The calls to save New Chums Beach risk snatching defeat from the jaws of conservation victory, by romanticising pristine examples. Surely we can do better
Around 9,200 of Close Up-polled viewers (92% of almost 10,000 txtrs) said they wanted special protection for beaches like New Chums. As do I.
In which, after two months chasing High Country Ministers and their officials round in a circle, I realise they’re telling me something after all
Having run around government agencies for nil result, and ended up about back where I started, I’m afraid that this circumlocution is officials’ own special way of describing a big fat ‘zero’.
Middle-East peace talks begin as "partners in peace" meet in Washington; Crucial independent sides with Labor in Australian negotiations; China urges jumpstart of six party talks on North Korea; Recession cuts illegal immigration to US; and more
Top of the Agenda: Israeli-Palestinian Direct Talks Begin
The payout to South Canterbury Finance investors is NZ Inc. in action - the public represenatives acting for the greater good. But if we're willing to rescue those deemed too big to fail, why not do the same for the little guy?
Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, we've seen again that there are no pure capitalists when big business fails, putting capital at risk. Not many, anyway. And not, it seems, in the National party anymore.
With the Australian election result still hanging in the balance, what can political strategists on this side of the Tasman learn? Five tips, plus the insight of one old man
While the Australian federal election still plays out, it is always interesting to play the 'what could we learn for New Zealand' game, and there are some clear lessons for political parties on this side of the Tasman.
As the players in the latest round of Middle East Peace Talks assemble in Washington later this week, the issues confronting them only seem to have grown in the two years they have been on hold, so are they just going through the motions?
The seemingly never-ending Middle East peace talks are back on the front burner this week, with an ambitious timetable and possibly insurmountable hurdles.
Heather Roy's return to parliament this week was a bit rich – Katherine Rich, that is. By following the former National MP's example, Roy has bought herself some time, but is it borrowed? And will the right-wing parties can together or divide?
If you front up, they can't stab you in the back. That seems to be the theory Heather Roy has decided to go with this week, as she returned to parliament talking about her commitment to the party and her appetite for hard work.
And so far, it's worked a treat.
Either Cameron Slater deserves our pity, or he deserves our contempt as the Peter Bethune of the right.
Is it wrong to break an unjust law? That's a question that has bedeviled serious moral and political thinkers for centuries - at least since Socrates chose to drink the Hemlock prescribed by the Athenian court rather than accept his friends' offer of escape.
Plato recounts his reasoning in Crito:
Meridian is sticking to the letter of resource management law. It risks big power generation decisions being made, at big environmental cost, without full cost-benefit analysis
Environmentally-friendly renewable power generation is environmentally ugly, too.
Mr Brownlee may have dug a big hole for the mining industry, by eyeing up Schedule 4. Conservationists' price: a better Schedule, and a higher test for mining access rights
Mr Brownlee says he now has a mining “mandate”. This is another example of political misjudgement. He thinks the Schedule 4 debate is finished. Environmentalists have hardly started.
Where the F word is not a dirty word, and what a breath of fresh air that is.
I've just returned from two weeks in the United States, hence my absence from these pages.
As the wife of current president of the NZ Bar Association, each year I get to tag along to sessions at the American Bar Association's annual conference. The US organisation is vastly different from this country's. For starters, their motto is, "Defending Liberty, Pursuing Justice".
The concept of a mosque a couple of blocks from Ground Zero has unleashed the ugly side of American politics, where those who profess tolerance have none themselves. Instead they have a hefty dose of prejudice, jingoism and stupidity and it is all on display.
Is a mosque near New York’s Ground Zero a triumph for radical Islam or a one-fingered salute from an otherwise tolerant society?
In which intensive vertical vege farming, 30 stories pie-in-the-sky, is dismissed as magical thinking by a bright green man
Unlike pork, apparently, and mushrooms, and back bench MPs, vegetables will not survive on this regime: feed ‘em shit, and keep ‘em in the dark.
