Derek Mackie: Just another Labour day at the Office

Feeling groggy, he slowly opened his eyes. His neck felt like it had been stood on by a squad of riot police and, for a split second, he had some sympathy for the parliamentary protesters. 

Where the hell was he? 

 Slumped forward on a large expensive desk, his mouth was dry and his lips were glued shut. There was a brown stain on his shirt, that he desperately hoped was chocolate, and a pen stuck to his cheek. 

Could’ve been worse - better than a slice of cold pizza, right? Fond memories of his student activist days. 

 Then he remembered. He was in the PM’s office at the Beehive. 

 Yes - another day in paradise! 

Karl du Fresne: Moana - sacrificed to the culture wars

This may be the most painful story you read today:

'Hardest decision of our lives': Foster parents return Moana to state care | Stuff.co.nz.

If you’ve followed this saga, you’ll get the gist from the headline. Marty Sharpe’s story will very likely make you angry. Unless you’ve got a heart of flint, it should also deeply sadden you.

Michael Bassett: Hipkins and his policy deferrals

The media became very excited when new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced some policy changes a few weeks back. Weak reporters like Claire Trevett were ecstatic. Even lesser lights talked of “bonfires” of unpopular policies and hailed the emergence of a new Ministry. In truth, all that can be said is that they were rushing to boost Hipkins. But the reality is that all of the old policies are still around, and will be dragged out of the cupboard again if this Labour government is re-elected in October. In his clever cartoons, Garrick Tremain keeps making this point. Those of us who find co-governance divisive and racist, must not overlook the fact that it is still there in the remodeled health system, in Three Waters, and in the great confused heap that is David Parker’s attempt to restructure the Resource Management Act. And the Prime Minister is on record recently saying that he wants to push that bill into law before the election.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Should those on the benefit get the Working for Families tax credit?

If we don’t watch out, we are going to end up in a situation, if we haven’t already, where we make the gap between getting the dole and getting paid for work become so small, that it again ends up being a smart move to just stay at home and collect free money rather than work for a living.

Right now, the Government is considering a change to Working for Families that will only exacerbate this problem.

Working for Families is money that is paid to families who work; the clue is in the name.

But now the Government’s considering also giving the in-work tax credit to families who don’t work, families on the dole.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 19.03.23

Wednesday March 22, 2023 

News:
Alarm at ‘removal’ of Maori land rights
Wairarapa Moana Inc. [WMI] has made a submission on the government’s Spatial Planning Bill and Natural and Built Environment Bill, with concerns about the perceived removal of Maori landowners’ rights.

The submission – made on March 6 by WMI general manager Anaru Smiler – says the business is concerned that, as currently drafted, under both the Spatial Planning Bill and the Natural and Built Environment Bill, only “iwi and hapu” have rights and responsibilities in relation to taiao [natural resources].

Mike Hosking: Wayne Brown has the street-level politics right

Wayne Brown has read the room right on this one.

He now has Vector on board. They claim the road cone chaos costs them $30 million a year and, on top of that, their maintenance and restoration work is delayed and that affects everyone who wants to turn a light on.

The support will grow. These are the very issues that make-or-break political careers.

Cam Slater: Burning Cash on the Rail Bonfire

The only thing this Government knows how to do is burn cash on the proverbial bonfire of vanities, and there are no bigger or more expensive vanity projects than rail projects.

This Government, when led by Jacinda Ardern promised light rail to the airport by 2022. Millions of dollars later and they still haven’t built even one millimetre. And yet they are still talking about the project like it is going to happen.

Wayne Brown is sensibly telling the government to stick it while the functional idiot masquerading as the Transport Minister is arguing against Wayne Brown:

Bryce Edwards: Shining a bright light on lobbyists in politics

Four out of the five people who have held the top role of Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff since 2017 have been lobbyists. That’s a fact that should worry anyone who believes vested interests shouldn’t have a place at the centre of decision making.

Chris Hipkins’ newly appointed Chief of Staff, Andrew Kirton, started in the role just one day after finishing with corporate lobbying firm Anacta, where his role included lobbying the Labour government over political decisions. In other countries, such shifts would be illegal due to the glaring potential for conflicts of interests and corruption. In New Zealand, it is so commonplace that it is generally not even reported on.

