JC: Why Do the Left Not Learn

The question is something of a conundrum. I am referring specifically to their behaviour and strategy. From their perspective politics is littered with examples of how these two things hurt them in all sorts of ways. They seem to have become obsessed with the nasty side of politics. They have a propensity to go after the person and not the policy. This fanaticism extends, unsurprisingly, to their comrades in the media who seem to think, irrationally, this is a good idea.

Peter Dunne: End of year political parties observations

As a turbulent political year draws to a close some observations can be made about the state of the various parties and some of their personnel.

Within the National Party, this year has seen the emergence of Chris Bishop as not just one of the government’s key Ministers, with a range of new initiatives across his various portfolios, but also the go-to person when things do not go to plan. In that regard, he looks set to reprise the role of Minister of Everything, pioneered by Sir Bill Birch during the Bolger government, and developed to the ultimate degree by Steven Joyce in the last National-led government.

Wendy Geus: It Is Not Words That Are ‘Unsafe’

A lesson (for Ardern and Victoria University students): actions, not words, can be ‘dangerous’.

The ‘inappropriate’ (quote unquote Gerry Brownlee) actions of Julie Anne Genter when she accosted mild-mannered National minister Matt Doocey in Parliament this week waving a booklet in his face, demonstrated it is actions not words that are dangerous.

Chris Trotter: Delirious Hatred - The Dystopic Tendencies of Twenty-First Century Progressivism.

I think I have worked it out – why writing about today’s version of “progressive” politics leaves me feeling so depressed. In the end, the reason I cannot bring myself to vote for either Labour or the Greens is very simple: it’s because they are joyless; because the logical end-point of the ideology they espouse is one of universal dissatisfaction and unending conflict. In other words, their direction-of-travel is dystopic. That’s why so many voters are pulling away from parties they’ve supported all their adult lives. They don’t like where Labour and the Greens are going, and they’ll be damned if they’ll go there with them.

Oliver Hartwich: Germany's heating plan - from green dream to red alarm

For many years, Germany’s Greens had a good run. They kept increasing their share of the vote in elections at the federal and state levels. They enjoyed a sympathetic media. Their party leaders were personally popular.

It appeared inevitable that a Green politician would eventually occupy the Chancellery in Berlin.

But over the past few months, this seemingly endless Green honeymoon has come to an abrupt end. And ironically, it has ended because of the policies promoted by one of the party’s biggest stars, economics minister and deputy chancellor Robert Habeck.

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.)

Denis Hall: Jimmy Shaw! Denounced by the Green Politburo

Jimmy Shaw denounced - - He has been denounced by the Green Politburo

No - they never call him Jimmy do they. To strict! They always call him James. Very formal and strict - especially when they are publicly removing his balls.

JAMES SHAW. The 'CO'- -leader of the Greens. ( “CO" being the operative word - and leader without a capital L.)

The thing about this last night’s TV “News” thing that is stark - is that it is not the CO leadership up for debate - it is just one of them who is apparently failing - because the other one - Marama Davidson - (The MINISTER for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence no less,) and what’s not authoritarian about that - because after all - the title assumes guilt - so she is omnipotent and untouchable - because she has two other essential qualification that poor lip quivering almost in tears on the “News” James Shaw doesn’t have - and that is her gender and her Maori-ness - and her Maori-ness must be quite strong - because she doesn’t have the ubiquitous Maori brand tattooed on her chin yet.

So there’s poor James Shaw pouring his heart out on the TV; He knows he’s in the cross hairs - because they have another woman - Chloe Swarbrick - lined up to replace him as 'CO' - leader - and his big and unfixable problem is that he is not of the compulsory gender - and his other lack of quality is in his ethnicity - which could well be described as “Pale Male and Stale.”

Point of Order: You thought voting rights and representation was a governance matter? Get to grips with the Treaty and sophistication

We were alerted by David Farrar to the further crumbling of local government democracy under the Ardern Government – or, as she would put it, to making our governance arrangements more sophisticated.

The outrage – or sophistication , depending on your ideology – goes further than Farrar reported in a post headed Parliament votes to end “one person, one vote” (although some of his readers picked up on it).

Yes, the Rotorua District Council (Representation Arrangements) Bill abandons the key constitutional concept that all Kiwis have the same voting rights.

But check out how the government opted to deal with legislation which prescribes how the people of Rotorua will be able to vote and how their council will be structured. It is being treated as a Maori Affairs issue, not a local government issue.

Barry Soper: Labour is abusing its absolute power

What's happening to democracy in this country, let alone the promised transparency of this Government?

Labour is abusing its absolute power and it seems those opposing it are powerless to do anything about it because majority rules.

A couple of weeks ago National wanted Police Commissioner Andrew Coster to appear before the Justice Select Committee to answer questions about the three-week occupation of Parliament's grounds by protesters.

The Labour majority of MPs on the committee blocked their request, arguing the Independent Police Conduct Authority was the "appropriate place for the review of police operational activities".

Viv Forbes: Tomorrow’s Grim, Global, Green Dictatorship

Greens hate individual freedom and private property. They dream of a centralised unelected global government, financed by taxes on developed nations and controlled by all the tentacles of the UN.

No longer is real pollution of our environment the main Green concern. The key slogan of the Green religion is “sustainable development”, with them defining what is sustainable.

Viv Forbes: The Wanton Worship of Woody Weeds

Greens worship woody weeds. Their proposed tree-clearing bans in Queensland are the latest salvo in a long war favouring trees and damaging grasslands and pastoralists.

For millennia Australia’s open forests and treeless plains have supported our national emblems – the kangaroo and the emu, which in turn sustained aborigines, eagles and dingos. Australian grasslands also nurtured now-endangered species such as bustards, quail, pigeons, finches and grass parrots.

Nothing stands still in nature. Savannas are forever a battleground between grassland, scrub and desert. Greens gaze in rapture at the trees but ignore the valuable grasses beneath their feet – native plants like Mitchell Grass and Kangaroo Grass and cultivated grasses like wheat, barley, oats, sorghum and sugar cane.

Matt Ridley: China's one-child policy was inspired by western greens

As China’s one-child policy comes officially to an end, it is time to write the epitaph on this horrible experiment — part of the blame for which lies, surprisingly, in the West and with green, rather than red, philosophy. The policy has left China with a demographic headache: in the mid-2020s its workforce will plummet by 10 million a year, while the number of the elderly rises at a similar rate.

The difficulty and cruelty of enforcing a one-child policy was borne out by two stories last week. The Chinese film director Zhang Yimou, who directed the Beijing Olympics’ opening ceremony in 2008, has been fined more than £700,000 for having three children, while another young woman has come forward with her story (from only two years ago) of being held down and forced to have an abortion at seven months when her second pregnancy was detected by the authorities.

Mike Butler: Partner of billboard vandal back at work in Green Party office

The partner of a man responsible for organising vandalism of National Party hoardings during the election campaign has been cleared to return to work for the Green Party, according to blogger Whale Oil.

Anne Heins, executive assistant to Greens co-leader Russel Norman, was last month stood down from her job after it was revealed her partner, Jolyon White, had led a campaign to attach stickers saying either “Drill it, mine it, sell it” or “The rich deserve more” on 700 National billboards.