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Latest Top Scoops Headlines [Page 3]
On Luxon’s Landlord Myths, And The Needless Nightmare Of High Interest Rates
Tuesday, 12 March 2024, 11:05 am | Gordon Campbell
During the PM’s post-Cabinet press conference yesterday, Christopher Luxon claimed that renters will be feeling “grateful” for the way the government is putting “downward pressure“ on rents. Really. Allegedly, the coalition government is ... More >>
Road Ambulance Service Cuts Highlight Vulnerability Of Ownership Model
Monday, 11 March 2024, 7:08 pm | Ian Powell
The vulnerability of Aotearoa New Zealand’s road ambulance service was highlighted by the announcement last month than the largest ambulance (Hato Hone St John) was looking to pull ambulances off the road because of rising fiscal deficits. It raised ... More >>
Empty Rentals And 'Investor'-friendly Taxes
Monday, 11 March 2024, 4:27 pm | Keith Rankin
This morning on RNZ's Morning Report, Revenue Minister Simon Watts admitted that it was a legitimate option for 'landlords' to leave their houses empty. (Refer Revenue Minister on mortgage tax deductions for landlords , RNZ 11 March 2024.) The official ... More >>
Academic Witch-hunted For Criticising Military Boot Camps For Young Offenders
Monday, 11 March 2024, 10:28 am | Socialist Equality Group
By Tom Peters, Socialist Equality Group New Zealand’s far-right government and sections of the media this week launched a furious witch-hunt against an academic who criticised plans to cut spending on school lunches and to establish military ... More >>
The Campaign to Free Assange: Reflections on Night Falls
Sunday, 10 March 2024, 6:18 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The town hall meeting is the last throbbing reminder of the authentic demos. People gather; debates held. Views converge; others diverge. Speakers are invited to stir the invitees, provoke the grey cells. Till artificial intelligence banishes such ... More >>
On The Government’s Fast Track To Trashing The Environment
Friday, 8 March 2024, 11:27 am | Gordon Campbell
With Shane Jones as the watchdog, who needs predators? Mining on DOC land now seems to be a fait accompli. Plainly, New Zealand‘s conservation estate is now open for business, regardless of the impact on the environment and on the endangered species ... More >>
Download Weekly: Call for firmer data leak action
Friday, 8 March 2024, 10:14 am | Digitl
Kordia's annual survey finds businesses are losing patience with poor data protection, Spark wants email customers to pay for the service, Mobile World Congress looks at 5G evolution. More >>
On Solidarity And Kushner’s Shame: How Gaza Defeated US Stratagem, Again
Thursday, 7 March 2024, 3:07 pm | Ramzy Baroud
Jared Kushner, a former US official whose relationship to power is that he married the wealthy daughter of a man who was later to become the US president, once attempted to teach Palestinians how to handle their own struggle for freedom. In 2020, he advised ... More >>
Interest Costs, The Cost-of-Living, And The Cost-of-Government
Thursday, 7 March 2024, 3:01 pm | Keith Rankin
In Question Time in Parliament, yesterday, Finance Minister Nicola Willis was asked a question about the extent of the cost of government debt-servicing. The answer, in short, was 'a lot'; and she mentioned that the cost had been assessed on an interest-only ... More >>
Christchurch Terrorist Foreshadowed Mosque Attacks Online Over A Year Before
Thursday, 7 March 2024, 12:35 pm | Socialist Equality Group
By John Braddock According to a report from the Conversation , republished in the Guardian on February 20, Christchurch fascist gunman Brenton Tarrant posted about his intentions on the website 4chan at least a year before his 2019 deadly ... More >>
Aiding Those We Kill: US Humanitarianism In Gaza
Thursday, 7 March 2024, 12:29 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The spectacle, if it did not say it all, said much of it. Planes dropping humanitarian aid to a starving, famine-threatened populace of Gaza (the United Nations warns that 576,000 are “one step from famine”), with parachuted packages veering off course, ... More >>
A Wishful Gamble: Rugby League In Las Vegas
Wednesday, 6 March 2024, 2:42 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The history of such experiments is not promising. Why would those in the US like the game of rugby league, when an established code of superficial similarity already exists? Fundamental differences, for one thing, abound. The US NFL Superbowl tries ... More >>
On The Supreme Court’s Collusion With Trump
