Archive for February, 2012
Tuesday, February 28th, 2012
We’ve all become more politically literate the hard way over the last couple of decades. The words “efficient” and “greater efficiency” for instance, has been forced into service so many times that’s they’re now a genuine alarm signal – a crutch for politicians seeking to replace a ...
Posted in Articles | 32 Comments »
Monday, February 27th, 2012
In its last suicidal spasm this morning, the Australian Labor Party caucus seems certain to choose Julia Gillard to lead it to annihilation at the next election. True to form, Gillard and her supporters have been blaming almost all their failures of the last two years on challenger Kevin Rudd, ...
Posted in Articles | 1 Comment »
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
For many people, Kiwirail’s decision to buy 500 flat top wagons from manufacturers in China instead of building them at Hillside workshops in Dunedin was a classic case of New Zealand chasing short term cost savings from overseas providers at the expense of many local jobs, the development of manufacturing ...
Posted in Articles | 10 Comments »
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
Iran’s rulers preside over one of the most thuggish, repressive regimes on the planet, but the West’s apparent readiness to go to war over Iran’s nuclear programme is a hair-raising over-reaction. Somehow, the nuclear club that can regard its own ownership of such weapons as being right and proper, and ...
Posted in Articles | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, February 21st, 2012
At yesterday’s post-Cabinet press conference, Prime Minister John Key indicated that the government is waiting for a Crown law office opinion on Justice Forrest Miller’s High Court ruling on the approval process for the Crafar Farms deal with the Chinese, before deciding on its next step. Like most observers, Key ...
Posted in Articles | 7 Comments »
Monday, February 20th, 2012
The weekend protests about Housing New Zealand’s Tamaki Transformation programme (which aims to relocate residents of 156 state house to make way for a mix of state owned and privately owned housing) are merely the tip of the iceberg of Auckland’s shortage of affordable housing – which is set to ...
Posted in Articles | 8 Comments »
Friday, February 17th, 2012
Click for big version.
Way back at the start of this week, the government was in deep trouble on at least three fronts. First, came the bombshell court ruling that Ministers had been mistakenly advised to accept the Chinese bid for Crafar farms. Secondly, Finance Minister Bill English hinted publicly that ...
Posted in Articles | 10 Comments »
Thursday, February 16th, 2012
Clearly, even when you’ve got a rubber stamp, the rubber can still fall off the stamp. That’s what happened yesterday to the Overseas Investment Office. Its recommendation to ministers that the government should accept the Chinese bid for the Crafar farms was overturned by the High Court - after a ...
Posted in Articles | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
Chances are, scrapping the system of trial by jury is not the top priority for most New Zealanders. Not many of us woke up this morning and felt dead keen on dumping our centuries-old right to be tried by a jury of our peers, while yearning to adopt the French ...
Posted in Articles | 2 Comments »
Monday, February 13th, 2012
So far, the fighting in Syria has largely been limited to its smaller cities – Homs in particular. Aside from a few isolated incidents the revolt has not yet spread to major cities such as Aleppo and Damascus. All the same, as Syria expert Joshua Landis of the University ...
Posted in Articles | 3 Comments »
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