Category: imported_guest

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The Hopeless Election

I can say without hesitation that this was the worst election I have known in my sixty years of election watching. A seemingly insuperable lead of over 20% disappeared as blunder after blunder was made by our supposed team of brilliant strategists.


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Farewell to the Paris Accords

The Trump administration has bit the bullet, and to the outraged dismay of the political left has withdrawn from the Paris accords. That agreement, which went into effect on November 4, 2016, just days before Donald Trump’s election is a complex affair in which the United States made the key “voluntary” commitment to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions in the next decade by about a quarter of their 2005 rate, with further reductions to come thereafter.


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Depriving teachers of their democratic rights as citizens

Professional people have a ‘public’ life as working professionals, and a ‘private’ life as ordinary citizens. This may occasionally lead to inner conflict. The nurse who does not believe in vaccination may find herself pumping vaccines into thousands of children as part of a mass vaccination campaign...


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Inside Budget 2017

The National Government has produced a measured and politically clever Budget. Where this budget differs from its previous budgets is that it has opened its wallet and distributed the benefits of eight years of conservative management and the increased tax revenue derived from a very strong domestic economy in recent years.


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Trump's Tax Plan

The Trump administration has revealed a one-page tax plan that, if implemented, could have vast consequences for the economy of the United States. The high points of that plan are simplification and repeal. The brackets go down from seven to three - 10%, 15%, 35%. Corporate tax rates are slashed from 35% to 15%.


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There's More than One Way to Skin a Cat

If we were in any doubt that the education system is a powerful force in national politics and cultural values, the Education Council is obliterating that. New Zealanders have repeatedly expressed no appetite for constitutional reform, co-governance, compulsory te reo or a new flag, so now the activists are taking matters into their own hands to entrench their power over our minds.


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Will the 2011 MACA Act now start stealing our beaches?

It is now over six years since the racist Marine and Coastal Area (MACA for short) Act came into force. So far.it has proved very difficult for Maori tribal groups to obtain ownership of the foreshore and seabed, with only one highly unusual case qualifying so far.


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Reflections from the ends of the earth

New Zealand’s current international claim to fame seems to be as a preferred location for billionaires escaping from the US. Physical isolation has long been an economic challenge for New Zealand, but it turns out that there are benefits from being in Middle Earth, far away from Washington DC, Brexit, and North Korean missiles.


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What Value Fresh Water?

This question of charging for the use of fresh water has recently appeared in the news media and on the political radar apparently generated by opposition to proposals to export fresh water so before turning to the question of the charging for fresh water it is convenient to dispose of the controversy surrounding the export of water. It is a red herring.


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Freedom of speech in New Zealand's universities under attack

A plea for free speech in our universities might seem about as unnecessary as a demand that all people be treated equally under the law. After all, the Education Act asserts clearly the right of academics to speak as critics and consciences of society – supposedly securing universities as bastions of independent thought and open expression.