Gordon Campbell on Australia’s superior ways of communicating about its vaccine rollout
It isn’t only on the cricket field that Australia performs better. The clarity and degree of detail in Australia’s published schedule of the priorities for […]
Columns
Gordon Campbell on why the public doesn’t always do what its told, even in 24 different languages
Today we were told that the Covid vaccines available to New Zealand are both halal and kosher. Good to know. And good to officially recognise […]
Gordon Campbell on who decides on the priority list for Covid vaccines
During the past week, the nation has gone through a range of mixed feelings about south Auckland. Understandably, there’s been a hankering in some quarters […]
Gordon Campbell on the rivals for the Covid saliva testing dollar
As the cliché goes, every crisis is an opportunity. The pandemic seems no exception. To be clear though: at any time, it is quite OK […]
Gordon Campbell on Labour’s fudging on child poverty, and America’s diplomatic dance with Iran
If you want a good insight into what the limits of tiny, barely discernible steps to reduce poverty actually look like, delve into the latest […]
Gordon Campbell on Australia’s attempt to demonise Facebook
It is a free country. Feel free to treat the battle between Australia and Facebook as a case of Facebook using its immense power to […]
Gordon Campbell on welcoming Pfizer’s vaccine, and saying goodbye to Afghanistan
Good news, meet bad news. Co-incidentally, on the same day that New Zealand delivers its first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to our frontline border […]
Gordon Campbell on another epic failure by Australia to act decently on the world stage
Not for the first time, New Zealand’s leaders did us proud yesterday while – faced with the same moral challenge- Australia leaders fouled their nest. […]
Gordon Campbell on the latest lockdown, and on Air NZ’s Saudi military sales
A three day Covid lockdown feels like the pandemic equivalent of T20 cricket. Just as T20 isn’t really cricket, this three day breathing space isn’t […]
Gordon Campbell on why the Reserve Bank won’t be spooked by inflation making a comeback
One year into the pandemic, people are still getting sick and dying at different rates according to their age, gender, ethnic background and income level […]
Gordon Campbell on leaving women out of the job creation plans, plus the current vaccine blues
Women workers have taken an unequal impact of the job losses caused by the pandemic but so far almost all the government’s job creation efforts […]
Gordon Campbell on why Matariki will be a valuable cultural counterpart to Waitangi Day
Now that Matariki has been added to the roster of national holidays, it is bound to become more meaningful than most of our other holiday […]
Gordon Campbell on the case for investing in coastal shipping
The enduring damage done by the economic reforms of the 1980/1990s is still playing out in the communities that lost thousands of well-paid full time […]
Gordon Campbell on the Climate Change Commission’s slow motion response
Good grief. An eleven to fifteen year window of adjustment to the threat from climate change is still being decried as “too ambitious” by the […]
Gordon Campbell on the GameStop saga, and Fox’s bad news
For over a decade, the stock market in the US (and everywhere else) has been utterly detached from the lives and the wellbeing of ordinary […]
Gordon Campbell on the risk of being short changed by Pfizer
Who knew that the delivery of the Covid vaccines was going to be such a headache? All the predictions had been around the likely distribution […]
Gordon Campbell on Northland’s Covid case, and Biden’s battle lines
T he South African variant at the centre of the Northland case of community transmission calls for a reset of several aspects of our Covid […]
Gordon Campbell on the demise of the Tokyo Olympics
As the Covid vaccines roll out around the world, the Tokyo Olympics are looming as a major test of when (and whether) something akin to […]
Gordon Campbell on how women are suffering the most from the Covid economic recession
Both here and abroad, the Covid-19 economic recession has been disastrous for women workers and their families. In November, young women below 30 in particular […]
Gordon Campbell on why the second Trump impeachment has to proceed
To the very end, a sizeable Congressional segment of the Republican Party has been willing to defend Donald Trump no matter what he says or […]
Gordon Campbell on the Washington riot and the Georgia results
Hong Kong and Washington DC. On the same morning, the tyrants in power in Beijing and their counterpart in the White House have shown how […]
Gordon Campbell on the Senate races in Georgia
Hi and happy New Year. Currently, the Republicans hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate, the upper chamber of US Congress. If the Democrats can […]
Gordon Campbell on a few things about the year gone, and the year ahead
In October, the public rewarded the government for the way it has steered New Zealand through the Covid-19 crisis this year, and rightly so. The […]
Gordon Campbell on the Solar Winds hack, and on buying Bob Dylan
Earlier this month, the huge Solar Winds hack became public knowledge. Reportedly, the victims had been accessed over a period of months starting in March […]
Gordon Campbell on the mixed outlook for our Covid vaccine supplies
As PM Jacinda Ardern explained at yesterday’s press conference, the government has signed supply contracts for delivery of four Covid-19 vaccines, in numbers sufficient (on […]
Gordon Campbell on Labour’s timid uses (so far) of the power that voters have given it
Long on aims, short on delivery. Greta Thunberg is not the only person who feels that the Ardern government is better at aspirations than achievement. […]
Gordon Campbell on the Royal Commission’s report into the Christchurch mosque shootings
For an 800 page monster, the Royal Commission report into the Christchurch shootings has proved to be a strangely weightless affair. Everyone – the Police, […]
Gordon Campbell on Werewolf’s best music of 2020
Sure, New Zealand’s pandemic experience hasn’t been anything like the horror show it has been elsewhere. Yet the Covid anxiety levels were still high enough […]
Gordon Campbell on the politics of why we’re not getting an inquiry into the Whakaari/White Island disaster
The Ardern government has made an art form out of reviews and inquiries- when to hold them, when to fold them, and when to shelve […]
Gordon Campbell on why Worksafe’s Whakaari/White Island prosecutions are good news
Somewhere in Heaven, Helen Kelly must be smiling about Worksafe’s criminal prosecution of 10 firms and three individuals for their roles in the lead up […]