I’ve just come back from living in England for six months last year. During the time I was there they had the referendum on Scottish independence. It was generally a pleasure to witness the quality of debate in print and broadcast media. Now we know the result of the referendum and while it wasn’t a […]
Scoop’s Operation Chrysalis
Like all news media New Zealand’s independent Scoop Media is working through the challenges, and the opportunities, thrown up by a changing media landscape. To address these issues Scoop editor Alastair Thompson has launched a Operation Chrysalis – a public conversation about the state of New Zealand’s media. Further elements will be launched throughout the […]
Fanning the #StepitUp flame
Print version of post The last weekend of November saw a weekend conference take place in Auckland. Stepitup’s purposed was to build capacity, capability and new skills amongst progressive campaigners and organisers in NZ. The conference was based around “the simple idea that we can do more and win more through cooperation, sharing resources and […]
Christmas Quiz – Characteristics of enlightened leadership
Printed version of this post Amber Blanco White was a writer, feminist and scholar who was born in 1887 and raised in Christchurch until she moved with her family to England in 1896. Her parents were the New Zealand social reformer William Pember Reeves and feminist and socialist Maud. At Cambridge she founded the University’s […]
New ‘war-on-terror’ legislation fraught with problems
You’d be forgiven for thinking that the government really doesn’t want to know what the public thinks about new laws that will allow surveillance without warrants and greater abilities to remove passports from so-called ‘radicalised youth’ and ‘potential foreign fighters’. Even the 24 hours allowed for submissions has been compromised – the link to make […]
Airways Lite coming soon to airspace near you.
Ed Sims, the Chief Executive of State Owned Enterprise (SOE) Airways Corporation, was interviewed on the business section of Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report programme in 9 September (2014) and revealed the thinking at the centre of the government’s policy on public ownership. Airways Corporation provides New Zealand’s Air Traffic Control services but only 40% […]
New Zealand’s industries have low productivity. Let’s help by privatising the public sector.
Printable version The Productivity Commission has been asked by the Government to review the Social Services Sector. Their brief is broad including social development, the education sector including schools, polytechnics and universities as well as hospitals and the wider health sector. The Commission’s role is to look at the policy, regulations and legislation that hamper […]
Are you happy with a ‘market for social services’ in New Zealand?
Image from the Productivity Commission’s issues paper. Printable version The Productivity Commission has been instructed by the government to work on delivering advice on legal and policy changes to support “More Effective Social Services”. The issues paper is open for submissions with a closing date of 2 December. The paper focuses on social services as […]
Wanted: A media environment that supports democracy
Printable version Several months ago I pursued a press complaint about an opinion piece published on the Stuff website by Journalist Pattrick Smellie. It was about the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) and his main point was that the TPPA does not pose a threat […]
Democracy Conference report and proposed actions
Conference report – working towards a better quality democracy in NZOur August conference feedback has been analysed and included in the conference reports which are available to download. They have been developed into three goals and three broad actions for future work. Conference Reports and DownloadsThe Conference Report Summary 7 pages pdf which has links […]
On the cusp of something very special (part two).
So Bill English thinks that welfare is like crack cocaine and the successful National Government has announced its intention to cut the welfare bill significantly. He revealed in June that if re-elected National will bring about the biggest changes to public services that NZ has seen in 50 years. How will it do this? Here is […]
On the cusp of something very special?
Is the National Party keeping some things out of sight in case they frighten the electorate? Here is some worrying evidence that this may be the case. On 20 June this year there was a Wikileaks release on the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) and the media coverage internationally was mainly related to its potential […]
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