Wednesday, 6 March 2024, 11:49 am | Gordon Campbell
This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. In the week preceding the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses, a US Supreme Court stacked with Trump appointees obligingly handed the former President a couple of huge victories. First, the Court helped Trump ... More >>
Wary Of Sinophobia: Anwar Ibrahim At The ASEAN Summit
Tuesday, 5 March 2024, 1:46 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It can take much bruising, much ridicule, and much castigation to eventually reach the plateau of wisdom. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who took office in November 2022, is one such character. Like a hero anointed by the gods for grand ... More >>
Child Palliative Care: A Sad But Avoidable Plight
Monday, 4 March 2024, 5:54 pm | Ian Powell
On 21 February the NZ Herald published a compelling article by its Wellington-based journalist Vita Molyneux on the state of child palliative care in Aotearoa New Zealand: Health system failing terminally ill children . The ... More >>
Mistakes, Misfiring And Trident: Britain’s Flawed Nuclear Deterrence
Monday, 4 March 2024, 4:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Nuclear weapons are considered the strategic silverware of nation states. Occasionally, they are given a cleaning and polishing. From time to time, they go missing, fail to work, and suffer misplacement. Of late, the UK Royal Navy has not been doing so ... More >>
On The Flaws In Anti-gang Laws
Monday, 4 March 2024, 11:34 am | Gordon Campbell
Google “Christopher Luxon“ and “mojo” and you get nearly 60,000 matching responses. Over the past 18 months – here and here and again, here – Luxon has claimed that New Zealanders have either lost their mojo and/or are in the process ... More >>
Download Weekly: Aue to succeed Rousselot at Chorus
Friday, 1 March 2024, 5:56 pm | Digitl
Aue to take over at Chorus as Rousselot moves on. Mobile shows strength in Spark first half. Crown Infrastructure update as Rural Broadband programme nears completion More >>
Conscious And Unconscionable: The Starving Of Gaza
Friday, 1 March 2024, 1:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The starvation regime continues unabated as Israel continues its campaign in the Gaza Strip. One of the six provisional measures ordered by the International Court Justice entailed taking “immediate and effective measures” to protect the Palestinian ... More >>
On The Newshub/Smokefree Twin Fiascos
Thursday, 29 February 2024, 10:57 am | Gordon Campbell
Here’s a tale of two sunset industries. One has a track record of quality investigative reporting, and sound reportage of the 24/7 news cycle. The other sunset industry peddles a deadly substance that kills and injures tens of thousands of New Zealanders ... More >>
Dunne's Weekly: Unseemly Rush Shows Need To Review Role Of Waitangi Tribunal
Thursday, 29 February 2024, 9:12 am | Peter Dunne
The rush to push legislation through Parliament under Urgency to abolish the Māori Health Authority, Te Aka Whai Ora, has been unseemly. No matter that the Authority’s abolition was an election commitment of all three government coalition partners, ... More >>
Trussonomics At CPAC
Wednesday, 28 February 2024, 1:41 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The silly will make print and leave bursts of digital traces; the idiots will make history, if only in small print. One such figure is the shortest serving UK Prime Minister in living memory, the woeful, joke-packed figure of Liz Truss who lasted ... More >>
Missing The Health Target
Tuesday, 27 February 2024, 8:17 pm | Ian Powell
Wilhelm Tell (more commonly known as William Tell in the English speaking world) was a 14th century folk hero in Switzerland then ruled by the Austrian Hapsburgs. Tell is widely considered to be the symbolic father of the Swiss Confederacy. Among ... More >>
Old Problems With The New: Reforming The UN Security Council
Tuesday, 27 February 2024, 2:20 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The end of the Second World War was a calamitous catalyst, laying the bricks and mortar for institutions that were always going to look weary, almost comically so, after some decades. The United Nations was meant to be the umbrella international ... More >>
Formal Democracy, Popular Will And Military Coups
Monday, 26 February 2024, 5:48 pm | Ian Powell
In its 2023 Index of the countries of the world Transparency International rated Aotearoa New Zealand the third best nation on transparency. However, as credible as this was, there was a drop in its score. The fall was in how common it was for ... More >>
