Better to pause than to rush.
The Parliamentary Select Committee hearings on the Bills to amend the 2003 GCSB Act and 2004 Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Act have begun this week. There is much interest...
View ArticleThe political logic behind National’s proposed GCSB reforms.
This week there will be meetings and protests nation-wide against the National government bills amending the 2003 GCSB and 2004 TIC Acts. Although the protests have garnered broad support across the...
View ArticleCrying wolf on terrorism for political gain.
The merit of a proposition can be judged by the strength of the argument in support or defense of it. In the case of the proposed changes to the GCSB and TICS Acts, the government’s argument has...
View ArticleCrossing: the flaw
This evening the GCSB Amendment Bill passed its third reading in Parliament, 61-59, despite a desperate last-minute campaign to persuade selected government MPs to cross the floor and vote against the...
View ArticleIdentity is politics
(Or: How the activist left learned to stop worrying and love identity politics.) Here and elsewhere I spend much time railing against the notion that “identity” is somehow distinct from “politics”, or...
View ArticleAnother National double standard.
Maurice Williamson is forced to resign as Minister because he made a phone call to the police asking them to be undertake a thorough review and be “on solid ground” when investigating a domestic...
View ArticleSomething to do in Wellington.
On May 20, 2014 from 6PM-7:30PM Diplosphere is hosting a panel discussion titled “Drone Strikes: Are They in New Zealand’s Interest?” The event will be hosted by Dr. Kennedy Graham MP-Green Party and...
View ArticleMongrel renegades, castaways, and cannibals
So Herman Melville described the crew of the Pequod. While it probably seems tendentious to equate them to the Internet MANA party, that seems to be how Kim Dotcom, at least, regards himself — as...
View ArticleDoubloons
Phil Sage in comments to my previous post about Internet MANA observes that “The question is whether Kim Dotcom’s money will translate into poll support and votes.” I have no knowledge of what’s going...
View ArticleWhat is success for Internet MANA?
In the previous two posts I’ve covered the strategic rationales behind the Internet MANA alliance, and how, even if they spend their money very inefficiently, they are still very likely to gain a...
View ArticleEye Candy, Window Dressing and Deep Pockets.
I came back from six weeks abroad to see the beginning of the Internet Party’s “Party party” launches. It leaves me with some questions. It seems that what the Internet Party has done is this. Using...
View ArticleAccountability versus Acceptable Corruption.
During the 25 years I was in academia I wrote a fair bit on the subjects of democracy and democratisation, both in theory and in practice. I continued in that vein in some of my blogging on this site,...
View ArticleLeft in tatters.
A while back I wrote a post arguing that the NZ Left was in serious disarray. Various Left pontificators fulminated from the depths of their revolutionary armchairs against my views, denouncing me for...
View ArticleWhither the class line?
In 1995 I published a book that explored the interaction between the state, organised labor and capital in the transitions to democracy in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. The book was theoretically...
View ArticleSo much for intelligence community reform.
It turns out that nearly 5 months after getting re-elected, the government has decided on the composition of the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC). Besides himself as Chair of the ISC, the...
View ArticleSuggestions for the Intelligence Review Committee.
Readers will know that I expressed my unhappiness with the composition of the Intelligence Review committee and my belief that, save some cosmetic changes, a whitewash of the NZ intelligence community...
View ArticleToo Clever.
The TPPA signing came and went, as did the nation-wide protests against it. I did not think that the government was going to be swayed from publicly commemorating what it considers to be the crown...
View ArticleKiss her you fool! Andrew Little, Labour and the TPPA
Thanks to Pablo and the crew for letting me post here and apologies for the length. All opinions are entirely mine and my controllers. :) Around Waitangi day this year it appeared if Labour had final...
View ArticleI may be bad but I feel good! – John Key and the mystery of the National Party
Apologies in advance for the hyperbole but once I got on a roll it was impossible to stop. I got bagged last week by some who knew me and read my post about Andrew Little and Labour as I appeared to...
View ArticleWinston Peters: The Man who would be King…………..maker
I should have realized that once I turned my jaundiced eye on Labour and National and started spouting my biased opinions about them I would have to “analyze” the rest of the denizens of the NZ...
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