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Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Karl du Fresne: Don't mention the war


The most obvious question was the one Susie Ferguson didn’t ask during an interview on Morning Report last week about the Crown’s settlement of Moriori compensation claims.

Speaking to Moriori spokesman Maui Solomon about the passing of the Moriori Claims Settlement Bill, Ferguson tastefully avoided any mention of the invasion of the Moriori homeland Rekohu (aka the Chatham Islands) in 1835 by the Ngati Mutunga and Ngati Tama tribes from Taranaki, who killed or displaced an estimated 95 per cent of the peaceable resident people and enslaved the survivors. You might call it a “don’t mention the war” moment.

Kate Hawkesby: Omicron reminds us that Covid is in the driving seat, not us

 

As Aucklanders endured their last weekend of an alert level lockdown, waiting to move into our red traffic light this weekend, Covid reminded us that it’s in the driving seat, not us. 

Relative freedoms just a handful of days away, inching towards some kind of normality, and then boom, news erupts over the weekend of this new variant Omicron. 

With hope having been dashed to shreds over this past year, it’s hard to stay positive, especially when countries start restricting travel again, re-introducing self-isolation, and not ruling out a return to lockdowns. The familiar creep of dread washes over us. 

Clive Bibby: History and the facts


Most kiwis will have missed the news from Parliament recently of the passing of a bill that supposedly brings to an end the long suffering of the Chatham Island tangata whenua - the Moriori.

But we would be fools to believe that now a settlement has been reached, we can all return to normal.

There are reasons why it is not possible in the current climate.

The settlement of claims against the Crown can only be described as breathtaking, considering the scale of its disingenuous response to legitimate grievances.

The behaviour of some Crown Ministers who had responsibilities for drawing a line under one of the darkest chapters in this country’s history can only be described as contemptuous.

Monday, November 29, 2021

Kevin Boyle: The Auckland Terrorist Attack – A Seminal Case Study and Blueprint for Change?


The Auckland terror attack on 3 Sept 2021 that resulted in the death of the terrorist Ahamed Samsudeen and seriously injured seven innocent people, could have been prevented. The event presents as a seminal case study into how society attempts but fails to prevent crime using policing, and evidence of the failure here can help define a blueprint for change.

Policing is responsible for crime prevention alongside its core law enforcement role, but it does not and cannot prevent crime. Unaware of this fault, it continues to covet the role by defending its failures and influencing law changes that do not enhance its prevention value. The most vexing consequence is policing’s ability to control the message that allows it to obstruct the fault from lawmakers who are then unable to expose and remedy it.

But policing demonstrated the critical disconnect between its dual roles when it ignored an academic-led intervention solution that could have prevented Samsudeen carrying out his attack in favor of its own ill-fated law enforcement 24/7 surveillance method that failed.

Net Zero Watch: Boris backtracks on Net Zero plans amid concerns over soaring fuel and heating bills

 





In this newsletter:

1) Boris backtracks on Net Zero plans amid concerns over soaring fuel and heating bills
The Daily Telegraph, 25 November 2021

 
2) Soaring energy bills will plunge 150,000 more people into fuel poverty, warns Age UK
iNews, 26 November 2021

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Who should be next National Party leader?

 

Who should take over the leadership of the National Party?

In the mix right now: Christopher Luxon, Simon Bridges, Mark Mitchell, Chris Bishop, and Shane Reti.

Shane Reti is not an option. He helped Judith Collins commit the murder-suicide on Simon Bridges on Wednesday night so he’s too tainted. 

Chris Bishop is not an option yet. Too many people are still too angry with him for helping in the Muller coup. He’s doing great work so he’ll recover, but it’s too early.

Sunday, November 28, 2021

NZCPR Weekly: The Fatal Flaw



Dear NZCPR Reader,   

In this week’s NZCPR newsletter we discuss the failure of ‘co-governance’ and describe how Wai 262 – another key He Puapua objective – is being included in legislation, research, and trade deals to create new profiteering opportunities for the tribal elite; our NZCPR Guest Commentator Paul Verdon outlines his concerns about the inclusion of a haka written by a mass murderer in a trade deal with the UK, and our poll asks whether you agree that Maori should be given special rights and privileges as the “guardians” of New Zealand’s flora and fauna.

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


Saturday, November 27, 2021

Breaking Views Update: Week of 21.11.21







Saturday November 27, 2021 

News:
Largest ever cohort of Māori health professionals to graduate from Otago University

The largest ever cohort of Māori health professionals is set to graduate from the University of Otago.

