I began writing this week’s column on Sunday after the late previous night’s announcement that we Aucklanders had been sentenced to another seven days of home detention because some South Auckland clot couldn’t (or wouldn’t) follow instructions about self-isolation after infection with Covid-19. I hear what
Mea culpa! Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa. In last week’s column, I failed to identify the real virus infecting New Zealand these days. Alongside the diversion of COVID-19, I named climatitis. I called it a virus, when I should have recognised it as a symptom of the underlying virus.
We have a duty to ourselves and those who will come after us to do whatever we can to put the earliest possible stop to the economic and lifestyle carnage that Dr Rod Carr and his Climate Change Commission (CCC) threaten us with in their recent report. The sheer nonsensical
We are currently in the grip of not one but two, virus-like predicaments. One, COVID-19, is very obvious because of the way it is constantly drawn to our attention by our prime minister and her minions, the news (or should that be views) media. COVID-19 is a very real problem
Until this year, for me at least, Waitangi Day has been a time for reflection on the history of our land and its people. But this year it’s been more worrying about where we are heading in the future. Sadly, what I “C” (see) is a concerning and complicated
What we are faced with is not just mindless, irresponsible scaremongering from poseurs in and around Wellington’s Beehive for their nefarious political ends; now we have it in Auckland in what was once hailed as the nation’s No 1 daily newspaper, the New Zealand Herald. There was a
Before setting out her five priorities for her National Party for this year in a “State of the Nation” speech to the Rotary Club of Auckland yesterday, Opposition Leader Judith Collins reflected on why she became a Member of Parliament, and the significance of her nickname, “Crusher”. “As a politician
It’s a breeze to write a weekly column when there’s an obvious topic to address. Not so easy when there isn’t; and, worse still, when you’re faced with not one but two deadlines for essays in differing fields. That was my problem this week: a column
They say three is a lucky number (“third time lucky”, “hat trick”, etc). So how do we feel today as we embark on the early days of the third decade of the third millennium? And what will be our name for this new decade, which follows the “Nuisance Noughties” and
At the beginning of the third decade of the third millennium, we ponder the fate of our country. We ponder our Parliament being forced to declare a dangerously warming state of “climate emergency” as snow and hail dashed the hopes of many South Islanders for a sunny summer run-up to
If there’s one time in the recurring annual cycle of our lives when we ought to turn from despair to welcome hope, it’s Christmas/New Year. And especially so this year, when we end a decade of seemingly endless gloom and look optimistically forward to what we hope
Parliament’s Speaker, Trevor Mallard, has become the subject of intense criticism. It is not just for his false accusation of rape against a Parliamentary staffer or for having the bill for settlement and the associated legal expenses charged to taxpayers. He has also been criticised for the manner in
Global Warming & the Climate Emergency What a week that was! No sooner had Jacinda Ardern bamboozled her Labour Party, the Greens and the Maori Party to vote for a motion claiming a “climate emergency”, than a panel of distinguished international scientists calling themselves The Argonauts published a report showing
Prelude: Wikipedia tells us: “It is verified that Goebbels did put forth a theory which has come to be more commonly associated with the expression “big lie”. Goebbels wrote the following paragraph in an article dated 12 January 1941, 16 years after Hitler’s first use of the phrase. The
Nick Cater, a columnist for The Australian newspaper, has written a biting criticism of New Zealand’s mainstream media in an article commenting on former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd‘s call for a Royal Commission to investigate Australia’s news media for what he (Rudd) alleges is lack of
We now have evidence that will enable National Party spokespeople in Parliament to expose the anti-social and cost-crippling changes that the Green Party wants to inflict on New Zealanders, and I look forward to Oral Questions in Parliament by either or both Barbara Kuriger (energy) and Stuart Smith (climate change)
