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“I Can Confirm They Are Hypotheticals Drawn Largely From Anecdotes And Issues The Minister Has Heard About.”
Friday, 23 May 2025, 7:02 pm | Ian Powell
Ian Powell discusses when health professions regulatory authorities policy is shaped by second hand anecdotes and issues. More >>
Chinese Jet Shoots Down France’s Best Fighter; NZ And Australia Should Pay Attention
Friday, 23 May 2025, 1:21 pm | Eugene Doyle
China’s manufacturing output is now at least double the U.S. China builds 40% of global shipbuilding by tonnage, compared to less than 2% for the U.S.. When it comes to warships, the rate China can build a ship is many times faster than the Americans, ... More >>
The Only Good Catholic Is A catholic With A Small ‘c’
Friday, 23 May 2025, 12:28 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
To idealists, imagination is the greatest gift and highest capacity we have as human beings. It isn’t, insight is. But imagination is what leading lights of the left believe is the fount of spirituality and a just world. More >>
On Budget 2025
Friday, 23 May 2025, 9:48 am | Gordon Campbell
Underwhelming, as promised. All week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis had actively reduced public expectations by saying that her second Budget would not be filled “with rainbows and unicorns” although – somewhere over the rainbow – it would ... More >>
Pakistan & China Down 6 Indian Warplanes
Thursday, 22 May 2025, 1:15 pm | Richard S. Ehrlich
Since the mid-20th century China has been arming, investing in, and helping to construct Pakistan which is a crucial nation in Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and a non-NATO ally of the U.S. More >>
Zero-Sum Fiscal Narratives
Thursday, 22 May 2025, 11:34 am | Keith Rankin
Business sector deficits were substantially the norm in the twentieth century, but not since about 1990. Government balanced budgets were possible – though not normal – for much of the previous century. More >>
War In Sudan
Wednesday, 21 May 2025, 5:52 pm | Keith Rankin
The present Sudan Civil War is an international 'proxy war'; fuelled by extra-national powers – regional if not global. More >>
The Ethnic Cleansing Of Gaza: Israel’s Operation Gideon’s Chariots
Wednesday, 21 May 2025, 2:47 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The extent of the horror has now reached the point where it is being acknowledged in the capitals of Israel’s close allies. A joint statement from the UK, France and Canada affirmed opposition to “the expansion of Israel’s military operations ... More >>
US Warship In Wellington Harbour Symbol Of NZ Vassalage
Wednesday, 21 May 2025, 11:31 am | Alison Forrest
Last Friday May 16th the USS Blue Ridge, Flagship of the US 7th Fleet, sailed into Wellington Harbour and is moored at Aotea Quay until this Thursday. Hopefully it is not bristling with nuclear missiles, but if it is we, the citizens of nuclear ... More >>
Netanyahu's Endgame: Isolation And The Shattered Illusion Of Power
Wednesday, 21 May 2025, 7:42 am | Ramzy Baroud
It remains uncertain how long Netanyahu will remain in power, but his political standing has significantly deteriorated. He faces widespread domestic opposition and international condemnation. Even his primary ally, the United States, has signaled a shift in its ... More >>
The Aratere And The New Zealand Main Trunk Line
Tuesday, 20 May 2025, 3:01 pm | Keith Rankin
After all, for over 100 years, before 1960, Wellington to Lyttelton was the essential 'main trunk' link between the two islands. More >>
Starvation Of Gaza A Continuation Of A Decades-old Plan
Tuesday, 20 May 2025, 2:37 pm | Jeremy Rose
“A famine might jeopardise the continuation of Operation Gideon’s Chariots aimed at eliminating Hamas.” More >>
Celluloid Exploitation: Immigrants And Reality Television
Tuesday, 20 May 2025, 12:37 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Why not act out the entire migrant experience with reality television individuals with particularly xenophobic views? More >>
On NZ’s Silence Over Gaza, And Creeping Health Privatisation
Tuesday, 20 May 2025, 11:31 am | Gordon Campbell
Since last Thursday, intensified Israeli air strikes on Gaza have killed over 500 Palestinians. And, $164.5M health spend over 5 years for a digital health service, and $164M over four years for after-hours care – are supposedly going to reduce ... More >>
Imagination And Stories Are Impediments To Revolution
Monday, 19 May 2025, 7:43 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
A revolution in consciousness is not a revolution of the imagination. Half-measures such as telling better stories about the relationship between humans and nature, or imagining a different world than this one, are escapes from the tremendous challenge ... More >>
Rehabilitation And Confidence Tricks: al-Sharaa, Trump And Sanctions
Sunday, 18 May 2025, 4:29 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Things have come full circle. The Assad dynasts, who kept a watchful eye on fundamentalist Islamists, are gone. The Islamists, with their various backers, Turkey and Saudi Arabia being most prominent, are now nominally in charge. More >>
Predictable Smear On Senior Doctors
Sunday, 18 May 2025, 2:24 pm | Ian Powell
Ian Powell discusses a predictable smear by a right-wing blogger on salaried senior doctors employed by Health New Zealand. More >>
Gaza's Graveyard Of Illusions: How Israel's Narrative Collides With Military Failure
Friday, 16 May 2025, 1:27 pm | Ramzy Baroud