This comes as much welcomed news to those working to address decades of inequity.

Friday, November 26, 2021

Net Zero Watch: It’s heat or eat as Britain's energy crisis bites

 





In this newsletter:

1) It’s heat or eat as energy crisis bites
The London Evening Standard, 23 November 2021

  
2) Energy prices are a bigger worry than Covid for almost half of Britons with third leaving the heating off in cold weather
Daily Mail, 18 November 2021

Mike Hosking: If National get this wrong, they risk years of political obscurity

 

I don’t mind that Shane Reti is the interim leader. The main reason being, if you are going to do this, try and do it properly. Far better to make a solid, well considered decision over a mad cap heat of the moment one. 

Whether Reti held the job for a while will matter not in the fullness of time. 

As for poor old Judith Collins, her demise will be quickly forgotten as well. We don’t spend a lot of time talking about the David Shearer years, the David Cunliffe years, the Andrew Little years, or the Bill English years. Not that most of them even had years to talk about, sometimes just months. 

The point is once you're gone, you're a feather duster. 

Thursday, November 25, 2021

Kate Hawkesby: National Party have completely stuffed this up

 

What the hell is going on inside the National Party? 

Here's the problem with that question. We shouldn't even be asking it. We shouldn't need to ask it. They shouldn't be making everything about them and drawing attention to themselves in this way - at a critical time for the opposition to make hay, with so much material available to them to clobber the government with. What are they thinking? 

This hit job on Bridges is so poorly timed, mind you, so is his clearly bungled coup attempt. 

Dr. Shankara Chetty: 8th Day Protocol


Watch the interview between Australian MP Craig Kelly and Dr. Shankara Chetty, with Omar Kahn Founder of EPL Global, explaining the treatment protocol developed by Dr Chetty and used to successfully treat over 7,000 severely ill Covid-19 patients, without any hospitalisations or deaths.

Nick Cater: Tyranny of ineptitude


The exclusion of the unvaccinated from public places cannot be justified on public health grounds unless the object is deterrence through humiliation. 

If that was a rent-a-crowd demonstration in Melbourne on Saturday, you wouldn’t want to be picking up the tab. Attendance estimates are rubbery and memories are short but you would have to go back to February 1967 to find a middle-class revolt of similar size against an intransigent Victorian premier.

Daniel Andrews’ goose is not yet cooked, any more than Henry Bolte’s was when thousands protested outside Pentridge Prison against the hanging of Ronald Ryan. History records that Bolte picked up six more seats at the following election. Yet the protest should serve as a warning to Andrews that even patient, civilly obedient Victorians eventually reach breaking point.

The protests are not limited to Victoria or Australia. Huge demonstrations occurred last weekend in dozens of European cities including Belfast, Rotterdam and Milan. The biggest was in Vienna, which is about to enter another fruitless lockdown despite mount­ing evidence that lockdowns are a sadistic experiment with unintended consequences.

Ross Meurant: Jacinda’s Humanitarianism Policy Exposed

The KLOCHKOV family: mother, father and two kids aboard their 20-meter yacht, escaping from the clutches of COVID, arrive in the Southern Pacific.

A family of four, been at sea several weeks with no sign of the virus having infiltrated their “bubble”, find themselves near New Zealand – just as the sea water converter on board, breaks down.

No water.

The KLOCHKOV family seek permission to make landfall in New Zealand to take on board – water.  Topping up the food stores was also on the agenda.

To their shock and dismay, agents of the great humanitarian, Jacinda Ardern, said:

NO ENTRY.

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Is there no end to the absurdity of this Government?

 

Is there no end to the absurdity of this Government's decisions? 

They’ve today announced they will NOT free up MIQ in time for Christmas. 

Instead, Kiwis stuck in Australia have to wait to January 17 to isolate at home.  

Why do they have to wait?  

No reason; other than Jacinda, Grant and Chris have decided to ruin Christmas for families.  

Let’s be clear about this, double jabbed kiwis stuck in Australia are virtually no risk to us in New Zealand.  

Tuesday, November 23, 2021

Mike Hosking: Our international border closure risks NZ being left behind

 

Do you think our government has thought about immigration lately? Do you think they have a plan to get international students back? And if they do, when? 

What about the chronic labour shortages? Do you think there is a plan that could be unleashed tomorrow to ramp returns up when the border opens? By the way, when do you think the border is opening? 

