Pundit

There’s so much to digest in the confusion surrounding the book Hit & Run.

But there is a key shift in the position of the New Zealand Defence Force that has become lost in the chaos swirling around the accusations made.

For six years, the NZ Defence Force maintained that claims of civilians casualties were “unfounded”.

I don't want to be disrespectful to a fellow pundit, but to my mind Bill English has got it right by deciding not to hold an inquiry into allegations that New Zealand soldiers may have committed war crimes in Afghanistan. The evidential threshold just hasn't been met.

The parliamentary left seems cowed by the neoliberals if the fiscal pact between Labour and the Greens is anything to go by.

The Chief of Defence Force Lieutenant General Tim Keating presented the NZDF response to the book Hit and Run at a press conference on Monday 27 March 2017. For 45 minutes he and his colleagues suggested that everything in the book was incorrect.

War is different from any other organised human activity. Decades, even centuries, after military conflict, the reasons for it are examined and consequences are measured. A nation's conduct is weighed in the balance.

My dad, Frank, was a journalist. So were his two brothers, Brian and George. They're dead now. None of them were university educated. All three left school in Hastings, Sussex and wound up in Fleet St.

For more than a year the Productivity Commission has been working on its report, New Models of Tertiary Education (released last week), with the aim of showing us how we can have a more innovative tertiary sector. The report will not make the best seller list – but it is worth a read.

Once a year the QS World University Rankings on individual subject areas are published. This reports on the 2017 rankings for 46 subjects. 

Here’s some that have been rattling around in my brain this week:

I can't help wondering if Bill English is going to church on Sunday. While reports today say the Prime Minister is meeting with Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee and New Zealand Defence Force heads about the claims in the Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson book Hit & Run, the more crucial meeting that day may be between English and his God.

Think of a three-year-old girl. Maybe she’s your daughter. Maybe she’s your niece. Maybe she’s your friend’s child. But think of her.

I know as little as most of you about Nicky Hager's new book. It investigates an SAS raid in Afghanistan in 2010, after the death of Lieutenant Tim O'Donnell whilst on patrol that August.

In an opinion piece published on Monday, former Act Party leader Jamie Whyte decries what he sees as Parliament’s recent “legislative lunacy” in

I was a bit startled by a report recently released by the Ministry of Business Industry and Employment which forecast an extra 480,000 jobs o

"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said.
    Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't—till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
    "But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.

I suspect the High Court decision that prison officials acted wrongly in taking Phillip John Smith's hairpiece from him is going to turn the talkback outrage meter right up to 11. Prisoners have a right to wear a toupee? That piece of shit can keep his rug on?

Good on you, Bill. I respect political courage. Too often in New Zealand, superannuation promises have been used to buy elections, beginning with Rob Muldoon back in 1975. He made the age of entitlement to universal super 60; it took years of pain and a raft of broken promises to get the age lifted to 65 (back where the old age pension began).

Dear loyal readers (and any fickle folk floating by),

The observant amongst you may have noticed that yesterday our list of contributors on the left hand side of the page changed. Some of the folk who have written for Pundit in the past have moved onto other things and, happily, a bunch of new folk have agreed to share their expertise with you.

I largely agree with Steve’s comments, in particular his desire to see a personalisation of learning, and a coming together by our educators.

"I am from the government and I am here to help you – even though you did not know you needed help". 

In the wonderfully prescient film Minority Report, the central idea is that the police have found a way to identify who is going to commit a crime before they do it. 

“Their priorities are creating jobs, making sure our health system is effective and affordable, creating high quality education for all students, making sure our community is safe and dealing with important issues in transport and regions.”

This is a classic progressive Labour set of priorities. He’s in a position to implement them because of the rest of his agenda.

The past week in New Zealand politics has been the argument I have every Christmas writ large; and has been just as unedifying.

I'm in my early 30s, which puts me firmly in the millennial camp. And as a millenial, I wasn't all that outraged I'd have to wait two more years to get my super, as Bill English confirmed on Monday.

The Government’s announced proposal to raise the age of eligibility for New Zealand Superannuation (NZS) is a real botch job. I’ll leave others to write about the political botch; here the focus is on the policy.

This quick post is a question, more than analysis of an issue. But it's something I stumbled upon today regarding New Zealand's superannuation history... and I'm wondering if it offers us a way forward.

I was talking with a colleague today about Bill English's plan to raise the age of eligibilty for super from 65 to 67 – in 20 years. "What are you," he asked, and I knew immediately what he meant. "Gen X," I replied. "But just old enough to sneak out at 65". He said he'd get caught, I said my wife would too. Then it struck me: This conversation was meaningless.

The interesting thing about Bill English's out of the blue superannuation announcement is not the substance of the policy -- it seems mild enough -- but why he made it six months before an election. After all, the key part of the policy, the shift in the eligibility age from 65 to 67 does not even start for another 20 years.

The strategic view that Britain needs to be in the EU remains universal among New Zealand strategists. However the Leaves did not vote geopolitically but on domestic considerations including, apparently, resentment of immigration and of the unequal gains from trade. New Zealand has little alternative but to accept the direction the Brits are taking, albeit with regret.

It started with a song and a Facebook post and has ended with a baffling court decision, one that seems to have little connection to where we began. Frankly, the whole Planet Key episode has been a very expensive exercise for everyone involved – both the taxpayers and plaintiffs – just to establish a definition of free speech and our right to exercise it.

Barely 48 hours ago Jacinda Ardern told RNZ that talk of her becoming Labour's deputy leader was a "distaction". That job, she said, as just "not an issue".

The New Zealand education system is in trouble. Not for the reason usually advanced by the critics of our public schools, but because for far too long we have ben arguing about how to equip young New Zealanders for the rapidly changing times in which we live.

Old mates Bill English and Nick Smith dragged media to a muddy – but "good enough" – stream in west Auckland last week to announce plans to clean up rivers by 2040. But what the event really signified was National starting to clean up its political house before this September's election.

In October last year I wrote a somewhat lengthy post about the Court of Appeal's decision in The Electoral Commission v Watson & Jones.

New Zealand has an unusual situation in the world economy. Despite being among the affluent economies, its success is vitally dependent upon the export of some primary products (especially dairy and meat products) whose domestic production is brutally protected in many jurisdictions.

The word “lie” keeps appearing in news stories and columns about President Donald Trump. It makes me extremely uncomfortable.

Usually restrained media outlets are using the word casually in a way which doesn’t do justice to the implication of calling someone a “liar”.

Any which way you look at it, it seems impossible. History leans hard on both major parties at the moment, suggesting they are heading into an election year battling against the odds. There are good reasons why both red and blue teams should see this election as unwinnable – and good reasons why they may not want to win – but, thing is, one of them will. But which?

A month ago I wrote that I would be looking at the possible perumtations of likely coalitions that may appear after this year's election. Although the right direction/wrong direction poll clearly favours the incumbent government, I thought it best to wait for the first opinion polls to see how the Bill English premiership has taken with the New Zealand public.

Now that Willie Jackson has obtained the waiver needed to allow him to stand as a candidate for Labour despite not having been a party member for the required 12 months, he's setting out to prove he's worth the "winnable list placing" th

Less than a year before he died, Tony Judt, paralysed from the neck down by motor neuron disease, gave a much-acclaimed two-hour public lecture. Shortly after he extended it to a book, Ill Fares the Land: A Treatise on Our Present Discontents, setting out his commitment to social democracy.

In April last year, Radio New Zealand reported that the Corrections Department was paying for non-existent alcohol and drug counsellors.

The spies will be feeling a chill after a month of Donald Trump as President of the United States.

That includes New Zealand’s spies, now in surprisingly familiar territory as concern about Trump’s behaviour spreads across the intelligence community.

As a personality I find nothing attractive about Donald Trump - he is, frankly, a pig of a man. But we need to avoid being overtaken by emotion when unpicking the state of the world, which is why in my previous column I tried to make the case for balance and moderation as we react to events.

The mumblings and frettings about how Donald Trump's victory in the US may twist and define our own elections this year have been many and full of dread. And not unreasonably. You only have to look at recent votes and polls in our cultural neighbours – the US, UK and Australia – to see the rise of some ugly politics. But I fear the worriers may be wailing at the wrong wall.

Shortly after the collapse ot the Berlin Wall in 1989, one of our greatest contemporary historians Tony Judt resolved to write a book to sort his thinking out. It took fifteen years, but the resulting Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 is an (almost 900-page) extraordinary achievement.

In the wake of Andrew Little's shoulder tapping Willie Jackson for a "winnable" position on Labour's list, along with the selection of Paul Eagle and Greg O'Connor as candidates in eminently winnable electorates, Labour is (once again) facing some strife over the role that gender plays in its candi

Since US president Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair departed government, the Third Way political agenda has fallen on hard times.

When Edward Snowden’s NSA haul finally turned out a few New Zealand documents, it created an awesome and instant workload for Cheryl Gwyn.

The new Inspector General of Intelligence and Security suddenly had her hands filled. That was almost two years ago.

It is not generally realised that Statistics New Zealand has a large research database – the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) – containing microdata about people and households from a range of government agencies, SNZ surveys including the 2013 Census, and non-governme

On September 23rd politicians must give us something to hope for. 

“To be truly radical make hope possible rather than despair convincing” Raymond Williams

Love Actually isn't real life. As appalled as we all are my the strongman behaviour of Donald Trump in his first week in office, when he calls Bill English in the coming days, this isn't the time for the new Prime Minister to indulge his inner Hugh Grant.

In order to get to this column’s conclusion I am going to recall a little of my scholarly journey.

Whether we like it or not, Donald Trump is now president of the United States. We have no choice but to deal with that fact, and with him. But it's hard to find any New Zealanders who have much good to say about him.

The UK Supreme Court surprised no-one on Tuesday when it decided, by 8-3, that Parliament must pass specific authorising legislation before the UK Government can trigger article 50 and so begin the formal process of withdrawing from the European Union (or, "Brexiting").