A Copper’s Skewed Logic: Politicising Palestinian Visas
Monday, 26 February 2024, 5:45 pm | Binoy Kampmark
If only we could say that Peter Dutton, Australia’s federal opposition leader and curator of bigoted leanings, was unusual in assuming that granting humanitarian visas to Palestinians might be problematic. But both he, and his skew-eyed spokesman ... More >>
Imperial Venality Defends Itself: Day Two Of Julian Assange’s High Court Appeal
Friday, 23 February 2024, 2:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
On February 21, the Royal Courts of Justice hosted a second day of carnivalesque mockery regarding the appeal by lawyers representing an ill Julian Assange, whose publishing efforts are being impugned by the United States as having compromised ... More >>
On The Perils Of Joining AUKUS Pillar Two
Friday, 23 February 2024, 10:25 am | Gordon Campbell
The lure for New Zealand to join the AUKUS military alliance is that membership of only its “second pillar” will still (supposedly) give us access to state of the art military technologies. As top US official Kurt Campbell said during his visit ... More >>
Identifying Imperial Venality: Day One Of Julian Assange’s High Court Appeal
Thursday, 22 February 2024, 7:10 pm | Binoy Kampmark
On February 20, it was clear that things were not going to be made easy for Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who infuriated the US imperium, the national security establishment, and a stable of journalists upset that he had cut their ill-tended ... More >>
Dunne's Weekly: National's Benefit Changes All About Politics
Thursday, 22 February 2024, 9:31 am | Peter Dunne
Here we go again. Another National-led government, and another round of cracking down on beneficiaries. That was the reaction of the parties of the left to the coalition government's announcement it was returning to applying sanctions to beneficiaries ... More >>
Swiftie Nonsense Down Under
Wednesday, 21 February 2024, 6:13 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Gaza. Palestinians. Israel. Genocide. Taylor Swift? This odd cobbling of words is the extent celebrities make a mockery of serious conversation, even in such middle-brow outlets as Australia’s Radio National. Admittedly, it was breakfast, and the presenter ... More >>
New Zealand Foreign Minister Seeks To Block Chinese Influence In Southwest Pacific
Wednesday, 21 February 2024, 9:24 am | Socialist Equality Group
By John Braddock New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters undertook a four-day tour of three Pacific Islands states beginning on February 7, hard on the heels of a visit to Australia that saw a strengthening of security and defence ties between ... More >>
Far-right Activist Kyle Chapman Avoids Jail On Gun Charges
Tuesday, 20 February 2024, 3:22 pm | RNZ
Far-right activist Kyle Chapman has avoided jail, telling a court he now wants to be a father first. More >>
Things Are Not What They Seem
Tuesday, 20 February 2024, 3:21 pm | Eugene Doyle
We are homo dramatis , the species that tells stories. Today more and more of us are rejecting America and Israel’s stories and are searching for a better script. That is a good thing because History is calling us to be actors, not spectators, ... More >>
On National Spreading Panic About The Economy
Tuesday, 20 February 2024, 9:03 am | Gordon Campbell
It is a political strategy as old as time. Scare the public with tales of disaster and stampede them into supporting your ideological agenda because they believe There Is No Alternative. Yet, if the NZ economy truly is as “fragile” as PM Christopher ... More >>
Joe Biden: The Damnation Of Age
Monday, 19 February 2024, 12:07 pm | Binoy Kampmark
He was sweet and well meaning, but he was old. He was hazy. His memory was poor. Doddering, confused, the self-proclaimed leader of the Free World seemed ready to check into a retirement village. That, at least, is the thick insinuation of the ... More >>
Here Come The Steroid Games
Saturday, 17 February 2024, 6:34 pm | Binoy Kampmark
To attribute weighty moral codes to athletes has always been a silly pastime of the judging classes and flesh admiring voyeurs. But sporting bodies, in a manner similar to the clergy, demand something called the level playing field. Fairness ... More >>
Download Weekly: Chorus names new fibre sites
Friday, 16 February 2024, 12:57 pm | Digitl
Chorus names new fibre areas, what the telco sector learned from Cyclone Gabrielle, PC slump continues More >>
On National Passing Bad Policies Under Urgency