Australia has announced 200,000 visas. Australia also has its border open. So a quick question, for starters, would be how is it that Australia can open its borders and we can't? How is it they're inviting hundreds of thousands into the country to fire up the economy and we haven't? 

Bruce Moon: A Few Thoughts


We live on what is mostly a rather viscous ball of very hot and dense fluid surrounding a lump of iron – our world.

The bits we live on are mostly solid chunks which we call “land” floating on this gooey mess, bumping into each other, pushing over and under each other as they have done for billions of years and surrounded, marvellously, with a thin layer of another remarkable fluid - water - in what we call “oceans”.

On the surface - or very near it - there has been another marvellous development - it is called "life", in millions of diverse forms. 

Graham Adams: Māori professor under investigation for views on mātauranga Māori


Dr Garth Cooper has devoted his career to helping fellow Māori but he now finds himself in the gun over his opinions about science and indigenous knowledge. Graham Adams reports from the front lines of the culture wars.

New Zealanders like their heroes talented and modest and preferably devoted to public service as well. Sir Edmund Hillary is the exemplar of that breed and very few have the mana he enjoys in our collective consciousness.

Nevertheless, there are many others similarly talented and dedicated to the collective good but who go largely unnoticed outside their professional lives.

One such is Professor Garth Cooper, who is suddenly in the news because he is under disciplinary investigation by the Royal Society Te Apārangi, the nation’s premier organisation promoting science and the humanities.

Garrick Tremain: A New Prime Minister for Christmas!

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on Santa delivering a new Prime Minister! 


Net Zero Watch: Energy crunch drives Europe to burn more coal

 





In this newsletter:

1) Energy crunch drives Europe to burn more coal
Bloomberg, 22 November 2021
 

2) Big winners of Europe's shale gas ban: Coal power plants
The Wall Street Journal, 18 November 2021

Drew Belobaba: The Treatment that Dares Not Speak its Name

On October 12th in the interests of combatting “misinformation” about Covid-19 Alberta Health Services issued a bulletin on its website entitled:  Ivermectin: A useful drug, but not a treatment for COVID-19.  

In keeping with Canada’s moribund political culture this was dutifully endorsed by Premier Jason Kenney on social media.  Mr Kenney and the AHS are entitled to their opinion about the efficacy of Ivermectin as a Covid-19 treatment for that is all it is – an opinion.  In fact, there is strong circumstantial evidence that Ivermectin is effective as not just a treatment, but also as a prophylaxis against the disease of which two examples of many will suffice.

Clive Bibby: Wasted opportunities or fanciful expectations


An international event as widespread and influential as the Covid 19 pandemic was always going to force nations to change the way they do things in order to survive in a world where choices are at a premium.

While most governments have reacted to this threat to their sovereignty in a conservative manner and hoped for the best, few have been bold enough to adopt policies that offered greater rewards in spite of increased risk of failure.

Some, like our own country, have squandered advantages that accompany an island state that provided protection against the initial onslaught not available to most other nations having to impose lockdowns that dramatically affected the economy.

Robert MacCulloch: The Unravelling of Labour's Economic Strategy

Below is my column from the NBR - it's a critique of the government's economic strategy - though in the interests of non-partisanship it should first be pointed out that it's not as if the National Party are offering anything better - in fact, the Nats still haven't thought up an economic strategy, other than "steady as she goes". You can read the column at this link, https://www.nbr.co.nz/node/232187 or here:

Earlier this year Finance Minister, Grant Robertson, was full of hubris. Buoyed by the temporary “elimination” of the virus, he painted himself as saviour, describing NZ as the “envy of many countries in the world”. 

His 2021 Budget Speech, whose theme was “Accelerating our Recovery”, was detached from reality. It implied his government had successfully put the worst behind us. It was reminiscent of US President George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” fiasco, when he prematurely declared the Iraq War over. 

Monday, November 22, 2021

Derek Mackie: James and the giant underpants!


Once upon a time there was a teenage boy called James. He lived in a small village with the unusual name of Sealeville-on-the-Ryse, which had one of the best beaches in New Zealand - for now at least! It was a popular day trip for residents from the nearby coal mining town of Shawbottom, James’ birthplace. 

 James loved everything about nature. He would get very upset when he saw people ripping up the ground with their machines, letting cows and sheep eat the grass, and cutting down trees they had planted to make stuff - what we would call mining, farming and forestry! 

