John McLean: Parliament Passing Legislation Is.....Undemocratic!?

Whacky reactions to proposed legislation extinguishing crazy climate Court cases

On Tuesday 12 May, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith announced a legislative reform to stop New Zealand Courts forcing “greenhouse gas”-producing businesses to compensate New Zealanders for damage from bad weather. The yet-to-be-drafted legislation will amend New Zealand’s Climate Change Response Act 2002.

The legislation will have the particular effect of extinguishing current Court action by a race hustler with a boring name. I’ve covered Mike Smith’s judicial machinations in a previous Substack.

Dane Giraud: John Minto - The man who knew too little…

Pat Brittenden’s BHN channel last night played like a cheap Southern-Hemisphere remake of the Tucker Carlson-Darryl Cooper interview in which the not-a-historian laid blame for World War 2 at the feet of Winston Churchill. Sans the professional lighting and radiant skin, of course. The historic illiteracy and thinly veiled defense of the most reactionary elements this time came from John Minto, public (and recently pepper-sprayed) face of the anti-Israel movement and concocter of Jew-Hunts, whose obsession for the conflict strangely never demanded of him a rigorous reading schedule.

Ele Ludemann: Toxicity here too

The world has become toxic. I realize that we’re in a crisis again, that there is so much hatred around, so much distrust, that if we don’t stop, it may get worse and worse. There may be another terrible destruction.

Those are the words of Tova Friedman, who was taken to Auschwitz when she was five and liberated when she was six.

She is right – there is so much toxicity, so much hatred, so much distrust and if we don’t stop it, it will get worse.

Guest Post: Will John Minto condemn Hamas for refusing to free the hostages?

A guest post by Lucy Rogers on Kiwiblog

I woke up this morning to initial elation at the news that Israel and Hamas are apparently close to a ceasefire deal. The proposal involves the return of 33 hostages and Hamas’ removal from power, in exchange for the release of several hundred Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, Israel’s withdrawal from eastern Gaza and a ceasefire in stages.

Karl du Fresne: Minto had me fooled

I’ve tended in the past to take a charitable view of John Minto. The worst thing I could find to say about him was that his devotion to left-wing causes was so wide-reaching and so passionate that he had become an almost comical fixture – a caricature – in the political landscape.

In a Dominion Post column in 2012, I wrote that I almost felt sorry for him. “His brain must hurt when he wakes up every morning. So many downtrodden people, so many heartless capitalists, so many injustices – which one will he deal with today?” I described him as a compulsive serial protester and said that images of him addressing rag-tag gatherings with a megaphone were one of the few constants in a chaotic universe.