Author Archive

The wood, the trees and the ETS

Written By: advantage - 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.

Which industries are changing fastest?

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:13 am, May 26th, 2020 - 30 comments

All sectors of our economy are affected. But how are the post Covid changes affecting your industry and your job?

Work ideas

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:13 am, May 22nd, 2020 - 28 comments

Jacinda Ardern has floated the idea of a four day working week and Grant Robertson wants to change the future of work. Maybe they should get on and do it.

The International investigation into Covid-19

Written By: advantage - Date published: 10:08 am, May 20th, 2020 - 81 comments

More than 110 nations have backed a call for the World Health Organisation to investigate the origins of the Covid-19 virus outbreak.

Oh Sweden

Written By: advantage - Date published: 9:53 am, May 16th, 2020 - 108 comments

Just when we thought liberal democracies meant real freedom was an absolute written into human rights stone, by mid-March this year almost all OECD countries had implemented the most draconian reversal of lockdowns on every single human to combat Covid19. Except Sweden. How is it working out?

Israel’s proposed annexation of Jordan Valley

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:53 am, May 10th, 2020 - 18 comments

With Benjamin Netanyahu now reinstated as Prime Minister of Israel, the big annexation of the Jordan Valley is gathering momentum.

Top ten things we have learned already

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:49 am, May 6th, 2020 - 53 comments

The top ten things that the Covid pandemic has taught us as a country.

What would President Biden do?

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:47 am, May 4th, 2020 - 59 comments

With President Trump doing what we all expected, and killing 67,000 people and counting through chronic poor leadership, and utterly ruining the U.S. economy as well, it’s time to look at what policies the alternative candidate has on offer.

How to kill the car

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:17 am, April 29th, 2020 - 45 comments

What would you do so that instead of wandering endlessly through tilt-slab monstrosities soaked in 80s music and fluorescent lighting, surrounded by oppressed minimum-wage slaves who hate being there and you hating being there worried about your wheeled asset damaged in their carpark instead you get freedom?

How Covid-19 is smashing councils

Written By: advantage - Date published: 9:23 am, April 26th, 2020 - 69 comments

Just as most industries in New Zealand are firing thousands of people to cut costs, local government is getting ready to do the same.

Our damaged rivers and streams

Written By: advantage - Date published: 9:51 am, April 23rd, 2020 - 25 comments

A new report out from the Ministry for the Environment and Statistics NZ showing that New Zealand’s fresh water system is getting worse, all over the place, but particularly in the South Island.

Pandemics and our privacy

Written By: advantage - Date published: 9:17 am, April 22nd, 2020 - 43 comments

The Ministry of Health is checking with the GCSB to enable full tracing of people to slow further outbreaks. Should we be afraid?

The plan for Monday

Written By: advantage - Date published: 9:43 am, April 18th, 2020 - 30 comments

Even if New Zealand gets out of the immediate Covid-19 infection better than most other countries, the result is still a wrecked world and a slow recovery. What we face is something like an Australian firefighter with a hose and a tanker facing an onrushing wall of flame: they successfully dampen down a defined circle […]

What Is This Moment Teaching Us?

Written By: advantage - Date published: 12:15 pm, April 14th, 2020 - 53 comments

What is Covid-19 telling us about our response as a nation?

New Zealand’s poor in this new crisis

Written By: advantage - Date published: 9:16 am, April 11th, 2020 - 126 comments

Covid 19 is not some great leveller. To succeed the state has to completely redirect the economy to so that ordinary workers and working families are supported.

Beyond mere rescue

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:49 am, April 6th, 2020 - 78 comments

It’s time to plan the re-launch the very idea of New Zealand.

The kind of imagination we’re going to need

Written By: advantage - Date published: 9:43 am, April 2nd, 2020 - 29 comments

More was achieved by and for Americas throughout the Franklin D. Roosevelt era than ever before or since in American history. This may provide us with a model for how we get things back on track.

What about Climate Change then?

Written By: advantage - Date published: 9:49 am, March 31st, 2020 - 26 comments

Shouldn’t this global shock from this COVID-19 virus make us all wake up to the power of collective global action on climate change?

New Zealand Tourism after 2020

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:30 am, March 30th, 2020 - 48 comments

Post Covid-2019 what is going to happen to New Zealand’s tourism market?

Roll out the plans

Written By: advantage - Date published: 1:59 pm, March 25th, 2020 - 10 comments

Fairly soon every group and their dog are going to come out with recovery plans for New Zealand. First off the block – even before we went into lockdown – is the ten point plan from Infrastructure New Zealand.

This changes everything

Written By: advantage - Date published: 6:34 am, March 24th, 2020 - 182 comments

What will our future now look like?

This is not the revolution

Written By: advantage - Date published: 6:50 am, March 21st, 2020 - 61 comments

The Corvid-19 virus is turning us all into cautious conservatives.

Is this the next GFC?

Written By: advantage - Date published: 4:27 pm, March 17th, 2020 - 24 comments

The Minister of Finance says that we are facing the worst of any of the scenarios that they had been preparing for. In response the government’s rescue package is bigger than anything New Zealand has ever seen.

Covid-19 and a digital democracy

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:30 pm, March 15th, 2020 - 20 comments

Government has for the last decade been pushing for as many government services as possible to be primarily accessed digitally rather than face-to face. Funnily enough, the one public service they forgot to push to digital is themselves. Now’s the time Trevor.

It’s time for Auckland to work

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:44 am, March 12th, 2020 - 12 comments

2020 will now be the year that New Zealand will now rely on Auckland to get its shit together.

Coronavirus and the State

Written By: advantage - Date published: 2:52 pm, March 11th, 2020 - 37 comments

A few weeks ago I slagged off the Chinese government for its response to the Corona virus and presumed that authoritarian states could never be as good as democratic states in responding to a pandemic. I want to revisit my opinion.

Before the massacre the State was warned

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:43 am, March 10th, 2020 - 27 comments

Through a series of meetings that led all the way to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Head of the State Services Commission Peter Hughes, and the Police, the Islamic Women’s Council repeatedly warned the highest levels of our civil service that their community was under imminent threat. They were ignored.