John McLean: Nasty Noisy Nokise

Stuff’s Saturday broadsheet, The Post, is useful as a fire starter, but not for much else.

The Post’s Saturday 11 October 2025 edition contained an incendiary opinion piece from James Nokise, self-described at the bottom of his piece as a “regular opinion contributor, a comedian, writer, and podcaster”. So I can’t be accused of quoting James’ piece selectively or out of context, here it is:

Ele Ludemann: Lying about lying

If three’s anything worse than lying, it’s lying about lying:

TĀKUTA FERRIS: —

. . . A knowledge gap is a dangerous thing. It allows lies to be presented as truths. Politicians call this obfuscation—the art of making something unclear, intentionally vague, ambiguous, to conceal or obscure the truth, to confuse others. Lies, in other words. Many in this House are masters of it, and it is a disservice to those who voted you into your positions. Unless, of course—

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order, Mr Speaker. It is simply not acceptable for someone, inexperienced as he is, to nevertheless accuse other MPs— . . .

Peter Dunne: Speaker of the House of Representatives

If being Leader of the Opposition is, as often described, the worst job in politics, then being Speaker of the House of Representatives is, as Gerry Brownlee is now discovering, the loneliest.

The office of Speaker ranks highly in New Zealand, third behind the Governor-General and the Prime Minister in the official Order of Precedence. Appointment as Speaker carries the entitlement to the honorific “Right Honourable” for life, and a near-automatic Knighthood on leaving office.

Cam Slater: Off to the Privileges Committee We Go

Speaker Gerry Brownlee has referred the behaviour of Julie Anne Genter to the powerful Privileges Committee, even as the Green Party says her behaviour won’t cost her any jobs.

Simon Anderson: They No Longer Pretend to Care What We Think

I copped a fair amount of flak for publishing footage of two politicians sitting together outside a cafe. The essence of much of the criticism was that politicians are entitled to private lives – which of course they are – and that filming them in public was an unwarranted intrusion. Here I’ll explain why I think the circumstances are newsworthy.

Graeme Edgeler: Just get the App, already

It’s over two years since then-Minister of Transport Gerry Brownlee boarded a plane in Christchurch, after entering a secure area through a no-entry door, skipping past the security check.

I spent time that day on Twitter, trying to work out what law Brownlee might have broken (I couldn’t find one), and ended up writing a post, without really getting to the bottom of it. My curiosity piqued, I requested a copy of the Civil Aviation Authority report into the events under the Official Information Act. I make a few OIA requests, and have a pretty good track record of, eventually, getting the information I’m after. I’m rarely in a hurry, and when things are redacted, it’s usually for a reason that seems justifiable.