Public Good - Te Iwi Whānui

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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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Conference report back

Democracy, ethics and the public good – The 2014 Geering Event Our conference took place on the weekend of 1/2 August and attracted a good crowd. Listed below is information about the presentations made and organisations represented at the conference. Panel presentations, workshops and time for networking helped us to refresh the language of democratic […]

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Democracy issues for candidates using Askaway

Campaigning organisation Action Station is using the social media election site Askaway to pose questions about the quality of our democracy.  Some of these questions were raised by participants at the recent conference Democracy, Ethics and the Public Good. There are many great questions but the following relate specifically to the quality of our democracy […]

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Democracy, ethics and the public good – The 2014 Geering Event – conference papers

Kickstarting a NZ-wide conversation about the quality of our democracy Our conference took place on the weekend of 1/2 August and attracted a good crowd. Listed below is information about the presentations made and organisations represented at the conference. Panel presentations, workshops and time for networking helped us to refresh the language of democratic engagement […]

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