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Polling won’t help you find courage: lessons from the UK for NZ Labour
You would get short odds predicting the NZ Labour party are analysing the British election like Game of Thrones fans analyse the Season 7 trailers. I can’t recall one column, opinion piece or interview...
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Where there’s smoke, there’s… ahi kaa? Agreements made by Hauraki & Ranginui
I’ve spent the last two days on the paepae at Poutūterangi Marae in Te Puna, supporting my Bidois whānau who are grieving a lost brother. We are between two storm fronts, so Rangi Pōtiki is an endless...
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Raging at Metiria is not about the fraud; it’s that she sided with the lepers
In case you missed it, at the Greens annual conference in mid-July, Metiria fronted the launch of an impressive welfare policy, Mending the Safety Net. During that launch, she used an anecdote from 25...
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The New Zealand left is a zoo, not a viable alternative in this election
I want change this election. I long for a left leaning government that dials back some of the damage to our communities after nine long years of National: more funding for desperate NGOs; a coherent...
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National’s second language policy is an attack on te reo Māori
Amongst the key messages that the National Party wanted to highlight from their 2017 election campaign launch was their proposed education policy package. The third part of that package is “a $160...
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Losing our people to society’s illness: anomie and suicide
In 2016-2017, 606 New Zealanders took their own lives. This is the highest rate since statistics started to be collected in 2007. It is likely to be under-reported, as there deaths where suicidality is...
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Bill English fiddles whilst the world burns: our Prime Climate Change Denier
There will be one moment of mismanagement by Bill English this election that will be studied and debated in the future. That moment is neither Todd Barclay’s alleged workplace bullying nor the leaks of...
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“The most friendless people in the world”: We need to act for the Rohingya now
There has been a little more media coverage than usual of the Rohingya people in Myanmar as over 120,000 have recently poured over the border into Bangladesh as refugees and claims of ethnic cleansing...
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If you walked away from the Greens, it’s time to come back
When Metiria Turei talked about lying to secure her benefit, it divided New Zealanders including Greens voters. As it unfolded, the attacks were unending, Metiria stepped away and their opponents had a...
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Finlayson gets cold feet on a tikanga process in Tauranga Moana
Thursday 27 July 2017 was a happy day in Tauranga Moana. After a few months of protests, social media campaign, new media appearances, legal opinions and appeals to the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi...
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Fear and loathing in Morrinsville: the corporates hiding behind our farmers
Six hundred farmers and supporters protested in Morrinsville today against Labour and the Greens’ proposed water and pollution charges. Initially it was claimed that it was an apolitical rally, but the...
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Election reflections. NB potentially unpopular.
All political parties are churches. As with churches, there are a small group of any membership who are able to provide a sober reflection on the strengths and weaknesses of their parties, the...
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My advice: don’t let the Secular Education Network nor Bible in Schools near...
The Secular Education Network (SEN) has awoken from its year long sleep to again stoke the public’s fear of its children being indoctrinated by Bible in Schools into that most awful of institutions,...
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The mātauranga divide decided the fate of the Māori Party
[This column was first posted on 1 October 2017 in e-Tangata; if you don’t subscribe to them, you should] At the beginning of this election campaign, I had the privilege of being with the Māori Party...
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That sinking feeling: the Edgecumbe review and our climate change blinkers
An independent report led by Sir Michael Cullen into the failure of Edgecumbe’s stopbank has reported that Edgecumbe residents were not sufficiently warned of flood risks and no evacuation plans were...
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Subject to Garner’s Gaze: racial determinism out here on the edge
Duncan Garner got a rough run of it on Twitter over the weekend after the publication of his 7 October column about a visit to Kmart that prompted some thoughts about immigration. Accusations of racism...
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The beautiful world of whakawhanaungatanga
I got asked by my cousin Tommy Wilson to respond to Don Brash’s column (find it here on page 18) on the demise of the Māori Party in our local Bay Waka. Originally I was going to be his ghost writer,...
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He toa takitini: if anything needs fixing, it’s our communities, not young...
Morocco Tai died on 9 October. He was 15 years old and driving a stolen car. He died when the car collided with a tree during a police pursuit. His two passengers are both in hospital, seriously...
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The war you’ve never heard of: Africom and the death of La David Johnson
Amidst the exhausting and unending controversies in Trump’s presidency, the tone deaf phone call made by President Trump to the widow of La David Johnson has only stayed the distance because the...
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Why learning te reo Māori doesn’t have to be a political act
[This article was first published in the Spinoff Ātea on 18 October 2017] Ni hao! It’s Chinese Language Week. There has been some attempt in our local media to wrap their lips around the unfamiliar...
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