Category: Guest Posts
Readers in Hawke’s Bay will soon vote on a proposed five-council amalgamation while readers elsewhere would know of similar proposals for the Wellington region and Northland. This is the case against the Hawke’s Bay proposal that will be voted on from August 24.
Last year, the Ministry for the Environment and the Government Statistician produced a report purporting to show how reducing concentrations of fine particles (PM 10) in the air had improved public health. In March this year the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment commented on this report.
I am pleased to hear that the Department of Conservation is prosecuting Sonny Tau, big man in Northland’s Nga Puhi, for the possession and indeed, so I understand, for the killing of five native wood pigeon or kereru (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae).
The reality is that increased funding during the past 20 to 30 years, in Australia and overseas, has not led to stronger outcomes. What is required is a new model of schooling based on the right balance between competition, choice, autonomy and accountability.
The Trans‐Pacific Partnership has again been in the news, this time because initially President Obama was unable to get Congress to give him authority to fast track negotiations because of revolt within his own party but now because he appears to have overcome that difficulty in the House of Representatives although there is still doubt as to whether the Senate will approve the measure.
This article updates information on the National Government’s highly controversial 2011 Marine and Coastal Area Act, that allows Maori tribal privatisation of the foreshore and seabed, through gaining Customary Marine Title over these priceless resources. The Act is the brainchild of pro-Maori Treaty Claims Minister Christopher Finlayson.
Immigration is in the news all over these days: the US, Canada, Italy, the UK, and now in NZ, with our net immigration running at over 50,000 a year. True, many are Kiwis returning from Australia where employment prospects have diminished in the wake of the mining downturn.
There will always be individuals striving for greater personal power and control over others, at any cost. So when I read that Treaty of Waitangi workshops have been offered to new immigrants for the last 25 years, I’m curious.
Islamic State and al Qa’ida have been competing violently on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria over the last couple of years. However a much more insidious aspect of their enmity involves the competing outreach programmes they have both carefully constructed.
It would be churlish to be entirely negative about Bill English’s seventh Budget. There is merit in increasing the basic benefit level – the first increase in real terms since 1972 – and on the other hand increasing the expectation that those on a benefit will get into at least part-time employment.
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