Gordon Campbell On The Rise Of Simeon Brown
Yesterday’s demotion of Shane Reti was inevitable. Reti’s attempt at a re-assuring bedside manner always did have a limited shelf life, and he would have […]
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Gordon Campbell On More Threats To Democracy From David Seymour
Early reports indicate that the temporary Israel/Hamas ceasefire deal (due to take effect on Sunday) will allow for the gradual release of groups of Israeli […]
Gordon Campbell On The History Of Doo Wop Music
The decade between 1952 and the early 1960s was the peak period for the style of music we now call doo wop, after which it […]
Gordon Campbell On Justin Trudeau’s Demise, In A Global Context
Canadians can take a while to get angry – but when they finally do, watch out. Canada has been falling out of love with Justin […]
Gordon Campbell On Why We Can’t Survive Two More Years Of This
Remember those silent movies where the heroine is tied to the railway tracks or going over the waterfall in a barrel? Finance Minister Nicola Willis […]
Gordon Campbell On The Coalition’s Empty Gestures, And Abortion Refusal As The New Slavery
This whooping cough story from south Auckland is a good example of the coalition government’s approach to social need – spend money on urging people […]
Gordon Campbell On The Latest Round Of Ferry Follies
The scorned iRex option would have entered service in 2026. Thanks to Finance Minister Nicola Willis, there will now be a three year delay until […]
Gordon Campbell on the government’s ongoing ferries disaster
I wouldn’t have picked Nicola Willis to be a big AC/DC fan, but “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” must have been the theme song for […]
Gordon Campbell on the fall of Assad, and the new Dylan movie
Hold the champagne. Ugly and brutal as it was, the Assad regime may have been the lesser evil for Syria, the Middle East region and […]
Gordon Campbell On How Slavishly This Government Is Serving Its Corporate Donors
For much of 2024, centre stage has been taken by (a) the government’s relentless attacks on all forms of Māori empowerment and (b) by the […]
Gordon Campbell On Why An AUKUS Led By Trump Is A Scary Prospect
According to Social Development Minister Louise Upton her latest crackdown on the unemployed is just “common sense.” Oh, really. Upston is threatening to reduce or […]
Gordon Campbell on the Royal Commission’s fine-tuning of vaccine mandates and lockdowns
Let’s hope politicians of all stripes can agree to limit their urge to politicise the Royal Commission of Inquiry findings about the Covid response. Since […]
Gordon Campbell on what’s wrong with the Treaty Principles Bill
It has taken until 2024, but even the All Blacks now recognise that Māori are the tangata whenua of this country. There is no consensus […]
Gordon Campbell On The Hikoi Aftermath
The euphoria from yesterday’s hikoi may be transitory, but is no less valuable for that. It is pretty rare for the left to feel itself […]
Gordon Campbell On The Hikoi Arrival, And Tyler Childers
Politicians like to bang on all about the need to heal society’s racial/economic divisions, but in their actions they’re more keen on stoking those divisions, […]
Gordon Campbell on the folly of making apologies in a social vacuum.
Day One of the Treaty Principles Bill…and everyone got what they wanted, and did what they liked. Heated words were exchanged. Culturally appropriate acts of […]
Gordon Campbell on the Crown’s sorry excuse for an apology
The world over, politicians are finding “sorry” to be the easiest word. Without disclosing the size and formula of the monetary compensation that the government […]
Gordon Campbell on abortion’s role in the US election
Yesterday, America moved decisively to the right not only politically, but socially and economically. This rightwards shift was evident not merely in the red states […]
Gordon Campbell On US Voter Suppression, Plus The Races To Watch
On Wednesday evening, as our television relays images of long lines of people queuing to vote, keep this in mind: since 2012, America has closed […]
Gordon Campbell on America’s fear of foreigners
Mike King’s latest comments about the relationship between alcohol and mental health – according to King, alcohol does more good than harm – raises red […]
Gordon Campbell on why so many young males like Donald Trump
To foreigners, the fact that so many millions of Americans are buying the used and poisonous goods that Donald Trump is selling is an unfathomable […]
Gordon Campbell on dissing Wellington, and Porridge Radio
National has never forgiven Wellington – or its public servants – for voting for Labour and the Greens. (Red-blooded Kiwis work in the private sector.) […]
Gordon Campbell on the Three Strikes cycle of failure
We all know the “tough on crime” approach is only a stop gap measure at best, and that a justice model based on incarceration doesn’t […]
Gordon Campbell on the language of healthcare, and Mink DeVille
So far, the Great Multi-lingual Healthcare Crisis has passed by without any damage to life, or to limbs. To date, no-one appears to have mistaken […]
Gordon Campbell on Conservative ghosts, Holly Arrowsmith and Fazerdaze
Clearly, Israel is intent on de-populating Gaza for Israeli re-settlement, and is using military force as a form of state terrorism to depopulate swathes of […]
Gordon Campbell On Luxon Living In Denial About His Privilege
In the same week that food banks have been forced to close for lack of government support, Auditor-General John Ryan has slammed the process by […]
Gordon Campbell on The Coalition’s Fast-tracked Speed Dates With Property Developers
On the weekend, Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop admitted that not everyone will “like” his fast track wish-list, before adding: “We are a government that does […]
Gordon Campbell on the perils of Israel’s war fever
Israel seems on the brink of achieving the war with Iran that Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying all year to provoke. Until now, Iran had […]
Gordon Campbell on the Dunedin hospital fiasco
The word “blow-out” is such a politically loaded term. It carries a strong whiff of extravagance and incompetence. In fact, and with public health budgets […]
On The Government’s Bizarre Hostility To A Capital Gains Tax
Oyez oyez, CEO Antonia Watson, CEO of the biggest bank in New Zealand has come out in favour of a capital gains tax! Actually, this is not a daring new idea. Over the past three decades the IMF, the World Bank, the expert Tax Working Group and most mainstream economists have all treated our lack of a capital gains tax as a globally unusual flaw in our tax system, and harmful to this country’s prosperity.