Bob Jones: Our house of representatives

There’s no doubt Parliament represents a true cross-section of society, rather than being an elitist institution of our finest minds as some idealists might wish. So at one end of the spectrum over the years, there’s been some truly ghastly buggers in the House, who somehow have made it there, albeit inevitably coming a cropper. Thus it came as no great shock to read that the abominable Jamie Lee Ross’s current career is running a brothel.

Unsurprisingly, he’s even cocked that up which is why this latest vocation choice came to light. He will doubtless continue to entertain us in the years ahead with his ongoing slide down the social scale.

Then there’s the ghastly mincing Greens ponce, Ricardo Menendez-March. In his maiden speech he told the House how he was deeply affected by watching Winston Peters and me slam into Chinese migration on television; that assertion a total fiction.

Bob Jones: Television New Zealad

The costly furore over amalgamating TVNZ and Radio NZ is specially amusing for me.

That’s because over 3 decades ago they were one entity, Broadcasting NZ and I was one of the government appointed small committee formed to consider their splitting into separate entities.

Point of Order: More Māori words make it into the OED...

....and polytech boss (with rules on words like “students”) is promoting the use of others

New Zealand Education Minister Jan Tinetti is hosting the inaugural Conference of Pacific Education Ministers for three days from today, welcoming Education Ministers and senior officials from 18 Pacific Island countries and territories, and from Australia.

Here’s hoping they have brought translators with them – or packed the latest edition of the OED. The publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary last week announced the OED has deepened its coverage of New Zealand English by adding 47 new entries.

Karl du Fresne: Neo-Nazis 1; free speech nil

With their masks, their black uniforms and their Sieg Heil-type salutes, the knuckle-dragging neo-Nazis who turned up at British feminist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s Melbourne rally are a truly pathetic bunch of human beings. All that’s missing is the word “LOSER” tattooed in large letters on their foreheads.

Karl du Fresne: Hang on - who are the real inciters?

The Greens, displaying their customary enthusiasm for free and robust debate, want a British anti-trans activist barred from speaking in New Zealand. They say her meetings are likely to provoke violence. But who are the real inciters?

RNZ reports that three people were arrested during clashes between supporters and opponents of Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, also known as Posie Parker, in Melbourne yesterday. That was the cue for Green MPs Ricardo Menendez-March and Elizabeth Kerekere, tireless free speech champions both, to insist that the government deny Keen-Minshull a visa.

Failing that, Kerekere thinks Keen-Minshull should be denied access to speaking venues, as happened to the Canadians Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux in 2018. (Still unsure what hateful ideas the Canadians supposedly intended to disseminate? Me too. We were prevented from hearing them, so couldn’t judge them for ourselves. The protesters made sure of that.)

Garrick Tremain: Watchdogs

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on political leaders style! 

Geoffrey Miller: New Zealand’s Middle East strategy, 20 years after the Iraq War

This week marks the twentieth anniversary of the Iraq War.

While it strongly opposed the US-led invasion, New Zealand’s then Labour-led government led by Prime Minister Helen Clark did deploy military engineers to try to help rebuild Iraq in mid-2003.

With violence soaring, their 12-month deployment ended without being renewed further, in 2004.

However, New Zealand re-entered Iraq in 2015 as part of the international coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group.

The emergence and growth of ISIS was one of many unintended consequences of the Iraq War’s disastrous and bloody aftermath.

Cam Slater: For Whom the Bell Tolls, Quietly

There isn’t yet an active move against Christopher Luxon, but there are murmurings, and where there are murmurings, there are people starting to count heads. Shane Te Pou, back from a sojourn writing his political prognostications has written about the malaise that has beset the Luxon leadership.

Wendy Geus: Why Is Crown Law Silent?

Despite rebuke and threat of prosecution given for his less serious first offence, Crown Law has been silent on the second, more severe, offence by Nash.

In 2020 Stuart Nash breached the cabinet manual in a radio interview when commenting on a case before the courts, intimating there should be a long prison sentence. What he was doing was thinking aloud, but that is prohibited in his role as minister.

We have now discovered that Crown Law intervened but stopped short of prosecuting, asking David Parker, the Attorney General, to censure him for ‘unacceptable comments’, which, remarkably, Nash ‘can’t remember’.

Mike Hosking: What a revelation that we could've been in even more trouble than we already are

So, once again, in a Matt Hancock-type revelation we learn that during the Covid years the Government considered handing us all $5,000.

