Articles

While Kate Wilkinson has resigned as Labour Minister, it is clear from the Royal Commission Pike River report that the contributing factors were (a) rooted […]

While the moral epi-centre of Middle Eastern politics continues to be the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, much of the struggle on the ground is still between the […]

It is now just over 20 years since the Employment Contracts Act was passed, and 12 years since its main provisions were overturned. Unfortunately, the […]

For politicians and bureaucrats alike, their readiness to diss the people they rely on to improve education outcomes is a risky leadership tactic. To most […]

One of the interesting things about trade pacts is that while they promote harmony and mutual dependence among the signatories, they’re not regarded quite as […]

Hidden in amongst the usual holiday weekend filler stories – the road toll, the weather, the disgrace of Lance Armstrong etc – was a fascinating […]

So the Act Party and its friends in government have concocted a fresh piece of legislation – aka the Education Amendment Bill 2012 – that […]

If no one owns the water – as then government insists is the case – then what it is doing selling a significant stake in […]

On the face of it, it looks very strange that our government should have jumped to comply with American concerns about the Internet business of […]

While John Key was in Los Angeles wooing the US studio executives at dinner to bring more film projects to New Zealand, a significant piece […]

This week is Mitt Romney’s last chance. And as Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson has pointed out so brilliantly, the real debate in Denver today […]

This sounds cosy. The second inquiry to be launched in the past ten days into the GCSB – this time, into its capabilities, performance and […]

As predicted in yesterday’s column, the restrictions in the Inspector-General’s own guiding legislation have prevented him from reporting adequately on (a) issues of Ministerial responsibility […]

Who watches the watchers? Putting in place effective oversight mechanisms for intelligence agencies is a chronic problem in Western democracies. Given the recent revelations of […]

Well, John Key promised us a different style of government than what we’d had from Helen Clark. No more of that being on top of […]

By the week, the “welfare reforms” of Social Development Minister Paula Bennett are starting to look more like the Cave Creek viewing platform than a […]

See if you can guess the name of the country that the Stratfor think tank is talking about here. Hint: it is a country that […]

One shouldn’t take pleasure in the misfortune of others, but one can always make an exception for Mitt Romney. Romney is now trying to defend […]

Don’t ask, don’t tell. The “gays in the military” strategy that John Key has chosen to adopt with respect to the John Banks Affair is […]

Watching a round of hair pulling and name-calling between journalists is rarely a rewarding sight, so I apologise in advance to anyone of a nervous […]

When governments brag about the jobs their economic policies are creating, the public should regard the figures as being as reliable as a John Banks’ […]

Paula Bennett’s refusal to front up on National Radio this morning and discuss her latest spasm of beneficiary policy is symptomatic of her overall performance […]

Once upon a time, the APEC gathering of nations threatened to become a significant free trade bloc in its own right. Remember the Bogor Goals […]

Jobs, jobs, jobs. Gosh, who would have thought that if you cut government spending and jobs in the teeth of a recession, the economy would […]

Once again, when Parliament went into conscience vote mode last night on a contentious issue, the quality of debate markedly improved – as MPs briefly […]

When it comes to the Waitangi Tribunal ruling on water rights, Prime Minister John Key appears to be balancing midstream on two different logs that […]

Inequality is becoming ingrained in the culture. One of the more interesting ads on television is the long running one where a trio of All […]

Remember when the Law Commission was worried that young women were the prime targets of alcohol industry RTD alcopop advertising and promotion? Remember when the […]

Under its current operating rules, the New Zealand forces in Bamiyan have already been given authority by Cabinet to cross over into neighbouring regions such […]

The killing of three more New Zealand members of our Provincial Reconstruction Team by a roadside bomb in northern Bamiyan would seem to indicate that […]