This column is a grump about the poor quality of public discourse. It is illustrated by the recent outburst over the distribution of wealth in New Zealand and some rather inept public responses to the recent re-publication of some data, where people with little expertise used the opportunity to pursue their political and ideological goals while displaying, to the expert, their incompetence.

The bully victorious. That's what today's inauguration of Donald Trump means to me.

And why should it mean anything else? That is the very essence of the man we have come to know over the past two years – the man who mocks, grabs pussy, calls opponents childish names, incites violence at rallies and is mollified by no-one. The man is not for turning.

Donald Trump is not particularly interested in policy. When he promised to replace Obamacare – the current US health system – with something which would be better, he was responding to the conflicting demands of his supporters and certainly did not have a plan. It will be the Republican-dominated Congress which will lead the way with a bill for him to sign.

For eight years now, the right/wrong direction polls have consistently shown that the majority of New Zealanders believe their country is on the right track. The November 2016 Roy Morgan indicator has the right direction at 65 percent.

In contrast, during the latter years of the Clark-led government only 40 to 45% of the public believed the country was going in the right direction.

The 2015 results for the  triennial OECD PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) evaluation were reported just before Christmas so they did not get much coverage. We need to think about them. Many will jump to a conclusion that the current government’s education policy is failing. Certainly the international evidence does not suggest it is succeeding.  

The Corrections Department puts out a monthly magazine called, guess what – Corrections Works.

This columnist is greatly perplexed by how in today’s post-truth world people hold views or which are not true, which may be contradictory but which are held with a tenacity which belies their falsehood. This is sometimes called ‘truthiness’; the views are believed to be true because they confirm beliefs. But that is a label, what is going on?

The announcement by New Zealand on Air that it was changing its mode of funding is a reminder of the current turmoil in the media from the convergence of platforms (delivery systems).

I've got half written Key/English blogs to finish and post, but before Christmas I desperately want to share my hero and anti-hero of the year; our better and worse angels.

For many people, Michael Lewis is best known for his 2010 book The Big Short and the follow-up film, which describes the carryings-on of the financial sector in the American housing market which underlay the Global Financial Crisis.

Champs: Who would you rank as the best performing individuals in politics for 2016?

1. John Key, for perfectly executing the coup against himself, and Bill English, the little engine who finally did.

2. Winston Peters, who starts an election year with stronger polls than ever

3. Michael Wood, for reminding everyone that all politics is local

Back in September I wrote this post about a Supreme Court decision that found quite a number of prisoners have been unlawfully detained because The Department of Corrections incorrectly had calculated their release dates.

Dear Bill,

I recall when you first entered Parliament 26 years ago, it was widely thought you were prime-ministerial material. You’ve made it. Congratulations.

Even with a 20 point poll lead over the main Opposition party, history is against Prime Minister designate Bill English. While he will take over the Prime Ministership with plenty of hoop-la on Monday, he will be trying to defeat history as well as Andrew Little (and Winston Peters?) to take the top job again after next year's election.

I remember talking at a do with a Labour apparatchik in December 2011. The party had a new leader and there was a sense of excitement. "We can get him on the cover of NZ Surfer. When's the last time Labour could say something like that?", this person enthused.

Back in June I wrote a post about the Ombudsman's pretty damning report on the State Services Commission (SSC) Inquiry into leaked MFAT documents, and in particular the way that this Inquiry treated a MFAT employee, Mr Derek Leask.

John Key's resignation is an immense shock in a year of immense shocks, but it also lays down a gauntlet to those who would be in government next year.

Unfortunately most analysis on the American elections focuses on who voted but, as Bob Chapman pointed out, the Non-Vote Party plays an important role. This is yet another example of Gilling’s law of how you score shaping the game; in this case pollsters tend to score voters and pay little attention to those who do not vote.

Technology is an ambiguous notion. Its most common use in economics arises in the following way.

The laws of thermodynamics mean that there exist production functions which relate inputs to outputs. The most familiar ones have a single output generated by inputs of labour and capital, although there can be other inputs such as land, energy, intermediate goods and imports.

As has been noted previously on this blog, Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Dr Andrew Butler  have published a book advocating that New Zealand enact a “written” constitution.

[Make sure you see the update at the end!]

New Zealand has had a "three strikes" sentencing regime in place for some six years now. It was controversial when introduced.

New Zealand is such a small country that it is very easy to be internationally bullied. Much of our diplomatic effort aims to minimise such bullying, but fear of it lurks behind concerns about what a Trump administration might do, not only to us but the rest of the world. Could the US, big enough to be hard to bully, disrupt the world trading system?

Donald Trump's election as President of the USA was interpreted widely as the death knell for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). That, anyway, was John Key's immediate response following the result.  

Alan Blinder, an American economist, described as ‘one of the great economic minds of his generation,’ was an economic adviser to President Clinton and was a Vice Chair of the American Federal Reserve (central bank). He is known to many as the co-author of an extremely successful textbook.

          If any question why we died,  

          Tell them, because our fathers lied.

To get some idea of just how great the now-departed Leonard Cohen's musical legacy is, you can't just listen to his recordings. You have to look at how his works were standards for so many other artists. His songs were genius, and everyone wanted to make them their own.

The world feels a very different place to me this morning. It is a place that leaves me disillusioned and more than a little scared. The America that voted for Donald Trump to be its president has either embraced or looked past so many values that I thought that country held dear.

In my other blogging endeavours, I often criticize judges, either for specific decisions or for their broader views of the law and of their own role, on which many of them are fond of expounding extra-judicially

This column honours Bob Chapman (1922-2004), professor of Political Studies at the University of Auckland, remembered for his mentoring of many students including Helen Clark. He was an early New Zealand social scientist who did not just study elections but used the results to explore the social development of New Zealand.

So, according to this Act Party press release:

After a decade close to the action – and longer on the peripheries – there's not much in politics that makes my blood boil any more. At its best it is a contest of ideas and visions, but more often these days it is a poll-driven, often cynical, risk averse, strategic battle for swing voters. C'est la vie. But then, we have events like the Saudi sheep deal.

The Auditor-General's report on Murray McCully's "sheep-to-sand" deal (or, rather, her "Inquiry into the Saudi Arabia Food Security Partnership") is hot off the press.

I puzzle at how politicians and advisers can make giant mistakes but are never held accountable. The notion of accountability became fashionable in the neoliberal changes of the 1980s and many people further down in the system now work under tighter surveillance than they did then.

In 2011, Bill English said that prisons were “a moral and fiscal failure” and New Zealand should never build another one. Well said – and achievable – but only if Governments stop pandering to the Sensible Sentencing Trust and the moral panic manufactured by the media whenever a violent crime occurs.

I'm presently out of New Zealand, enjoying a family break at Joshua Tree National Park in the US of A before immersing myself in the joy and wonder that is end of year exam marking. I guess that means I should be writing you an insightful and searing critique of the US Presidential race, but really ... what's there to say?

The very joining of monetary policy and fiscal policy into a single phrase is a criticism of the neoliberal macroeconomics. The reconfiguration under Rogernomics assumed that the two could be administered independently of one another, and gave an authority and power to monetary policy beyond what any reasonable analysis would conclude.

Yesterday, the Court of Appeal handed down its decision on the Electoral Commission's appeal in the "Planet Key" case, The Electoral Commission v Watson & Jones. You may remember the song and video at the heart of that case.

Alfred Nobel did not endow a prize in economics. In 1968 the Swedish National (i.e. central) Bank founded a ‘Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel’. The award’s announcement is coordinated with the annual Nobel Prize awards.

Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Andrew Butler, both of them former legal academics and current barristers, Sir Geoffrey having also served as Attorney-General and Prime Minister in between, have published a book

Despite being frequently ignored, Gilling’s Law is one of the most powerful social laws I know. Formulated by Don Gilling, a retired professor of accounting and finance, it states that the way you score the game shapes the way the game is played. A simple illustration is that when they increased the points for a try, rugby games became more attacking in order to score more tries.

What can you really take in a political sense from a series of low-turnout elections in which the winners were mostly incumbents and mostly, still, male, pale and stale?

Well, a little bit, but maybe not as much as some claim.

Desmond Tutu is something of a living legend (there's a fuller account of his life here).

On Sunday night Auckland mayoral candidate Chloe Swarbrick was feeling fed up with media coverage of the city's election and took to Twitter to express herself. In reply to a tweet saying turnout was tracking only marginally ahead 2013's poor effort, she said:

"I'm optimistic, but again doesn't help that media sold this as a boring one horse race that everyone should just give up on".

To be frank, this column on criminology is not in an area of my expertise. But in the course of my reading to place economics in a social context – I do that a lot – I came across an old report which I suspect most people who care have not come across earlier either. So this column is really from a journalist telling about a report.

It's a rare delight in these heavily managed times to see conviction politics and heartfelt arguments. It's just sad the Don Brash-led re-hashed Hobson's Pledge lobby group is so ill-judged and ill-informed.

It's a rare delight in these heavily managed times to see conviction politics and heartfelt arguments. It's just sad the Don Brash-led Hobson's Pledge lobby group is so ill-judged and ill-informed.

The Government is ‘refreshing’ its international trade strategy. Refresh is a euphemism. It ought to overhaul it. Here are some guidelines; I begin with the overarching framework.

On Wednesday evening I had the pleasure of attending the launch of Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Andrew Butler's book proposing a written constitution for New Zealand. It was held at Parliament, and may I say that a fine time was had by all.

On occasion, I've had cause to issue some stern words to Police Minister Judith Collins about her apparent meddling in Police issues that are none of her business.

A couple of days ago, I was asked for comment* by RNZ News on a story about Gisborne mayor Meng Foon laying $20 on a pub table at a a Father's Day function.

Sadly, the latest MSD report The Material Wellbeing of NZ Households, by Bryan Perry, released last week, passed by quickly. It said, broadly, that there is no obviously significant shift in the level of inequality in recent years.