A short history of the ‘primitive combat' that is practiced internally by the ACT Caucus.
For all of his years spent perfecting the art of attack, Rodney Hide has clearly learned little about defending himself in a media firestorm.
The party that introduced the three strikes law is itself one strike away from permanent political imprisonment. Its fate now lies in the hands of others, as it looks more like a party of past
As the week nears the end, we know so much more about the long-presumed tensions within the ACT party, and yet are left with so many questions. As you dig around in the detritus of Heather Roy's sacking, one question leads to another, and then another, and then more, like an avalanche.
Pam Corkery's proposed brothel for women--a world first--is another triumph for female equality. Yeah, right
I love an innovator, but I'm not sure why Pam Corkery's brothel for women is supposed to be progress.
Turning the draft energy strategy upside down, to shake some ‘step change’ out of it
Dear Gerry. I keep writing to you. You keep ignoring me.
Don't be fooled - the "court challenge" to NIWA's temperature records is very little to do with the law and a lot to do with getting your attention.
It's no secret that I harbour a deep skepticism about the claims, motivations and tactics of those who would deny that anthropocentric global warming/man-made climate change is taking place. See, for instance, the (somewhat heated) comments thread to this Pundit post.
If the Afghanistan alarm bells were not ringing in Wellington over the last weekend – they should have been
The weekend saw four significant events that should be giving New Zealand’s foreign affairs and defence specialists cause for grave concern about our current risk exposures in Afghanistan.
Response to last week's Welfare Working Group report shows that not so many of us are fooled by shonky stats and a new generation of beneficiary bashing rhetoric
A week ago today, Welfare Working Group Chair Paula Rebstock launched their first official report ‘Long term benefit dependency – th
It is ridiculous to suggest the sluggish response from the donor-world to Pakistan's utter devastation is not related to that country's terrorism troubles, but does it have a president who can stop hard-line Islamists from winning the hearts and minds?
Well knock me over with a feather…Islamist groups are trying to win the hearts and minds of utterly distraught Pakistanis, 20 million or so who have so far been cut adrift literally by yet another natural disaster, and figuratively (well on second thought literally also) by yet another s
Does this government’s ‘developing country’ shtick, or our luck in being small, give us the moral authority to dine richly on oil and coal?
Gerry Brownlee’s reminiscing, about old boyhood days. Shame, when the best you can offer your country, after nine years’ Opposition thinking time, is a 1965 policy.
Hone Harawira's view that he doesn't want his children going out with pakeha is already last week's water cooler debate. But his words will come to haunt both him and the Maori Party as they cut to the heart of Maori progress
Hone Harawira's loose, lazy confession that he wouldn't want one of his children coming home with a Pakeha partner is fading from public debate, but my guess is that it's the most damaging thing he's yet done to the Maori party and its developing political muscle.
The quashed ‘cubicle dairy’ consents and withdrawn applications were only the opening line of a much more difficult conversation: can you tell happy cows in a barn from sad ones in a so-called factory?
As the dust settles over the quashed ‘cubicle dairy’ land use consents, we’ve yet to grasp the bull by his horns.
The government says we're in Afghanistan to stop it becoming a safe haven for terrorists. Problem is, the war has changed and that rationale no longer stands up to scrutiny
The government is right when it says that the death of Lt Tim O'Donnell is no reason to pull our troops out of Afghanistan, but it still has one heck of a problem explaining to New Zealanders why we're there and what we're achieving.
The Sunday Star-Times is very big on the need for accountability in others. How about it demonstrates a bit itself?
A few weeks ago, the Sunday Star-Times ran a front-page story about a fairly routine case in which a High Court judge varied the sentence of a woman convicted for drink driving, quashing her disqualification and instead tripling the amount of community service she must per
It was all hints and mirrors, but the Labour Party seems set to embrace one of the big ideas from its own past, one that our grandkids would thank us for
Labour's finance spokesman David Cunliffe was the picture of political discipline on The Nation this morning. He said not a thing that he didn't want to say, but in his own words he was dropping some pretty big hints. Sadly, the interviewers and panel missed those hints.
