Category: NZ Herald

This political year is ending with the same topic uppermost as last year: the Treaty. Then taniwha were spooking the pakeha. This year has been Tangaroa’s turn.

In an eventful year — Iraq, GM, TranzRail, electricity shortages, Ahmed Zaoui, to name a few events — the Appeal Court’s foreshore/seabed decision in June was a sensation. In essence conservative in its narrow frame and venerable foreign precedents, it was also revolutionary for overturning existing law and raising spectres of tribes controlling beach and foreshore access. read more

The big deal in next year’s Budget — and several Budgets after that — is Steve Maharey’s grand plan. It will be popular with Labour activists.

There are two dimensions to this plan. One is palliative: more money for low-to-middle-income families. The other is structural: tidying up the benefit and tax credit systems. read more

Hands up if you still think this country should have joined the American invasion of Iraq in March and the reasons the invaders gave are still convincing.

One basis for still arguing New Zealand should have been there is kith and kin: we should always join our tribe in war and the Americans, British and Australians are our tribe. Actually, “we” now include very large numbers from other tribes, which pro-invasion ACT and National overlook. read more

Who lost us the rugby World Cup? The government, said the lead letter in last Tuesday’s Herald.

Bob Maria said the All Blacks lost the semi-final because the Australian government “promotes and applauds success, whereas [here] the government penalises success and promotes mediocrity”. read more

The systems were in place. The failure was by a person. There will be more such failures. People are frail.

So more children will be killed, like the Masterton pair, or maimed or damaged. It is a (ghastly) fact of life in our and every society.

And at each such failure the media and politicians will line up to throw rocks at the public service, not thinking that they, too, make mistakes. read more

The search is on for a new generation of Maori economic leaders to drive the second hui taumata, or Maori economic development summit, to be held next year.

The intention to hold a summit has been confirmed by Prime Minister Helen Clark and Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia in the wake of Clark’s comment to the Labour party conference on November 8 that it was time to “take stock” 20 years after the first summit in November 1984. read more

Secure behind the glass wall of the Christchurch convention centre today’s Labour leaders couldn’t wholly repress a sniff at the motley few behind police lines opposite. In their day, with the Vietnam war and nuclear ships, apartheid and free love on the go, they could get up a real protest. read more

Within minutes of Nick Smith’s election as National’s deputy leader a parliamentary staffer sent me an email consisting solely of a questionmark. Bang on.

Smith swiftly delivered. Pathos followed apotheosis. Unifying management, the job of a real deputy, was swapped for impulse and division. Don Brash’s unorthodox — because novice — political style fell in its first hole. read more

Be warned: a boss who runs a company off the rails and then takes a big payout might get a tongue-lashing from the National party’s new leader. Don Brash wants the public to back business and rich rewards for failure don’t help.

Brash backs high salaries for those who create jobs. But “it is quite outrageous that people who destroy large quantities of shareholder wealth and thousands of jobs seem to end up with very, very large payments,” he said in an interview [Thursday]. He will say that “occasionally in speeches”. read more

Between his master’s economic thesis and his PhD Don Brash had a conversion from opposing foreign investment to extolling it. The “Christian socialist” turned believer in markets. He hasn’t looked back.

That sounds much like the born-again experience that took some Labour people to ACT. And, indeed, Brash comes from a religious family. His father was a Presbyterian minister of very high international status. read more