NZ Herald | 8 May 2020 Left unchecked, how long before kindly social democrats morph into enthusiastic authoritarians? Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson suggest it’s about seven weeks. Let’s not be partisan about this. Simon Bridges might have taken only six weeks. Bill English might have taken eight. But make no mistake, the Government has now…
NZ Herald | 7 May 2020 Crown Law documents leaked to Newstalk ZB say the Government’s lockdown was unenforceable. Attorney-General David Parker, however, says the document was a draft – and “not the considered advice of Crown Law”. Kiwis’ freedoms were severely curtailed by the lockdown and hundreds who breached its rules were prosecuted. The…
NZ Herald | 3 May 2020 So far, the public has shown a remarkable degree of tolerance of the Government’s decisions in relation to Covid-19 with little argument or even public debate. The calamitous way in which Parliament turned Inland Revenue into a small business lender , without a single MP realising they were doing so, is a…
TVNZ | 12 Apr 2020 In a bid to maintain social distancing even after we come out of lockdown, the Government is giving extra money to councils to widen footpaths and roll out temporary cycleways throughout the country. High Street in Auckland. Today, Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter announced the project which aims…
Stuff | 28 March 2018 Eileen Moreland went out to milk the cows one morning in the South Island town of Blenheim in 1959. She returned home about 80 minutes later with an extraordinary story. She claimed a large craft descended from the sky and hovered above her. Her statement was full of astonishing detail.…
Stuff | 9 March 2018 OPINION: It’s hard to imagine now, but censorship was a cause celebre in the 1960s and 70s. The banning or restriction of movies, books and even records was never far from the headlines. Post-war liberalism was colliding head-on with traditional morality and the official censors were struggling to draw new…
NZ Herald | 16 Feb 2018 A New Zealand academic who made international waves researching China’s international influence campaigns has linked a number of recent break-ins to her work. University of Canterbury professor Anne-Marie Brady, speaking today from Christchurch to the Australian Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee in Canberra, outlined three recent events which caused…
NZ Herald | 12 Dec 2017 Our spies have broken the law accessing Customs and Immigration data and have resisted explaining to the intelligence oversight body why they have done so. That’s the blunt statement spelled out in the latest annual report from the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security. It suggests two of the…
Ian Wishart | 19 Sept 2017 If you open up any New Zealand school history textbook, it will proudly declare that New Zealand was the first country in the world to give women the vote, back in 1893. If only that were true. Magnificent as the efforts of Kate Sheppard and the other suffragettes were,…
NZ Herald | 21 April 2017 The highly secretive meeting being held in Queenstown this weekend is a gathering of intelligence and security agencies related to the Five Eyes spying network, the Herald understands. Among the people believed to be attending are Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director James Comey and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)…