Category: NZ Herald

The main street “pavement” in the old English town of Chester is a venerable, spacious gallery, one storey up. (At least, it was in the 1970s.)

The logic is strong: separate walkers from drivers. But it is unusual.

Wellington’s Cuba Street, a shoppers’ and clubbers’ street, is cut twice by heavy, stinking through traffic going east on Ghuznee Street and west on Vivian Street. Transit once suggested sinking the two cross-streets but the local politics were too difficult so there ensued a long argument. The alternative, a ground-level bypass farther south through properties and walkers, is still two years away. read more

On Thursday 100,000 are expected to gather in Porto Alegre, Brazil, to plot to save us from global capitalism. Next week the United Nations weapons inspectors report on Iraq, with war in the offing. Global events won’t leave us in peace.

Globalisation of business is the dragon to be slain at the third World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. Globalisation of people is the weapon they will use, reaching through national states’ borders to unite people who share their fears and ambitions. read more

One test this lucky government has not had to face is lengthy economic slowdown, still less a recession. Might this be the year of that test?

Economists tell us this year will be slower than last but still right up with the 1990s average. Then, they say, growth will pick up again as the world lifts out of its current soft patch. read more

Care to ride into the “valley of death” with Pete Hodgson? The Minister for Research, Science and Technology wants more new science-based business ventures and that valley is in his way.

Hodgson has a raft of initiatives, including possibly more tax changes, on his agenda as research, science and technology (RS&T) policy increasingly emphasises getting more economic return. read more

Last year ended with much harrumphing about taniwha and wahi tapu. The National party, retreating into the depths of Southland, made fun and bogeys of these intrusions on progress.

That put culture at the centre of the power debate — which is where culture always is, as the government is finding out. Culture is its biggest issue by far for this year and for its second term. read more

Each year leaves unfinished business. One for this democracy this New Year’s Eve is our elections. Who owns them?

In June the Prime Minister called a snap election four months before the parliamentary term was up.

She did that ostensibly because the Alliance had broken up, Opposition points of order on the Alliance’s legitimacy in the coalition were obstructing the government’s legislative programme and Parliament was being demeaned. read more

The political jibe of the year was surely Winston Peters’ “black widow spider” taunt to Helen Clark as she savaged her political mate, the Green party, in the election campaign.

The snap election had got mired in the bog of genetic modification, the Greens’ cause celebre. Labour’s support fell by a quarter. Clark blew her top. The Greens got eaten. read more

Stephen Franks is no forelock-tugger. Brought up a working class lad in Taihape, ACT’s brainiest MP is a verbal brawler.

So why is Franks battling alongside the cultural cringe brigade to keep the British Privy Council as our final court of appeal?

Come to think of it, why is young National rising star Simon Power also in Alf’s imperial platoon? Aren’t the young, even young fogies of the middle-right, supposed nowadays to want this nation standing tall on its own feet? read more

Today Helen Clark passes a milestone. She becomes the fourth longest-serving Labour Prime Minister, matching Sir Walter Nash’s exact three years in the job from 1957-60.

Clark has already lasted longer as Prime Minister than Mike Moore and Sir Geoffrey Palmer (1980s) and Sir Wallace Rowling and Norman Kirk (1970s). Another 16 months and she will go past the sainted Michael Joseph Savage (four years, three months and 22 days from 1935). This time two years hence she will be about to gazump David Lange (five years, nine days from 1984). read more

Regional and central networks are to be developed to improve coordination of government services, State Services Minister Trevor Mallard announced yesterday.

This is one of a range of initiatives, under a Review of the Centre programme, to get public and other state services working more effectively and responding better to the public. Mallard was reporting progress on the review’s recommendations from a year ago. read more