Gordon Campbell on the foreign buyers tax, and attack ads
It has now been six days since National unveiled its tax plan – eons ago in the 24/7 news cycle – but the credibility problem […]
Columns
Gordon Campbell on National’s tax cuts
Since tax cuts are never a free lunch, collecting the revenue to pay for them was always going to be the credibility test of National’s […]
Gordon Campbell on using contractors as an election bogey
The demonising of consultants and contractors in the public service assumes that their functions can readily be added to the work burdens of the existing […]
Gordon Campbell on why China isn’t a real military threat
Not that anyone would know it, but there has been quite a massive spendup on Defence since 2017 by the Labour government. The big ticket […]
Gordon Campbell on the elitism framing the election discourse
So… Almost all the tax experts rounded up by the mainstream media have damned the proposal to remove GST from healthy food. Some have called […]
Gordon Campbell on the “GST off fruit and vegetables” saga
To be clear…. Any package that offers people relief on the cost of healthy food (plus a boost to Working For Families entitlements) is welcome, […]
Gordon Campbell on gender posturing and mis-using PPPs in public health
What is it with right wing politicians getting standing ovations for doing the bare minimum? As in… Florida governor and presidential hopeful Ron De Santis […]
Gordon Campbell on the BlackRock deal and banning cellphones
If a National/ACT government had negotiated the renewables deal with the giant investment firm BlackRock, it is safe to assume that we would be never […]
Gordon Campbell on Winston Peters’ troubled tango with the ACT Party
In line with its ideological mission to destroy any and all of the creative partnerships between the state, business, science and public health, the ACT […]
Gordon Campbell on what China’s current economic woes signal for us
For 99% of the time, our worries about China revolve around the military and diplomatic threat that Beijing allegedly poses to New Zealand and to […]
Gordon Campbell on National’s 20th century transport policy, and Labours’ woes
In justifying its multi-squillion dollar, ten years in the making, four lane highway linking Whangarei to Tauranga, the National Party did what it always does […]
Gordon Campbell on ACT’s links to Big Pharma
Economists are weird. People are having trouble feeding their families. Yet the obvious solution – reduce the tax burden on their food – is treated […]
Gordon Campbell on the lessons from Spain’s election
Spain held an election last Sunday… And stop me if any of this doesn’t sound familiar. The two right wing parties were expected to win […]
Gordon Campbell on talking tough about law and order
Harsh sentences are being offered as a deterrent to crime, but voters are being sold a crock. For one thing… Fear of the consequences loses […]
Gordon Campbell on Sir Roger’s lament, and the Commonwealth Games
So Dr. Frankenstein is feeling upset about how his monster has turned out. To the dismay of Sir Roger Douglas, the ACT Party has become […]
Gordon Campbell on how political donations favour the centre-right
Political donations are not gifts. They’re an investment. Lest the recipients forget the gesture, one of the purposes of political lobbying is to remind everyone […]
Gordon Campbell on dancing with NATO on Defence
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has been keeping some serious company of late. He’s been signing a free trade deal with the EU, shooting off to […]
Gordon Campbell on National’s need for Winston Peters
As a spectacle, politics can be pretty boring. MMP politics isn’t a cage fight, or even (ultimately) a struggle between individual parties. Moreover… Under MMP, […]
Gordon Campbell on relying on Israeli news narratives about Palestine
So far, the coverage of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) assault on the Jenin refugee camp has followed a familiar pattern. Images of explosions and […]
Gordon Campbell on the Greens plan to help renters
One of the best things about the Greens plan to cap rent increases at 3% annually is that it spreads around some of the pain […]
Gordon Campbell on the ripple effects from the Titan submersible disaster
As clickbait, the saga of OceanGate’s Titan submersible belongs to the same genre of real time news countdowns as the boys trapped in the Thailand […]
Gordon Campbell on China, University Funding, Ukraine
Gosh. According to a tip leaked to a journalist from the Australian newspaper by an anonymous source whose identity cannot be disclosed for secret squirrel […]
Gordon Campbell on National’s law and ordure policy
So here we are… Barely 75 days out from election day, and National STILL hasn’t revealed how it is going to pay for its stupendously […]
Gordon Campbell on ACT’s anti-worker crusade, and Israeli settler violence
The ACT Party’s announcement yesterday that it aims to stop workers in the gig economy from being allowed to test in court whether they deserve […]
Gordon Campbell on TOP, and the bank inquiry
The 5% MMP threshold soaks up a disproportionate share of the attention paid to the struggle by small parties to get into Parliament. By now, […]
Gordon Campbell on the crackdown on gangs
For much of last week, Opotiki was like the setting of a Wes Anderson movie. Gruff, no nonsense cops. Bikers who looked just as tough, […]
Gordon Campbell on the recession engineered by the Reserve Bank
This week, we got official confirmation that the Reserve Bank has finally achieved the recession it has worked so hard to engineer. The Bank has […]
Gordon Campbell on losing the Ukraine war
Obviously, no-one defends the RNZ digital journalist who distorted the content and meaning of so many articles on the Ukraine war, some of them bylined […]
Gordon Campbell on changing the GE rules, plus a music playlist
So Christopher Luxon wants to relax the rules that govern the use of genetic modification outside a laboratory setting. Would this mean going only so […]
Gordon Campbell on Saudi sports-washing
Since sport is our global religion, it isn’t surprising that the theocratic kingdom of Saudi Arabia has taken the redemptive power of sportswashing very seriously […]