 James believed that the environment should be left untouched and pristine and constantly lectured his poor, long-suffering parents about how bad people were for the planet. 
But where do you think your dinner comes from?” they would ask. 
The supermarket, of course!” replied James. “I’m not stupid, you know!
His parents, Mr and Mrs Green, had a different view on that but didn’t want to upset James, who naturally assumed he was right. He always got very intolerant with people who disagreed with him, and had an annoying habit of pointing at them and shouting “you’re cancelled”, so they kept quiet. 

Henry Armstrong: Climate Change - The Reality Vs The Bulldust, Bunkum And Balderdash!


It was encouraging to see thousands of ordinary New Zealanders out on the streets and at Parliament on Tuesday 9th November, protesting, waving NZ, Maori sovereignty and United Tribes flags. Parliament was in lockdown, perhaps fearing a US Capitol-style invasion. 

Irrespective of the reasons for protesting, the overall themes were perceived loss of freedoms - compulsory lockdowns, mandatory vaccinations, freedom of choice, ominous climate change proposals. The right to protest within the law is fundamental in a true democracy and must of course be upheld. 

With the lockdown of Parliament unprecedented in the last 40 years, according to Speaker Mallard, politicians dared not address the crowd. Imagine the reception Prime Minister Ardern would have received had she fronted! Instead we had a dismissive comment from Ardern to the effect that the protesters were “not reflective of the vast bulk of New Zealanders” - a dangerous and ignorant comment in that these brave souls had the courage to demonstrate, whilst many others who might have quietly agreed with them, stayed at home.

Sunday, November 21, 2021

Net Zero Watch: Rolling blackouts threaten Europe this winter

 





In this newsletter:

1) Rolling blackouts threaten Europe this winter
The Daily Telegraph, 17 November 2021
 
2) Forget COP26: India's Jindal plans to start building Botswana coal mine in 2022
Reuters, 19 November 2021

Karl du Fresne: No one should be surprised by a backlash against the news media


One of the least surprising things I’ve read lately is that journalists have been getting a hard time from protesters. I mean, who’d have thought?

Bryce Edwards reported that broadcaster Mihingarangi Forbes tweeted last week: “As a journo I have always felt safe at protests, most understand we have a job to do but the ‘Freedom and Choice’ protests feel different. ‘F*ck the Media’ is the new catch phrase. It's dangerous.”

NewstalkZB political reporter Jason Walls struck a similar tone in an article headlined: Attacks on the media are escalating and look like they’ll only get worse. Noting that there had been “a stark and worrying change in the level of animosity directed at journalists”, Walls wrote that a 1News cameraman had been attacked at an anti-vaccination event in Greymouth and a Newshub reporter was heckled.

NZCPR Weekly: Delta Comes Knocking



Dear NZCPR Reader,   

In this week’s NZCPR newsletter we raise concerns about the impact of the surge in Covid cases that will result once Jacinda Ardern introduces her traffic light system in mid-December and we recommend as many people as possible oppose the new Pae Ora Bill to segregate New Zealand’s health system by race, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Professor John Gibson shares his investigation into the effectiveness of mass vaccination programmes around the world, and our poll asks whether the restructure of the health system be shelved.

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


Saturday, November 20, 2021

Ross Meurant: A Fine Line


After Brian Tamaki’s arrest, the Minister of Police was advised via txt from the commissioner of police.(1)

After the event! 

 So, we are informed by Main Stream Media today.

This is a very important claim.

This is the same media which by my standards, is largely beholden to protect the government.

As Hon Dr Bassett comments on the Public Interest Journalism Fund (2) established by Labour:

“Stuff received $300,000 to establish a “cultural competency course”. To encourage Maori TV, NZME, Pacific Media, News hub and support partners to take on journalism cadets who are Maori or Pacific, a cool $2.4 million was handed out. NZME that produces the New Zealand Herald got $440,000. One estimate I’ve seen is that 40% of the total beneficence will go to Maori projects.”

Breaking Views Update: Week of 14.11.21







Saturday November 20, 2021 

News:
Māori leaders want urgent inquiry into Govt’s pandemic response

A group of Māori leaders have made an application to the Waitangi Tribunal for an urgent inquiry into the Government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Claimants Archdeacon Harvey Ruru, Sir Edward Durie and representatives of the New Zealand Māori Council have told the tribunal Māori are significantly and irreversibly prejudiced by the Crown’s Covid-19 Protection Framework.

