Cam Slater: Can We Have a New Transport Minister Please

I don’t really know why Michael “Napoleon” Wood is the Transport Minister. Everything he announces or does just ends in a complete mess. It isn’t surprising really, because his sole qualification and work experience was in measuring the inside seams of bankers buying cheap suits at Hugh Wright.

Where’s the second harbour crossing? What about the light rail to the airport? Not a single millimetre of track has been built on his watch. Then there is the ‘rapid’ rail to Hamilton, which is neither rapid nor a service and didn’t even get to Auckland, pegging out at Papakura. That result shouldn’t have been at all surprising after the ‘service’ was named after an extinct bird.

Cam Slater: As Predicted, Hipkins Extends Fuel Tax Cuts

As I predicted earlier, removing the fuel tax and RUC cuts has proved too difficult for the Government to even contemplate. With Hipkins’s promise to focus on the cost of living, removing the fuel tax and excise was going to see prices at the pump rocket up by a reported 40–50c a litre. In an election year, that was going to be poison for the voters.

Ross Meurant: Rule of Law or Rule of Police

Karl du Fresne, in his article: “New Zealand: where being "anti-government" results in police surveillance”(1), defends Cameron Slater’s RIGHT to CHALLENGE, and in the process, Karl exposes police behaviour which tends to validate Voltaire’s lament:

“Beware of the words, “Internal security” for they are the eternal cry of the oppressor”. 

But whether we like or dislike others, provided these “others” confine their critiques to within prescribed rules of law, such as avoiding insulting, offensive, threatening language as per statutory law and to avoid the guillotine of civil litigation, by presenting their opinions based on reliable evidence, “others” do have a right to speak out.

If we are denied the right to challenge, we are no longer a democracy.

Mike Butler: Dotcom shows up shallow reporting

“Human headline” Kim Dotcom’s launch/non-launch of his Internet Party has been “a study in the politics of naivety”, journalist and commentator Sean Plunket wrote this week. Writing in in the Dominion Post under the headline "Internet party amateur and vain", Plunket also noted that it has also a glowing example of the gullibility of certain sections of the New Zealand news media and public.

The Dotcom Party launch was leaked on the Whaleoil blog on Wednesday with the logo and details of funding. Left-wing blogger Martyn Bradbury was named as the candidate for Auckland Central, being paid $8000 a month. (1)