Friday, 16 February 2024, 11:10 am | Gordon Campbell
If National really had faith in its welfare policies, it wouldn’t be ramming them through Parliament under urgency – a step that means the policies can’t be exposed to select committee debate, public submissions, expert commentary, media scrutiny ... More >>
Waymo Luddites, the right to disconnect, NZ streaming, consu
Thursday, 15 February 2024, 12:30 pm | Digitl
You can hear me talking about these topics on RNZ Nine-to-Noon with Kathryn Ryan. . More >>
When Courts Intervene: Halting The Transfer Of F-35 Parts To Israel
Wednesday, 14 February 2024, 1:06 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Legal challenges regarding the Israel-Gaza War are starting to bulk lawyers’ briefs and courtroom proceedings. South Africa got matters underway with its December application before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in its campaign ... More >>
On Five Of Luxon’s Gaza Absurdities
Wednesday, 14 February 2024, 11:43 am | Gordon Campbell
Earlier this week, PM Christopher Luxon met with 48 public service CEOs to make sure they were on board with his plans to cut spending on public services so that National can proceed to give the revenue away to those New Zealanders least in need. ... More >>
Auckland train network reliability in question with CRL on horizon
Wednesday, 14 February 2024, 11:28 am | RNZ
There are concerns the problems causing rail disruption won't be fixed before the underground metro is finished next year. More >>
Silencing Francesca Albanese
Wednesday, 14 February 2024, 9:24 am | Eugene Doyle
It was with a sense of disgust rather than despair that I read in the Jerusalem Post today: " 'Antisemitic' UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese banned from Israel." We’re being gas-lighted again and this is a chance to push back ... More >>
Feathery Infiltrators: The Case Of The Pigeon Spy
Tuesday, 13 February 2024, 12:14 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Animals have, at times, been given the same dismissively nasty treatment humans love giving themselves. Be it detention, torture, trial, and execution, the unwitting creatures can be found in the oddest situations, anthropomorphised with all the characteristics ... More >>
On National’s Misleading Policy Packaging
Monday, 12 February 2024, 12:27 pm | Gordon Campbell
Truth in packaging can be a political rarity, but the gap between what the Luxon administration says it is doing and what its policies will actually deliver is looking as wide as the Grand Canyon. Is it possible to run a government for three years purely ... More >>
Absence Of Evidence: Israel’s Case Against UNRWA
Sunday, 11 February 2024, 7:31 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Statistics are often given lanky legs that take their user far. But how they are used, and how they are received, is striking. The current figure of 27,500 dead is a blighting, grotesque fact. But as they are Palestinians, the issue is less significant ... More >>
When Times Were Better: Victoria’s Ties With Israel’s Defence Industry
Friday, 9 February 2024, 12:12 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Times were supposedly better in 2022. That is, if you were a lawmaker in the Australian state of Victoria, a busy Israeli arms manufacturer, or cash counting corporate middleman keen to make a stash along the way between the two. That view is premised on the ... More >>
On The Politics As A Morality Play
Thursday, 8 February 2024, 12:49 pm | Gordon Campbell
To a striking extent, the working class vote in Western societies has been going to right wing demagogues, not to left wing social democrats. Even the mainstream parties on the right of the political spectrum are running the risk of being rejected ... More >>
Growing Call To Make Big Tobacco Pay For Health And Environment Harms
Thursday, 8 February 2024, 9:06 am | Bobby Ramakant
Would you not be surprised to learn that an industry whose products kill over 8 million people every year (even when used as the manufacturer intended), and cause an array of health and environment disasters of epidemic proportion, has not been ... More >>
Breaching The ‘Iron Wall’: How Palestinians Crushed Jabotinsky's Century-Old Ideas
Wednesday, 7 February 2024, 9:45 am | Ramzy Baroud
It seemed strange, if not out of context, when Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin told Arutz Sheva-Israel National News that “Muslims are not afraid of us anymore”. Feiglin’s comments were made on October 25, less than three weeks following the ... More >>
Muddled Analysis: Left, Right, And Wrong!