Humiliated by the failures of his army & intelligence throughout the Gaza war, and facing immense pressure from a deeply discontented public, Netanyahu knows that his legacy, which he had hoped would be remembered as the greatest among all Israeli ... More >>
Trump, Planes And The Arabian Gulf Tour
Friday, 16 May 2025, 12:50 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In a shameless effort to outdo Riyadh, the Qatari royal family threw in a luxury 747 plane worth $400 million for the US Department of Defense, intended for Trump’s use as a temporary substitute Air Force One. More >>
Unprecedented Times
Friday, 16 May 2025, 12:25 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The survival of the individual and humanity requires the emergence of human beings of insight. The psychological, spiritual and ecological crisis of humankind is unprecedented, demanding an unparalleled response. More >>
Radio New Zealand’s Report On Its Israel-Gaza Coverage Is Not Credible
Thursday, 15 May 2025, 3:24 pm | Jeremy Rose-Eugene Doyle-Ramon Das
Given its self-limiting scope and its conclusions (which we do not agree with), the report risks appearing to be a quick sanitising exercise that ended in a predictable finding of, “Nothing to see here; you’re doing a great job.” More >>
On The Mock Horror Over Political Profanity
Thursday, 15 May 2025, 2:32 pm | Gordon Campbell
A female journalist (the fearsome Andrea Vance) used a bad word to refer to female politicians who had just extinguished the ability of about 150,000 women to get fair pay for the work they do. The nation reeled, and expressed its outrage More >>
Gender Pay Inequity Perpetuation And Venality
Wednesday, 14 May 2025, 6:53 pm | Ian Powell
Ian Powell discusses the Government’s unexpected decision to rush through Parliament legislation gutting gender pay equity claims. More >>
Commemorating Mummy: Reflections On Mother’s Day
Tuesday, 13 May 2025, 2:00 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The day itself denigrates the mother in false respect and guilts the family for ignorance to that fact. It sanctifies a family relation for reasons of commercial worth. More >>
On The Parental Panic Over Young Kids Online
Tuesday, 13 May 2025, 10:06 am | Gordon Campbell
Creating a policy group to investigate a R16 ban on social media provides the government with a perfectly designed soapbox. The findings don’t have to end up suggesting anything useful, let alone a practical course of action. More >>
Lisa's Underwear & Rosa Parks? Mystery Solved
Monday, 12 May 2025, 3:49 pm | Richard S. Ehrlich
"None of the individuals depicted in any of the garments are Rosa Parks or other well-known figures from Black cultural history. They are all people from Henry’s own life," Louis Vuitton's statement to Vulture said. More >>
For The Love Of Sycamores
Monday, 12 May 2025, 8:59 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
For a year there was no sign that the fire did any lasting damage, but then saplings sprang up around the base of the tree, and the next year its limbs began to fall off. First small branches, and then bigger and bigger limbs dropped off. Like a leper ... More >>
A Timely Call For A Social Contract In Health
Sunday, 11 May 2025, 6:45 pm | Ian Powell
Ian Powell discusses the relevance of a timely editorial in the New Zealand Medical Journal advocating the reconstruction of a healthcare social contract. More >>
White Smoke And Speculation: The Election Of Pope Leo XIV
Sunday, 11 May 2025, 3:28 pm | Binoy Kampmark
A mischievous remark was once made by an Australian commentator on Church matters that you would have better chances picking a winner at the Melbourne Cup horse race than the next pontiff. More >>
Make Deficits Great Again: Maintaining A Pragmatic Balance
Friday, 9 May 2025, 3:28 pm | Keith Rankin
Just as the deficit countries are the world's 'spendthrifts', the surplus countries are the world's 'misers'. The global economy maintains a successful equilibrium so long as the willing spendthrifts balance out the insistent misers. More >>
Bratty Royal: Prince Harry And Bespoke Security Protection
Friday, 9 May 2025, 1:07 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The latest tremor of narcissistic display on the Duke’s part involved an interview with the BBC which could be billed as confession and advertisement: “I confess; I advertise”, with an afterthought of “Please Forgive Me Daddy” while funding ... More >>
On The New Pope, And The Israeli Attack On Peter Davis
Friday, 9 May 2025, 12:58 pm | Gordon Campbell
The election of any Pope tends to be retro-fitted in ways that make the choice seem inevitable. God’s will, no less. If the new Pope had been Italian or a staunch conservative then much the same process would be taking place. More >>
The Cosmic Contradiction Of Man
Friday, 9 May 2025, 9:25 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Nearly all explanations for what used to be called “the riddle of man” suffer from enslavement to the idea of progress, especially Teilhard de Chardin’s “Omega Point.” The insight that separative mechanism of “higher thought” carries with ... More >>
Dunne's Weekly: A Government Backbencher's Lot Not Always A Happy One
Thursday, 8 May 2025, 11:37 am | Peter Dunne
Over the next few weeks, it will be the government backbench “lobby fodder” that will have to do the lion’s share of facing up and responding to the anger of those adversely affected by this legislation. More >>
Famine In Gaza: Will We Continue To Watch As Gaza Starves To Death?