In my various comments on the frankly abysmal Airport Authorities (Publicisi

At the risk of breaking my undertaking to Gerry Brownlee, I find myself having to once again turn my attention to Tutehounuku (Nuk) Korako's frankly abysmal members bill - the 

Here's the thing: What exactly did happen during that Mad Monday Chiefs event at Ōkoroire Hot Pools, near Matamata, on August 1? Despite the Rugby Union's "investigation" into events we are none the wiser and yet, amidst a flurry of clichés about "key learnings" and "unwise" and "inappropriate" behaviour, we are supposed to drop our unanswered questions and move on.

On today's RNZ's Morning Report, John Key poured cold water over Wintson Peters' confident assertion that NZ would have an election early in 2017 because the National Government was struggling to hold things together.

Last June there was a kerfuffle in the online magazine Spinoff over attitudes to intellectual activity in New Zealand.

Two eminent but retired Reserve Bankers, Don Brash and Arthur Grimes, have argued that house prices should halve. I am not sure whether they actually mean it or are just vividly pointing out that house prices are about double the sustainable level. I probably use a different method of calculation but have come to a similar assessment.

Back in March I wrote this post in which I expressed scepticism about Auckland Transport's rationale for having a by-law that prohibits the display of election advertising anywhere that is visible from a road, except for the 9 weeks before an election. My argument was: 

In 1920, someone wrote in the Maoriland Worker, ‘The politician is like the person who would build an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, instead of constructing a good fence at the top.’ The image seems to have been coined in a late-nineteenth-century poem by the English temperance activist Joseph Malins.

So it's Friday afternoon, deep into intellectual garbage time, and it's been a wee while since I've taken a gratuitous pot-shot at one of my fellow denizens of the blogosphere. What better reasons do I then need for writing the following?

ACT leader David Seymour backed congestion charging in Auckland and called Transport Minister Simon Bridges "weak" for his inaction on Auckland's traffic congestion, at a local government panel discussion tonight.

At the risk of appearing to be a slightly unhinged obsessive who is fixated upon the trivial, I cannot help but respond to Tutehounuku (Nuk) Korako's attempted defence in Parliament this afternoon of his frankly abysmal members bill, the Airport Authoriti

As some of you may have noticed, I put up a couple of blog posts last week in which I said some less than charitable things about Tutehounuku (Nuk) Korako's members bill, the 

What are universities really for? was the topic of a recent lecture by Hugh Lauder, professor of Education and Political Economy at the University of Bath (previously on the Canterbury and VUW faculties).

As I noted in yesterday's post, Tutehounuku (Nuk) Korako's frankly abysmal members bill - the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment 

So the very professional Rosanna Price rang me up about Tutehounuku (Nuk) Korako's frankly abysmal members bill, the Airport Authorities (Publicising Lost Property Sales) Amendment Bill, and accurately

To make the intentions of this column clear, I am generally in favour of migration. I am a descendant of immigrants and live in a country in which virtually everyone admits to a migration heritage and which has one of the highest proportions of foreign-born in the world. I am also very aware that future migration will dramatically change the country I love, especially by the Asian inflow.

What with Northern Districts cricket player Scott Kuggeleijn running a "it wasn't rape because any man would do the same" defence (and thanks for spattering that shit all over me and my 5 year old son, Scott), Chief's lock Michael Allardice thinking it's OK t

Well, this is a cat amongst Helen Clark's United Nation's pigeons. In the midst of a parliamentary recess when political news is thin on the ground, the Maori Party has told the world – and it's the world that matters in this case – that it doesn't support Clark's bid for the Secretary-General's job.

New Zealand shares a continent with the European Union. Admittedly 93 percent of Zealandia is submerged beneath the Pacific Ocean but at its most north-western are the islands of New Caledonia with a total area about half the size of Canterbury. Technically the country is a department of France and so is the closest part of the EU to us.

In an opinion piece published in Monday's NZ Herald, Professor Chris Gallavin made a number of suggestions as to how the Court

One per cent please.                                           

One of the great things about my local paper, the Otago Daily Times, is that it still prints daily reports of all the trials that take place in each of the region's various local courts. For an insight into the manifold frailties and foibles of humanity, as well as a lot of sadness and the occasional spot of humour, it is hard to beat. I read it every day.

Just nine years ago, John Key, then leader of the opposition, spoke to the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Contractors Federation about housing affordability which he described then as a ‘crisis [which had] reached dangerous levels in recent years and looks set to get worse.’

This is an historic day for New Zealand. The day the world's superpower blinked after a generation-long staring contest. The day America, in any meaningful sense, abandoned its 'neither confirm nor deny' policy. The day the mouse's roar was truly heard.

“I have been involved in this strange, fascinating and tragic world of incarceration for over 25 years. I have had many ideas about penal reform in that time, many of the subsequently proved quite wrong. I now think there are two basic things for which one should aim.

As can (finally) now be reported, Tawera Wichman has been jailed for 3 years, 10 months for shaking his 11 month old son, Teegan Tairoa-Wichman, to death some seven years ago.

Turkey’s fifth military coup d’etat was crushed only hours after it began, but the ramifications of those hours of miscalculated actions are immense for Turkey, the region and the wider world.

The rule of strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan has consistently, worryingly, been more akin to that of an autocrat than a democratically elected President.

The tensions between the Reserve Bank and the Government over housing policy go back to the mistaken economic thinking in the 1989 Reserve Bank Act. Monetarism ruled and it is that underlying monetarist approach which is creating the tensions.

Black power member, Ngapari Nui, has been working as a prison volunteer for the past five years trying to steer young gang members away from crime. By all accounts he’s been doing a great job.

On CNN at the end of last week one of the commentators, sad face on, remarked that “this (the Dallas shootings of police and the latest two police executions of black men) is not America”.

News flash: gun violence is exactly what America is, and its victims are overwhelmingly black..

Journalists and other populisers get away with an economics which does not quite lie, but is often very misleading. This applies to Brexit, but let’s start off with the TPPA (Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement).

Tony Blair just does not get it.

After the savaging he was dealt by the long awaited, 2.6 million word Chilcot inquiry, Blair spoke to the press for nearly two hours in order to make sure the world knew he did not lie and was in fact a victim himself, deeply sorry while standing by his actions to take Britain to an avoidable.

Underneath Auckland's housing crisis, both literally and metaphorically, lies infrastructure. One of the reasons for the lack of houses in Auckland is that the city doesn't have enough of it, and you can't build a house if you don't have the roads, pipes and power. So today's announcement from government addresses a fundamental problem.

It is one of the most puzzling... and troubling... sagas in New Zealand's recent political history. And that's saying something. The Saudi sheep deal's always felt like the sword of Damocles hanging over Foreign Minister Murray McCully, and today that sword may finally have fallen.

My last column described how the punitive measures we had for dealing with debtors were only abolished in 1989. Yet others continue to suffer from oppressive legislation – if they are low enough in social ranking.

An article published a month ago in the Daily Mail prompted GE Free New Zealand to

The Government (and State Services Commission, which really appears to be joined at the hip with Ministers on this matter) seems to have decided on its strategy to deal with the damning Ombudsman's Report into Paula Rebstock's Report on MFAT leaks.

Wilkens Micawber was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. It is said that he is modelled on Charles Dickens’ father, who suffered a similar fate. Meanwhile, his twelve-year-old son had to work in a factory. He hated the experience. A debtors’ prison appears in The Pickwick Papers, as well as David Copperfield, and most extensively in Little Dorrit.

Having tired of perusing the interweb's voluminous reckons on Brexit, I chanced upon a gem of a story regarding an interchange between a defendant and a judge in Georgia (the U.S. variant) that did ... not go well.

After a long, long gestation - caused in large part by the State Services Commission's (hugely ironic, as we will see) demand for various rights of reply - the Office of the Ombudsman has finally released its report into the State Services Commission Inquir

So what's changed? That's the over-arching and as yet unanswered question that follows National's decision to abandon its commitment to a two year deployment in Iraq.

It appears that the Health Select Committee's inquiry into Maryan Street's petition, which itself called for Parliament to "investigat

As I put up this column, the Brits are about to vote on Brexit – whether Britain should withdraw from the European Union. We do not know what the outcome will be, for the opinion surveys are all over the place; in any case turnout may be crucial. In 1975 a similar referendum taken a couple of years after Britain joined went two to one for ‘stay’.

Solutions. At least the immediate and practical ones. They've been pretty thin on the ground in the Auckland housing debate, especially when it comes to the social housing crisis. But today another couple of suggestions caught my eye.

[As promised here, these are some further thoughts on the announcement that Teina Pora has been given a full apology for his wrongful imprisonment and an offer of $2.5 million in compensation.

Some brief initial thoughts on the (assumed true) claim that it will be announced today that Teina Pora will be offered around $2 million in compensation for his 21-22 (I've seen both figures used) years in prison.

An important notion in economic analysis is of a ‘public good’ (which may be a service). Not THE public good (a.k.a. the ‘common good’), which is shared and beneficial for all or most members of a given community. A public good in this narrow sense has two key features: it is ‘non-excludable’ and it is ‘non-rivalrous’.

I am not supporting Helen Clark or Steven Adams.

Before you choke on your coffee, here’s why. I do not support New Zealanders just because they are New Zealanders. That’s near blind loyalty of the “my country, right or wrong” variety. Neither Helen Clark nor Steven Adams really thrill me and I decline to jump on the bandwagon.

Via RNZ comes a story about Police Minister Judith Collins taking issue in the House with the Police issuing speeding tickets to people who are breaking the speed limit.

Just a quick follow-up to a post from back in June of last year, in which I noted how the "Taxpayer's Union" mounted a successful campaign to get the Government to reintroduce 10-year passports.