The latest episode in the unfolding story of Justice Bill Wilson sees our intrepid hero, Sir Edmund (Ted) Thomas, radically reduce the number of Christmas cards he will have to answer this year.
I think it is safe to say that the public availability of some 30-odd pages of email correspondence in which a recently retired judge and top lawyer variously debate how best to encourage a Supreme Court judge to resign from office, suggest a preparedness to overlook judicial misconduct if n
Unemployment and benefit figures keep rising, but Government continues with misguided and dangerous reforms; Jobs Summit passion a faded memory
There has been a sharp and sudden rise in unemployment over the last 3 months, apparently taking economists and forecasters by surprise.
DOC papers released to me, under the OIA, show Meridian deleting key email to pre-empt its release, and slowing down DOC decision-making
So, the Pork Industry Board decides the Official Information Act kind of sucks.
It's not the first time an MP has fallen apart under the public's gaze, but under the Labour Party constitution Chris Carter's breakdown creates new political challenges
I thought I knew Chris Carter well. He's my local MP and I've broken bread with him on several occasions. I've been to his home and know his partner.
Sir Geoffrey Palmer's Gaza flotilla inquiry already looks beset by political storms, but could it turn out to be another step up the ladder for Helen Clark at the UN?
Already it's begun. Within hours of Israel relenting and agreeing to a UN-led inquiry into its attack in May on the Gaza aid flotilla, the political games and attacks are underway. In the coming weeks, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, our former Prime Minister, will learn the true meaning of "damned if you do, damned if you don't".
A new Bill proposes that incumbents shouldn't be able to use public funding to pay for their election ads. Surely that's cause for celebration?
Over at No Right Turn, Idiot Savant castigates National for its hypocrisy in introducing a Bill to limit what MPs and political parties can use their publicly funded parliamentary entitlements fo
You too can write like a Booker Prize winner or a pulp fiction bazillionaire; plus Chelsea Clinton's wedding
Apparently I write like David Foster Wallace. I know, it came as a surprise to me too.
Chris Carter’s slide into the political wilderness shifts the focus to Labour leader Phil Goff’s ability to be an election-winner. Goff has a stormy ride ahead
Someone should have seen it coming. Chris Carter’s implosion was absolutely predictable. His sense of grievance was evident from the moment he was fingered last June for travel and expenses excesses as a minister in Helen Clark’s last cabinet.
The appointment of Carl Davidson raises some problematic questions about the future of the Families and Children's Commissions
If a 3-year-old's teacher adds $320,000 to the future income of that child's class, should we pay a bit more to keep that teacher in a job? Or would you rather have a tax cut now?
My journalist-trained colleagues on Pundit probably will wince at my opening with such a hackneyed cliche, but everything changes when you have children of your own.
In what may be the most amateurish coup attempt ever, Chris Carter has killed his own career in a way that ensures none of his colleagues could ever back him. Unintentionally, he's made Phil Goff's leadership more secure and given him a fresh opportunity
In law enforcement circles they call it 'suicide by cop'; those situations when someone acts in an aggressive, confrontational way, thereby provoking police into a lethal response.
Land Information New Zealand is a bit of a misnomer: the information, when I asked them for it, seemed in short supply. But inadvertently, they explained quite a lot
“Tenure review of Crown pastoral leases … is the largest single process for the assessment and alienation of Crown-owned land in New Zealand,” Cabinet was told in 2009.
The dauntingly large cache of documents detailing the increasing futility of war in Afghanistan doesn't deliver anything new... but gives cause for concern and puts the heat on the rather dubious ally, Pakistan.
