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Gordon Campbell - Latest News [Page 91]
Gordon Campbell on govt's responsibility for Christchurch
Tuesday, 24 April 2012, 9:31 am | Gordon Campbell
Like events in some 19th century Russian novel, hardship in Christchurch keeps grinding on, while the powers-that-be appear quite indifferent to the suffering occurring all around them. For months, the shortage of housing and the related escalation in ... More >>
Gordon Campbell: The dubious case for the convention centre
Monday, 23 April 2012, 10:41 am | Gordon Campbell
For now, Labour and the Greens are not opposing the convention centre in Auckland per se , but are asking for the tendering process to be re-opened. That would, at least, enable a more up to date public examination of the business case for the convention ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on where government could be saving millions
Tuesday, 17 April 2012, 9:46 am | Gordon Campbell
Ever since the last White Paper in 2010, Defence has been putting its staff through the wringer in a cost reduction exercise so demoralising that aspects of the plan now seem to be in jeopardy. A major part of this plan has involved taking some of ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on public service contracting, and the veto
Thursday, 12 April 2012, 9:54 am | Gordon Campbell
It is always dangerous to base a story on personal experience… So this is being offered mainly out of curiosity, to see whether anyone out there has had coalface experience of what this anecdote is about. Here goes. More >>
Gordon Campbell on the govt’s new PPP deal in education
Wednesday, 11 April 2012, 9:55 am | Gordon Campbell
Supposedly, the big advantage of public/private partnerships is that they will bring the alleged efficiencies of the private sector to projects that involve public money – but here’s the catch. In the PPP deal on education announced yesterday, we’re ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on Gerry Brownlee & Christchurch recovery
Thursday, 5 April 2012, 10:27 am | Gordon Campbell
Famously, Winston Churchill once described one of his American political allies as being “the only bull I know who carries his own china shop around with him.” Alas, Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee manages the same trick – hello ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on corporate manslaughter, French elections
Wednesday, 4 April 2012, 9:42 am | Gordon Campbell
Yesterday, the Pike River inquiry heard renewed calls for a criminal charge of corporate manslaughter to be put on the books in New Zealand. “Some of the issues canvassed in the evidence [about Pike River] once again raise feeling among the public,” ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on charter schools, and DoL mining backdown
Monday, 2 April 2012, 10:27 am | Gordon Campbell
Years ago and in a more innocent time, whenever advertising agencies wanted to spice up a product for local consumers they would use the word “ American” in the pitch – because back then, the United States was taken to be synonymous with all that ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on the Supreme Court’s mauling of Obamacare
Friday, 30 March 2012, 10:25 am | Gordon Campbell
It's been 12 years since the last shamelessly partisan verdict by the conservative- dominated US Supreme Court when – after the 2000 election – they gift-wrapped the Presidency and handed it to George W. Bush. Yet this week’s oral hearings by ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on the Chinese cyber security threat
Wednesday, 28 March 2012, 10:05 am | Gordon Campbell
On paper, the decisions to partner with the Chinese firm Huawei in the roll out of ultra fast broadband (and rural broadband) in New Zealand were taken locally, by the Enable Networks in Christchurch, and by WEL Networks in the Waikato. Yet could ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on The Hunger Games, and body image
Tuesday, 27 March 2012, 10:43 am | Gordon Campbell
Earlier this year, Next magazine published a scary survey on the body image of young New Zealand women, a story that prompted Labour MP Sue Moroney to issue a press release in mid February (“ The Beauty Myth Needs Busting Again”) that lamented the lack ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on CEO public sector pay, and North Korea
Monday, 26 March 2012, 9:59 am | Gordon Campbell
This morning’s NZ Herald story about the massive pay hikes for chief executives in the public service knocks a hole in the rationale for the government’s programme of public sector cutbacks. More >>
Gordon Campbell on McCully’s latest debacle, and fracking
Thursday, 22 March 2012, 10:05 am | Gordon Campbell
So Nick Smith has fallen on his sword, while dutifully covering for John Key’s leadership inadequacies on this issue as he did so. At the outset, Key had tried to sweep the entire affair under the carpet by describing Smith’s main transgression ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on the Urewera verdicts, and Nick Smith
Wednesday, 21 March 2012, 10:24 am | Gordon Campbell
While the Crown regroups and rethinks about a possible retrial of the Urewera four, the country should taking a long, hard look at how the Police and prosecution have performed. Talk of a retrial is out of the question, surely. This is just the Crown ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on the local government reforms
Tuesday, 20 March 2012, 10:06 am | Gordon Campbell
Clearly, centre-right governments dislike Big Government only when it isn’t their brand of government. When it is, many of the democratic brakes get removed, quick smart. At heart, the reforms to local government unveiled yesterday see central government ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on the speeches by Key and Shearer
Friday, 16 March 2012, 9:28 am | Gordon Campbell
The much touted smackdown between John Key and David Shearer – one gives a major speech at breakfast, the other at lunchtime! – turned out to be one of those occasions where the rivals spent the entire 15 rounds trying not to put their chin where it ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on David Cunliffe’s comments on ports
Wednesday, 14 March 2012, 10:43 am | Gordon Campbell
Labour’s Economic Development spokesperson David Cunliffe made a useful contribution to the ports of Auckland dispute this morning. More >>
Gordon Campbell on Tinariwen, and the forgotten war in Mali
Tuesday, 13 March 2012, 11:28 am | Gordon Campbell
Sometimes, civil war in Africa can even bring suffering to the well-heeled patrons of the International Festival of the Arts in Wellington. Tinariwen, the Tuareg rock group from Mali, is due to perform at the Arts Festival tonight – which is big ... More >>
Gordon Campbell on Defence’s failed “civilianisation”
Friday, 9 March 2012, 9:38 am | Gordon Campbell
One of the tried and true maxims of management is that business hates uncertainty – because, don’t you know, business can’t be done in a climate where the rules keep on changing, and where CEOs lack a firm foundation on which to base their decisions. More >>
Gordon Campbell on the Referendum on asset sales
Wednesday, 7 March 2012, 10:27 am | Gordon Campbell
The launching of a Citizens Initiated Referendum on the question of the partial asset sales is a useful shot across the bows of the government’s intentions – although even if the required amount of valid signatures are gathered, it will be mid 2013 ... More >>
