Author Archive

Qanon is here

Written By: - Date published: 7:37 am, September 14th, 2020 - 132 comments

While a few in the media leapt at the opportunity to vilify a small evangelical community at the latest COVID 19 spread, the really big COVID 19-conspiracy story landed by the thousand this weekend. It’s overdue we woke up to QAnon here.

National’s infrastructure bank

Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, September 11th, 2020 - 21 comments

National’s proposed Infrastructure Bank is an accounting trick, with very high risks that the entire power of our political order for anyone affected by these monster projects will weaken citizens’ rights.

How has Conservation Fared Under This Government?

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, September 10th, 2020 - 39 comments

I’m going to give this government just 5 out of 10 on the conservation front.

Will our cities revive?

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, September 5th, 2020 - 43 comments

Our cities are the nation’s lungs; they recycle and accelerate external goods and transform them internally into faster circulation. Auckland and Christchurch have had tens of billions invested in them over successive local and central governments, but has this improved our strength or wealth as a country at all?

How Trump Has Changed New Zealand’s future

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, September 2nd, 2020 - 28 comments

Post Trump how is the world order looking?

Labour’s Hefty Carrot-And-Stick For Water

Written By: - Date published: 8:37 am, August 31st, 2020 - 16 comments

New Zealand’s local and regional councils have been given until August 31 2020 to sign up to a ginormous fund that would help them improve their water, wastewater, and stormwater systems.  The implications for them doing this are significant and could see the end of Council control of the supply of water.

 

Here comes the vaccine

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, August 21st, 2020 - 46 comments

Australian Prime Minister Scott Malcom has indicated he’s getting close to the deal of a lifetime for Australians with a letter of intent from Astra Zenica, who are in third stage clinical trials.  Will New Zealand benefit?

What Might A Democratic Party-Dominated U.S. Foreign Policy Do?

Written By: - Date published: 1:02 pm, August 19th, 2020 - 24 comments

Inasmuch as tiny, distant New Zealand need worry about the foreign policy of the United States, it’s worth a drill into what a Democratic Party dominated United States foreign policy might look like.

What Now Phil Goff?

Written By: - Date published: 1:19 pm, August 17th, 2020 - 36 comments

The Chief Executive of Watercare Raveen Jaduram has resigned. With Auckland Council’s recent Council Controlled Organisation review having been concluded and the recommendations released is this the opportunity to require meaningful change of Watercare?

The top seven things Covid has changed

Written By: - Date published: 7:45 am, August 14th, 2020 - 47 comments

Covid has fundamentally changed society for the better in surprising ways.

Joe Biden’s Four Surprising Vectors for Success

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, August 14th, 2020 - 15 comments

He’s old, boring, uninspiring, and offends no-one: surely he’ll fail miserably as President? But he has a stronger chance than any Democrat President since LBJ of getting very strong domestic reforms done.

Why you should vote Labour this election

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, August 11th, 2020 - 146 comments

Four very good reasons why you should vote Labour in this election.

Vote No to Cannabis Reform

Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, August 10th, 2020 - 118 comments

Ten reasons to vote against cannabis law reform this election.

Falling into a coma

Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, August 4th, 2020 - 92 comments

Why have we fallen into the most boring and predictable election we’ve had since Bolger’s second term?

Expand Five Eyes

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, August 1st, 2020 - 70 comments

With the growing assertions by the Chinese government across the eastern Pacific including in Hong Kong and our own repudiation of an extradition treaty, there are now calls to expand the Five Eyes intelligence network to include Japan.

Folly of the year

Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, July 26th, 2020 - 41 comments

What is the strangest recent proposal for development in New Zealand?

We must welcome Kiwis home

Written By: - Date published: 12:27 pm, July 23rd, 2020 - 39 comments

With a new Immigration Minister this week, could we please get some reality to bringing our people home?

Unthinkable Things

Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, July 22nd, 2020 - 29 comments

With the government clearly watching the unravelling of Australia’s Covid-19 response and putting in place $14 billion in preparation for a second infection wave, we are clearly now in a history-in-making territory of the highest instability outside a world war.

Can A Renewed Provincial Growth Fund Save Us?

Written By: - Date published: 7:33 am, July 20th, 2020 - 43 comments

With the simultaneous decline of Southland’s Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, the retrenchment of Waikato/South Auckland’s New Zealand Steel’s Glenbrook Steel mill, and the near-total shrinking of NZ Refining in Whangarei’s Marsden Point it’s not unreasonable to ask what will happen to the 10% of New Zealand who are employed in major manufacturing plants.

Tourism: Death and Revival

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, July 19th, 2020 - 26 comments

New Zealand’s tourism economy has essentially collapsed, and it is part of a global tourism industry collapse that is so big that it may be permanently smaller. But does it have to be?

What Could National Do To Win?

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, July 16th, 2020 - 37 comments

Ok sure, they won’t. You list why.  But here’s the top five things National could do to give themselves a better shot.

Re-open New Zealand

Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, July 3rd, 2020 - 82 comments

It is great to see former Prime Minister Helen Clark join the debate about re-opening New Zealand’s borders. We need it. There is no better time for New Zealand to re-launch itself to the world.

Minister Clark resigns

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, July 2nd, 2020 - 32 comments

David Clark has announced his resignation as Health Minister.

The new successful revolution we are seeing

Written By: - Date published: 1:54 pm, June 28th, 2020 - 55 comments

A really successful and very modern revolution has already started in just the last few weeks. It’s not the revolution we expected.

The light rail delay is good

Written By: - Date published: 8:09 am, June 25th, 2020 - 16 comments

There is a solid silver lining to the delay in the Auckland light rail to the airport project.

Things that will live

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, June 19th, 2020 - 14 comments

Despite downbeat economic predictions and an imminent global recession, the New Zealand recovery offers opportunities for entrepreneurial success that exceed anything we’ve seen for decades.

A World That Just Doesn’t Need As Much Oil

Written By: - Date published: 7:22 am, June 18th, 2020 - 27 comments

BP yesterday sent a really big message that effectively now, Covid-19 is the break that tips the world away from oil dependence.

Things that will die

Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, June 15th, 2020 - 90 comments

For three decades tourism has been the great tidal surge that has made many otherwise spiralling towns stablise, and in some cases expand.  Post Covid we are going to see some of these towns die.

Angry Ardern

Written By: - Date published: 12:10 pm, June 11th, 2020 - 86 comments

A challenging post where Ad challenges Jacinda Ardern and the Labour Government to do more.

The four horsemen of the apocalypse

Written By: - Date published: 8:03 am, June 4th, 2020 - 16 comments

Ok so this is the worst year I can think of in my lifetime. But apocalyptopia it ain’t.

The wood, the trees and the ETS

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, June 3rd, 2020 - 4 comments

It’s a brutal thing to propose more taxes and costs on business during our worst economic meltdown in a century. But yesterday the Government increased the cost of Carbon.  But we need to do more.