The AfghanistanPapers – let’s call them AfPak - leaked this week were no Pentagon Papers of the Vietnam War era, but nevertheless they are quite capable of doing s
Have politicians forgotten just who really holds the power in a democracy?
In Monday's Dominion Post column, Colin James wrote that local government minister Rodney Hide has stated Auckland's new mayor will be the "second most powerful politician [in New Zealand] after the prime minister". James added this is debatable, but I took issue with Hide's assertion for different reasons.
Gerry Brownlee, in his haste to scrape the bottom of the oil barrel, is showing some disregard for Maori that is not mana-enhancing
“Our prime purpose is with regard to petroleum. I think some people are interested,” said Rt Hon Keith Holyoake, in 1965, introducing the Continental Shelf Act.
David Young is happier even than Sue Bradford and Deborah Coddington were to leave parliament. More satisfied than Nicky Hager was when Don Brash stepped down. He is chirpier even than… Tim Watkin.
I left my job at TVNZ eighteen months ago to move to Denmark. It was not such a culture shock: just like New Zealand’s state broadcaster these days, Denmark is mainly occupied by beautiful blondes.
The first Canadian soldier to have been charged with murder on the battlefield has dodged that bullet, but been found guilty of disgraceful conduct. Why? What did he do?
Is there such a concept as a warrior code which excuses the shooting of a severely injured combatant – enemy or friendly – to put him/her out of misery on the battlefield?
What the Retirement Income Policy and Intergenerational Equity conference told us about selfish generations, and raising the age of pension entitlement
I missed the conference's closing remarks, but here are a few of my own.
How the 20th century New York pop art brigade and its middle class sexist followers are too hypocritical to stand up and identify child abuse when they see it
I guess one should never be surprised by the hypocrisy, sexism, and downright inhumanity of those who dwell in the higher echelons of the publishing, literary and art worlds. It's the same all over the world.
The government says it's backdown on mining is evidence that it listens. But the question left is whether there's any policy Key and Co. will fight to the death for? And where's that step change coming from now?
Timid and without principle or pragmatic and unwilling to get ahead of voters. Yet again the government has, with its backdown on mining Schedule 4 land, given us a choice as to how to view them.
The government's decision to change the patent law regarding software has got techies and lawyers up in arms. It's out of kilter internationally and raises questions about the select committee process
It's been a quiet controversy, but last week's decision by Commerce Minister Simon Power that software should not be patented - at least not unless it's "embedded" (ie, software built into a device) - was
In the face of National's employment law and welfare reforms, how will Labour and the unions respond?
Yesterday John Key used the National Party's annual conference to announce drastic changes to employment law.
On Wednesday I argued that New Zealand should fix the general election date in law. Here's how it could be done.
Coal-to-liquid fuel feasibility studies are underway for lignite, the dirtiest coal, as the coal industry tries to dig itself out of a hole
Coal badly needs a new mojo, as Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee once recognised, and hasn’t since been allowed to forget.
New Zealand should fix its election date in law. Otherwise, John Key needs to tell us when the 2011 election will be held ... and soon.
On Monday I had the pleasure (and I'm not being sarcastic here - it genuinely was a pleasant experience) of talking to Parliament's Electoral Legislation Committee for the best part of an hour about the bills to set up the 2011 referendum on MMP
Global condemnation may have forced Iran to abandon plans to stone to death a woman 'convicted' of adultery, but don't count on it. The campaign to fight Sakineh Ashtiani's execution needs more recruits - now!
The mixed messages now coming out of Iran in terms of the stoning to death of a 43-year-old Iranian woman are cause for muc
Does Glee’s swag of Emmy nominations make me any less tragic?
Does it make it better, or worse, to confide that the black-and-white habitué and I watch Glee, curled up in the firelight, glass in hand? (The drop in the glass is for me, and my friend sings, purrfectly.)
