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Gordon Campbell - Latest News [Page 28]
On The Politics Of Hoping For The Best
Tuesday, 9 November 2021, 9:55 am | Gordon Campbell
As the new daily Delta case numbers surge upwards, it is getting harder for the captains of Team Five Million to make decisions that still seem rational in any public health sense. Although we are only at the outset of the re-opening process, the public ... More >>
On The Calls For “Freedom” From Covid Restrictions
Friday, 5 November 2021, 11:55 am | Gordon Campbell
Free markets, free minds, free choices, Freedom Days. In recent years, has any notion in the English language been so overused and so abused as “freedom?” Freedom used to be the rallying cry of the oppressed and the marginalised. Now it is the ... More >>
On The Calls For “freedom” From Covid Restrictions
Friday, 5 November 2021, 11:53 am | Gordon Campbell
Free markets, free minds, free choices, Freedom Days. In recent years, has any notion in the English language been so overused and so abused as “freedom?” Freedom used to be the rallying cry of the oppressed and the marginalised. Now it is the ... More >>
On Why Three Waters Is A Good Idea Worth Supporting
Wednesday, 3 November 2021, 11:29 am | Gordon Campbell
If anyone needs a fresh reminder of the value of state broadcasting, yesterday’s interview about the Three Waters reforms between RNZ’s Kathryn Ryan and Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta provided it. The interview was a stellar example of a crucial ... More >>
On Decoding The COP26 Climate Change Hype
Monday, 1 November 2021, 12:16 pm | Gordon Campbell
Batten down the hatches. Hurricane Blah Blah Blah is about to unload some serious verbiage at the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow, yet the real damage to planetary aspirations will be caused by the tiny word: “net.” That’s because ... More >>
On How AUKUS Undermines Our No-nukes Cred, Plus A Music Playlist
Friday, 29 October 2021, 10:00 am | Gordon Campbell
Yesterday’s media outings by Covid Minister Chris Hipkins demonstrated the contradictory forces at work. First, the government is being slammed for its lack of compassion in its handling of MIQ and for not simply allowing scads of vaccinated incoming Kiwis ... More >>
On Our Weird Ways Of Funding Care For The Dying
Wednesday, 27 October 2021, 10:52 am | Gordon Campbell
National Party leader Judith Collins thinks the government’s traffic light system for emerging from Covid lockdowns is “confusing.” Perhaps she could be looking in the mirror because in recent weeks, National has hardly been a model of crystalline ... More >>
On Why New Zealand Needs To Change Its Defence Habits
Friday, 22 October 2021, 10:09 am | Gordon Campbell
In a flashback to the military displays of days gone by, one of our frigates recently joined a Carrier Strike show of force in the South China Sea, en route to a joint military exercise in Singapore with our traditional allies, called BersamaGold21. ... More >>
On Juggling Covid, And France’s Trump-like Populist
Wednesday, 20 October 2021, 9:55 am | Gordon Campbell
It is the age-old Covid problem. How to balance the needs for firms (and schools) to re-open against the need to protect public health. In the past, the balance has been struck by insisting that the best public health outcomes also deliver the best ... More >>
On The Perils Of Declaring Premature Victory
Monday, 18 October 2021, 11:03 am | Gordon Campbell
Sure enough, Saturday’s Vaxathon was a barrel of fun and a throwback not merely to the Telethons of the past. It also revived memories of those distant days of early 2020, when we were all carefully wiping down our groceries, not touching ... More >>
On The Epic Fails Of Kris Faafoi
Thursday, 14 October 2021, 11:23 am | Gordon Campbell
Ever since Winston Peters first breathed life into this government in 2018, its own branding has been all about social justice and how we all need to be “kind” to each other. Somehow, Kris Faafoi must have missed the memo. His performance in ... More >>
On Covid Mandates, And The Covid Pill
Tuesday, 12 October 2021, 10:30 am | Gordon Campbell
The cliché about “living with Covid” will not mean life as we’ve known it, Jim. Vaccination is fast becoming a condition of employment, and also a requirement to participate in aspects of social life, such as travel, attending bars, cafes, ... More >>
On Korea’s March To Global Cultural Domination, Plus A K-pop Playlist
Thursday, 7 October 2021, 12:18 pm | Gordon Campbell
So far, South Korea’s culture industries seem to be pandemic proof. They’re also winning huge global audiences, and not merely large domestic ones. In recent years, South Korea’s TV series (Squid Game, Descendants of The Sun) and movies ... More >>
On The Civil War (and Looming Famine) In Ethiopia
Wednesday, 6 October 2021, 9:15 am | Gordon Campbell
When the United Nations wheels out its toughest language – Yemen in 2017 was /is“the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe” and (this week) the crisis in Ethiopia “ is a stain on our conscience” this is code. Yes, the United Nations is saying ... More >>
On Lifting The Lockdowns, And The Covid Pill
Tuesday, 5 October 2021, 11:33 am | Gordon Campbell
One can sympathise with firms struggling under the financial stress caused by Covid restrictions. Yet business (and other critics)appear to be demanding that the government produce a plan for re-opening that will still somehow (a) control the virus at a ... More >>
On National’s Covid Re-opening Plan
Thursday, 30 September 2021, 11:46 am | Gordon Campbell
After banging for what has seemed an eternity about how the government doesn’t have a plan for removing restrictions and re-opening the country, National’s own re-opening “plan” unveiled yesterday was always likely to be an anti-climax. More >>
On Living In Seymour World
Wednesday, 29 September 2021, 10:20 am | Gordon Campbell
So far, the horse race journalism surrounding the polling rise of the Act Party has not included much consideration of the policies an Act -influenced government would pursue. During this honeymoon phase – giddily, David Seymour is being asked ... More >>
On Covid Vaccine Inequality, Plus Cowboy Bebop
Monday, 27 September 2021, 11:25 am | Gordon Campbell
Plainly, the Big Pharma model – where vaccine development, distribution, and pricing is left in the hands of the private sector - is not fit for purpose when it comes to meeting the global challenge of Covid vaccine coverage. Last week, Amnesty International ... More >>
On Canada’s Election, And The AUKUS Defence Pact
Wednesday, 22 September 2021, 1:39 pm | Gordon Campbell
Yesterday, Canada held an election in which everyone lost, including the voters. After holding its most expensive ( $C600 million) election campaign ever, the result was Groundhog Day, with the five main parties getting almost exactly the same number ... More >>
On the Great Covid Mask Debate, plus a music playlist
Tuesday, 21 September 2021, 10:10 am | Gordon Campbell
Ay caramba. Only yesterday, Otago University epidemiologist Dr Nick Wilson was still feeling it necessary to suggest that the government should maybe make mask-wearing compulsory, in the likes of schools and workplaces. The chronic official reluctance ... More >>