$5,000 for everyone. It's like Oprah: "you get a car, you get a car, you get $5000".

They considered cutting GST for a couple of weeks, like a GST sale.

As we sit here in what almost certainly is a recession, given last week’s -0.6% number, what they were trying to do was stave off a recession.

Alistair Boyce: Myths, Demons & Legacy; Requiem of the Occupation Protest

History will be reworked and rewritten in the eye of the beholder.

I bare witness to the entirety of the protest and from its epicentre.

The following testimony attempts a distillation refuting myths, exposing demons and offering immediate legacy.

Jacinda Ardern had stood in parliament advocating the right to protest and appointed a police commissioner to ‘police by consent’.  This necessarily requires inclusive public policy and reactive force to protest.

The Labour government’s arguably unnecessary mandates pushed a peaceful populace over the edge in a growing combustion of angry disgust as the ‘kind’ leader cast her own people out of the team. Jacinda Ardern stated there would be no consequences if you were not vaccinated. The unvaccinated, kiwis stuck out in the world and unnecessary extended lockdowns with all the petty rules spread a cancer of division and false self-righteousness. The unvaccinated lost jobs, livelihoods and socio-economic status.

Thomas Cranmer: Pfizer Vaccine Approval in NZ Under Scrutiny - A Retrospective Analysis

The government's enthusiastic promotion of the Pfizer vaccine approval in New Zealand overstated the strength of the clinical assessment despite significant gaps in the data.

The Pfizer vaccine was approved for use by New Zealand’s regulator, Medsafe on 3 February 2021. The development was immediately welcomed by then Prime Minister Ardern who stated, “Medsafe’s decision is the culmination of a rigorous assessment process over many months to ensure the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is safe and effective to use here. It is informed by the most up-to-date medical and scientific data. We can have confidence in their decision.”

However, in reality, the government’s representation of Medsafe's assessment was overstated. Specifically, Medsafe’s clinical assessment found:

Mark Riggall: Is this the start of another GFC?

The events over the past week bear an eerie resemblance to those of the 2008-9 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Banks have failed, rumours swirl about the next victim and investors hold weekend vigils awaiting the next alphabet soup solution from banking authorities. So should we be concerned? Is there good reason to think that we are on the cusp of a major financial crisis, and should depositors fear the safety of their money?

The GFC sparked significant changes in the regulation of banks across developed markets to shore up the banking system and increase confidence. Banking regulation is an incredibly complex subject with differences across regions. However, the thrust of the regulation has delivered two key changes to banks over the past decade:

Bruce Moon: Tangled Tales

New Zealand legislation has this curious definition: “Maori means a person of the Maori race of New Zealand; and includes any descendant of such a person.”[i]

 

The definition is circular and unhelpful.  It is insidious insofar as it perpetuates racial discrimination in New Zealand indefinitely.

 

“If there’s no meaning in it,” said the King, “that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn’t try to find any.”[ii]

Clive Bibby: For whom the bell tolls - it tolls for thee

There have been multiple interpretations of this famous Hemingway line - I choose to use it as a characterisation of the US political situation as it uncovers the corruption during the period of hegemony in the years 2021 and 2022 when the Presidency and the House of Representatives were controlled by the Democrats. 

Yes, there have been times when multiple control has occurred during Republican administrations but it is hard to remember a time when one party has spent so much of its energies trying to destroy an ex President and his political legacy. 

It has been a vendetta, the likes of which we are unlikely to see again because the consequences of that obsessive behaviour will have repercussions that no one envisaged when this witch-hunt began. 

Stuart Smith: We Need a Drydock, Now

The condition of our infrastructure has reached a critical point where it is significantly affecting our economy – particularly evident with ferry services in the Cook Strait.

Prior to 2002, Interislander was the only road, rail and passenger option on the Cook Strait. The introduction of StraitNZ brought much-needed competition to the route.

Unfortunately, one of Interislander’s ships the Kaitaki has had a significant breakdown and one of StraitNZ’s ships the Feronia is in drydock. [This] has disrupted sailings for weeks, highlighting the vulnerability of our transport links.

Thomas Cranmer: Balancing free speech and protecting religious beliefs: The complexities of hate speech laws

The government’s most recent failed attempt to enact hate speech laws shows just how difficult it is to strike the right balance between free speech and the protection of religious beliefs.

