Gordon Campbell On The Ferries Fiasco, Soft Power And Gaza
Good to hear someone calling “bullshit” on Winston Peters, and on his claims to have saved the taxpayer $2.3 billion on the Cook Strait ferries. […]
Economic Policy
Gordon Campbell On Asset Sales, And Targeting The Homeless
So asset sales are back on the agenda, and will be dependent only on the coalition government getting re-elected next year. Yikes. Right wing governments […]
Gordon Campbell On Mamdani, And How The Luxon Government Is Expanding The Powers Of The State
First, some good news. Zohran Mamdani has won the mayoral race in New York and as the prophet Leonard Cohen once said, taking Manhattan is […]
Gordon Campbell On How Rich People Feel Affronted By A Capital Gains Tax
But first…the “shock and awe” tactics being deployed by the government against the teaching profession are extensive. They include ramming through rushed and comprehensive curriculum […]
Gordon Campbell On Labour’s CGT, The Government’s Mean Spirit, And Timor-Leste’s Future
Finally, Labour has released its capital gains tax policy. Labour’s CGT would levy a 28% tax on sales of commercial properties and investment housing, and […]
Gordon Campbell On Our Tanking Economy, And US Vigilante Justice
Imagine your house has a plumbing problem. A plumbing firm tendering for the job assures you that hey, no problem they can fix it, so […]
Gordon Campbell On Luxon Advising Young People To Get Out While They Still Can
If anyone under 35 still had mixed feelings about leaving New Zealand to build a future elsewhere, PM Christopher Luxon probably sealed the deal this […]
Gordon Campbell On The Social Media Ban For Young Kids
Young people have been going to the dogs ever since oh, 1912. The proposed social media ban for under 16 year olds (14 years is […]
Gordon Campbell On Our Recognition Of Palestine, And Those $70 Million Concert Subsidies
Thankfully, the end is in sight for the government’s dance of the seven veils over recognising the state of Palestine, and for Labour’s rampant indecision […]
Gordon Campbell On The Phillips Kids And Why It’s OK To Not Mourn Charlie Kirk
No bread, all circuses. Allegedly, the cupboard is bare when it comes to putting extra money on the table to offer nurses, teachers and junior […]
Gordon Campbell On Playing Performative Politics While The Economy (And The Public Health System) Burns
As the old saying goes, “With your eyes, you enter the world. But with your ears, the world enters you.” This may explain why hearing […]
Gordon Campbell On The Decline Of Winston Peters, And The Attacks On Helen Clark
As usual, last weekend’s New Zealand First conference in Palmerston North was very much about the Dear Leader. Alas, and like many other gentlemen of […]
Gordon Campbell On Why Data Centres Are Not Your (Or The Planet’s) Friend
It sounds too good to be true. A giant multinational mothership – Amazon Web Services aka AWS – it supposedly intent on spending $7.5 billion […]
Gordon Campbell On Why The Government Isn’t Fixing The Cost Of Living Crisis
These are the perennial political questions that every incumbent government has to face. Do people feel better/wealthier/more secure now than they were three years ago? […]
Gordon Campbell On Teachers, Ferries And The Really Wasteful Spending
In the context of yesterday’s teachers strike, Judith Collins claimed that teachers with ten years of experience “can” (not “do”) earn $147,000 a year. In […]
Gordon Campbell On A Clueless Government Running A Jobless Economy
One of the whoppers told regularly by Nicola Willis and Christopher Luxon is that National inherited a terrible, no good economy from Labour, with rampant […]
Gordon Campbell On The Perils Of Trading With Trump
Luxon did protest too much on the weekend. Sure, the credulous party faithful were willing to believe him as he continued to lay the blame […]
Gordon Campbell On The Costs Of Regulating Cost, And Burkina Faso As A Role Model
Funny how “blow-out” gets so readily applied to cost escalation in the provision of public services (hospital rebuilds, the Cook Strait ferries) but when politicians […]
Gordon Campbell On Ducking The Costs Of Climate Change
Looking for consistency in all things is said to be the hallmark of a small mind. Duly noted, but the Luxon government’s stance on climate […]
Gordon Campbell On Why The Regulatory Standards Bill Is A Hot Mess
When the politician pushing a controversial piece of legislation starts accusing his critics of “derangement syndrome” – as David Seymour has done this week – […]
Gordon Campbell On Using The Tax System To Boost Funding For The Arts
Despite the myriad concerns being expressed about the Regulatory Standards Bill – including misgivings by his own Regulations Ministry and scorn from constitutional law expert […]
Gordon Campbell on why prescription fees are no way to fund cancer drugs
Who is this Christopher Luxon fellow, really? Over the past two years, we have had so many invitations to find the pearl in the oyster. […]
Gordon Campbell on the centre-right’s credibility problems
Supposedly, people get the governments they deserve, but what on earth did we do in our past lives to deserve an Opposition as shambolic as […]
Gordon Campbell on the fictions about reckless government spending
Yesterday, the Treasury’s pre-election portrait was significantly out of whack with National’s repeated claims of rampant government mis-management of the economy. Instead, it seems that […]
Gordon Campbell on National’s tax cuts
Since tax cuts are never a free lunch, collecting the revenue to pay for them was always going to be the credibility test of National’s […]
Gordon Campbell on childcare as an election bribe
Down the years, centre-right parties have always found male voters to be receptive to a mix of hard-line economic politics and harsh stances on welfare. […]
Gordon Campbell on National’s selling of its “social investment” policy
There’s a 19th century flavour to National’s “social investment” strategy, in that it aims to seek capital from philanthropists and charitable organisations – some of […]
Gordon Campbell on student debt, policy turns and the Beths
It is an old point to make… But boomers did get a pretty good deal out of their free education and plentiful unionised vacation jobs. […]
Gordon Campbell on Luxon’s second-hand clothes
According to National’s leader Christopher Luxon and the fawning media coverage of the caucus gathering in Queenstown, its “game on!” Not a great metaphor, folks. […]
Gordon Campbell on the dubious wisdom of raising interest rates
During the last half of the 1990s, the first flickering signs of economic growth would cause then-Reserve Bank governor Don Brash to hike up interest […]