Last Straw

Just a quick word of thanks to all those National and ACT voters out there in NZ, espe­cially those who were in a “mood for change,” because now you’ve got it. A gov­ern­ment of rad­ical right-wingers, many proven untrust­worthy in the 80s and 90s, ready to turn New Zea­l­and upside down and shake. Almost everything I […]

Oh New Zea­l­and, what have you done? Roger Douglas on elec­tion night fan­tas­ising about the man­date he thinks he has: We have to make some changes and there’s going to be a lot of hurt for a lot of people. What a cheek, com­ing from the scoun­drel who lied his way into gov­ern­ment in the eighties, […]

In a rep­res­ent­at­ive demo­cracy it’s not democracy’s pur­pose to pro­duce good gov­ern­ment but to pro­duce rep­res­ent­at­ive gov­ern­ment. While I don’t expect much in the way of demo­cracy from rep­res­ent­at­ive demo­cracy1 enough New Zeal­anders voted against their interests on Sat­urday to elect into gov­ern­ment a mul­ti­mil­lion­aire mer­chant banker Prime Min­is­ter and his self-interested fat cat accom­plices, includ­ing some of those […]

There are a myriad of reas­ons I hope you don’t vote National this Sat­urday, such as their record on selling off the coun­try or their keen­ness to send Kiwi kids off to get killed in illegal wars to curry favour, but if there’s just one reason it’s this: our demo­cracy. National wants to take away […]

No Right Turn on Rod­ney Hide’s recent com­ments about the Maori Party and its poten­tial to influ­ence the next government.