Gordon Campbell's blog updates are now published at Werewolf.co.nz.

Gordon Campbell on the MSD’s privacy problems

First published on Werewolf

It seems there will be a brief respite for NGOs, and for the vulnerable people they help. Yet until the Privacy Commissioner intervened yesterday, the agencies doing the frontline work on welfare issues were being required to hand over (to the Ministry of Social Development) the sensitive personal details provided to them by their clients, as a condition of having their funding contracts renewed, come July.

As Anne Tolley, the Minister of Social Development told RNZ this morning there will now be some delay in implementing this policy – a few months, maybe longer – until MSD can devise a data storage and handling system that can keep the information safer than it is capable of doing now. Agencies that deal with victims of sexual violence will be exempted for a year from this demand for compliance.

This fiasco has been a perfect example of a bad policy, terribly executed – on a rushed timetable that appears to have been driven by an MSD desire to cut costs in the contracts due for renewal, mid year. Read the rest of this entry »

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Gordon Campbell on Shifty Bill’s Last Stand

First published on Werewolf

So that’s alright then. Nothing to see with this SAS raid bizzo, move on. Or so PM Bill English would have us believe, at yesterday’s post-Cabinet press conference.

No, there would be no independent inquiry into the events described in the Hit and Run book, because… he’d been briefed by the Chief of Defence Force and his officials, and he’d also seen video footage of the raid. And he felt convinced that everything had been done consistent with the rules of engagement, every feasible step had been taken to minimize civilian casualties, and the conduct of our troops has been exemplary throughout etc etc and the only people saying otherwise were the authors of what he deemed to be a ‘discredited’ book.

From then on, things became decidedly surreal. There didn’t seem to be a single member of the press gallery who was buying it for a moment. Read the rest of this entry »

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Gordon Campbell on the Labour/Greens Deal

First published on Werewolf

If Labour and the Greens were hoping their Budget Responsibility Rules (BRR) agreement would foster an unlikely alliance then hey… mission accomplished! Because it isn’t every day that Sue Bradford, the CTU and Matthew Hooton speak with one voice, as happened yesterday. Unfortunately though, it’s hard to see how the BRR agreement will work to the advantage of Labour and the Greens in the context of the 2017 election campaign. Read the rest of this entry »

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Gordon Campbell on Chuck Berry

First published on Werewolf

By now, any lingering hopes among the left that Donald Trump might prove to be an anti-Establishment figure likely to lessen US militarism abroad and inequality at home have been well and truly shredded. Some of us never had any illusions on that score. Yet the virulent hatred felt by many on the left for Hillary Clinton fuelled a peculiar bromance with Trump, one that was based on ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ principle. Well, more often, they’re just another enemy.

Plainly, the Trump presidency is far worse than anything imaginable from a President Hillary Clinton. Read the rest of this entry »

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Gordon Campbell on Dutch lessons for Labour

First published on Werewolf

Do yesterday’s election results in the Netherlands have any lessons for our own election campaign this year ? So far, the headline stories have been about (a) the failure of the populist ultra-right to make significant gains, partly because the ruling party successfully co-opted most of its anti-migrant messages during the run-up to election day and (b) the collapse of the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA), which plummeted from 38 to nine seats, as the centre-left vote streamed out to the Greens, and other “soft liberal’ options like D66. Overall, the left made no inroads whatsoever into the right-of-centre vote. Read the rest of this entry »

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Gordon Campbell on the conflicts over abortion

First published on Werewolf

Tomorrow morning, the Abortion Supervisory Committee (ASC) will appear at Parliament to make the case that an abortion law passed 40 years ago may now need to be reviewed and modernised, in the light of 21st century attitudes and practices. You’d think that this would be a no-brainer. Yet the same kind of social regressives who framed and passed the original 1977 abortion legislation – and they now include the current Prime Minister – are saying there’s no problem, move on.

Lets make it really simple for the MPs. The process of review and change could easily proceed in two separate stages. Step one: abortion could and should be de-criminalised via a simple parliamentary process whereby abortion is taken out of the Crimes Act, and put where it belongs – into the Health Act, as a medical procedure between women and their medical practitioners, at the very least. Arguably, given the availability of chemical options in the 21st century, it can and should be regarded as a choice for women alone. Either way, this is a medical procedure, not a crime. Read the rest of this entry »

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Gordon Campbell on the Transport Ministry scandal, quad bikes and Frankie Cosmos

First published on Werewolf

Perception matters. If whistle blowers don’t feel protected if and when they relay their concerns to senior staff – let alone if they later feel impelled to go public to the media – then the formal protections on paper are worthless. The fact that three Transport Ministry workers were made redundant only two months after communicating their concerns about now convicted fraudster Joanne Harrison – in a restructure in which Harrison was allowed to play a role – should alarm anyone interested in the existence of an honest, transparent public service in this country. The Transport Ministry situation will have a chilling effect on whistle blowers generally. Read the rest of this entry »

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Gordon Campbell on National’s token National Super age hike

First published on Werewolf

Yesterday, the government finally announced the age of eligibility for superannuation will rise in steps from 65 to 67 but… don’t worry, the process won’t begin to be phased in until 2037 and won’t finally be in place until 2041. Is there a pattern here? Reminds me of the promise that 90% of our rivers will be safely swimmable 80% of the time… but only by 2040. Not to mention the aim of making New Zealand predator free… by 2050. The goals of climate change policy have a similar tendency to vanish into the political never never.

In each case, the policy rollout has been about appearances rather than urgency, and driven more by National’s political need to guard its flank in an election year than by any genuine response to the country’s best interests. Read the rest of this entry »

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Gordon Campbell on Labour’s latest love letter to the right

First published on Werewolf

Yesterday, Labour leader Andrew Little chose to appoint Winston Peters – and not Greens’ leader James Shaw – to Parliament’s committee on the security and intelligence services, as replacement for Labour’s David Shearer. Little justified the decision on these grounds:

[Peters has] had ample experience of briefings from the intelligence and security committees.” said Mr Little. “He’ll now what their work is, how they operate. There’s only a few months left of this Parliament this committee can meet and I just judged that it was best to have that level of experience straight away,” Mr Little said.

Not surprisingly, Peters agreed with the proposition that his vast experience would be useful to the nation. Read the rest of this entry »

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Gordon Campbell on Ardern’s ascension & Trump’s triumph

First published on Werewolf

A penis conveys gravitas to any political career. Think of the stream of gaffes by Murray McCully. Think of the hyper-emotionalism of Nick Smith. If they were women, they would have been laughed out of Cabinet long ago, or would never made it there in the first place. How does Steven Joyce get away with a hectoring style deemed intolerable in a Judith Collins or a Helen Clark? Obvious answer: because boardrooms are a boys club, and the serious stuff of politics is believed to happen there. Read the rest of this entry »

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