Friday, November 19, 2021

Chris Trotter: “Yesterday’s Controversy” – Labour Better Hope So!


Andrea Vance's claim that: “Beyond 2022’s local government elections, Three Waters will be yesterday’s controversy”, is a bold one. Had the Delta Variant of Covid-19 not made it to New Zealand, and if Jacinda Ardern’s government was still basking in the warm glow of public adulation, then it is just possible that the Three Waters project would, indeed, have become “yesterday’s controversy” by 2023. 

But Delta did arrive, and the Prime Minister has become the lightning-rod for a noisy political movement dedicated to the utter destruction of both herself and her government. Labour’s Three Waters project can only assume an ever-increasing salience as that anti-government movement grows.

Lindsay Mitchell: NEWSFLASH - Huge drop in Jobseeker numbers!


Wow.

Net Jobseeker numbers dropped by nearly 5,000 in the week to November 12. That's fantastic. 

The number of people cancelling their Jobseeker benefit  numbered 8,280 - an increase of 5,535 on the prior week. The economy must really be picking up!


Too good to be true?

Michael Bassett: Racially Charged Healthcare


If you want proof that Jacinda Ardern’s is the most racist government in New Zealand’s history, just take a look at the proposed legislation for the new health structure. The Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Bill was sent to a select committee concerns itself almost exclusively with Maori health. Maori are mentioned in most clauses of the legislation. The health of 17% of the population seems to be the only concern of this government. 

Pacific Islanders get a look-in briefly, the Minister being required to produce a specific strategy for their health. But all the rest of us who make up 70% of the people are never mentioned, and are dismissed at one point as “the other populations”. By the time Maori health providers have been accommodated in the new health structure which is amazingly top-heavy and bureaucratic, there won’t be any room for Pakeha or Asian input on anything. The Bill is a further indicator that Jacinda Ardern regards Pakeha as interlopers of whom her government is contemptuous. Like so much else, it too has Nanaia Mahuta’s malign influence stamped all over it. She has become Rasputin to the Tsarina, intent on running a faltering ministry.

Thursday, November 18, 2021

Mike Hosking: Joe Biden looking more and more like a one term President

 

A one term President is reasonably uncommon in the United States. Of the 45 pre Joe Biden, 10 were single termers. 

Biden will be the 11th. He almost certainly won't run for a second term. If he does, he will almost certainly lose. 

It's more than fair, I think, at this point in his first term, one year in, to suggest that most people are disappointed. The numbers certainly back it up. Every poll you can sight has the numbers going the wrong way and the numbers saying those who disapprove of what he's doing far outweigh those that think the opposite. 

Net Zero Watch: COP26 deal falters as China calls on countries to decide their own emissions cuts

 





In this newsletter:

1) COP26 deal falters as China calls on countries to decide their own emissions cuts
The Daily Telegraph, 15 November 2021
 
 
2) Australian PM slaps down Boris Johnson’s claims COP26 was the ‘death-knell’ for coal
The Australian, 15 November 2021

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Helen Egmont: Shots in the Dark - Myocarditis, Mandates, Boosters and Babies


The Pfizer genetic vaccine is being forced onto New Zealanders, but many questions remain about the wisdom of doing this.

In particular, it is still experimental – the vaccine trial will not be completed unto 2024 – and many of the side effects are particularly disturbing, especially since the long term consequences are unknown.

The pressure the government is putting on people to force them into vaccination with the “No jab, No job” threat is completely unacceptable - as Michael Kowalik says in his article on the ethical case for vaccine refusal, published on 26 Feb 2021in the BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics:

“There is neither a moral obligation to vaccinate nor a sound ethical basis to mandate vaccination under any circumstances, even for hypothetical vaccines that are medically risk free.  Agent autonomy with respect to self-constitution has absolute normative priority over reduction or elimination of the associated risks to life.  In practical terms, mandatory vaccination amounts to discrimination against healthy, innate biological characteristics, which goes against the established ethical norms and is also defeasible a priori.

Lindsay Mitchell: Why the ideological attachment to state housing?


The latest MSD report measuring material hardship shows that among children aged 0-17 those in social housing have much higher hardship rates.

