Category: imported_guest

Most politicians are tribal, they support their political party right or wrong, often in the hope of getting a ministerial job down the line. I never fitted into that category of politicians. For me, policy always came first - that is policy I believed to be in the best interests of New Zealand. Today, I still find it impossible to stay silent...

This article calls on all New Zealanders to be clear-eyed about the state of social services, particularly health, education, welfare and superannuation, and acknowledge that without major changes the system will inevitably collapse under its own weight. No government has had the courage to face up to the fundamental structural flaws of our present system.

A critical issue for universities throughout the Western world, has been an ideological shift away from institutional political neutrality, and a focus on teaching and research excellence, towards the critical social justice politics of diversity, equity, and inclusion. DEI agendas focus mostly on race and gender identity issues and have become oppressive and exclusionary.

Before MACA became law, Finlayson reassured critics that only around 2000km of New Zealand’s 20,000km coastline — or roughly 10 per cent — would end up being under the control of iwi and hapu via customary title. That promise looks to be hollow.

Censorship comes in many forms, some subtle and some not so but the overall effect is the same, some person, or group does not want you to exercise your freedom of choice and speech on a given topic.

Unfortunately yesterday was another example of there being almost no balance in the decision making – another example of New Zealand being handcuffed by unprecedented layers of bureaucracy and red tape.

It is crucial to the administration of justice that all judges approach the cases before them with open minds and setting aside all pre-conceived views and beliefs. Once that corner stone is eroded then our court system rapidly descends to one of patronage, and who you know.

Too often, New Zealand planners and engineers ignore the core requirement to select one of the opposing scenarios and ignore the rest. Instead, they bundle them all together and then base their analysis on the “worst case” of 8.5. Consequently, there is a better than 99% chance that their forecasts will turn out to be completely and expensively wrong.

Given that these partnership claims are devoid of principle, common sense, or any legal basis it is beyond time that our Parliamentarians stopped pandering to such blatant self-serving nonsense.

Many are aware that there are two treaties, an 1840 treaty and a 1986 reinvention, and that people on both sides talking past each other when it comes to treaty politics. But beware of everyone who alleges the coalition government is “rewriting the treaty”. The treaty was quietly rewritten long ago and that rewritten treaty is behind the division that is on display at Waitangi today.