The economic columnist I most admire is John Kay, who writes regularly for the Financial Times. He taught at various universities, was director of the independent think tank, Institute for Fiscal Studies, and has held a host of other interesting and important jobs.

The family of Blessie Gotingco, who was murdered by Tony Robertson shortly after his release from prison, are crowdfunding the costs of undertaking their own review/investigation of the Department of Corrections’ management of Roberts

In an effort to make sense of the fact that their theories don't really make sense of the Universe, some theoretical physicists posit that we inhabit but one of an infinite number of multiverses, in which anything that could possibly happen does happen.

National has finally published it's National Policy Statement (NPS) to try to slow down Auckland's charge-ahead property market. But NPS may as well stand for No Plan Sorry, because it's an admission of failure; proof it's living in the past.

I addressed a large gathering this week at a beautiful church complex in the Auckland seaside suburb of St Heliers. This was a meeting of the Tamaki branch of the University of the Third Age, usually known by the acronym U3A.

They've been 'just good friends' for so long. We all knew they liked each other, but neither of them wanted to ask the other out first, in case they looked to needy or weak. Yet today, Labour and the Greens finally came out with their first PDA.

RNZ's Morning Report led off today with a story about a "coding error" that has meant some recipients of accommodation supplement payments have been wrongly paid since 1993.

My previous post about the lines company Unison's intention to charge extra to households generating their own power prompted several people to contact me, one of whom directed me to a particular quote:

I can't give you a precise day or hour, but some time in the past fortnight, National has admitted defeat over Auckland's housing crisis. You can see it in the calculated attacks on Auckland Council and the lack of action in the Budget; the government's moved into 'managing failure' territory.

Perhaps the most defining feature of Budget 2016 is quite how political, rather than financial, it is. There are numerous aspects of it that only make sense if you place the fact that there's an election in 18 months front and centre in your thinking.

Tony Robertson was sentenced to eight years in prison for indecently assaulting a five year old girl in 2005. He was considered a high risk prisoner and the parole board declined to release him on four separate occasions.  He was eventually released in December 2013 at the end of his sentence.

The Prime Minister’s announcement that there is nothing new about homelessness is both an example of his strengths in reassuring the public that there is never really a problem and the weaknesses of the government’s policy approach..

Tony Robertson is a one percenter. Not the rich kind, but the destructive and callous kind. "Evil"? Maybe. But surely one of this country's highest risk offenders. And we don't seem to have the system to handle these people.

Michael Bennett’s book, In Dark Places: The confessions of Teina Pora and an ex-cop’s fight for justice, tells a terrible story in a beautiful way. The story’s terribleness lies not in a lack of coherence or plot.

The initial invitation suggested I talk about the future economy and its relevance to adult education. I explained that the best advice I ever came across is ‘don’t make predictions, especially about the future’. You get a sense of the difficulties if you go back thirty years ago, say, and realise any forecasts of today would have been way off track.

I was astounded to learnt the Hawke's Bay power lines company, a monopoly called Unison, has announced increased line charges for households generating their own electricity. This "solar tax" runs counter to New Zealand's attempts to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and is one of the most stupid business decisions I've heard of in a very long time.

If it had come from a less reliable source, I'd find it hard to believe. Sure, it's anecdotal and it's an estimate, but it also leaves you asking what we've come to in this country. One in ten garages in South Auckland, says the Salvation Army's Alan Johnson, is being used as a home. And he knows his stuff. 1 in 10.

By now we all know (or, rather, those of us at all interested in the often schoolyard antics of the NZ blogosphere know) that some blogger who used to be semi-famous has admitted the crime of paying an alleged fraudster to hack into the blog of some lefty enemies in orde

It is very easy to demand the government should run, or increase, its budget deficit, that is, it should spend more than its revenue and (one way or another) borrow the difference. Many think that is what Keynes said, but the Keynesian analysis is more subtle than the crudities that the deficit advocates seem to rely upon.

As part of my extensive reading on the wars of the twentieth century, both from personal interest and as a member of the World War One Commemoration Panel, I have recently read “Unnecessary Wars” by Australian historian Henry Reynolds.

My brother, Keith, died in the hospital wing of a Christchurch retirement home recently.

Revelations that the PM's personal lawyer was active in lobbying the Government not to tighten the rules on the sort of foreign trusts fingered in the "Panama Papers" present, as they say, poor political optics. Here's some quick thoughts.

'Peak Antibiotics' is a catchy headline. Prime TV ran a documentary with that title just this month. Whether that turns out to be a true depiction of this era will depend on changes to policies around their use and regulations surrounding their development.

In the aftermath of every general election, Parliament's Justice and Electoral Committee holds an inquiry to review how the process went and identify matters that could be improved.

On Tuesday, Jeff McClintock and the group of people around him will begin their appeal against a decision to throw out their challenge to the Bible in Schools programme. The legal battle is technical; the underlying debate must more pressing. And it's an issue I see from both sides.

On Tuesday, Jeff McClintock and the group of people around him will begin their appeal against a decision to throw out their challenge to the Bible in Schools programme. The legal battle is technical; the underlying debate must more pressing. And it's an issue I see from both sides.

I've just got off the phone to someone responsible for what can only loosely be called "customer service". This is not the first, second or even third time my wife or I made such a call, all in an effort to get a Haier dishwasher fixed by Fisher & Paykel.

Calling them 'customer service' people is laughable. So let's label them as what they are: Time thieves.

Bryan Gould has drawn attention to the dangers we face in New Zealand of foreign political interference by funding contributions to political activity. His apposite example is Chinese money being channeled into the change-the-flag campaign.

Let's assume, purely for the sake of argument, that it turns out Mike Sabin actually didn't need to resign from Parliament. Which means that there didn't need to be a by-election in Northland back in 2015. Which in turn means that Winston Peters shouldn't really be the electorate MP for Northland.

Kiwiblog presents an impressive scatter-diagram which shows that the more an electorate voted for National, the more it voted for a new flag. It seems unlikely that National voters are republican and radical (especially given the views of the leader they endorse).

This is what everyone agrees on: Child, Youth and Family needs to change. No-one can look at how we deal with the troubled kids that need help from government agencies and say it's going swimmingly. So the question is not what we do, but how we do it.

From South Africa to South Carolina, and from

Last month I wrote a pair of posts arguing that, under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, s 8(2)(l), a person is entitled to bring on their person into NZ up to a month's supply of

It's laughable, even a bit pathetic really. But then that's Whale Oil for you. And I've always been of the belief that if you put a story out there to stimulate some discussion, you should be willing to be part of that discussion.

It's times like this you appreciate why people giving testimony in court, in all those old movies, are asked to tell "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth". Because "the truth", alone won't do. That's at the heart of Metiria Turei's revelation about just when John Key knew about the jihadi brides.

This has not been an easy column to write, and it may not be an easy one to read. Part of the problem is that there is no agreement within the economics profession as how to interpret what is going on.

A recent Victoria University graduation ceremony invited everyone to sing The National Anthem. As we lustily, but not tunefully, sang God Defend New Zealand, I avoided the thought that while pedants would point out that New Zealand had two national anthems there are few pedants left in our universities.

Via RNZ comes this odd story:

What's affordable? Usually that's entirely dependent on your circumstances. My six year-old's concept of what's "a lot" – the lego he wants or how much we just spent on groceries – is very different from mine. Yet I had a very wealthy friend who used to say that in his pomp he could hardly go through an international airport without spending thousands on a new watch.

During the Great War, farm land prices boomed. When farm product prices collapsed in 1920, farmers walked off their land. It was not that the land prices were too high. Farmers had borrowed to purchase their farms and with lower revenue they could no longer service the debt.

Yesterday's Herald on Sunday carried a big splash story from David Fisher about three National Party cabinet Ministers - Paula Bennett, Maggie Barry and Louise Upton - ganging up to try and force Wicked Campers to stop putting puerile, misogynistic slogans on their camper vans.

A month ago Fairfax political journalist Tracey Watkins listed the following ten areas to watch out for in the political year:

Spies (especially the review and resulting legislation)

This morning I watched Donald Trump rhapsodising about the wall he plans to build on the border with Mexico ("It's going to be so tall ... it's going to be beautiful ... as beautiful as a wall can be") and then glorying in the expulsion of protesters from his rally.

Last Friday afternoon the High Court released its most recent judgment in jailhouse lawyer Arthur Taylor's ongoing legal crusade against the law that bans prisoners from voting (PDF copy of Taylor v Attorney General available here).

The High Court has just handed down a pretty interesting decision that is possibly important for how political commentary can take place in New Zealand, and for the blogging community in particular. It involves Winston Peters and the Electoral Commission, so naturally it's called Peters v The Electoral Commission.

How high is "quite high"?

That's a life and death question having heard both the Pharmac CEO Steffan Crausaz and Prime Minister talk about funding a melanoma drug over the past 48 hours.

Yesterday I wrote this post, leveraging off a RNZ story about a judge discharging a woman without conviction for mailing herself medical marijuana from the

There are two competing descriptions of what's going on in the Republican Party right now. One, (which appeals to Donald Trump's modus operandi in business) is a "hostile takeover" of the Grand Old Party.

The whole issue of medical marijuana's (non)-availability in New Zealand has been highlighted by the case of first Helen Kelly and now claims in The Guar

A common assumption is that public spending on healthcare rises faster than GDP. There are three reasons behind this assumption.

First, an aging population requires more healthcare. The over-65s consume more healthcare resources than the under65s (and the over-85s even more so).

So, finally, Marco Rubio has reached that point. Ted Cruz got their earlier and John Kasich is still trying to hold back (and who cares about Ben Carson any more?). You may call it taking the gloves off, jumping the shark, sending in the artillery or getting down in the mud. Or too little, too late.

It isn't too late for university students to change their courses for this year; new students are still likely to be able to change their degrees. At most universities, changes are allowed for the first two, even three, weeks of the semester. While it's a nightmare for university staff, it's a chance for students to rethink and adjust given new information from the government.

