Why Voters Will Be Disappointed by the Election Outcome.
This paper tries to evaluate various coalitions on the basis of their political ideologies. It uses the scores given to parties by the TVNZ website Vote-Compass, which identifies two dimensions:...
View ArticleSimon Bridges thinks that Simon Bridges is eroding parliamentary democracy
In today's NZ Herald, National's shadow leader of the House was frantically sounding out a tocsin to warn of the danger of looming dictatorship: read more
View ArticleDon't say a prayer for me now... but should we save it for some time after?
Arguing about the prayer that open parliament each day is as old as parliament itself; it was the first order of business in the first session (after the election of the speaker) when New Zealand's...
View ArticleThen they came for the Ballet Teachers… (or did they?)
First they came for the charter school ‘teachers’, and I did not speak out ... because honestly I don’t have a strong opinion on the whole charter school thingThen they came for the ballet teachers...
View ArticleYou're not the boss of me now
This week the Supreme Court dipped its toes into the troubled waters of the Crown’s settlement negotiations with Hauraki iwi. It did so in a decisionon whether or not Ngāti Whātua can challenge...
View ArticleProtecting the umpire
Wednesday’s flare-up in Parliament, which saw the Speaker ordering both National’s leader and Leader of the House out of the chamber while most of their party colleagues (read more
View ArticleIt is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to...
On Wednesday something happened in Parliament that was on its face a clever but petty political move designed to capture headlines, yet at a deeper level ought to concern anybody interested in how New...
View ArticleWhy we have a beef with the new anti-rustling laws, and perhaps you should...
Colin Gavaghan and Simon Connell, Otago Law Facultyread more
View ArticleWhy we have a beef with the new anti-rustling laws, and perhaps you should...
By Simon Connell and Colin Gavaghan, Otago Faculty of LawCattle rustling. To many of us city slicker types, it sounds like a throwback to a by-gone time. Maybe old Western films on a Saturday morning....
View ArticlePhysician, heal thyself?
In the aftermath of the Christchurch atrocity, the political life of the nation must go on; for as W.H. Auden so eloquently put it, "even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course". Of course, for...
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