2) Emerging economies share ‘grave concern’ over EU plans for a carbon border levy
EurActiv, 12 April 2021

Barrie Saunders: Democracy or Partnership – what do we want?

The departure of Donald Trump from the White House was a victory for the US democratic system, which only just succeeded.   If then Vice President Mike Pence had wavered under enormous pressure from President Trump and his cult-like supporters, Joe Biden might not be in the White House and there would have been serious civil disorder.  The Republicans haven’t given up, they are now trying to make voting more difficult in several states.  

Democracy is a model under threat from many quarters, and losing around the world.

It is easy to forget how recently democracy has become mainstream.  In Britain women over the age of 21 only got the vote in 1928 and in the US, universal suffrage only became accessible to all Afro-Americans in the last 55 years, because, prior to the 1960s voting reforms, there was serious voter suppression in parts of the country.  Some former East European countries like Hungary have retreated from the democratic model and others like Greece and Italy have struggled to deal with major economic challenges.