The tension between free speech and the protection of religious beliefs has long been a subject of debate around the world, and the complexities of hate speech laws have become a challenging issue. In New Zealand, this debate has been especially prominent in recent decades, with several high-profile cases and tragic events bringing the issue to the forefront of public discourse. In this article, we will explore some of these cases both in New Zealand and abroad, and examine the challenges faced by governments in balancing free speech and religious beliefs.

NZCPR Newsletter: The War on Woke

New Zealand is now well and truly in the grip of ‘woke’ madness. And it’s destroying the unity of our nation. 

What is “woke”? With origins in cultural Marxism, the general view is that it’s a movement that seeks social and political redress for wrongs derived from social injustice and discrimination.

Like the Black Lives Matter crusade in the United States, which attributed police violence to systemic racism, the woke movement embraces ‘Identity Politics’ with its focus on the so-called ‘oppressed’ groups in society including those centred on gender, race, and sexuality.

In their struggle for social justice these groups claim they have been the victims of systemic oppression, and they demand preferential treatment to address the wrongs.

What is particularly sinister is their propensity to attack and ‘cancel’ anyone with a dissenting voice.

Point of Order: Financial capability services are being bucked up....

....but Stuart Nash shouldn’t have to see if they can help him (not yet)

The building of financial capability was brought into our considerations when Social Development and Employment Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced she had dipped into the government’s coffers for $3 million for “providers” to help people and families access community-based Building Financial Capability services.

That wording suggests some Building Financial Capability services are not community-based and are not being helped with government funding.

Barry Brill: The Climate Emperor Is Now Naked

US voters believe that “climate change” is only about power and control

Intending US presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy told Fox News on 10 February:

“Here’s the dirty little secret about the climate religion – it has nothing to do with the climate. It is all about power, control, dominion and apologising for America’s own success…”

These comments caused quite a stir on social media. To such an extent, that Rasmussen Reports included this question in its weekly poll:

Do you agree or disagree with this statement: Climate change has become a religion that “actually has nothing to do with the climate” and is really about power and control?

 
The survey of 950 U.S. Likely Voters was conducted on March 6-8, 2023. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

The result (reported here) was breathtaking!

Garrick Tremain: Teachers strike

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on the education conditions! 

Brendan O'Neill: Why slavery reparations are a terrible idea

San Francisco’s reparations plans are divisive, demeaning and insane.

To see how destructive identity politics can be, how toxic and divisive, look no further than San Francisco’s crazy reparations idea. San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors appointed a panel to consider whether reparations should be paid to the city’s black residents for the historic crimes of slavery and racism. The panel decreed that, yes, they should be. Every eligible black citizen of San Francisco should get $5million each, it said. They should also get $97,000 a year for the rest of their lives and be able to buy homes in the city for $1. Incredibly, the Board of Supervisors is seriously considering the recommendations rather than hurling them into the trashcan of crackpot ideas that deserve not a split second’s contemplation, which is where they should be.

Cam Slater: Hipkins Bottles the Sacking of Nash

It’s amazing what happens in politics. Just two days ago the media and pundits were praising Chris Hipkins for sacking Stuart Nash from the Police portfolio, even though he retained his other portfolios. They all said it showed how tough he was as Prime Minister.

Then yesterday, after more revelations of Nash’s shonky methods of managing his portfolios came out, Hipkins called a press conference and told everyone that Nash was now on his last, last chance and he was demoting his ranking in cabinet to the lowest ranking, while still retaining his portfolios.

Oliver Hartwich: Localism - The initiative that has won over the nation

No matter how good an idea, it takes time for the entire country to hear about it.

But that time has now come for localism.

When the Initiative started in 2012, we were a lone voice in promoting ‘localism’. Even the term ‘localism’ was unknown in New Zealand back then.

Bryce Wilkinson: The mess the government has made of the monetary policy, and the task ahead

Inflation is a problem for the first time in 30 years. Property prices have whiplashed. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) has cost taxpayers $9 billion, for no clear net benefit.

What underlies this mess? This week the New Zealand Initiative published my report addressing that question.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 12.03.23

Saturday March 18, 2023 

News:
Local Government Minister Kieran McAnulty to meet with mayors opposing Three Waters reform
High-level representative groups would oversee the water entities’ professional boards would be split 50/50 between appointees from the various councils and mana whenua, under the principle of “co-governance” – a particularly controversial aspect of the reform.

