The Breaking Views blog is administered by the New Zealand Centre for Political Research at NZCPR.com. The views expressed are those of the author alone.
German agriculture ministry wants EU carbon border tax for farming imports
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For most of us, just surviving the virus would seem an achievement in itself and for that the Government can take credit - after all, that is the number one responsibility of any government when its people are under threat. But that responsibility is not a singular requirement of those who occupy the treasury benches - the other equally important role is to manage any crisis in a way that keeps us safe economically as well.
'Significant Media Bias During Cannabis Referendum’, imagine my surprise in seeing that headline after new analysis was carried out on how the media covered the lead up to the cannabis and euthanasia referendums.
A clear bias emerged in the coverage of the cannabis debate.
No kidding.
I was saying that all along, and it felt like I was talking to a brick wall. The media had an agenda and ran with it, and the worst part of that was the pretence that they were impartial, neutral, not taking a position. What a crock.
According to social media, the current zeitgeist, and the author of the runaway bestseller White Fragility, it absolutely is.[1] If you are “white,” and you disagree on any political issue with any person of colour, this is a sure sign that you are a “racist.”
Ok, then. Let’s take that same logic and apply it to other common situations:
Is it sexist for a man to disagree with a woman? Is it sexist every time a husband disagrees with his wife?
You might have noted over the holiday period one of the flags we raised before Christmas was not to get sucked in by the government who were, once again, playing us for fools when the heat in the housing market spilled over to the political world.
The politicians got embarrassed over the fact they'd banged on endlessly about affordable housing while in opposition, but in government and had done nothing about it apart from watch the prices go up, and up, and up.
So as a pre-Christmas distraction Grant Robertson wrote to the Reserve Bank Governor and made some noise about prices, in the vein hope that we'd all think that actually meant something.
I thought a lot over summer – as I’m sure many of us did, just how lucky we are to be able to get out and about, attend concerts and festivals, mingle with each other, travel around the place, eat out, conduct our normal lives.
I don’t think we take that for granted.
Especially when we see the pictures from overseas where countries still ravaged by Covid are locked down, shut, excluding people from daily activities.
But it’s a fine line isn’t it, between being grateful and aware of our privilege here, and being complacent.
China’s 2020 coal output rises to highest since 2015, undermining climate pledges
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India to invest $55 billion in clean coal 'to become $5-trillion economy'
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There’s nothing in the article to convincingly explain how current staff ratios adversely affect Pharmac’s job of buying medicines or how they actually undermine the nation’s health.
The drug-purchasing agency’s “appalling” shortcomings instead relate to concerns about cultural inadequacies, systemic racism and a failure to meet Treaty of Waitangi obligations.
Is John Kerry setting up Boris Johnson for COP26 flop?
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1) Hundreds of Pacific Islands are getting bigger despite global warming
ABC News, 8 January 2021
