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Gordon Campbell - Latest News [Page 9]
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 >>
On Relying On Israeli News Narratives About Palestine
Thursday, 6 July 2023, 12:09 pm | Gordon Campbell
So far, the coverage of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) assault on the Jenin refugee camp has followed a familiar pattern. Images of explosions and rising plumes of smoke have been punctuated by footage of anguished/angry Palestinian civilians at funerals ... More >>
On The Greens Plan To Help Renters
Monday, 3 July 2023, 11:09 am | Gordon Campbell
One of the best things about the Greens plan to cap rent increases at 3% annually is that it spreads around some of the pain of the Reserve Bank’s brutal response to inflation. To date, the Reserve Bank‘s actions in relentlessly jacking up interest ... More >>
On The Ripple Effects From The Titan Submersible Disaster
Friday, 30 June 2023, 11:58 am | Gordon Campbell
As clickbait, the saga of OceanGate’s Titan submersible belongs to the same genre of real time news countdowns as the boys trapped in the Thailand caves, the trapped miners in Peru and the 18 month old baby girl trapped down a well in Texas. Except ... More >>
On China, University Funding, Ukraine
Wednesday, 28 June 2023, 11:10 am | Gordon Campbell
Gosh. According to a tip leaked to a journalist from the Australian newspaper by an anonymous source whose identity cannot be disclosed for secret squirrel reasons, our Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta was reportedly subjected to an “epic haranguing ... More >>
On National’s Law And Ordure Policy
Monday, 26 June 2023, 11:47 am | Gordon Campbell
So here we are... Barely 75 days out from election day, and National STILL hasn’t revealed how it is going to pay for its stupendously expensive bag of presents for everyone. National is simultaneously promising to reduce the tax revenue coming into ... More >>
On ACT’s Anti-worker Crusade, And Israeli Settler Violence
Friday, 23 June 2023, 12:18 pm | Gordon Campbell
The ACT Party’s announcement yesterday that it aims to stop workers in the gig economy from being allowed to test in court whether they deserve to be treated as employees – and thus entitled to sick leave, holiday pay etc – has been the most ... More >>
Gordon Campbell On TOP, And The Bank Inquiry
Wednesday, 21 June 2023, 11:50 am | Gordon Campbell
The 5% MMP threshold soaks up a disproportionate share of the attention paid to the struggle by small parties to get into Parliament. By now, it should be obvious that winning an electorate seat is the only reliable path to political sustainability ... More >>
On The Crackdown On Gangs
Monday, 19 June 2023, 3:15 pm | Gordon Campbell
For much of last week, Opotiki was like the setting of a Wes Anderson movie. Gruff, no nonsense cops. Bikers who looked just as tough, but who ended up being considerably more peaceful than a similar-sized rugby crowd. Stoic, sensible locals who couldn’t ... More >>
On The Recession Engineered By The Reserve Bank
Friday, 16 June 2023, 11:33 am | Gordon Campbell
This week, we got official confirmation that the Reserve Bank has finally achieved the recession it has worked so hard to engineer. The Bank has bludgeoned borrowers and households with interest rate hikes, and sought to ease wage pressure by creating ... More >>
On Losing The Ukraine War
Wednesday, 14 June 2023, 11:35 am | Gordon Campbell
Obviously, no-one defends the RNZ digital journalist who distorted the content and meaning of so many articles on the Ukraine war, some of them bylined by journalists who had no idea their work had been twisted to serve the needs of Kremlin propaganda. ... More >>
On Changing The GE Rules, Plus A Music Playlist
Monday, 12 June 2023, 11:58 am | Gordon Campbell
So Christopher Luxon wants to relax the rules that govern the use of genetic modification outside a laboratory setting. Would this mean going only so far as to allow gene editing of an existing gene sequence, or does Luxon intend to give a green light ... More >>
On Saudi Sports-washing
Thursday, 8 June 2023, 3:18 pm | Gordon Campbell
Since sport is our global religion, it isn’t surprising that the theocratic kingdom of Saudi Arabia has taken the redemptive power of sportswashing very seriously indeed. To the point where the massive Saudi investment in all kinds of professional sport ... More >>
On Red Tape And Nicky Hager’s Regal Reward
Tuesday, 6 June 2023, 10:42 am | Gordon Campbell
Not for the first time, David Seymour looks like an answer to a non-existent problem. Reportedly, ACT is promising to establish a Ministry of Regulations to cut through all that bureaucracy and red tape. Yep. To cut down on bureaucracy. Seymour is promising ... More >>
On How Private Profits Are Driving Defence Spending
Friday, 2 June 2023, 11:34 am | Gordon Campbell
Speak of the devil. The Australian website Crikey has just launched an investigative series about the notorious lobbying firm Crosby Textor, or C/T as it now prefers to be called. It transpires that two clients of C/T’s American subsidiary will ... More >>
