There has been a lot of criticism recently of moteliers making money out of the government’s current scheme to house homeless people in motels. It is quite clear that some moteliers have been doing rather well out of it, but I am not exactly sure why the media is
I have been driving around Wellington in the last couple of days. Traffic is abysmal, as usual. Stop start, stop start… but there are billboards all over the place advertising the Ru Paul show. Tell me, New Zealanders… do you really think, in the middle of a pandemic, it was
Pictures of Green MPs wearing scarves supporting Palestinians abound this week, after the terrorist group Hamas committed war crimes in their extreme terror attacks on Israel and Jewish Israeli citizens. It never seems to occur to them that the Palestinians committing the attacks are terrorists and the aggressors in these
Let us just imagine for one moment, if the Vikings, who left Scandinavia during the Dark Ages and travelled to a number of countries, pillaging and conquering wherever they went, had never integrated into the societies that they conquered. Where would we be, 1,400 years on, if they had
My husband has listened to Radio New Zealand (RNZ) for as long as I can remember. He also listens to the BBC World News. He still listens to RNZ, but I have noticed that nowadays, he seems to listen more and more to the Concert programme. I know the reason
Last Friday’s Face of the Day, Mark Dunajtschik, got me thinking. This is the man building and donating Wellington’s new children’s hospital. Dunajtschik, a property developer of considerable experience, and a philanthropist as well, expressed his surprise that NZTA (Waka Kotahi, which literally translates to ‘One Canoe’
My father always used to think that everyone in New Zealand wore grass skirts and threw spears. He wasn’t joking. That was the view often presented to the world when royalty or dignitaries came here. He had a clear memory of the Prince and Princess of Wales in a
I wish to make something clear from the start. I don’t care what people want to call themselves. It is a matter of personal choice, even if some of us think these choices are strange. ‘Siouxsie’ Wiles is a good example. She obviously wants to be different – and her
A MYOB poll of 401 small to medium businesses has shown that Labour is now the preferred party of SMEs, with 38% favouring Labour and 35% supporting National. A further 5% voted ACT, while 3% supported the Greens. So overall, most businesses favour the left bloc over the right bloc,
It is extremely troubling when you feel that April Fool’s is no longer relevant, as things that happen on a daily basis make the average April Fool’s joke look fairly bland. The biggest April Fool’s joke of course was Siouxsie Wiles winning New Zealander of the Year.
Sometimes, the things that senior members of this government do not understand are frightening. Thus it was last week when Jacinda Ardern and even Grant Robertson described the ability for investment property owners to claim deductions for mortgage interest as a ‘loophole’. Tax loopholes are things that inadvertently allow taxpayers
For reasons I have never been able to figure out, this government is determined to destroy private landlords, even though the outcome will be to make life even harder for renters. The latest measures for property investors are the most far-reaching ever. First of all, Grant Robertson has increased the
I have lived in the Greater Wellington region since 1984. I’ve always liked Wellington city. It is a compact city with good nightlife, theatres, restaurants, bars and cafes and generally a very good vibe. When I was younger, I used to go into the city at night quite often
I read David Farrar’s article on the above subject with interest. I am one of those people who is probably classed as ‘resistant’ to embracing the use of te reo, and its accelerated prominence in our lives, but the article gave me an opportunity to examine my reasons why.
I used to frequent a restaurant and bar in Petone that always insisted on taking a credit card before they would serve customers with anything more than a glass of water. They were the only local establishment to do this, and it rankled a bit. Obviously, the operators had experienced