On the cusp of Super Tuesday - when 14 states and American Samoa vote for their Democrat or Republican Presidential candidate, the stench of panic within the Republican party over the rise of its own bastard child is all pervasive.

There is much chat about how Donald Trump has rewritten all the rules in US politics, but he hasn’t really.

Internal tension. It's not something National has had to worry about much during the Key years. But that makes the Auckland Council's u-turn on its plans for housing intensification all the more fascinating; because it pits the National Party against some of its core voters.

It's a dangerous strategy for a government to denigrate those who don't agree with them as misguided or ignorant, especially if they are in the majority. A TV3/Reid Research poll last November revealed that a clear majority of the public oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA).

The Herald on Sunday is running a "shock! horror!" series of stories about a District Court Judge who happens to be a member of a naturist ("nudist") club in Canterbury and had some naked photos of himself posted on the club website.

 According to the NZ Herald, by way of a fortuitous leak to Jared Savage, the report into David Bain's compensation claim by retired Australian Judge Ian Callinan, QC is in the hands of Minister of Justice Amy Adams. (Remember that a previous report on this matter by Canad

Allow that we had to give away something, such as increased copyright extensions, for better access for our exports; the real issue for us in the TPPA is that it reduces ‘sovereignty’. To report my conclusion at the beginning: all trade and all trade deals reduce sovereignty to some extent. This has been going on in New Zealand since its first European economic engagement.

So ACT has decided to reheat it's disastrous policy from 2014, promoting a three strikes regime for burglars.

In the biggest night of their political careers outsiders Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders swept aside the ‘insiders’ and nailed the New Hampshire primary.

What a limp start to the parliamentary year. John Key went for the jocular shopping list approach, seemingly in the belief that a few one liners implied confidence and rapidly listing a policies already in train suggested good governance.

Among all the controversy and welter of opinions on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, I have been increasingly wondering, why has the TPP become the litmus test of progressivism in New Zealand?

It is not such a defining issue in other TPP nations; the debate seems particularly fevered in New Zealand.

Today, at last, we will finally start to see past the blarney and balderdash, the polls and projections, to see the outline of the US presidential race. The Iowa caucuses are being held and the voice of actual voters will get to drown out the voices of the candidates and commentators. For a while at least.

In the 1960s I was an active member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It was a moral crusade with unrealisable objectives such as withdrawal from SEATO (a now defunct treaty), a nuclear-free New Zealand and withdrawal from ANZUS. The dreams of youth can become a reality.

Donald Trump’s decision to boycott the Republican Presidential candidates‘ debate on Fox ‘News’ is a master stroke - for Donald Trump, and in his world, that is all that matters.

So, sometimes it's useful being a lame duck.

Unless you have been living on Planet 9 (Mars is too close), you will be aware that ‘we’ are in the home stretch for the Iowa Caucus....the first of the generators of momentum, consolidation, winnowing and friction within the candidates vying to be America’s new Commander in Chief.

Is it a perfect storm or are we merely being buffeted by the winds of change? Is this some kind of tipping point? It's an extraordinary moment in time for New Zealand agriculture, with its future economic development at stake. Yet the discussion is more around what shouldn't happen rather than finding a strategy to achieve the prosperity most New Zealanders want.

I am in the camp that believes Iraq’s current situation is not intractable. With sufficient clarity, political will and coordination, its ethnosectarian strife can be put to an end. Here are some thoughts:

Redrawing borders: a functioning federalism

So who wants assisted suicide? 

In Oregon, the poster child for New Zealand advocates of euthanasia and assisted suicide, the statistics after 17 years of the Death With Dignity Act are emphatic[1]:

Rhona and I were married for 54 years and about 45 of those were good, until vascular dementia began to affect our relationship.  She died in April 2014.

Late last year after the nuclear deal between the world’s six major powers and Iran had been signed, Republican Presidential hopeful Marco Rubio wrote in Foreign Affairs that the world is safest when America is at its strongest and dealing with Iran has shown America to be weak.

Before discussing the state of the world economy – especially what is going on in China – it is useful to say something about the importance of the sharemarket (Americans call it ‘stock market’). It is far more important in pop-economics than serious economics.

Despite a summer of opportunity to read every clause of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, opponents of the TPP have failed to produce a clause showing the agreement requires each of us to surrender our first born to the corporate masters of neo-liberalism, and nor have they discovered any other nugget that sustains their vilification of the trade pact.

Reluctant as I am to start my 2016 Punditing by laying a guilt trip on you, that's what I'm going to end this post with. Some context, first.

Former ACT party leader Jamie Whyte recently wrote that:

There is no poverty in New Zealand. Misery, depravity, hopelessness, yes; but no poverty.

It's the time of year many start thinking about their diet, about turning over a new leaf. An the Paris climate talks may have given that new impetus for those keen to 'save the planet'. But it's abstinence – meaning eating and travelling less – that they should be considering, rather than a new diet or production system.

It's the time of year for lists. The best and worst of the year lists. Summer DIY lists. Lists to write to Santa. But here's a not so nice list created by National in these warming weeks leading into Christmas – the cynical dumping list.

The various adventures of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass appear to have a particular resonance for lawyers.

As expected, a deal was finally done in Paris. This in itself is vital as we tackle the most serious strategic threat to our planet and its people. But it'd be easy to get carried away with hyperbole -- so what does the Paris Agreement actually deliver?

If you’re going to stand for political office the minimum requirements must surely include some rationale for your candidacy. You want to do the job because you see a job needing doing. You need to have something sensible to say about topical issues and some guide to what you expect to do in office. 

I was too closely involved with Elizabeth Caffin’s The Deepening Stream: A History of the New Zealand Literary Fund to review it. But it contributed to my understanding of some general issues; I think I am allowed to use the book to share them with you.

So it transpires* that we'll be voting in March next year on whether to retain a colonial relic or to adopt something that looks like a cheap souvenir beach-towel. Democracy, hell yeah! My kids will have fun making that choice!!

On the vote itself, what can we say?

Well, will you look at the time? The House has risen, weather's improving and Christmas is nigh. And heaps of newspapers, websites and journalists of all shapes and sizes have debated their best, worst, winners, losers and more as they try to make sense of what's been a year of recovery, reinvention and rebound after the crazy events of 2014.

I have had past occasion to poke the borax a bit at Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne. But I have to say that this week he's been a refreshing breath of sensibility on the shock-horror issue of New Zealanders setting out to become "Jihadi brides".

Last week Britain voted for airstrikes in Syria against Islamic State. The parliamentary debate that preceded the vote was illuminating in the way it mirrored the divide in Britain about its place in the world.

Britain us a united kingdom of four nations. But that is likely to shrink by at least one. 

As ministers arrive in Paris from around the world, they have a historic opportunity – and responsibility. While it's now clear most countries want a global agreement, the current draft simply isn't good enough. It will lead us into an era of dangerous climate change.

I am sometimes asked to assist voluntary groups with a critique of a commissioned economic assessment of a development project. I decline because of the high standard required from me – one which would stand up as evidence to a tribunal.

The first deadline for climate change negotiators in Paris is upon us. The government officials who have been negotiating for eight long years since talks started in Bali in 2007 have to finish their work today.

During late night sessions, they have been trying to come up with a draft agreement that is ready for Ministers to take the final political decisions.

The promise of increased future ethnic diversity is undoubtedly true, but often the statistical projections are both misleading and obscure the real issues.

For those not caught up on the background story, Jarrod Gilbert is an academic sociologist working at Canterbury University.

There is a widely held perception that the Productivity Commission, which makes recommendations to the government on how to increase productivity, is neoliberal. Partly that is because the commission was set up at the instigation of ACT but that does not mean that its analysis is necessarily neoliberal.

The overwhelming number of victims of Daesh are Muslims.

Most, but not all, Syrians feeing their own government and jihadi groups such as Daesh are Muslim.

That one probable fake Syrian passport has threatened the futures of thousands of Syrian refugees is grotesque and so sadly predictable.

At a recent public meeting, a retired Secretary of Foreign Affairs pointed out that although he had been involved in negotiating many free trade agreements, the TPP was the first one about which the public had showed any significant interest.

As we come towards the end of 2015, it's worth reflecting on what the commemorations of World War One, and in particular the Gallipoli campaign, have been all about. Why do the commemoration resonate so much with the New Zealand public?

Via NewsTalk ZB (and sorry for the full cut-and-paste), it would appear that Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson is starting to get a little bit fed up with the Waitangi Tribunal:

According to Phil Lyth on Twitter (hey - it's how you know News is new!), Andrew Little and Chris Hipkins have been referred to Parliament's Privilege's Committee (or, as I've had cause to call it before

Ending world hunger is now considered a realistic goal.

It's one of life's little ironies that a country in part founded by individuals deported for their criminal actions is now so obsessed with ridding itself of those individuals who display the same characteristics. I refer, of course, to Australia's recent enthusiasm for deporting those whose offending demonstrates a lack of "good character".

At least it's a proper battle of different world views. There's no Labour-lite or National stealing Labour's policies here. While the fires burn on Christmas Island, we have to two very different stances on the fate of those detainees.

The stupidest thing said about the TPP deal – thus far – is the claim that it does not reduce New Zealand’s sovereignty. Of course it does. Agreeing to it will mean New Zealand will not be able to do things it currently can do. How important this reduction in sovereignty is is a proper matter for assessment for there are gains as well as losses.

After many months of silence or evasion brought on by the need to regroup, lick wounds and do some policy work, Labour's had a busy old policy day today. It's been out with the old and in with some new.

Sometimes it's funny to see how news unfolds. Just about every news organisation has run headlines today that, as Paddy Gower revealed this morning, Phil Goff has booked a venue at Westhaven for November 22 to announce his run for the mayoralty. But much of the rest of today's buzz is nothing new.

It was a spectacle, as expected.

Canada’s 23rd Prime Minister was sworn in today, and he means to get down to business immediately.

