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Toi Oho Mai: 3 words too far for a racist Mayor hopeful in Tauranga
The Bay of Plenty Times has revealed the proposed name for the new institution that will come from merger of the Waiariki Institute of Technology and Bay of Plenty Polytechnic. It is likely to be Toi...
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National Security: an open cheque for the GCSB and SIS
The Review of Intelligence and Security by Sir Michael Cullen and Dame Patsy Reddy is a strange beast. The two eminent reviewers see themselves as proposing a sensible and sober streamlining of our two...
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A little Trump in Tauranga: ask advertisers to boycott The Weekend Sun
“…the PC-driven bureaucracy offers the flag referendum instructions not only in English and Maori [sic], but in 24 different languages… including a couple I’ve never heard of. Now I will apologise to...
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Paris: the embodiment of the beautiful potential of humanity
In 1867, by way of introduction to the guide for the Universal Expo in Paris, Victor Hugo wrote a book, that included the following: La function de Paris, c’est la dispersion de l’idée. The role of...
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christian anarchy in Aotearoa: an invite to revolution
So Samuel reported all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, ‘These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them...
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The injustice of consumption: how Tauranga is consuming the planet and the poor
‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from...
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Finding a Tākitimu star path: navigating the generic Matariki festival
One of the more wonderful things to occur in the last 15 years has been the rise and integration of Matariki into our collective indigenous and now national consciousness. Today I was at the base of...
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Paul Foster-Bell & how distant Parliament is from real human beings
Paul Foster-Bell is not a name that should concern any of us. He is a list MP for National who has made no impact in the two or three years he has been in Parliament. Yes, he has been paid excessively...
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Bond the Holy Fool
[My article first appeared in Geez Magazine|Summer 2016. May I wholeheartedly encourage you to go to their website and subscribe. There are way better writers than me just waiting for you there.]...
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Koha: an alternative economy of hope & relationship
For those who spend time in the intersection of the Pākehā world and the Māori world, you will have been asked at least at one point or another about koha. Often it is asked with a deep concern to not...
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Helen Clark abused Māori, so don’t expect us to line up behind her now
It has been my privilege whilst in Tauranga to work with people and organisations in addressing the scourge of domestic violence in our communities here. In the course of that work, one of the things I...
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Stripping, respectability, consent and the Waikato Chiefs #rapeculture
You may be aware there is a rugby game on this weekend in which Lions are fighting Hurricanes. This would actually be the logical extension of Sharknado; maybe Liocanes. Surprisingly though, the...
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It’s time for an intervention: Australia’s goose-stepping over refugees to...
It is a matter of historical record that the majority of European governments knew of the existence of concentration camps prior to World War II. Political refugees who had escaped the Third Reich...
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Fear of a brown planet: running screaming from the homeless in Greerton,...
At a Tauranga City Council Monitoring Committee meeting yesterday, the Bay of Plenty Times reported that the Greerton Village Community Association manager Sally Benning made particular note of “three...
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Our ghosts have never slept: a response to Chris Trotter on the NZ Wars
Let me say upfront that Chris Trotter’s column in the Stuff is far more nuanced than the headline “Sleeping ghosts don’t need to be woken” suggests. He also asks some important questions as to what it...
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The right issue, the wrong voice: the Kermadecs and Te Ohu Kaimoana
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary is a proposed marine sanctuary that will cover 620,000 square kilometres; for comparison, that is 35 times larger than the combined area of Aotearoa New Zealand’s existing...
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Local body elections; not the best elections, but the only one we’ve got for now
At the start of the run up to the local body elections here in Tauranga Moana, I had imagined providing a bit of a precis of all the candidates standing for the Tauranga City Council, for Tauranga...
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Nukes are back in fashion: proliferation, a terror we thought we had left behind
In the beginning of October, 40 million Russians engaged in three days of drills in preparation for a nuclear or natural disaster. Last week, Vladimir Putin instructed Russian officials overseas to...
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Gabel Tostee will try and find another woman this weekend
I don’t normally do this, but this is a trigger warning if you have had your own experience of abuse. I feel compelled to provide this response and reaction to the furor surrounding the acquittal of...
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You should be concerned about the US Election… in 2020
My wife and I have been blessed with four children. During each pregnancy, whenever a well-meaning but misguided person would ask how she was feeling about the birth, my wife would comment that it...
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