Net Zero Watch: Bang on time! COP26 faces its final stretch with a deadlock in the negotiation

 





In this newsletter:

1) Bang on time: COP26 faces its final stretch with a deadlock in the negotiation 
AFP, 12 November 2021
 

2) COP26 draft watered down overnight as wording on key fossil fuel pledge is changed
The Daily Telegraph, 12 November 2021

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Kate Hawkesby: The polls show people are (slowly) waking up

 

So, as I said last week with the other two polls, what you look for is a trend. And multiple polls showing the same thing is a trend. 

And the trend’s not good.  

Not surprisingly, with the shambolic vaccine rollout, the cluster that is MIQ, divisive policies and controversial mandates. Three waters, He Pua Pua, a never-ending lockdown for Auckland, businesses going belly up, a token insulting ultra-curated stopover in Auckland and inauthentically calling that “a visit”.  

Mike Hosking: Is the vaccine worth risking your career for?

 

The great mystery for me of the vaccine mandate is, just what is it about the vaccine that would lead you to voluntarily want to quit your job? 

I get it if you're 22, your job sucks, you're on minimum wage, you don’t really know what you want to do in life, and the benefit still offers an element of appeal. But the mandates around teaching and healthcare are different, aren't they? 

Firstly, you are qualified and you studied. To study you had to dedicate yourself, you clearly wanted to do this. And yet a jab is the difference between you following your dream and being unemployed? You are not going on welfare, it's a world away from where you were financially. 

Viv Forbes: More Trees, Less Grass, No Food


Trying to bury carbon dioxide deep underground is another fashionable green fantasy. It consumes big dollars for taxpayer subsidies but coal and gas producers will love it as it wastes energy and will increase demand for reliable energy. Artificial carbon capture is an unnecessary waste - the grasslands, forests, crops and continental shelf of Australia sequester far more carbon dioxide than Australia emits from all energy, transport, agriculture and mining sources.

Australia has 440 million hectares of grasslands – that 4.4 M sq km is larger than Europe’s total area of 3.5 M sq km. We also have 147 million hectares of native forests, 1.8 million hectares of plantations and 4% of the world’s global forest estate. Australia has the world’s sixth largest forest area and the fourth-largest area of forest in nature conservation reserves. We are not short of trees.

Monday, November 15, 2021

Net Zero Watch: China, India & 20 developing nations call for key emissions section to be ditched from COP26 agreement

 





In this newsletter:

1) China, India & 20 developing nations call for key emissions section to be ditched from COP26 agreement
CNN, 11 November 2021
 

2) China and others resist new climate targets in final days of COP26
Financial Times, 10 November 2021

Sunday, November 14, 2021

Clive Bibby: This has to stop

I have written about this before but up until now, nobody in authority seems to be listening or worse still, is hoping that it will just continue to happen and nobody will notice. 

In fact it appears that the “one way” transfer of our productive grazing land into the fast expanding exotic forestry estate is all part of the government’s plan to achieve its ill-advised zero carbon emissions target. More about that later. 

The upcoming sale of 6200 hectares of prime East Coast hill country (Huiarua and Matanui Stns) with a combined carrying capacity of over 45,000 stock units and the probability that it might all end up in trees is more than just a little bit worrying.

Garrick Tremain: Mugabe Mahuta

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on the Minister of Foreign Affairs! 


Johan Anderberg: How Sweden swerved Covid disaster

A hundred years ago, in New York City, 20,000 people marched down Fifth Avenue in protest against one of the greatest public health policy experiments in history. One of them was wearing a sign featuring an image of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” beside the slogan, “Wine was served.” There were posters of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. Another read: “Tyranny in the name of righteousness is the worst of all tyrannies.”

For a year, beer, wine and spirits had been illegal throughout the United States. From a public health perspective, it seemed a reasonable enough measure. That alcohol was a dangerous substance was clear: disease, violence, poverty and crime were intimately bound up with it. Even now, despite its failure, it is known as the “noble experiment”. But was it right to prevent people from making drinks they not only enjoyed, but that also served important cultural and religious purposes? Not for the first time, Americans found themselves torn in a balance between freedom and security — nor for the last.

NZCPR Weekly: The Great Climate Reset



Dear NZCPR Reader,   

In this week’s NZCPR newsletter we examine the raft of new restrictions resulting from the UN’s COP26 climate conference and we raise awareness of an important consultation process that will have a serious impact on our economic wellbeing, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Barry Brill highlights the hypocrisy of the Glasgow climate jamboree, and our poll asks whether New Zealand should be moving faster on climate change reforms than the major emitters.

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