The representative group structure would “not necessarily” change, McAnulty said. He wanted to meet mana whenua after the council representatives to discuss reworking the reforms.

Karl du Fresne: On the ritual humiliation of the radio hosts Leah Panapa and Miles Davis

What a despicable outfit MediaWorks is. It’s beyond contempt.

Two of its TodayFM talkback hosts, Leah Panapa and Miles Davis, have been bullied by their bosses into apologising for doing what people in talkback radio are supposedly employed to do – namely, say what they think.

In an on-air discussion last week, Panapa and Davis apparently made mocking comments about the prevailing pronoun hysteria and ridiculed the phrase “pregnant people”.

Mike Hosking: Australia can see what needs to be done - why can't we?

Australia has had a week to remember.

Say whatever you want about war and conflict, but Australia entering the submarine club is major.

Very few countries have them and those that do are large, with correspondingly sized economies.

Australia is the smallest by a mile and yet there they are, now in a partnership with the United States and Britain in a deal that is specifically designed to manage our part of the world against China.

And where are we in this? The answer is nowhere.

Cam Slater: Do You Think Our Government Will Be Stupid Enough to Let Them In?

To paraphrase an excerpt from the Aeneid, beware of Chinese bearing gifts. The original quote refers to the Trojan Horse. So, it seems the Chinese are offering up a ‘Chinese Horse‘, in the form of aid, that will let them get a toehold into New Zealand via their “aid”.

Thomas Cranmer: Challenging Progressivism in New Zealand's Culture Wars

Like it or not, the culture wars have entered New Zealand politics and look set to broaden and intensify.

The culture wars are often viewed as an exclusively American phenomenon, but the reality is that they are becoming increasingly prominent in countries around the world, including New Zealand. Some may believe that they are immune to their influence, but the truth is that these battles have already entered New Zealand politics and are being enthusiastically fought by the Labour government and the political left. Instinctively, right-leaning parties in New Zealand have shied away from culture war issues, preferring instead to focus on their traditional core policies. But whether we like it or not, the game is afoot, and we are all players.

Chris Trotter: Weaponising Illegal Immigration.

The Italian government has uncovered what it believes to be a new layer of mendacity in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Thousands of kilometres to the south of the fighting in Ukraine’s eastern provinces, deep in the anarchic wilderness of Sub-Saharan Africa, there’s been a grim addition to the criminal infrastructure of human-trafficking and people-smuggling. Russians.

Displaying that formidable mixture of state and private interests the world has learned to recognise in the Wagner Group’s fearsome mercenaries, new groups of highly organised Russian smugglers are hard at work. Unquestionably, these men are motivated by the huge profits to be made out of human suffering and desperation. But, they have not set up shop in these lawless lands entirely of their own volition. Somebody sent them there.

Roger Childs: The Irish Spirit is Worldwide

A very good morning to you Shamus!
Any morning I wake up Pat is a good one!

A scattered people with humour and talent

No doubt many of our readers, like tens of thousands of other Kiwis, have some Irish ancestry. In the 50 years following the Irish famine in the 19th century, over half the population of Ireland migrated to the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. They took with them their talents, culture, religion and good humour, and subsequently made huge contributions to the development of their new homelands.

Today is St Patrick’s Day and in many shops, supermarkets, rest homes, bowling clubs and work places people have been wearing silly hats, costumes and even wigs of the colour green. This colour is closely associated with Eire, and the country is well known for its green countryside. However the national flag also has a strip of orange: a colour associated with Protestants and Northern Ireland.

Point of Order: Latest GDP figures show NZ sinking deeper into the red......

.....but O’Connor is doing his bit to put things right with CPTPP talks

The bothersome economic news today is that New Zealand’s GDP fell by 0.6% in the December quarter, weaker than market forecasts of a fall of around 0.2% and much weaker than the Reserve Bank’s assumption of a 0.7% rise.

This followed the even-more-bothersome news yesterday that the country’s current account deficit has blown out sharply over the past two years to hit 8.9% of GDP by the end of 2022, the biggest deficit as a share of GDP since the mid-1970s.