Monday, 5 February 2024, 7:02 pm | Ian Powell
Sometimes when I contemplate whether to blog on a political subject or not, I struggle with the question of relevance. The fact that the subject interests me is not a guarantee of wider relevance. On this occasion, aided and abetted by personal bias I’ve opted ... More >>
Unaccountable Hackers: The CIA, Vengeance And Joshua Schulte
Monday, 5 February 2024, 1:39 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The release of the Vault 7 files in the spring of 2017 in a series of 26 disclosures, detailing the hacking tools of the US Central Intelligence Agency, was one of the more impressive achievements of the WikiLeaks publishing organisation. As WikiLeaks ... More >>
On Tomorrow, And The Spirit Of Moana Jackson
Monday, 5 February 2024, 10:34 am | Gordon Campbell
Since ACT is sponsoring the Treaty Principles Bill, it is understandable that David Seymour should be catching most of the flak being generated by the Bill. National, by contrast, is offering soothing reassurances that the Bill will be allowed to progress ... More >>
All wards should be treated the same, says Local Government New Zealand president
Monday, 5 February 2024, 10:19 am | RNZ
Councils are attacking the government's proposal to bring back local referenda for Māori wards. More >>
The Edge Of War, Our Battle For Truth
Monday, 5 February 2024, 10:18 am | Eugene Doyle
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” George Orwell, 1984. On the opening day of the bombing last week, I had to work hard to find out what the Iraqi government thought of the wave of attacks on Iraq by the ... More >>
Forget The Kids: Social Media, Congress and Child Safety
Sunday, 4 February 2024, 3:05 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was a struggle to see how a child’s welfare was relevant in the latest, shrill debates about technology taking place on The Hill. The Senate Judiciary Committee and the leaders of social media companies were on show to thrash out matters on technology ... More >>
New Zealand Goose-steps Towards The Moral Abyss
Friday, 2 February 2024, 11:55 am | Eugene Doyle
With its decision to suspend or “pause” funding to the United Nation’s key organisation that is providing assistance to Gaza’s famished, desperate population, New Zealand could open itself up to a charge of participating in a genocide. I first ... More >>
Collective Versus Individual: Māori Versus 'Maoris'
Thursday, 1 February 2024, 1:45 pm | Keith Rankin
Collectiveness at it most potent has been called asabiyya by macrohistorian and cliodynamicist Peter Turchin. At its least potent , collectiveness is a recipe for social division, top-heaviness, escalating inequality, and societal breakdown. The ... More >>
Collective Versus Individual: Māori Versus 'Maoris'
Thursday, 1 February 2024, 1:42 pm | Keith Rankin
Collectiveness at it most potent has been called asabiyya by macrohistorian and cliodynamicist Peter Turchin. At its least potent , collectiveness is a recipe for social division, top-heaviness, escalating inequality, and societal breakdown. The ... More >>
