John Clarke was an Australian. In death he was celebrated here as if he was one of us. This country is tiny. We have to live outside our shores as well as within.
Clarke was New Zealand-bred as a satirist and, some say, philosopher. But he went to Australia in 1977 and stayed there. New Zealand was too small. He became an Australian.
What is the link between social media and Easter? Don’t we live in a secular society now? Isn’t Easter just a paid holiday from work?
The answer is that six months from now will come the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s famous, and fabled, nailing of “theses” to a church door which sparked a revolution — via the still newish medium of printing.
Steven Joyce will by now have set the main parameters for his first budget on May 25. He will likely have ballparked the big spending and tax and rebate items.
Likewise capital and building allocations, including for regional development — for, say, South Auckland, where Te Papa has proposed a major branch museum in Manukau.
Talk to U3A, Queenstown 10 April 2017
This talk scanned the rapid and deep changes in the world in the 2010s, where they might lead and the implications for New Zealand. A book of this is scheduled to appear in August.
There no facts, only events. That’s the advice some years back from a Victoria University history academic who has published several event-filled books.
The point is simple. As time passes after an event the “facts” become less clear. Different “facts” and perspectives emerge as documents come to light, memories adjust or some speak out who hadn’t at the time or just because as time passes historians interpret events with new hindsights.
Is Bill English slipping behind the play? A 1990s cabinet colleague, Simon Upton, last Tuesday in effect said he is.
Upton was in Wellington to deliver the 2017 Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) review of our environmental performance.
Twenty years back English, a very-up-and-coming MP, used to say that for his generation the argument over the drastic economic deregulation in 1984-92 was irrelevant. A less regulated economy and smaller government was the way, the light and the truth.
National is an income-tax-raising party. ACT’s David Seymour has the numbers. So what’s this talk about cuts?
Bill English comes off a farm so he knows how to dog-whistle. Last week he again whistled possible income tax cuts. Too late, said Seymour, who has recently got scathing about National over tax, superannuation and the Resource Management Act.
Bill English last year famously called his policy line “incremental radicalism”. Last week he did some “incremental incrementalism”. How will that run on “social media” in September?
“Radical” his superannuation qualifying age fix isn’t. No change till 2037 and then to 67 by 2040, though the 10-year residency requirement does go quickly out to 20 years.
Bill English has been the cabinet’s king advocate of data-mining. Last week he turned to anecdotes. That echoes his squeeze on science funding.
As Finance Minister and chief public service and social services reformer up to December, English gave many speeches on the value to be extracted from data on people, especially children, to find where to get the highest return for taxpayers’ money.
Jacinda Ardern is now standing in Helen Clark’s shoes. Can she stand as tall?
When Clark, at 31, won Labour’s Mt Albert nomination for the 1981 election, she had to finesse opposition from conservatives and anti-feminists in high places.
Ardern (like Grant Robertson) was nurtured with a stint in Clark’s office. She got offshore experience in London in Sir William Sargent’s Better Regulation Executive that hunted down for Tony Blair obstructive or historically anachronistic regulation. In 2008 she was president of the International Union of Socialist Youth.