I can’t help feeling that the economic tsunami (to misquote Chris Hipkins) is swirling around below the surface just waiting to erupt sometime soon, but it just hasn’t quite got there yet. Whether or not it will finally show itself before the election is anyone’s guess. That
Thank you, Richard Prebble, for the above title. I have been thinking too, although about different things from you. Life in the Time of COVID (with thanks to Gabriel Garcia-Marquez) makes things very interesting, but the government’s daily briefings, like something out of 1984, do beget more questions than
We don’t know much about the South Auckland family at the centre of the latest COVID outbreak, except that they are of Pacific Island descent. This is hardly a surprise in South Auckland, where a large part of the Pacific Island and Maori communities reside. But their ethnicity is
I have just come back from the supermarket, in a South Island town that never had a single case of COVID the first time around, let alone now. This is my first trip since the second phase of the new normal started on Wednesday. There was no queuing outside. There
This was going to be a boring little article about the government’s new rules about provisional tax penalties. I was going to recommend you read it after 11.00 tonight, particularly if you are having trouble sleeping. But I am going to have to leave that for another day
Watching the TV1 News on Thursday night, there was the inevitable article about Oranga Tamariki and how evil they are for taking children away from their deadbeat parents. The Ombudsman’s report on the agency was typically damaging; Oranga Tamariki have a default position on snatching babies away from parents,
The government told us that we didn’t need to wear masks so most of us didn’t. Being friendly with a number of health professionals, I was told that there is not much point in wearing a mask anyway unless they are proper surgical masks and properly fitted. Their
I am no statistician. Ask anyone who knows me. Statistics was the only paper I struggled with when studying accountancy. But when I heard yesterday that the unemployment figures for the June 2020 quarter had actually fallen to 4%, I decided that the old adage is true. There are most
I confess. I am a landlord. There, I have said it. I need a support group. Actually, all landlords need a support group, because the government has the Residential Tenancies Amendment Act in front of the House at the moment. If passed, it will make life harder than ever for
There was a lot to admire about the Australasian banks during the GFC. While the USA had its Freddie Macs and Fannie Maes, and the Bank of Scotland just about went broke, the banks in Australia and New Zealand never faltered. They had never really joined in the global party
Now that we have had a more realistic political poll from Colmar Brunton, we can start to see the lie of the land regarding the upcoming election. Labour has a clear lead at 53. National is on 32. ACT is on 5%, and looks like it might hold it. NZ
I didn’t cover this subject yesterday because I was sure one of our other esteemed writers would do it and was surprised to find that no one did. I guess we are all so accustomed to this government making promises they don’t keep that we find the latest
It seems that the National party is the only political party that is taking any notice of the fact that thousands of people are losing their jobs. By the time the election comes around, there will be many more redundancies and the government, still concentrating on the health perspectives of
Who votes for these people? The Greens, discussing their taxation policy on TVNZ, are actually quoted as saying “Tax Is Love”. Marama Davidson actually said that. I seriously wonder what planet she is on; this type of campaigning is likely to be a big turn-off for voters, even some Green
For once, I agree with Verity Johnson. Her latest article brings out some unfortunate truths for young men and women in the modern world. The article is founded, of course, on Andrew Falloon’s disgraceful behaviour this week, sending unsolicited pornographic images to young women. No, let us call it
I have been thinking about cliches a bit recently, having read bygeorge’s excellent articles on the subject, but watching Winston use his parliamentary privilege to accuse a whole new raft of people of invading his privacy over his superannuation overpayments three years ago, the obvious cliche comes to mind.
