As a headline-grabbing exercise, former Justice Minister Mark Burton’s claim that the enquiry into Auckland’s future will be looking 100 years ahead is hard to beat.
But his ministerial job was gone by Wednesday lunchtime - and his place in Parliament might well be gone for a Burton by this time next year. Burton knows that [...]
If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, as Samuel Johnson said in 1776, it has a new guest in the form of Winston Peters.
He thumped the tub at his party’s annual conference and demanded that all schools be directed to order the singing of our national anthem by their young and impressionable pupils. [...]
New Zealand politicians peddle illusions and delusions under the brand name of Visions. One of them is Economic Transformation. Labour’s been banging on about it for years, but even today no one (including, we suspect, them) has a clue what it means.
Apparently, not much so far. The latest bold Government move is to extend the [...]
The last time Trevor Mallard lost it, the Great White Mother of the Nation lowered her tone by yet another hitherto-thought-impossible octave and muttered: “Boys will be boys.”
For almost two years, the suspicion has been spreading that Trevor Mallard is a lame duck, half-dead in the water. But he’s come out fighting again, this time [...]
There are some people who couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery. There are folk who look for the $6.99-a-bottle supermarket bargain. There are wine snobs who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
And then there is the wonderful woozy world of The Wine Country. That’s Hawke’s Bay, where they say that [...]
The NZ Superannuation Fund’s $38 million investment in tobacco companies might well be unethical to the Greens, but it sure makes good business sense. The more successful the tobacco industry, the more smokers there are. That, in theory, will mean fewer pensioners to need paying. This naturally means a greater dividend for surviving non-smoking stakeholders.
Why [...]
Watch out, when you’re walking the dog. There might be a Maori landmine lurking in your neighbourhood. Or even a Green grenade launcher. Tread carefully and closely check those empty plastic Coke bottles, tagger spray cans, Tui stubbies and hidden MacDonald’s polystyrene, tossed from cars by passing low-life tossers.
Pay no attention to the hypodermic syringes [...]
The ghastly PC brigade is once again on the warpath, jumping on National leader John Key for saying New Zealand wasn’t born of civil war or revolution. Perhaps Helen Clark, Michael Cullen and Winston Peters, among others, could tell us which revolution or civil war drove the tribes to sign the Treaty of Waitangi in [...]
Anyone who believes that New Zealand is the premier rugby-mad nation should read on. It’s from our UK-based sports correspondent Pat Young, whose husband, readers may recall, was trapped in an Angolan airport with no telly during the France-England semi…
Hubby was at home for the final on Saturday, so we thought we were safe. But [...]
Wanted: a passionate barista (or maybe a barrister). Given the dire standard of spelling and grammar these days, you just can’t tell what you might be in for. That heavenly job depends on how passionate you are about the coffee or your wallet. The big difference could amount to more than $100,000 a year.
And while [...]