Thursday, 8 May 2025, 7:40 am | Ramzy Baroud
During public hearings in The Hague starting on April 28, representatives from many nations appealed to the International Court of Justice to utilize its authority as the highest court to mandate that Israel cease the starvation of Palestinians. More >>
Expulsion And Occupation: Israel’s Proposed Gaza Plan
Thursday, 8 May 2025, 7:17 am | Binoy Kampmark
Within the Israeli cabinet, ethnocentric and religious fires burn with bright fanaticism. The Israeli Finance Finister Bezalel Smotrich remains a figure who ignores floral subtlety in favour of the blood-stained sledgehammer. More >>
Cyber-Spying "From Lhasa To London" & Tibet Flexing
Wednesday, 7 May 2025, 2:57 pm | Richard S. Ehrlich
The NSCS said it shared the warning with the U.S. National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, plus cyber security officials in Australia, Canada, Germany, and New Zealand. More >>
China's Great Wall & Egypt's Pyramids
Wednesday, 7 May 2025, 2:53 pm | Richard S. Ehrlich
The China-Egypt Eagles of Civilization 2025 joint air force exercise began on April 19 and ends in early May, and is expected to strengthen Beijing's links with Africa's strongest military and a strategic U.S. ally. More >>
On Surviving Trump’s Trip To La La Land
Wednesday, 7 May 2025, 1:44 pm | Gordon Campbell
The film industry was probably naive to think it would be spared from Trump’s war on globalisation. If you believe Trump, every dollar being spent on foreign film crews, FX houses and film locations by “runaway” film productions is money being ... More >>
Refashioned History: Liberal Catastrophes And Labor Triumphs
Tuesday, 6 May 2025, 12:48 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Expansive, broad ideas were eschewed in favour of minutiae and objects of bribery: tax matters, cutting fuel excise, forgiving some student debt, improved Medicare services and child care assistance. More >>
Regarding Popes, Dopes And Hopes
Monday, 5 May 2025, 1:20 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Taking the word catholic literally, Pope Francis attempted to universalize all religions under the banner of inclusiveness. But he was jesuitical by ignoring the inherent contradiction of simultaneously trying to evangelize Catholicism. More >>
On Aussie Election Aftershocks And Life Lessons
Monday, 5 May 2025, 12:49 pm | Gordon Campbell
While Donald Trump is being widely cited as a reason/explanation for Anthony Albanese’s landslide victory on the weekend, that’s like blaming the icing for the state of a badly baked cake. In no particular order of incoherence...although allegedly being More >>
Widening Gap Between Health System Leadership And Health Workforce
Saturday, 3 May 2025, 6:56 pm | Ian Powell
Ian Powell discusses the accelerated widening of the gap between central government and health professionals in New Zealand’s public health system. More >>
Fantasy And Exploitation: The US-Ukraine Minerals Deal
Friday, 2 May 2025, 12:40 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Details remain somewhat sketchy, but the agreement supposedly sets out a sharing of revenues in a manner satisfactory to the parties while floating, if only tentatively, the prospect of renewed military assistance. More >>
The Great World War 1914-1945: Germany, Russia, Ukraine
Friday, 2 May 2025, 11:13 am | Keith Rankin
By looking at 1914 to 1945, as a single albeit complex conflict, we can easily see that the essence of the struggle was a conflict between the waxing German and Russian Empires; the central prizes were the Russian imperial territories of Ukraine and the Caucasus, and the waning Ottoman Empire. More >>
The Enlightenment Is Dead; What Is True Enlightenment?
