Articles

The school closures in Christchurch really are a perfect storm – the most stressed community in New Zealand is being led by the most accident […]

On the weekend at one of those gatherings of the National party faithful that seem to occur every other week – as a party the […]

Hard to imagine a more disturbing insight into the treatment of the vulnerable than the Health Ministry report on Te Roopu Taurima o Manukau. The […]

Don’t want to be unduly alarmist about this, but we seem to have an outlaw government on our hands – if by that we mean […]

The Budget lockup retains a symbolic value these days, but little more than that. This is the government’s best annual opportunity to bury its usual […]

This week has seen two examples of turkeys refusing to vote for an early Christmas – while busily denying the evident self interest involved. First, […]

Unfortunately, the buying and selling of ghost-written university essays has been part of academic culture for decades. In the mid 1980s for instance, to cite […]

Comes the time, comes the man. Aaron Gilmore has become the poster child for everything that is loathsome about politicians and the political process. However, […]

Abuse directed at anyone opposed to what you’re wanting to do. Repeated mis-representations of what you said, and did. Not to mention the flat denials […]

Remember when the creeping power of Big Government was being manifested only in …the energy efficiency regulations for household appliances? Back in 2008, that seemed […]

Yesterday’s Anzac Day saw the usual strong turnout at dawn ceremonies, to mark an occasion that is already displacing Waitangi Day – if we can […]

Anyone looking for legacy traces of the late Margaret Thatcher in New Zealand politics will have found them in the government’s scare tactics – “a […]

As sure as night follows day, you could bet some financial analyst would see the death of the free market in the plans unveiled last […]

Since politics is so often about the perpetuation of privilege, we should all celebrate the times when Parliament gets something right. The passage of Louisa […]

It is hard to decide what is the most alarming aspect of Prime Minister John Key’s plans to expand the role of Big Brother. Or, […]

Just how Prime Minister John Key thought that invoking the “proud history” of our 1950s Korean War contribution would help to minimize the current tensions […]

At this point, the Ian Fletcher affair risks getting lost in the‘angels on pinheads’ detail that fascinates the Beltway, and bores the pants off everyone […]

In our political system, which has few checks and balances – a single chamber Parliament, no written Constitution, a weak Bill of Rights etc – […]

Mum and Dad investors were supposed to be plain ordinary folks that the government was rewarding with the option of buying ..er, of re-buying a […]

This month’s Werewolf cover story is about the Kim Dotcom extradition case and is available here, but there’s an interesting footnote…This week, ABC television news […]

Routinely, US foreign policy in the Middle East seems to suffer from a karmic backlash. Ten years ago, the Iraq invasion was supposed to produce […]

It is hard to tell which aspect of Susan Devoy becoming Race Relations Commissioner is worse. Was it the selection of someone who plainly has […]

“Some rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pen” – Woody Guthrie Put your money in the bank, not under the mattress. […]

The Jorge Mario Bergoglio who became Pope Francis earlier today must be quite accustomed to being the compromise choice, and the least divisive of the […]

Outsiders watching the Catholic Church as it engages in choosing its next leader should be feeling alarmed at the emergence of Cardinal Angelo Scola of […]

Hugo Chavez has been an example of how much a Third World nation can achieve when it takes control of its natural resources from the […]

The double standard on how we treat tax avoidance (leniently) as opposed to how we treat welfare fraud (very harshly) came under the spotlight again […]