As the field widens, a serious new candidate for the Auckland mayoralty may just be the ticket. But whether it's Brown, Banks or Candidate C, the result's likely to come down to just one thing, and it's got nothing to do with policy
If I was David Lewis, former Pundit on this very site and now the communications king of Len Brown's Auckland mayoralty campaign, I'd be doing two things about now - giving my candidate a long lecture about discipline and organising the biggest enrolment drive in the city's history.
A stage full of actors at the height of their powers--what could be better? A review of Sean Matthias' production of Waiting for Godot
Samuel Beckett wrote “Waiting for Godot” after the Second World War, when he had been settled in Paris for twenty years or so. He had become completely bilingual, and the play as first performed at the Théâtre de Babylone in 1953 was almost certainly first conceived and written in French.
Recent events have caused the government's popularity to increase, and Labour's popularity to fall. These short-term moves mask a longer period of consolidation that also helps the government.
After something of a hiatus, Pundit is pleased to again be offering its Poll of Polls. We will update things about once a month until either: (a) something exciting happens in the polls; or, perhaps more likely, (b) the 2011 election campaign starts.
In which the author tries his hand at satire. Results most definitely not guaranteed.
Auckland's new "party central" for the Rugby World Cup will be Prime Minister John Key's front lawn, it was revealed today.
Obama and Netanyahu met (again) and managed a pretty good rendition of calm and purposeful intent. But Obama's two goals--a nuclear-free world and a peaceful Middle East--increasingly appear to be political pocket lint trapped in his extremely smart suits
What exactly went on behind closed doors in the latest – and this time photographed – Obama-Netanyahu meeting will gradually spill out, but at first blush it seems the US President is willing to play the nuclear non-prolifer
The government's announcement of tougher penalties for knife crimes is a preamble to the bigger, harder issue – gun control. Will it have the courage to tackle our gun culture in this political climate? And what about online sales?
Isn't it curious how quickly we forget? Fourteen months ago today, police were exchanging shots with Jan Molenaar in Napier and sending LAVs up to his front door.
In which policy makers try to grow the economic cake, but end up eating it instead, leaving us with some little brown crumbs …
Tenure review is an arguably fatally flawed review of the Crown pastoral land asset.
Intensive farming development of the Mackenzie district is a failure of law and policy, and ecological disaster on a colonial scale
The “Crown Pastoral Land Act” is my new favourite title on the statute book — a window to a high country world.
Why do some vegetarians claim moral superiority over meat eaters?
A while ago on Facebook, my online equivalent of the officewater cooler, someone asked this question (I've probably changed the wording):
If you think the U.S. strategy for Afghanistan is in a mess – take a look at ours.
The trouble really started in August last year, when Prime Minister John Key announced New Zealand would commit SAS troops to combat duty in Afghanistan for a period of 18 months.
As greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow and the glaciergate debate fades, the IPCC is gearing up for another report, another round of controversey. It will take great care testing the science; will its critics? And what's the future of transport?
The story goes like this: Following publication of the 4th Assessment Report in February 2007 and the completion of the Special Report on Renewable Energy, the member countries of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change agreed in April 2008 to undertake a 5th Assessment Report (AR5). It's intended to be released in February 2011 after the final review process has been completed.
 | |||
| Aug 10 | Change | Seats | |
|---|---|---|---|
| National | 51.6 | -0.6 | 64 |
| Labour | 32.0 | +0.9 | 40 |
| NZ First | 2.3 | NC | 0 |
| Greens | 7.9 | -0.2 | 10 |
| Maori Party | 2.6 | +0.3 | 5 |
| Act | 1.7 | +0.2 | 2 |
| United Future | 0.4 | -0.1 | 1 |
| Progressives | 0.3 | NC | 1 |
| The Pundit Poll of Polls is updated as new polls are released, incorporating the One News/Colmar Brunton, TV3/TNS, NZ Herald/Digipoll, and Roy Morgan polls. | |||