Forty-three year old Justin Trudeau announced his new Cabinet and presented them to the public.

In due course this Penguin is likely to become fashionable – like The Sprit Level and Capital in the Twenty First Century – because it touches issues which many people care deeply about while offering some solutions.

Its message is simple.

National can't believe it's luck. The government announced an historic, controversial decision this week -- the first ever general release of a genetically modified organism in New Zealand. In other words, the first bit of GM stuff to be allowed outside the lab or test paddock. And hardly anyone noticed.

On a recent Sunday I was at dinner in the restaurant in the old Seafarers' building on Quay St, Auckland. Through big picture windows we looked out over the Waitemata harbour on a beautiful spring day. We could see the boats on the water, the houses sprinkled around the North Shore...

There are remnants of wall frescos from the 3500-plus year old Minoan palace of Knossos in Crete – home of the legendary Labyrinth and Minotaur.

Since 2008, “middle-class wealth has grown at a slower pace than wealth at the top end. This has reversed the pre-crisis trend, which saw the share of middle-class wealth remaining fairly stable over time.”

“Justin’s just not ready...nice hair though”.

So went one of the many attempts by Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party to diss the “kid” politician in Canada’s election.

The story of Jonathan Dixon doesn't raise much sympathy. He was a bouncer at a Queenstown bar back in 2011. While working there, he observed the English rugby player Mike Tindall - who had just married the Queen's granddaughter Zara Phillips - "cavorting" with a woman on the dance floor.

I shan’t add to the confusion. In quick summary, the New Zealand’s economic growth seems to be slowing down but we don’t know whether it will go negative and economic activity contract.

* The Australian economy  is in the doldrums.

The Palestinian response to the Zionist occupation is a manifestation of the French philosopher Michel Foucault’s maxim that where there is power, there is resistance. 

Israel exercises power in a repressive occupation.

Palestinians exercise power in resisting repression.

When Malcolm Turnbull touches down in New Zealand tomorrow night for his first visit as Australian Prime Minister, there will be much back-slapping and bonhomie between two very similar politicians. But far from what the men would have expected just a few weeks ago, the mutual appreciation society will be over-shadowed by the detention centre issue.

Good quality science, data and insights are required to transform what is done on the land. Deputy Prime Minister Bill English was last year urging farmers to use "good science", while more recently farmers have been urging regional councils to base their policies on facts and evidence.

In the eyes of this upper-middle class, not-quite-very-old, liberal legal academic, the Film and Literature Board of Review has brought a bit of sanity back to the world by deciding that a book openly showing young men (and soon-to-be young men) how bad choices can create bad outcomes ought to be freely available for them to read.

As mentioned in the media yesterday, Jane Kelsey and a rag tag fugitive fleet of civil society groups were (mostly) successful in their court challenge to MFAT/Tim Groser's refusal to

In any court case, there are (at least) two big questions. The first is, what does the law say about the matter? Then there is the second; given what the law says, what will the court do as a consequence?

This year is the fortieth anniversary of the founding of CAFCA – the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa – a Christchurch-based, but national, activist organisation.

Helen Clark had the most succinct and best explanation of why New Zealand had to be part of the TPP. I know for a fact that her late intervention caused some people who were sceptical about the TPP to revise their opinion about the necessity for New Zealand being in TPP.

The TPP was never going to be the miracle that shot New Zealand to the top of the global supply chain. Neither was it ever going to be the Darth Vadar of deals where American corporations got to destroy the planet. 

I write this not knowing whether the Trans-Pacific Partnership will become an Agreement or merely a very long, stressful yet ultimately fruitless set of negotiations. I also write this with an admitted lack of expertise in the issue of international trade and economics.

Of the week’s signpost activities – the kinds of things that give order and sequence to a world that is sometimes devoid of both, Radio New Zealand Mediawatch is high on my list. The voices are familiar but cut through that Sunday morning somnolence with intelligent critique and commentary. It is a nice way to engage with Sunday.

So, listening or politicking? When it comes to Red Peak's inclusion in the flag referendum, I'm thinking the latter. While the Greens and National are trying to reflect public opinion by adding Red Peak, it seems more like point scoring that got out of control and weak governance by twitter.

Time finally ran out for the majority Republican led push to scuttle the Iran nuclear deal...but you wouldn’t know it.

Still they shout from the debate and election rally pulpits about all the things they will do to what is apparently the most vile of deals.

How deliciously fitting that National should celebrate the first birthday of its third term with the decision to turn down Shanghai Pengxin's bid to buy Lochinver Station from the Stevenson Group, even though the Overseas Investmen

Parliament's powerful Privileges Committee – it is, apparently, mandatory to refer to it as such in print, so I shall shorten the term to PPPC or P3C – has just put out a report on "the use of social media to report on parliamentary proceedings".

As a favour for a mate, I penned (keyboarded?) a few lines for The SpinOff on Jeremy Corbyn's election to the Labour leadership in Britain. And a bunch of other commentators did the same. Here are my views:

So last night I had a bit of fun on TV3's Story, commenting on the conspiracy doing the rounds in cyberspace about the real reason behind the push to change New Zealand's flag.

Yesterday I wrote this post on the decision by the President of the Film and Literature Board of Review, Dr Don Mathieson, to issue an "interim restriction order" in respect of the young adult novel, Into the River.

The young adult's novel, Into the River, certainly seems to divide folks. I should note at the outset that while some unkind souls may say that I behave as if I'm smack in the middle of the book's target demographic market, I haven't read it.

When has a single death and a single image saved so many lives? That picture of Aylan Kurdi lying on a Turkish beach has changed everything around the five year refugee crisis started by the Syrian war.

It was a catastrophically wrong decision to fail to intervene two years ago.

The opposite of intervention was never going to be peace. It was always going to be this; children like Aylan Kurdi, dead on a Turkish beach fleeing certain death back home. 8 million Syrian refugees forced to flee their homes.

It was suggested I first say a few words about the context in which the TPP and other trade negotiations are occurring. At the heart of economic progress is specialisation. That Economics Stage I comparative advantage model that you were taught said that by specialising and trading its surplus a country could be better off.

This week, 11,000 people in Iceland offered to house a refugee in response to a Facebook campaign. The country is only obliged to accept 50. A couple spent millions buying a boat to rescue families drowning in the Mediterrean.

Should the little lifeless body of a three-year-old Syrian refugee lying face down in the sands of a Turkish beach be published?

It is a question editors and journalists have been grappling with around the world since the image of Aylan Kurdi was despatched.

Back in February of this year, the House debated a Prime Ministerial statement on New Zealand's contribution of some 143 military personnel to help combat ISIS in Iraq.

When politicians start talking about "radical overhauls" and headlines speak of "sweeping changes", I confess a little scepticism, even nervousness.

I am not going to tell you about the right choice for New Zealand’s flag. That would invalidate the point of the column. Certainly I shall vote for one; much of my response will be an instinctive opinion. What I shall probably miss – what we are currently missing – is expert guidance on the characteristics of a good flag.

It fails to correctly define the real problem - which is affordability, not immigration. The average wage can no longer buy the average house.

According to the late French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, there is nothing more unsettling than the continued movement of something that seems fixed.

I really don't care very much about the whole debate over changing the flag. It just doesn't move me all that much. I have no great fondness for the current design, but equally none of the forty alternatives particularly grip my emotions or imagination.

Labour may just have stumbled on a wee goldmine. Former leader David Shearer has in recent days been taking some pot-shots at the banks. Not all out assaults, but he's been spraying bullets around at the 'big four' Australian-owned banks, complaining about their excessive profits and "rorting" of ordinary Kiwis.

The indications are that economic growth is slowing down from the boom rates of the last few years. The slowdown may turn into a contraction – that is, output may fall. There is a view that the contraction began in the middle of 2015. (It is not possible to be sure. All the data is not in and is subject to measurement error.

The basic business operations of the company, the coal mines, are cashflow positive. Solid Energy makes enough to pay for safe operation and keeping miners in jobs, and that keeps the lights on for downstream parts of the Coast economy who depend on mining - businesses like railways that help to keep other export businesses competitive and could become marginal without coal.

Agribusiness is different. Long investment cycles, equally long production cycles and environmental perturbations combine to erode resilience. The current milk price debacle is a clear case in point.

I've been sitting here dithering whether I should write something about Rachel Smalley's critique of broadcasting as a male bastion. Or rather, her attack on John Campbell, depending on which way you view it.

The relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu has taken a quantum leap for the worse, as each man ratchets up his case for or against the Iran deal, supposedly in the best interests of their respective countries.

If you think you know what has been going on with the TPP, you have not been following closely enough. However, here are a few matters for clarification.

Let's start off by giving the National Government a bit of a lifeline on the whole "Sheep-to-Sand" saga. Bacause by post's end I'll be using it to hang the Government's handling of the matter.

As I write this I am listening to a Canadian journalist being interviewed on Morning Report about the prospects of concluding the TPP. His speculation? That Canada will not let TPP be concluded until after the Canadian election, which has just been announced for October 19, just three months away.

Allow me to share a puzzle. Public sector outsourcing (a.k.a. ‘contracting out’) has been increasing in recent decades. It is not the same as ‘privatisation’ because the government retains the role as a funder but it outsources the task to a private provider – which may be a corporation or non-government organisation.

An 18 month old Palestinian toddler is burned to death.

The parents of Ali Saad Dawabsheh and 4 yr old brother are in critical conditions with burns up fo 70 % of their bodies.

Are we horrified?

Well most of us are.

Should we be surprised?

Looking out from the heart of the Cyclades at the glassily calm, crystal clear Agean Sea it takes some imagination to marry this most popular of tourist destinations with the desperation and turmoil that rocks the entire country - islands and all.

About a decade ago, there was much concern about ‘peak oil’ – that the production of oil would peak and then fall off quickly leaving the world’s transport system stranded. The idea is really an extension of the two hundred year old insight of Thomas Malthus that the demand from an increasing population would exhaust food production with resulting starvation  because land was limited.

