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Gordon Campbell - Latest News [Page 90]
Gordon Campbell on the lack of options in Syria
Tuesday, 5 June 2012, 10:42 am | Gordon Campbell
Is the Assad regime better or worse than what is likely to follow in its wake? Given the carnage in Iraq and the drift towards fresh tyranny under Nouri al-Maliki that has followed the fall of Saddam Hussein, that is a legitimate question. More >>
Gordon Campbell on the turmoil in education
Friday, 1 June 2012, 9:45 am | Gordon Campbell
The Budget changes in education are following a pattern, which seems to have been learned at the Murray McCully School of Management. On the basis of what seems to be a personal animus against the professional staff involved, a relatively small ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on the media traffic in vicarious emotion
Thursday, 31 May 2012, 10:33 am | Gordon Campbell
Over the course of the past week, the news bulletins have featured a series of nightmare events – the fire in Doha, the murdered hitchhiker in Waimate and the latest round of carnage in Syria. Of them all, the deaths of the New Zealander triplets in the ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on National Super and ignoring child poverty
Wednesday, 30 May 2012, 10:01 am | Gordon Campbell
It may be called “National” Superannuation, but the relationship between the National Party and retirement income has rarely been a happy one, over the last three decades. In the mid 1970s, Robert Muldoon torpedoed the Kirk government's compulsory ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on the crisis in the aged care sector
Monday, 28 May 2012, 9:51 am | Gordon Campbell
Every couple of years, a disturbing report is released into the standards of care for the elderly in this country. At quick count we had the report by Health and Disability Commissioner Ron Paterson to the incoming government in 2008, the Auditor-General’s ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on the Budget’s spreadsheet victories
Friday, 25 May 2012, 9:50 am | Gordon Campbell
It wasn’t as if expectations were sky high, exactly. Chances are, it was always more likely that we’d be seeing Bigfoot rampage through the Beehive lock-up than catch a glimpse of a credible growth agenda from this government. More >>
Gordon Campbell On Standing Down Shane Jones MP - Again
Thursday, 24 May 2012, 9:25 am | Gordon Campbell
The decision to stand down Labour MP Shane Jones pending the Auditor-General’s inquiry into his 2008 decision – when Jones was associate Immigration Minister – to grant residency to Chinese businessman William Yan is pretty much a model ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on the run-up to Budget Day
Wednesday, 23 May 2012, 10:48 am | Gordon Campbell
A week can, in fact, be a short time in politics - and the beginning of Budget week was probably as good a time as any for the Greens to try and tackle head on the government’s credibility as a competent steward of the economy. More >>
On using Breakfast TV to announce immigration policy
Friday, 18 May 2012, 10:47 am | Gordon Campbell
Evidently, Breakfast TV is now to be considered an official arm of government. It happened like this: on 10 May, the government formally announced its plans to change the rules about citizens or residents being able to bring their parents to New Zealand. More >>
Gordon Campbell on Paula Rebstock's welfare reform platform
Wednesday, 16 May 2012, 10:14 am | Gordon Campbell
Clearly, the government now thinks the public mood in this recessionary climate is so hostile to beneficiaries that it can afford to indulge its own worst impulses towards them. There are so many outrageous aspects to the appointment of Paula Rebstock ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on the rise in prescription charges
Tuesday, 15 May 2012, 10:30 am | Gordon Campbell
It would be nice to think that the basis for yesterday’s decision to raise prescription charges wasn’t just “ We haven’t lifted them for 20 years” and/or that it didn’t sound like much of a price rise if like Health Minister Tony Ryall or Prime ... More >>
Gordon Campbell: banks passing on their own costs of reform
Friday, 11 May 2012, 12:39 pm | Gordon Campbell
The global financial system seems to be once again (sort of) in crisis mode. Greece is heading for fresh elections and to (maybe) an eventual exit from the euro, France’s new leader is trying to add some face-saving growth policies to the package of austerity ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on the politics of austerity
Thursday, 10 May 2012, 11:10 am | Gordon Campbell
Later this month, New Zealand will be subjected to its second austerity Budget in a row. Zero budgeting is being presented as the only path of virtue. This is despite the fact that - elsewhere in the real world - it has been a very bad week indeed ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on free contraception for beneficiary poor
Tuesday, 8 May 2012, 10:52 am | Gordon Campbell
If one can be grateful for small mercies, at least young women on benefits will not be forced into (a) having compulsory contraceptive implants fitted into their arms or( b) having IUDs installed as a pre-condition for receiving state support for their ... More >>
Gordon Campbell: Govt’s self-defeating plan for universities
Monday, 7 May 2012, 9:45 am | Gordon Campbell
Steven Joyce happens to hold a set of portfolios central to the country’s economic planning and future direction. Joyce is the Minister of Economic Development, the Tertiary Education Minister and the Minister of Science and Technology. More >>
Gordon Campbell on Steven Joyce’s student loans debacle
Friday, 4 May 2012, 11:15 am | Gordon Campbell
O f all the ways of trying to save “up to” $60-70 million – and that’s only if he’s very, very lucky - Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce has made a real hash of it. Joyce has decided to change the student loan scheme in a fashion ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on John Banks’ unpleasant options
Wednesday, 2 May 2012, 10:33 am | Gordon Campbell
A bunker mentality is becoming evident in the Act Party’s response to its current crisis – as in Berlin bunker, 1945. A reluctant admission of just how bad things are is finally seeping in, but that’s still inseparable from a high level of self-pity, ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on Key. Ethics and Banks
Tuesday, 1 May 2012, 1:43 pm | Gordon Campbell
Disclosure rules exist in local body legislation for the public’s benefit, not the benefit of politicians. Yet the explicit message from yesterday’s press post-Cabinet conference was that Prime Minister John Key is willing to condone unethical behaviour, ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on the John Banks vs Kim Dotcom saga
Monday, 30 April 2012, 10:02 am | Gordon Campbell
Is it too soon to start talking about the curse of the Act Party leadership? The toll at the top is becoming quite alarming….Rodney Hide, Don Brash, and now John Banks is in trouble. More >>
Gordon Campbell on the latest Hobbit revelations
Friday, 27 April 2012, 10:27 am | Gordon Campbell
This morning’s release by RNZ of its OIA requests on The Hobbit is not ancient history . More >>
