Gordon Campbell on the Greens, and on free market myopia
Climate change has gone from being one of those allegedly wacky Green ideas to wide mainstream acceptance. In their own ways, leaders like Jeanette Fitzsimons, […]
Economy
Gordon Campbell on the trade deal with the Europeans
We’ve grown so used to thinking the “we punch above our weight” cliché is real that the shortcomings in our free trade deal with the […]
Gordon Campbell on the Penny Wong visit
Good grief. Has foreign policy commentary really devolved to the point where our diplomatic effort is being measured by how many overseas trips have been […]
Gordon Campbell on Sinai, where it suits us to waive international treaties
Farmers are currently enjoying the highest prices and payouts in the history of this country. They will never be better placed to acknowledge that their […]
Gordon Campbell on why nurses are our prime export to Australia
That giant sucking noise is the sound of the jobs of our nurses, doctors, and midwives being vacuumed up by medical recruiters from New South […]
Gordon Campbell on regulating guns and supermarkets
Thanks to decades of free market zealots opposed on principle to sensible regulation… We’re now faced with a supermarket duopoly so entrenched that any prospective […]
Gordon Campbell on Budget 2022
At base, the political biffo back and forth on the merits of Budget 2022 comes down to only one thing. Who is the better manager […]
Gordon Campbell on the Emissions Reduction Plan non-event
Clearly, the attempt to take the politics out of climate change has itself been a political decision, and one meant to remove much of the […]
Gordon Campbell On Political Can-kicking, And The“ Louie Louie” Saga
One of the more infuriating aspects of the current political debate is the way the National Party says it would be more rigorous, and more […]
Gordon Campbell on Ukraine virtue signalling, and our inflation spike
Inflation at 6.9% is a bad sign of the rising cost of living, and hidden within the headline numbers are some even grislier figures. As […]
Gordon Campbell on good riddance to the America’s Cup
So the America’s Cup defence is off to Barcelona. Supposedly, if you could drill a hole through Auckland to the other side of the world, […]
Gordon Campbell on Christopher Luxon’s trashing of the poor
For years, Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop have been routinely described as belonging to the “liberal” wing of the National Party, as if National is […]
Gordon Campbell on Luxon’s “cost of living crisis” gambit
Clearly, no-one should underestimate the political pulling power of a suit offering tax cuts. Last week’s rise of Christopher Luxon and the National Party in […]
Gordon Campbell On Supermarket Rip-offs
If you make the land available, they will come. The cargo cult thinking behind the key recommendation of the Commerce Commission’s final report into the […]
Gordon Campbell on Luxon’s tired tax plan
Like a broken record, National Party leader Christopher Luxon is offering a 40 year old formula of tax cuts that (inevitably) will be paid for […]
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 our local responses to the global problems of inflation
In the United Kingdom, inflation is running at its highest rate in 30 years. In the US, inflation hit 7% during 2021. You wouldn’t want […]
Gordon Campbell on fostering the culture of Covid complaint
Success can be its own worst enemy. If the plane doesn’t crash or the ship doesn’t sink, that doesn’t prove the safety measures were unnecessary, […]
Gordon Campbell on Korea’s global cultural domination, plus a K-pop playlist
So far, South Korea’s culture industries seem to be pandemic proof. They’re also winning huge global audiences, and not merely large domestic ones. In recent […]
Gordon Campbell on Labour’s cave-in to the business lobbies
At a time when New South Wales is in crisis over the Delta variant, it seems bizarre that our government is willing to risk heading […]
Gordon Campbell on the supermarket scam, and on Tunisia’s scrapping of democracy
Are we paying too much for our groceries? Hmm. Is the Pope a Catholic? Given that the two Australian supermarket chains that dominate our grocery […]
Gordon Campbell On Britain’s Pathetic Trade Deal With Australia
So much for those assurances that New Zealand would be the first cab off the rank for any post -Brexit trade deal with the United […]
Gordon Campbell on why it’s getting harder to walk the tightrope between China and the US
This morning, China announced it is changing its “two child” family limit to a “three child” policy. This looks like a desperate attempt to fix […]
On Budget 2021’s successes and failures
In some realms of the centre-right, Budget 2021 has been portrayed as a “peak Labour” exercise in which the government has veered sharply leftwards in […]
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 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 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 that $4 billion hit to National’s economic cred
National released its economic and tax policy last Friday. Weirdly, the plan was announced right at the end of the news week, when whatever impact […]
Gordon Campbell on tourism’s endless sense of grievance
Sad that a once in a century pandemic should have come along before the government had a clearly thought out plan for rescuing all the […]