Once upon a time, in a land not very far away, there lived a king. The king was sad; mainly what he knew was Growth, and the cutting of things: taxes, trees, Red Tape. “If only,” he said to the queen, “if only, my queen, there were a way and we would reach the land of Surplus, which I hear tell, is full of sacred Cows and a very fine land indeed.”

The issue of prisoner voting - or, rather, the issue of prisoners not being able to vote - has been a regular bête noire of mine. Here, for example, is my view on the National Government's decision to remove the right, back when I was young and full

Judicial review of government decisions can sometimes be a bit nit-picky. It's a pretty complicated area of law. The rules around what processes officials and ministers have to follow in order to make "good" or "proper" decisions - in the eyes of the court, at least - are sometimes pretty technical .

Or, in the immortal words of Darryl Kerrigan:

How intriguing that on both sides of the Atlantic, politics is presently consumed with polar opposites who are sucking the oxygen out of their respective parties' electoral debates.

I speak of course of Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn.

The first wishes to be nominee of the American Republican Party and go on to win the Presidency. He will succeed in neither.

I have no personal memory of the 1981 Springbok tour: I couldn't tell you if I were for or against it because, as far as I can recall, I did not know about it until after.

There are two separate Auckland housing issues which are only loosely linked. The first, dealt with here briefly, is providing sufficient housing in the region.

It's a moment to tuck away for the 2017 election campaign.

If there's one thing you can bet the house on, it's that housing will be a major issue again at the next election. Even the Housing Minister says the Auckland property market it "over-heated".

Auckland’s median house price hit a new high in June - $755,000 - reinforcing the problems of demand exceeding s

New Zealand’s Presidency of the United Nations Security Council will within days be in the spotlight following the signing of a nuclear deal between the world’s six major powers and Iran.

The win in the deal for Iran is the lifting of the crippling US, EU and UN economic sanctions.

When are numbers racist?

Steven Joyce, Minister of Economic Development and most other economic things, was hardly helpful when he dismissed talk of an economic recession on a recent TV3

Will she go or will she stay?

She, being Greece. Her travel plans being a ‘staycation’ within the EU, or a ‘Grexit’ back(wards) to the drachma.

"Get it in perspective". That's been the well-worked line from the Beehive this week, as a quiet political news cycle has coincided with a burst of bad economic numbers from here and around the Pacific.

Things are moving so fast in the financial negotiations between Greece and the Troika (European Central Bank, European Union, and the International Monetary Fund) that there is little point in my trying to comment on them. But there is a structural issue which most commentaries overlook.

Earlier this week I (along with 27 other legal academics) added my name to an open letter being circulated by Professor Claudia Geiringer from VUW. It concerns the worsening rule of law situation in Nauru, particularly as this impacts on a Nauruan opposition MP with strong NZ connections.

When John Key announced the latest and most controversial stage of National's state housing reforms in January – that is, the sale of up to 2,000 homes over the next year with thousands more to come – it was done in the context of "<

In January this year, John Key and Andrew Little united in their condemnation of the Charlie Hebdo murders. The Prime Minister described the "freedom of speech and expression" as an attack on "democratic principles", while the leader of the Opposition described the shootings as a "shocking attack on freedom of speech" and "an assault on democracy and freedom of expression".

[Update: That was quick! Turns out this post was pretty much unnecessary!

Parliament's Health Committee has agreed to hold an inquiry into whether or not the law should be changed to allow voluntary euthanasia.

I am watching the Colin Craig train wreck from 14,300 kms away.

I am sure Mr Craig would like that sort of distance from his own, as he calls them, “face-palm moments”.

Cute if you are Homer Simpson...perhaps.

1. New Zealand had a downward trend in terms of GDP per capita and fell behind several OECD countries in the last quarter of the 20th century. What are the main factors that explain New Zealand's relative lagging after the 1970s?

There’s a sail on the horizon. 

Not really a sail. More like a blanket on a stick.

And today is suddenly going off-script. The complication of others intrudes. And I’m to be their savior.

*

The Manurewa Cosmopolitan Club has gotten itself back into the media with its dogged refusal to allow Sikhs to dine or drink on its premises whilst wearing a turban. To make it clear, this isn't because the Cosmopolitan Club does not like Sikhs.

Ever wondered why sexual harassment is alive and well in the armed forces?

The Chief of the Canadian Defence Staff Gen. Tom Lawson seems to know, but once the full horror of his explanation was pointed out to him, he quickly apologized...sort of.

Otto Von Bismark is widely attributed with the remark "Laws are like sausages — it is best not to see them being made." Turns out he never said it, but that doesn't stop the sentiment being any less true. 

The Democratic Left is in disarray throughout the world. It is mainly out of power (but that has been true for most of its history); when it is in power it looks awfully like the other side (which has not always been true in the past). Its problem is much more than inadequate organisation or inferior leadership; the issue is too endemic.

There appears to be something deeply wrong.

For a man immersed in the nuanced arts of diplomatic speak and what are always called "sensitive trade negotiations", Trade Minister Tim Groser likes to call a spade a spade. Or a trade deal a bit of a mess. And that's his take on the Trans Pacific Partnership.

Radio New Zealand National’s Morning Report made me more than a little grumpy this morning. And no, it wasn’t because presenter Susie Ferguson was corralled into another live-on-air taste test of a vile consumer product, but instead because she said this:

I've waited a few days to post on the outcome of the Seales v Attorney General decision, finding not only that the Crimes Act totally prohibits doctors from providing aid in dying to competent, terminally ill patients but that this prohibition also is consistent with our New Zealand Bill of Rig

Melbourne's RMIT University reported in July last year that 50 percent of household waste, irrespective of socio-economic grouping was discarded food.

The current debate over the future of Kiwisaver is largely bereft of developments in economics over the last thirty or so years. Rather the frame has been an approach to human behaviour which we know does not reflect reality.

Here's a short little story about the perils of getting what you ask for, courtesy of the New Zealand Taxpayers Union (NZTU).

I can't really wax lyrical about the investigation I produced for The Nation into allegations by a 27 year-old IT consultant called Ben Rachinger, that he was paid by blogger Cameron Slater to hack into The Standard.

Rachinger says he strung Slater along for some time before ultimately not doing the hack.

Further to my previous post on the Government's housing plans for Auckland and the problem that iwi and hapū rights under the Ngā Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau Collective Redress Act 2014 may cause, my attention has been drawn to the following matters.

It may be a reflection of just how quickly the Government's recently announced plans to free up some 500 acres of land for housing in and around Auckland were developed, but it looks like no-one stopped to ask themselves "can we actually do this?" before

James Shaw walked out of his first ever interview as Green Party co-leader on Saturday and asked me straight off, "how did that go? From a TV point of view?"

Unfortunately trade negotiations are riddled with acronyms. I have listed the ones used here at the end of the article.

Having chucked red meat to its base and changed the Employment Relations Act at the expense of working people, the National government used this budget to show it isn’t hostage to its far right factions. Turns out the problem with the economy isn’t that we’re all taking too many tea breaks ('quelle surprise') and - the real surp

Did you know we had a plan? And, did you know that it’s working?

Well, entering the Budget lock-up last week I was confronted on the screen greeting us with the banner: A plan that’s working.

This is based on a presentation to a Child Poverty Action Group Post-budget Breakfast.

A closer look at Budget 2015 shows a government making it up as it goes along. While it's a clever political document, it shows National is trying to plug a lot of political holes with a diminishing amount of capital -- both fiscal and political.

The provincial election in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island finally came to an end a couple of days ago when its last MLA was declared elected following a judicial recount.

(What - you didn't know that Prince Edward Island has just had an election? What are you, prejudiced against Anne of Green Gables or something?)

With a few hours to go before the Budget, it already looks like it's Labour lite all over again; a political repeat of 2014 with National unashamedly doing exactly what opposition parties have been saying they should do and taking credit for it.

Let me start out by saying that I'm not surprised that John Banks has (eventually) been declared innocent of knowingly filing a false return of election donations.

"So where's the good bit?" Guyon Espiner asked a RNZ guest this morning in relation to National's not-new non-capital gains tax reforms announced over the weekend. The answer is hard to pin down, not because there isn't some value in the changes, but because National's wriggly, squirming messaging makes it so darned hard to understand.

Rob Muldoon famously remarked that the typical New Zealander would not know a budget deficit if he or she tripped over it in the street. Knowing a little bit about it I have puzzled as to how one would come across the deficit in the street – perhaps I lack imagination.

It's the politics of the perverse and a tangled kind of compassion; an example of priorities utterly back to front when we are making the bizarre choice to search for the dead while the living are in such terrible need.

It's the politics of the perverse and a tangled kind of compassion; an example of priorities utterly back to front when we are making the bizarre choice to search for the dead while the living are in such terrible need.

In a recent interview on Morning Report (reported

While writing my history of New Zealand, I wondered about whether it would be possible to assess people’s attitudes before there were surveys. Writers often impose their prejudices, without realising they are doing so.

As I have said before, I have a somewhat conflicted attitude towards the Israel-Palestine situation:

The tensions between Auckland and Wellington cannot be fudged anymore; it's clear that disagreements between the two are now holding the city back, as they bicker over transport funding.

New Zealand is facing a Gordian knot in the politics of climate change.

In his 1852 inaugural speech as Canterbury’s first superintendent, James Fitzgerald – later to be New Zealand’s first premier – said, ‘There is something to my mind awful in the prospect of the great mass of the community rapidly increasing in wealth and power without that moral refinement which fits them to enjoy the one or that intellectual cultivation which en

The story of the struggle of family carers of severely disabled individuals to get paid for the work that they do and the various court decisions, governmental policies and legislative enactments that it has inspired makes for a truly fascinating case study in how New Zealand's constitutional processes work.

