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Gordon Campbell - Latest News [Page 21]
On How The Christchurch Call Serves Big Tech
Friday, 7 October 2022, 9:43 am | Gordon Campbell
At this point in 2022, the Christchurch Call looks like a somewhat forlorn effort to keep alive some of the political good will that PM Jacinda Ardern earned from her response to the mosque shootings. Reportedly, the next Christchurch Call project ... More >>
On Student Debt, Policy Turns And The Beths
Wednesday, 5 October 2022, 11:10 am | Gordon Campbell
It is an old point to make… But boomers did get a pretty good deal out of their free education and plentiful unionised vacation jobs. Then they got into power and cut taxes on their own incomes, thus going a long way to denying the same privileges ... More >>
On Why New Zealand Isn’t Heavily Taxed
Monday, 3 October 2022, 12:43 pm | Gordon Campbell
Allegedly, New Zealand is a highly taxed country with a government prone to big spending. Supposedly, that’s why we need to scrap the top tax rate, in order to attract and retain top talent. National’s deputy leader Nicola Willis said exactly ... More >>
On Why Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Thursday, 29 September 2022, 11:47 am | Gordon Campbell
As predicted in this column on Tuesday, the Bank of England has finally intervened to bail Britain out of its self-inflicted economic crisis. The Bank has introduced emergency measures to halt the headlong fall in the British currency triggered by ... More >>
On What Britain’s Tax Cutting Spree Means For Us
Tuesday, 27 September 2022, 10:27 am | Gordon Campbell
Well, that didn’t take long. Briefly, the pageantry of the royal funeral had made Britain look like a world power again. But last Friday’s package of tax cuts and borrowing announced by the UK’s new Chancellor, Kwasi Karteng, has spooked investors, ... More >>
On Ram-raids As A Policy Outcome, Not A Cause
Thursday, 22 September 2022, 3:11 pm | Gordon Campbell
New British PM Liz Truss is giving us a useful foretaste of what a change of government here next year would deliver: tax cuts, welfare reductions, law and order crackdowns, and further handouts to banks. On Friday, the new British Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng ... More >>
On Air New Zealand’s Bumpy Path To Covid Recovery
Wednesday, 21 September 2022, 1:59 pm | Gordon Campbell
Air New Zealand’s new non-stop service to JFK international airport in New York recently received a ton of free publicity, even though the airline's mishandling of passenger baggage on the first New York to Auckland run was also an epic embarrassment. ... More >>
On The Regal Mourning Marathon
Friday, 16 September 2022, 10:32 am | Gordon Campbell
The media coverage of the mourning process for Elizabeth II seems to be as endless as the lines of people waiting patiently to pay their respects. (The British are very good at standing in queues.) New Zealand’s official ten day mourning period ... More >>
On A Fun Summer, With Covid Anxiety
Wednesday, 14 September 2022, 12:01 pm | Gordon Campbell
No more traffic light alert system. No more vaccine mandates, even for those in healthcare. Masks are no longer mandatory in retail outlets or on public transport, and required only in healthcare settings, and for those caring for the sick and elderly. ... More >>
On Being Co-dependent On The Royals
Monday, 12 September 2022, 1:12 pm | Gordon Campbell
For those who do not regard King Charles III as their liege lord, these have been a difficult few days, with the promise of more to come. One of the reasons that republican sentiment has been so absent from the media coverage of the death of Queen Elizabeth ... More >>
On What The Rise Of Liz Truss Signals For Us
Thursday, 8 September 2022, 11:42 am | Gordon Campbell
True, the writing is a bit florid, but the following passages capture a few of the psychological realities that have been dawning for some time: Very few of us realize with conviction the intensely unusual, unstable, complicated, unreliable, temporary ... More >>
On Why Chile’s Experiment In Direct Democracy Failed
Tuesday, 6 September 2022, 10:34 am | Gordon Campbell
In overwhelming numbers yesterday – the “no” vote was 62% - the people of Chile voted to reject a draft Constitution that would have been one of the most progressive national charters in the world, enshrining gender parity and a range of social, indigenous ... More >>
On King Coal’s Comeback, Plus A Music Playlist
Friday, 2 September 2022, 10:55 am | Gordon Campbell
Of late, the news bulletins have been carrying alarming images of extreme flooding in parts of Asia, and extreme drought across Europe. Pakistan has 7,000 glaciers, the largest number in any country outside the polar regions. Those glaciers are melting, ... More >>
On Labour’s Self-inflicted Kiwisaver Disaster
Thursday, 1 September 2022, 10:56 am | Gordon Campbell
In years to come, the Great Kiwisaver Fees Fiasco is going to be taught in schools as a lesson in political mis-management. To put it mildly, the government did not front foot the significant change it was making to require all Kiwisaver providers ... More >>
On The Centre-left's Reluctance To Pursue Radical Options
Tuesday, 30 August 2022, 12:33 pm | Gordon Campbell
The term “Overton Window” was coined by the US political scientist Joseph Overton, and it refers to the policies deemed to be politically acceptable at any given point in time. Overton’s aim was to widen that window. In New Zealand, the window of ... More >>
On Our Paranoid Policies On Immigration
Monday, 29 August 2022, 12:00 pm | Gordon Campbell
If only we could take one tenth of the energy we currently expend on worrying about what Ian Foster’s coaching policies are doing to the All Blacks, and feed it into the national grid. We’d be far better off putting some of that energy into worrying ... More >>
On Appalachian Music, With A Playlist
Thursday, 25 August 2022, 12:10 pm | Gordon Campbell
Around the globe, culture is being homogenised by dominant styles of popular music, spread far and wide by delivery platforms like Tik Tok and Youtube. Even so, regional musics continue to be surprisingly resilient. I’m not just talking about variations ... More >>
On Saying Goodbye To Dr Sharma, And The Monarchy
Wednesday, 24 August 2022, 11:01 am | Gordon Campbell
Dr. Guarav Sharma is now an independent MP. We probably won’t have to wait much longer before we hear he’d be willing to work with a centre-right government in future, should the good people of Hamilton West re-elect him next year. His constituents ... More >>
On Why The State Buying Kiwibank Is No Big Deal
Tuesday, 23 August 2022, 11:18 am | Gordon Campbell
So... The government itself has bought Kiwibank off its current trio of state-related owners (NZ Post, NZ Super Fund and the ACC) in a transaction that valued Kiwibank at $2.1 billion. This paper shuffling exercise will not change the overall value ... More >>
On Why Big Spenders Are Not Our Tourism Salvation
Thursday, 18 August 2022, 9:37 am | Gordon Campbell
Covid and climate change have been changing the face of tourism. That’s why it seemed oddly premature last week for Tourism Minister Stuart to announce that New Zealand isn’t interested in mass tourism any more, or in attracting the sort of ... More >>