Friday, 2 May 2025, 10:55 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The Enlightenment that began in 1715 was a temporary fix of the inherently separative nature of the human mind. It has run its course, and a vital redefinition of enlightenment is now urgently needed, or darkness will rule for the foreseeable future. More >>
On The Aussie Election Finale
Friday, 2 May 2025, 10:42 am | Gordon Campbell
The only spectre haunting Anthony Albanese’s government going into Election Day tomorrow will be the way the polls got wrong the likely 2019 election outcome. Back then, the Scott Morrison government got re-elected in an upset result. Opposition More >>
Screaming Soldiers And Open Revolt: How One Video Unmasked Israel's Internal Power Struggle
Thursday, 1 May 2025, 1:21 pm | Ramzy Baroud
The war between Israel’s political, military, and intelligence elites has never been so ugly, let alone open, as if both sides have reached the conclusion that their survival—and the survival of Israel itself—is dependent on defeating the other ... More >>
Dunne's Weekly: It's An Election, Not A Coronation
Thursday, 1 May 2025, 8:30 am | Peter Dunne
As a seasoned politician, Little will understand full well that while his political record will attract scrutiny during the forthcoming Mayoral campaign, his election will depend more on the policy programme he puts forward, and whether that resonates ... More >>
The Dirtiest Of Politics And A Tale Of Two MPs Cloaked In Hypocrisy
Wednesday, 30 April 2025, 6:33 pm | Ian Powell
Ian Powell discusses the contrasting responses to two politically different MPs involved in ‘controversies’ in the context of dirty politics and transphobia. More >>
The ICJ, Israel And The Gaza Blockade
Wednesday, 30 April 2025, 12:35 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In yet another round of proceedings, this time initiated by a UN General Assembly resolution, the International Court of Justice is hearing from an array of nations and bodies (40 states and four international organisations) regarding Israel’s ... More >>
On Our Austerity Fixation And Canada Staying Centre-left
Wednesday, 30 April 2025, 12:30 pm | Gordon Campbell
New Zealand still seems to be hellbent on cutting its way to prosperity, whether that be via spending cuts and/or tax cuts. In that respect, the current weakness of the New Zealand economy really has been a self-inflicted death by a thousand cuts. More >>
Unveiling Nasser's Secrets: Arabs, Palestine, And The Crucial Timing
Wednesday, 30 April 2025, 8:47 am | Ramzy Baroud
Attempts to portray Nasser as a political leader capable of mistakes were generally rejected by historians who had largely idealised him. The underlying reason was the sense that without Nasser, there was no other Arab leader who could truly represent the aspiration for a renewed pan-Arabism. More >>
50 Years After The “Fall” Of Saigon: From Triumph To Trump
Tuesday, 29 April 2025, 12:50 pm | Eugene Doyle
Vietnam today is united and free and millions of ordinary people have achieved security, health, education and prosperity vastly better than their parents and grandparents’ generations were able to. More >>
On A Neglected, Enduring Aspect Of The Francis Era
Monday, 28 April 2025, 1:41 pm | Gordon Campbell
Now that the formalities of saying goodbye to Pope Francis are over, the process of selecting his successor can begin in earnest. Framing the choice in terms of “liberal v conservative” is somewhat misleading, given that all members of the College of More >>
Pulling The Mat Out From Under The Early Childhood Education (ECE) Sector
Monday, 28 April 2025, 10:33 am | Lynley Tulloch
The legacy of colonial domination and erasure of te reo Māori and culture is being stealthily reenacted in this attempt to remove the acknowledgement of “the unique place of Māori as tangata whenua” from Te Whāriki. More >>
Ending Irrational Objectification Of Space Means Ending Rapacious Exploitation On Earth
Monday, 28 April 2025, 8:09 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Driving the new capitalistic/militaristic space race is a persistent, pernicious way of thinking. Though the polycrisis is the culmination of man’s rapacious consciousness, even many progressives continue to believe it can be remedied externally, by more ... More >>
NZSQ Inaugurates Wellington Chamber Music’s New Season
Monday, 28 April 2025, 7:53 am | Howard Davis
The freshly reconstituted New Zealand String Quartet inaugurated Wellington Chamber Music’s 2025 season at St Andrew’s On The Terrace with an intriguing programme. More >>
Yale, Ben-Gvir and Banning Palestinian Groups
Sunday, 27 April 2025, 6:59 pm | Binoy Kampmark
This profaning of protest in a university setting is a convenient trick, using the popular weasel words of “offensive” and “unsafe” while deploying, more generically, the pitiful policy inventory that makes freedom of expression an impossibility. More >>
Deporting Dissent: The Dangerous Precedent Set By The Persecution Of Pro-Palestine Activists
Saturday, 26 April 2025, 5:15 pm | Ramzy Baroud
While US activists advocating for justice in Palestine deserve unwavering support and defense for their profound courage and humanity, Americans must also recognize that they, and the remnants of their democracy, are equally at risk. More >>