In 1993 the New Zealand economy began to show signs of an upswing after the seven years of Rogernomics Stagnation. In a public comment I remarked that it seemed to be in the ‘recovery’ phase, which is the economist’s technical term for the stage in the business cycle when the economy leaves the bottom of the business cycle and goes into upswing.

So Bill English hasn't dropped enough pounds... or, at least, dollars. Weight loss is the metaphor Bill English has chosen to excuse his failure to meet the government oft-repeated and top priority of reaching surplus by 2015-16. That's right, it's sayonara surplus.

English's explanation run along these lines:

Perhaps heightened by the leadership contest in the Green Party, there appears to be a debate going on about where environmentalism fits into the political spectrum. I am not a member of the Green Party (nor any other, for that matter) but I have been struggling with how the environment fits into the general history of New Zealand which I am writing.

John Key's pony-tail-gate controversy seems to have divided people into two camps. The vast bulk of New Zealanders (to purloin a Key-ism) can agree on the fact that it's weird... and out of order. But then there are those who shrug it off and say things like "no-one died, he was just being a dick" and "he didn't mean anything cruel by it".

The April 15 statement  by Grant Spencer, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank and Head of Financial Stability, concluded ‘on the demand side, we consider that greater attention needs to be given to issues relating to the tax treatment of investor hous

Virtually every day there is a new

The good folk at Otago's Law Library - the Sir Robert Stout Law Library, to give it its full name - do a great job.

While the US Congress managed to muscle in on the potential nuclear deal with Iran, other considerable world powers were also getting involved but in a very different way.

As predicted here, Arthur Taylor's election petition challenge to John Key's victory in the Helensville electorate has failed. The court found that Arthur Taylor was:

"National is not going to be raising GST," he fibbed. "What I am saying is if we do a half-decent job as a government at growing our economy I am confident that won't be happening."

Heh. "Half-decent."

Three fairly clear signs emerged today that the National Party knows Simon Bridges stuffed up in getting his officials to give him all the information needed for National to put together its ill-conceived "10 bridges for your vote!" bribe.

While the near parity of the Australian and New Zealand dollars got a lot of breathless attention recently,  there was little analysis of why it was happening. Explaining the exchange rate depends upon the time horizon.

National's "ten bridges for your votes!" gambit at the Northland by-election is shaping up as one of the worst election policy offerings that a political party has made in recent times. I mean that in a couple of ways.

Matt Bowden has a grand plan. The godfather of legal highs in New Zealand, he's been talking for a few years now about his determination to make this country famous for its safe, regulated and profitable recreational drugs culture.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and carbon trading are an odd construct. Mark Schapiro, writing in Harper’s Magazine (February 2010) pointed out that ‘carbon exists as a commodity only through the decisions of politicians and bureaucrats, who determine both the demand, by setting emissions limits, and the supply, by establishing criteria for offsets.

Commentators keep talking of our dollar as if it were some kind of national phallic symbol. They say it is reaching parity with Australia because Australia's economy is terrible and ours is much better. We are much better off here, they claim.

Charles Dickens would be appalled. So would Fredrick Engels who wrote The Condition of the Working Class in England, as would New Zealand’s Sweating Commission of 1890. Even Simon Legree, the slave owner in Harriet Beecher’s Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, would be astonished at the working conditions and wages (or lack of) that employers were getting away with.

Seventy years ago this July the world stepped into the Atomic Age - the green light for a nuclear arms race and its accompanying dark clouds of Armageddon and nuclear proliferation.

Armageddon - the final struggle between the powers of good and evil - has not occurred.

From Darren Watson's website:

News@ 30 March, 2015

David Graeber may be best remembered for coining Occupy Wall Street’s ‘We are the 99 percent’.

According to Radio NZ, the Privy Council has recommended that Teina Pora should not face a retrial for the rape and murder of Susan Burdett. This is great news.

In typically-Winston Peters fashion, we've now been told that he will resign as a list MP and thus allow an additional NZ First MP to enter into Parliament.

So what does it all mean? Maybe something, maybe nothing. While we know the result in Northland and the unique weather patterns that merged to create Cyclone Winston, it's impossible to yet know whether National can blow those clouds away or whether more rain is on the horizon.

One of the first legislative measures of the young colony, back in 1841, was the creation of what we now know as the High Court. That legislation has been updated over the years, significantly in the 1880s before consolidation in the 1908 Judicature Act. 

Thirty years on the banks of the Hokianga have had their effect. 

From the first smirking, teasing comments on TV, I was sure Winston Peters would be a winner in the Northland by-election.

OK - so three weeks or so ago I put up a post confidently saying:

Prime Minister John Key shortened his trip to Japan and Korea in order to spend more time campaigning in the Northland by-election. Domestic affairs trumped international ones – for a short time anyway.

A few weeks ago I wrote this post about a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada regarding the issue of end of life choice. I asked readers to imagine this scenario: 

Tunisian Authorities Make Arrests in Museum Attack

Imagine the outrage if a New Zealand Prime Minister, a matter of hours before polling booths closed, took to the social media imploring Kiwis to hurry friends to the polling booths because the Maori are going out in droves to vote...being bused in by the left.

In his scathing polemic of the Clintons ‘No-One Left To Lie To’ the late Christopher Hitchens described the political duo as operating thus: “...the exploitation of mammalian sentiments by reptilian people”.

It is a brilliant summation of the calculations of many at the top echelons of politics.

The government’s announcement that it would be upgrading ten one-way bridges in Northland was a response inspired by the forthcoming by-election. Whatever the politics, it well illustrated the feeble state of regional development policy in New Zealand.

You might have noticed in recent days the logo of the New Zealand Press Council has appeared on our homepage. That's because our concerns about the quality of political and current affairs debate online have led us to joining the council.

In an interview with the outstanding international news network Vice, President Obama has just told the world that he is embarrassed for the 47 Republican senators who wrote to the Iranian government in their latest desperate attempt to sabotage an international nuclear deal with Iran.

Try as they might, National seems to be turning every Northland fencepost into a losing one at the moment. For a party with such a strong campaigning record, it seems to be playing into Winston Peters' hands at every turn.

There is an old Chinese curse that goes something along the lines of "may you live in an electorate which becomes important to the Government's ease of legislating in the House".

From TVNZ:

Act leader David Seymour says he's looking at challenging the result [of the Northland by-election] in court if Mr Peters wins.

Let's begin with a degree of realism. Politics is, at its core, about the distribution of resources and deciding who gets what from whom. That's a given until the human race reaches a point of post-material scarcity and develops into The Culture

The Growing Up in New Zealand Study at the University of Auckland found that half of the 7000 families in their sample suffered measurable material hardship in their babies‘ first years of life.

Why does Labour keep ending up in these sort of tangles? From Judith Tizard through to Northland at the moment, Labour often ends up with some tricky calls come by-election time.

Urban rain and rural rain are different. The quality is the same - drops of water that, in New Zealand, fall out of the sky relatively pure - but interpretation of the quantity is very different.

One of the most anticipated speeches of recent times is over.

Was it worth the wait? No.

Watching the news with my five year-old last week, he was asking about sending soldiers to Iraq. He listened to my school-boy appropriate summation and said, "weeeelll, I don't like to shoot people, but on the other hand I do like to help, so..."

Like many New Zealanders, he was torn over exactly how to meet the threats posed by Islamic State and trailed off without a conclusion.

Further to my previous post about Jami-Lee Ross' curious candidate return, I've been doing a little bit more digging through the Electoral Commission's files.

John Key and Tony Abbott were putting a brave face on it today, with talk of the countries' "long, strong and intimate partnership", but on Iraq the cracks are showing.

The release of individual candidate donation returns following the 2014 election has revealed something interesting about the National Party's financial practices.

The decision to send 143 Kiwi soldiers to Iraq to help train the Iraq army has exposed the left/right divide on foreign policy more graphically than any other issue in recent years.

A week before Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the US Congress on his claims of an “existential” threat of a nuclear Iran, his argument appears to have been blown out of the heavy water by the latest release of leaked diplomatic/spy cables.

The past few weeks have seen a renewed burst of angst about the Ports of Auckland's expansion plans. More wharf here, demolitions there; where to put the cruise ships, cars and people? All the arguments about Auckland's waterfront have been reignited.

About this time last year, there was an overwhelming clamour from market players that New Zealand's interest rates must go up. I admitted at the time I was perplexed as to why, but presumably wiser heads prevailed. And so up went our interest rates.

And I remain perplexed.

In a decision (available here) that got a little bit of media attention last week, the sentencing of one Justin Vance Turner tells us something about the way in which courts and Parliament d

In our daily news there are two terms which need attention.

They are both linked and both ugly.

The first is the false acronym(s) used to describe the bunch of murdering, kidnapping, raping militant thugs who appear on our screens in their slickly edited propaganda execution movies.

On Sunday afternoon I spent three hours on the picket line outside National’s ‘Summer Party’ at the Royal Akarana Yacht Club.

While most of the New Zealand media's attention has been directed at the omnishambles that is Tony Abbott's (questioned) reign as Australian Prime Minister, there's been something quite interesting happening in Queensland.

If you watched the German Chancellor and the American President in their world security focused press conference this week, you would have good reason to be hopeful that the spectre of a nuclear armed Iran is fading fast.

The following interchange with the Speaker took place today in the middle of Andrew Little's reply to the Prime Minister's statement to the House.

Politicians are always walking on a cliff's edge. They are one misstep away from disaster. Or at least a twisted ankle or a bit of a fright. Andrew Little in his first few months as Labour leader has seemed as sure-footed as a mountain goat, but heads into the House today needing to remember where the path is.

The behaviour of American politicians leaves no room for doubt over the necessity to talk ‘god’ in the electoral process.

Genuinely or otherwise, God must be invoked as often as possible.

‘He’, because gals that’s religious chauvinism for ya, is as important to a successful campaign as unquestioning support for guns and Israel.