Dr Susan Pockett: Obliterating the climate crisis

QUESTION: WHY WON'T JAMES SHAW SHOW US HIS EVIDENCE THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS CAUSED BY HUMAN CO2 EMISSIONS ?

ANSWER: Because he doesn't have any.

Climate change has been going on for millions of years. The current warming is nothing out of the ordinary.

Bryce Edwards: Stuart Nash’s resignation shows our leaders need a lesson in civics

I teach a first year course at Victoria University of Wellington about government and the political process in New Zealand. In “Introduction to Government and Law”, students learn there are rules preventing senior public servants from getting involved in big political debates – as we have recently witnessed with Rob Campbell – and that government ministers aren’t allowed to interfere in some functions of the state, such as telling the Police where to make prosecutions.

It’s essentially a civics course about how our political system works, and hopefully the 1300 students who take the course each year will go off to work in government departments, businesses and other careers understanding the rules of our political system.

Politicians are fond of complaining about a lack of this type of political education amongst the voting public but, as we’ve seen in the last few weeks, so many of our leaders are themselves unaware of basic political rules.

Mike Hosking: The background behind Stuart Nash coming on the show

So, Tuesday afternoon I get a text about someone wanting coming on the show

I get a lot of texts about coming on the show but this one was from Stuart Nash.

He wonders why I haven't called to talk to him about his stats on arrests of gang members. It's a good news story, he says.

I think that’s fair enough, we give the Government a good session of accountability each day. No one holds them to account more than us.

To his credit, Nash is a regular listener and despite the fact he personally takes a fair bit of heat on this programme, he's never run for the hills like some did.

Derek Mackie: The Janus Man

The Roman deity, Janus, is depicted with two faces looking in opposite directions - one facing the past and one facing the future. 

God of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. 

 While we certainly don’t have anything resembling a god, NZ politics does seem to have its very own Janus Man in Chris Hipkins. He appears to have gone through an about-face transition since his appointment as Prime Minister. 

Culling policies beloved by his recently departed predecessor and focussing instead on “bread-and-butter” issues which make a direct impact on people’s financial wellbeing, albeit at the longer term cost to the economy and inflation. 

Call it a brazen election bribe or call it politically savvy, either way if it wins him another term it’ll be worth the economic damage, in his view. 

Kate Hawkesby: Labour are laser-focused on keeping power. But can you trust them?

I said yesterday that I worry we care more about having a Prime Minister who looks like someone you could have a beer with, than caring about leadership, economic responsibility or policies. 

The electorate fell head over heels in love with a smiling friendly looking Jacinda Ardern, until her ideology started to bite, then everyone freaked out and she was gone.

In came smiley friendly looking Chris Hipkins. “Just a boy from the Hutt!” the media exclaimed with glee, Chippy! Guy next door vibes. Innocuous looking.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Chris Luxon should use his time in isolation to think about lifting National's game

Well, it might not be altogether a bad thing for Christopher Luxon that he’s got the ‘rona today and has to isolate.

Because it means he didn’t have to front up for the media at Parliament and answer awkward questions about why there is a real chance now that he could lose the election to a party that has been so bad over the last six years, it’s been described as the worst Government in living memory.

Because that’s happening isn’t it? Labour could actually win the election.

Peter Winsley: Racialism, advocacy of violence in poetry and mātauranga Māori

It was a pleasure to read a recent opinion piece by Giselle Byrnes and Meihana Durie on research funding for Māori. It responded to a piece by former academic Dr Steve Stannard. While I largely agree with Dr Stannard, both pieces were written in a civil and respectful way. How depressing then that race brings out the worst in us, as shown by a “poem” from Tuisata Avia, and another flare up in the debate around mātauranga Māori, this time featuring Dr Tara McAllister.

Tuisata Avia’s poem is entitled “250th anniversary of James Cook’s arrival in New Zealand”. It reads:

Peter Dunne: The Greens

It is becoming increasingly difficult to see how the Greens can support another Labour-led government if they are able to do so after this year’s election. Already, co-leader James Shaw has warned Labour not to take it for granted that the Greens will automatically support Labour again (even though by ruling out ever working with National the Greens have left themselves nowhere else to go if they want to remain a party of government.)

The problem for the Greens is that in his drive to make Labour electable again new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has ditched many items from the government’s agenda that the Greens were champions for.

Garrick Tremain: Out of sight out of mind

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on Mahuta's low profile lately!