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Gordon Campbell - Latest News [Page 37]
On The Greens' Attempts To Look Like Underdogs
Tuesday, 28 July 2020, 11:02 am | Gordon Campbell
The Green's opposition to homecoming New Zealanders being required to pay about $3,000 towards the cost of their two week Covid-19 quarantine, needs to be seen in the context of the wider battle being waged on the centre-left for the overseas vote. ... More >>
On Using The Army To Soak Up The Covid Unemployed
Monday, 27 July 2020, 10:18 am | Gordon Campbell
Once the government’s wage subsidies run out and the Covid job losses really kick in, there could – conceivably – be a role for the armed forces in soaking up some of the unemployed, especially among Māori. Here, and in other countries, the ... More >>
On Who Really Deserves Sympathy When Stress Makes People Behave Badly
Thursday, 23 July 2020, 10:37 am | Gordon Campbell
Sex always makes people sit up and pay attention to what‘s on the news bulletins. The political circus aside…. Power (not sex) has really been the central element in the scandals that have ended the political careers of Iain Lees- Galloway and ... More >>
On Why High Taxes And Austerity Shouldn’t Ruin The Covid Recovery
Tuesday, 21 July 2020, 9:37 am | Gordon Campbell
Even before you factor in the tendency of National’s caucus to self-implode , Judith Collins should have her work cut out. Somehow, she has to convince the voting public that the world’s most effectively managed response to the Covid-19 crisis ... More >>
On The Mainstream Media’s Romance With Judith Collins
Friday, 17 July 2020, 9:31 am | Gordon Campbell
Crikey. It feels like the media and Judith Collins should just get a room and be done with it. Such has been the commentariat’s love affair with National’s new leader – she’s a “warrior queen” according to one take - that Collins would ... More >>
On National’s Great Leap Backwards
Wednesday, 15 July 2020, 12:10 pm | Gordon Campbell
It isn’t surprising that at the height of its disarray, National should have looked for certainty and picked the least introspective candidate on offer. With Judith Collins, there is absolutely no risk that the leader will suddenly have an angst More >>
On The Todd Muller Resignation
Tuesday, 14 July 2020, 11:24 am | Gordon Campbell
Given the factions within National’s own caucus, anyone picked as the new leader of the National Party will struggle to unify their own troops, let alone to convince the electorate that National is a coherent government-in-waiting. Even all of that ... More >>
On Why Todd Muller Needs To Own The Privacy Leak Scandal
Thursday, 9 July 2020, 11:29 am | Gordon Campbell
Whenever a political scandal breaks, party leaders have two basic options. They can confess to being in boots and all, and try to brazen it out : nothing to see here, move on. This tended to be the John Key approach. Very hard to pull that off ... More >>
On Why We Shouldn’t Be Pushed Into Re-opening Our Borders
Tuesday, 7 July 2020, 2:06 pm | Gordon Campbell
I believe in yesterday as much as Paul McCartney, but it was bemusing to see the amount of media attention lavished last week on the pandemic-related musings by former government science adviser Sir Peter Gluckman, former Prime Minister Helen Clark ... More >>
On The Clark Exit, Convention Centres, And The Killing Of Hachalu Hundessa
Friday, 3 July 2020, 11:30 am | Gordon Campbell
Goodbye, David Clark. In the end, the outgoing Health Minister decided that in the midst of a pandemic the best thing he could do for New Zealand would be to no longer be there – given that being there had involved hiving off on his mountain bike ... More >>
On Why Attack Isn’t Our Best Means Of Cyber-Defence
Wednesday, 1 July 2020, 10:15 am | Gordon Campbell
This morning’s news that the SIS engaged in attacks on the Indian High Commission and Embassy of Iran during the late 1980s/early 1990s should come as no surprise. Down the years, there’s been an Orwellian tendency to depict the role of our spy ... More >>
On The Opaque Workings Of The Royal Commission Into The Mosque Shootings
Monday, 29 June 2020, 11:34 am | Gordon Campbell
As we heard on RNZ this morning, the Moslem community is looking to the Royal Commission of Inquiry Into The Attacks on Christchurch Mosques for answers about the motives of the shooter. And also about and the adequacy of the security services and Police ... More >>
On The Media Collusion With National’s Attack Lines
Friday, 26 June 2020, 10:59 am | Gordon Campbell
For most of the past week, any consumer of this country’s management of Covid-19 would think New Zealand was actually Brazil, or Texas. The media language has been full of claims of “botches” at the border, and laxness and inexcusable errors ... More >>
On Negating Covid-19 Success, And K-pop’s Links With Black Activism
Wednesday, 24 June 2020, 11:20 am | Gordon Campbell
National MP Michael Woodhouse took his party’s credibility to a new low this morning via his inability to prove his claim that a homeless man had managed to freeload for 14 days inside a quarantine hotel in Auckland. Perusal of the CCTV footage has ... More >>
On Managing Covid-19 Better Than The Australians, And The Ellis Case
Monday, 22 June 2020, 2:49 pm | Gordon Campbell
If anything the Covid-19 outbreaks occurring this week in and around Melbourne are a timely reminder of the bullet we dodged by not having a National government in power here. Ever since the onset of the pandemic, National has urged the Ardern government ... More >>
On Why Trump Is Unlikely To Get Re-elected
Friday, 19 June 2020, 11:26 am | Gordon Campbell
So… Is the world likely to have to endure a second term of Donald Trump’s proto-fascist presidency? Probably not, at this point. The opinion polls – both nationally and in some of the states most likely to deliver the Electoral College outcome – are More >>
On The Perils Of Making Damage Control Your Top Priority
Thursday, 18 June 2020, 11:07 am | Gordon Campbell
Surely, the only thing worse than making a serious mistake is to then try and minimise its implications – especially when the efforts at damage control seem highly likely to get shot to pieces. Yet somewhat incredibly, Health Ministry director-general ... More >>
On Labour’s List, And Our Victorian Monuments
Tuesday, 16 June 2020, 10:10 am | Gordon Campbell
We’re currently in the “phoney war” stage of the 2020 election campaign, before the contest begins in earnest. Yesterday’s release of Labour’s party list rankings has already been picked over – and yes, it is extremely odd that we live in a world More >>
On Allowing The Police To Use “Sponge” Bullets
Thursday, 11 June 2020, 2:04 pm | Gordon Campbell
Terminology can be SO important. Back when “non-lethal” bullets were first invented and became part of the weapons array available to US Police, they were called “ rubber bullets” rather than say, “plastic bullets” because “plastic” sounded ... More >>
On Why Women With Opinions Can Be SO Annoying
Wednesday, 10 June 2020, 11:38 am | Gordon Campbell
Good grief. Well, we shouldn’t be all that surprised at National MP Paul Goldsmith and his “ stick to your knitting” comment yesterday. Sexism and the National Party go together like love and marriage and the horse and carriage era to which ... More >>
