Social issues

Categories under Social issues

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.

TheY aRe onlY aSKing qUestiOns

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, August 13th, 2020 - 112 comments

Yesterday National suggested a wide based and interesting conspiracy theory involving the Government and the Ministry of Health and all of the Health Boards suppressing news of community spread of Covid 19 for political advantage while at the same time complaining that the Government should be consulting with them on decisions.

Will National politicise the new Covid outbreak? *

Written By: - Date published: 12:38 pm, August 12th, 2020 - 182 comments

*Rhetorical question. Of course they will.

Well that is a bit shit. Auckland level 3. Rest of NZ level 2

Written By: - Date published: 10:14 pm, August 11th, 2020 - 48 comments

Four cases of community transmission from the same family – presumably without an obvious cause. Lock down for 3 days in the Auckland super city area at level 3 starting noon Wednesday. Level 2 for everywhere else outside of Auckland. Allows time for contact tracing and a later decision once facts are known. Good response.

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.

Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Government: Style over substance or a guiding light for progressive politics?

Written By: - Date published: 8:42 am, August 10th, 2020 - 33 comments

Critics have dismissed the Jacinda Ardern government as being one of style over substance. This is unfair given the challenges this government has faced and the policy achievements it has had. However, it is a government that has much work to do if it wins a second term. And its over-reliance on Jacinda as party leader is a huge strategic risk, especially when the governments front bench is perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be lightweight.

IT doESN’t aDD up

Written By: - Date published: 7:49 am, August 10th, 2020 - 57 comments

For a few days now Gerry Brownlee has been peddling this dog whistle conspiracy campaign that the Government is hiding bad news about Covid and we should all be really concerned.

Covid recovery and bouncing forward

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, August 10th, 2020 - 21 comments

Central to the Transition movement from the outset has been the idea of resilience. Usually framed as the ability to ‘bounce back’, it is seen in the Transition movement as being better imagined as the capacity to ‘bounce forward’, i.e. to use it as the opportunity to move forward to something better. How then to ‘bounce forward’ from COVID-19 in such a way that we also move to a way of doing things consistent with the scale of the climate crisis?

NZ First is in trouble in Northland

Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, August 9th, 2020 - 70 comments

More bad news for NZ First.  It looks like their hope that Northland could provide a get out of jail free card is misplaced.

Jacinda’s speech to the Labour campaign launch

Written By: - Date published: 5:09 pm, August 8th, 2020 - 94 comments

Jacinda Ardern’s speech to the Labour 2020 campaign launch.

The return of John Key

Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, August 7th, 2020 - 110 comments

In a sign of desperation National has trotted out John Key to campaign that the country’s success in containing Covid should be put to risk because of a misguided perception that it would be good for the economy.

The Covid election

Written By: - Date published: 7:40 am, August 6th, 2020 - 73 comments

I normally do not do this, tempting fate and all that.  But the forces behind this election are so strong that it would take a really dramatic event to change current momentum.

National’s policy platform

Written By: - Date published: 8:35 am, August 5th, 2020 - 45 comments

For a party that promised to be a policy factory National’s policy offerings are severely deficient.

Go Well Ruth Dyson

Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, August 5th, 2020 - 10 comments

Ruth Dyson has given a very funny very incisive valedictory speech in Parliament and will bow out of politics at this election.  She deserves our thanks.

National seats at risk in Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 1:54 pm, August 3rd, 2020 - 33 comments

National has a crop of new candidates in Auckland all wanting to be in Parliament.  But judging by what has happened so far you have to wonder if there are further allegations that may emerge which may ankle tap carefully stage managed campaigns.

National’s week from hell

Written By: - Date published: 6:01 pm, August 2nd, 2020 - 34 comments

A review of National’s week which is as bad as any week I can remember.

Mea culpa

Written By: - Date published: 12:48 pm, August 2nd, 2020 - 33 comments

Back in 2017 I was upset, we had a leadership vote only in caucus – just before the election. I didn’t realise at the time that Andrew Little was actually stepping down in favour of Jacinda Ardern. She’d had the potential, but I hadn’t realised that Little thought she was up for the task. I’m delighted with the result. Thank you Andrew.

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.

The Heron Report

Written By: - Date published: 8:38 am, July 31st, 2020 - 35 comments

The Heron Report has been released and reinforces the public perception that this was a cynical misuse of  confidential information by National for political purposes and a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

Quarantine costs – critics fruitlessly whine

Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, July 30th, 2020 - 28 comments

I’m reasonably happy with where the coalition wound up on the quarantine cost recovery. It sends a clear economic signal to businesses and the fools who want to travel during a global pandemic. It will discourage some of the stupidity of the travel addicted. It also balances the legal position. Something that most of the critics clearly aren’t thinking through and cause them to whine without realistic alternatives

Hong Kong principles

Written By: - Date published: 9:49 pm, July 28th, 2020 - 38 comments

According to our Prime Minister, today’s announcement that New Zealand is suspending extradition arrangements with Hong Kong is because of our principles. But it is not immediately clear what these principles are, other than falling into line with our Five Eyes spying partners. Some history is important.

How do you tell when Judith is saying something that is not true?

Written By: - Date published: 12:59 pm, July 28th, 2020 - 56 comments

Judith Collins has backed away from telling a mistruth about escape statistics during her time as Minister of Corrections by claiming that her eyebrow was raised and this is evidence that what she was saying was a joke.

Pandemic: a flourishing enterprise. Business needs to get real.

Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, July 28th, 2020 - 40 comments

A few weeks ago we were at 14 million cumulative confirmed cases of Covid-19 worldwide. A million more cases in just 4 days. Now a few weeks later, we are at 16 million confirmed cases worldwide. The lobbyists and business groups affected by our blocked borders need to get real. We won’t be opening our borders until we get a widely used vaccine later next year (at the earliest). It is too expensive to do so.

Latest Newshub Reid Research poll – yet another rogue poll

Written By: - Date published: 6:12 pm, July 26th, 2020 - 144 comments

Tova O’Brien said that it would be a bombshell result and it was.  

Happy 40th birthday Jacinda!

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, July 26th, 2020 - 24 comments

The woman who has led us through a terrorist attack, a significant natural disaster and who has safely guided us through an international Pandemic and who has led with aroha and compassion is turning 40 today.

The Greens are thinking ahead

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, July 26th, 2020 - 126 comments

The Greens have released a detailed policy document that sets out what they want to achieve if they are part of the next Government and their Labour Relations policies could be considered to be more pro union than Labour’s policies.

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?

Association of Conspiracy Theorists

Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, July 25th, 2020 - 81 comments

Act is proposing to introduce measures that will limit the amount of money people on benefits can spend on alcohol and tobacco.  But not guns.

COVID-19: A human adapted virus

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, July 24th, 2020 - 23 comments

It has been obvious about COVID-19 that it is very well adapted to humans. It has evolved a good entry system to the humans, often has mild symptoms, long pre-symptomatic infectious period, and doesn’t kill many of its hosts. What has been less obvious is where it came from. It looks more like South East Asia rather than China.