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Gordon Campbell - Latest News [Page 5]
On The Foreign Buyers Tax, And Attack Ads
Tuesday, 5 September 2023, 12:30 pm | Gordon Campbell
It has now been six days since National unveiled its tax plan – eons ago in the 24/7 news cycle – but the credibility problem with it just won’t go away. Tax cuts are never a free lunch. The revenue for them has to come from somewhere. It ... More >>
On National’s Tax Cuts
Thursday, 31 August 2023, 11:47 am | Gordon Campbell
Since tax cuts are never a free lunch, collecting the revenue to pay for them was always going to be the credibility test of National’s tax cuts package. For that reason, most people would have assumed Inland Revenue would be included alongside ... More >>
On Using Contractors As An Election Bogey
Tuesday, 29 August 2023, 11:58 am | Gordon Campbell
The demonising of consultants and contractors in the public service assumes that their functions can readily be added to the work burdens of the existing permanent public sector staff without there being any cuts to the range or the quality of social ... More >>
Gordon Campbell On Pharmaceutical Access, And FIFA Women’s Football Economics
Thursday, 24 August 2023, 10:50 am | Gordon Campbell
Who knew that prescription fees would become such a litmus test of political morality? Earlier this year, Labour scrapped prescription fees, in order to make medicine more affordable to people struggling to stay healthy during a cost of living crisis. At ... More >>
Gordon Campbell On The FIFA Women’s Football, And Teaching Kids About Finance
Monday, 21 August 2023, 3:59 pm | Gordon Campbell
Apparently, Labour and National are agreed on the desirability of teaching financial literacy to kids in the classroom. While it's hard to argue on principle against students learning more about the financial system, the idea that this can be separated ... More >>
On Why China Isn’t A Real Military Threat
Friday, 18 August 2023, 10:21 am | Gordon Campbell
Not that anyone would know it, but there has been quite a massive spendup on Defence since 2017 by the Labour government. The big ticket items have included roughly $3 billion to buy, equip, house and operate the four new Posiedon anti-submarine planes, ... More >>
On The Elitism Framing The Election Discourse
Wednesday, 16 August 2023, 11:22 am | Gordon Campbell
So… Almost all the tax experts rounded up by the mainstream media have damned the proposal to remove GST from healthy food. Some have called it “stupid” or “populist” – which is a bad word used to condemn anything that is at odds with ... More >>
On The “GST Off Fruit And Vegetables” Saga
Monday, 14 August 2023, 12:04 pm | Gordon Campbell
To be clear.... Any package that offers people relief on the cost of healthy food (plus a boost to Working For Families entitlements) is welcome, and better than nothing. If enacted, Labour’s move would also create a precedent for expanding the exemption ... More >>
On Gender Posturing And Mis-using PPPs In Public Health
Friday, 11 August 2023, 11:15 am | Gordon Campbell
What is it with right wing politicians getting standing ovations for doing the bare minimum? As in… Florida governor and presidential hopeful Ron De Santis being acclaimed for picking the kids up from school while his wife was receiving chemo treatment ... More >>
On The BlackRock Deal And Banning Cellphones
Wednesday, 9 August 2023, 11:12 am | Gordon Campbell
If a National/ACT government had negotiated the renewables deal with the giant investment firm BlackRock, it is safe to assume that we would be never hearing the end of it. Only National and Act, we would be being told, would have had the business nous and ... More >>
On Winston Peters’ Troubled Tango With The ACT Party
Monday, 7 August 2023, 12:53 pm | Gordon Campbell
In line with its ideological mission to destroy any and all of the creative partnerships between the state, business, science and public health, the ACT Party yesterday announced its plans to gut MBIE of its staff, institutional knowledge and core programmes, ... More >>
On What China’s Current Economic Woes Signal For Us
Thursday, 3 August 2023, 11:17 am | Gordon Campbell
For 99% of the time, our worries about China revolve around the military and diplomatic threat that Beijing allegedly poses to New Zealand and to other nations in the Pacific. Stoking those fears is very much in the business interests of the military-industrial ... More >>
On National’s 20th Century Transport Policy, And Labours’ Woes
Tuesday, 1 August 2023, 12:41 pm | Gordon Campbell
In justifying its multi-squillion dollar, ten years in the making, four lane highway linking Whangarei to Tauranga, the National Party did what it always does when climate change gets in the way of business as usual: It waves its hands around and says science ... More >>
On ACT's Links To Big Pharma
Friday, 28 July 2023, 11:13 am | Gordon Campbell
Economists are weird. People are having trouble feeding their families. Yet the obvious solution – reduce the tax burden on their food – is treated as a crime against theory, and a form of tax relief that only wealthy people and landlords deserve. ... More >>
On The Lessons From Spain’s Election
Wednesday, 26 July 2023, 11:01 am | Gordon Campbell
Spain held an election last Sunday… And stop me if any of this doesn’t sound familiar. The two right wing parties were expected to win a relatively victory after a year of setbacks for the ruling centre-left government. The large, traditional ... More >>
On Talking Tough About Law And Order
Monday, 24 July 2023, 11:19 am | Gordon Campbell
Harsh sentences are being offered as a deterrent to crime, but voters are being sold a crock. For one thing… Fear of the consequences loses its sting when “normal” life is so harsh that some offenders feel they have nothing left to lose. For many, ... More >>
On Sir Roger’s Lament, And The Commonwealth Games
Thursday, 20 July 2023, 12:11 pm | Gordon Campbell
So Dr. Frankenstein is feeling upset about how his monster has turned out. To the dismay of Sir Roger Douglas, the ACT Party has become the libertarian party of the wealthy elite. Gasp. No-one saw that one coming. Douglas, 85, has reportedly penned ... More >>
On How Political Donations Favour The Centre-right
Tuesday, 18 July 2023, 12:04 pm | Gordon Campbell
Political donations are not gifts. They’re an investment. Lest the recipients forget the gesture, one of the purposes of political lobbying is to remind everyone in the room that they have mutual interests in common. In short, political donations ... More >>
On Dancing With NATO On Defence
Wednesday, 12 July 2023, 1:44 pm | Gordon Campbell
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has been keeping some serious company of late. He’s been signing a free trade deal with the EU, shooting off to Stockholm to thank Sweden for its help in getting the EU trade deal across the line, popping into the NATO ... More >>
On National’s Need For Winston Peters
Monday, 10 July 2023, 11:58 am | Gordon Campbell
As a spectacle, politics can be pretty boring. MMP politics isn’t a cage fight, or even (ultimately) a struggle between individual parties. Moreover… Under MMP, not even megatons of public exposure to an unattractive party leader can turn a pumpkin ... More >>
