Gordon Campbell on the perils of joining AUKUS Pillar Two
The lure for New Zealand to join the AUKUS military alliance is that membership of only its “second pillar” will still (supposedly) give us access […]
Technology
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 the cult of political boldness
The next recession is shaping up as the most predicted event since the Second Coming. While we have to take it on faith that it […]
Gordon Campbell on how the Christchurch Call serves Big Tech
At this point in 2022, the Christchurch Call looks like a somewhat forlorn effort to keep alive some of the political good will that PM […]
Gordon Campbell on the rise of the far right, and battle bots
In his victory speech at the Cannes film festival this week, the British film director Ken Loach warned that the rise of far right parties […]
Gordon Campbell on New Zealand’s support for the Kazakh dictatorship
Thanks to Sacha Baron Cohen, Kazakhstan will always seem like a bit of a jokey, ramshackle kind of place. To that end, the Stuff story […]
Gordon Campbell on the govt’s token plans for cyber-security
Basically, the world is divided into two types of people: those who think the Panama Papers illustrate the bad shit that some people do, and […]
Gordon Campbell on copyright, the Authors Guild case and the TPP
A few days ago, Google finally and comprehensively won a very long-running case brought against it by the Authors Guild which had claimed that Google’s […]
Gordon Campbell on the TPP deal reached in Atlanta
If the TPP was the Rugby World Cup, the New Zealand team probably wouldn’t be making it out of pool play. While the final details […]
Gordon Campbell on Labour’s pandering to the redneck vote about refugees, and the SIS charm offensive
Labour’s readiness to play “Gotcha” politics over the 27 incidents where refugee status were first granted and then revoked is pretty shameful. According to documents […]
Gordon Campbell on the Cullen Review of our security service
Whatever the conflicts and point scoring between them on other issues, National and Labour have always spoken virtually as one on free trade and the […]
Gordon Campbell on the legal fudging of the GCSB revelations, Tikrit and Jake Xerxes Fussell
As many have noted, the Hager/Snowden revelations of the spying by our security agencies on our Pacific neighbours and allies is a virtual re-run of […]
Gordon Campbell on Ian Fletcher resignation & GCSB's new role
Like most events in security intelligence, the resignation for “family reasons” of GCSB boss Ian Fletcher has got (a) a simple straightforward explanation and (b) […]
Gordon Campbell on the Glenn Greenwald revelations
All that hanging out with the All Blacks clearly hasn’t taught Prime Minister John Key a thing about the ethics of playing the ball, and […]
Gordon Campbell on Egypt, the F-35 and Nanny National
Yesterday, this column compared events in Egypt to the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and – spookily – there is now an image to drive […]
On where government could be saving millions
Image: RNZAF Ever since the last White Paper in 2010, Defence has been putting its staff through the wringer in a cost reduction exercise so […]
On the Chinese cyber security threat
On paper, the decisions to partner with the Chinese firm Huawei in the roll out of ultra fast broadband (and rural broadband) in New Zealand […]
On the predator society
In these last few days before Parliament opens and the cycle of normal political life resumes, significant stories are gaining coverage that they might otherwise […]
On the Government’s latest plans to Americanise the welfare system
What is it about National’s plans for welfare reform and natural disasters? On the same day in February that the Welfare Working Group released its […]
On the oil lobby’s claims about the Petrobras protests
Illustration by Tim Denee – www.timdenee.com Nice of petroleum industry lobbyist John Pfahlert to offer to correct “the number of media inaccuracies” that he feels […]
On the ongoing saga of prisoners' right to vote
Last year, and despite the objections of its own Attorney-General, the Key government removed the right of all prisoners to vote. That puts us outside […]
On The Hobbit finale
Great. The Hobbit stays here. Everyone’s happy about that – you, me, John Key, Robyn Malcolm…we’re all so very happy, at least until we look […]
Left Coasting : Fail Marks for the Smart Grid
What’s so smart about corporate energy’s transition to smart meters?
On Sir Peter Gluckman, and the government’s science package for business
So far, at least two isotopes of the government’s chief science advisor Sir Peter Gluckman have been isolated, and identified. The commonly observed variant – […]
On John Key’s agenda for the nation
Compensate is such a slippery word. If you set out to make the elite squad in team A immensely better off with money taken from […]
Obama’s latest surrender to Israel, and drone warfare
President Barack Obama’s single most important foreign policy decision during 2009 has been his recent backdown over requiring Israel to abandon the building of settlements […]