Gordon Campbell: On Bill English’s Bizarre New/Old Trade Deal

Gordon Campbell: On Housing, Exploding Lap-Tops And Jon Taplin

Evidently, only 13,500 of this new build will be state houses/social housing and much of that will be catch-up, since the government will reportedly be demolishing 8,300 state homes over the same period. The other 20,600? About 80% will be sold privately, at the going market rate. More>>

Peter Dunne: Where To Now For Drug Policy?

Recently, the Police, with significant sponsorship from the Ministry of Health, hosted a major Australasian conference on alcohol and drug policy... In my own remarks to the conference I spoke about New Zealand’s National Drug Policy, and where it might head in the future. More>>

ALSO:

• NZ Govt - Dunne: Keynote Address - Drug & Alcohol Strategy Conference
• NZ Police - Working towards influencing attitudes
• Greens - Green Party puts forward medicinal cannabis Member’s Bill
• Faculty of Pain Medicine - False hope driving claims medicinal cannabis is magic pill
• The Opportunities Party - The Opportunities Party REAL DEAL Cannabis reform policy
• NORML - The Opportunities Party releases cannabis reform policy
• Family First - TOP’s Dope Policy – Charities As Drug Dealers
• USA: NAACP - DOJ Reversal on Drug Prosecutions Will Fuel Mass Incarceration and Undermine Public Safety

Tobacco Sticks: Charges Laid Against Philip Morris

The Ministry of Health has laid charges against tobacco company Philip Morris (New Zealand) Limited relating to the importation and selling of its tobacco sticks known as HEETS. More>>

ALSO:

• Philip Morris - Action On IQOS Demonstrates Urgent Need for Reform
• Science Media Centre - Legal action against tobacco 'sticks' - Expert reaction

Budget: Irrigate (Good Times, Come On!)

Additional grant funding of $26.7 million over the next three years plus a capital boost of $63 million towards irrigation investments in Budget 2017 will deliver economic and environmental benefits through better use of water... More>>

ALSO:

• Irrigation NZ - IrrigationNZ welcomes new irrigation funding
• Federated Farmers - Irrigation investment a lifeline for provinces
• Greenpeace NZ - Govt’s “absence of a backbone” destroying NZ’s rivers
• Horticulture NZ - Irrigation investment first step towards food security
• Enviroment Canterbury - New water quality requirements on Canterbury farmers
• BusinessDesk - Unchanged nitrogen loss from dairy farms
• Greenpeace NZ - DairyNZ undermining environmental efforts of dairy farmers
• EDS - Federated Farmers attacks Mackenzie Country again

Silver Fern Farms: Proposal To Close Fairton Sheepmeat Plant

Silver Fern Farms has advised its people of the proposal to permanently close the site, and has discussed potential transfer options to its other sites in the region as part of the consultation process...
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ALSO:

• BusinessDesk - Fairton plant to close as Silver Fern downsizes capacity
• Labour - Workers pay the price of Silver Fern’s Fairton closure
• Greens - Primary sector should stay in NZ hands
• NZ First - Fairton to Close with 377 Job Losses - Earlier Silver Fern Farms’ Share Price Tanks - Is Silver Fern Farms to Close Fairton?
• Meat Workers Union - Fairton meat workers devastated about proposed plant closure
• The Opportunities Party - Illegal Low Wage Slaves Real Problem in Silver Fern Farms

Adam Fishwick: Organising Against The Gig Economy

Workers in the so-called ‘gig economy’ face heightening conditions of precarity and exploitation... To combat this, innovative new strategies of organisation and mobilisation have been developed. More>>

Gordon Campbell: On The Kim Regime

There’s no clarity about what the US is seeking, or offering... It hasn’t helped that the US and the global media consistently agree on calling North Korea and its leadership “crazy” and “irrational”. More>>

ALSO:

• UNHCHR - UN expert urges halt to rising hostility on Korean Peninsula
• NZ DPRK Society - Update on NZ Civil Society Activities in DPRK
• John Stanton - War with North Korea: No Joke - John Stanton
• Rene Wadlow - Korea : Challenge and Response - Rene Wadlow
• Peace Movement Aotearoa - Global military spending increases again

Trump Tax 'Plan'

• BusinessDesk - NZ dollar hits four-month low on Trump tax plan
• ACT - Trump tax cuts a wake-up call for NZ

Le Pen Beaten: English Congratulates Macron On French Election Win

Prime Minister Bill English has this morning congratulated Emmanuel Macron on his victory in the French presidential election. More>>

ALSO:

• Access Now - Even with Macron victory in France, risks for human rights
• BusinessDesk - MARKET CLOSE: NZ shares join global rally - NZ dollar gains as geopolitical fears wane
• Binoy Kampmark - The Macron Denial

Gordon Campbell: On The French Election Result

Macron is shaping as the third major test case, after Bill Clinton, after Tony Blair – on whether the aim of ‘progressive social policy’ and realities of ‘neo-liberal economic settings’ can be made to credibly co-exist within the same sentence, let alone within the decrees from the Elysee Palace. More>>

Werewolf: The Maverick On Moloka’i

Monday, April 17 was Moloka’i’s turn for some face-to-face time with Tulsi Gabbard, who is part Samoan and part haole (pakeha), a practising Hindu, and a Middle East combat veteran. More>>

Scoop Review Of Books: What’s Fair? Tax and Fairness

This is an excellent and timely book, since apart from general statements about increasing or mostly reducing tax, there has been very little comment or debate as to whether we should pay tax at all and how much tax should each of us pay. More>>

Ockham Awards: Globally Lauded Novelist Wins NZ’s Biggest Fiction Prize

Internationally renowned Ngāruawāhia resident Catherine Chidgey has won New Zealand’s richest writing award, the $50,000 Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize, for her novel The Wish Child. More>>

ALSO:

• Bridget Williams Books - Barbara Brookes’ History of NZ Women Winner! Ockham Award
• Huia Publishers - Black Ice Matter wins Best First Book Award