australian politics

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Nuclear chickens coming home?

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 8:23 am, August 8th, 2019 - 30 comments

The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty between the United State and Russia signed by Reagan and Gorbachev in 1987 formally ended on August 2nd. On Sunday the new US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper dined privately with Winston Peters. Before and during his trip to the Pacific, Mark Esper called for placement of intermediate-range US missiles in Asia.

Arnhem Land and Ihumātao

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:28 am, August 5th, 2019 - 44 comments

A Recent High Court decision in Australia suggests that protection of indigenous land rights may be better than we think.

Dutton engages in weaponised brutality

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:52 am, August 1st, 2019 - 63 comments

Australia is responding to New Zealand’s concern at the forced repatriation of New Zealand citizens from Australia who fall foul of the law by dramatically increasing the potential for this to occur.

The weasel accurately dissects National.

Written By: lprent - Date published: 2:05 pm, July 26th, 2019 - 36 comments

Matthew Hooton has a piece on National’s chances in the next election this morning entitled as “National stumbling to defeat”. Personally I think he is a PR weasel who is on the border to dirty politics. But he did cover the salient points that will be on the mind of the National party conference.

Australian right wing commentators suffer from deranged Jacinda syndrome

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:48 am, July 24th, 2019 - 76 comments

Australian right wing commentators are losing their shirts at the thought that Jacinda Ardern may be in the running for a Nobel Peace prize.

National supports 47% tax rate for top income bracket *

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:21 am, July 5th, 2019 - 25 comments

* this is one possible interpretation for National’s praise of the Morrisonn Government’s change to Australian tax system.

FiveEyes on our elections

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 3:56 am, June 12th, 2019 - 94 comments

Andrew Little’s letter to the Select Committee on election interference puzzled me – it seemed to be out of the blue and not particularly relevant to our system. Then I read about a meeting on the Gold Coast last year and it became clear as to why – FiveEyes pressure.

Government under FiveEyes

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 9:48 pm, June 7th, 2019 - 11 comments

Australian Federal Police chief Neil Gaughan told media after raiding the ABC that “if police did not investigate the leaking of classified information, Australia would no longer be entrusted by FiveEyes partners with intelligence that saves lives.” FiveEyes didn’t save Muslim lives in Christchurch.

The Coming Global Economic Slowdown and New Zealand

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:45 am, June 3rd, 2019 - 49 comments

With the United States – China trade war well underway, the sick chaos of Brexit is shrinking the U.K. economy and slowing much of Europe’s economy, and smaller economies such as that of Mexico in the crosshairs through further politically manufactured trade disputes, the second half of this year looks for New Zealand nowhere near as rosy as the first half.

Death tax fake news

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:47 am, May 21st, 2019 - 62 comments

Social media was responsible for the repeated broadcasting of the claim that Labor in Australia intended to bring in a death tax. What should happen when claims that are clearly wrong are made?

Will the Christian Conservatives rise again?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:07 am, May 20th, 2019 - 78 comments

Simon Bridges has conceded that his claim that talk about Alfred Ngaro setting up a conservative party was “rumour and speculation” was not actually true. And Ngaro has gone on the offensive describing abortion as an unholy holocaust.

Aussie oi?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:37 am, May 19th, 2019 - 122 comments

Overnight in Australia there was meant to be a change to a Labor Government. But something happened …

Is Tony Abbott finished?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:20 am, May 5th, 2019 - 9 comments

Tony Abbott is facing electoral defeat from Zali Steggall, an independent candidate who has put combating climate change at the centre of her campaign.

Tough, swift leadership needed to police social media

Written By: Simon Louisson - Date published: 1:45 am, April 10th, 2019 - 73 comments

The government has been rightly lauded for swiftly acting to ban assault weapons after the Christchurch massacre, but is its failure to decisively call social media giants to order just as weak and unacceptable as the failure to act on Aramoana massacre back in 1990?

Did Hanson’s One Nation Party seek funding from the NRA and the Koch Brothers?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:05 am, March 27th, 2019 - 23 comments

Pauline Hanson’s One Australia party is trying to defend claims that it should funding to oppose gun restrictions from the NRA and the Koch Brothers by stating that its chief of staff was drunk.

‘Heroes’

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 4:03 pm, March 17th, 2019 - 91 comments

A few musings on heroism.

Ardern backs students striking for climate change

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:43 am, March 15th, 2019 - 70 comments

Jacinda Ardern has publicly supported the School students strike about climate change and urged them not to underestimate the power of their voices.

Cardinal Pell

Written By: advantage - Date published: 2:55 pm, March 13th, 2019 - 6 comments

Cardinal Pell has been given six years in jail for his crimes against children. But the Catholic Church has a range of other allegations to resolve.

Magicked-Up Weapons

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 10:30 pm, March 11th, 2019 - 116 comments

I’m glad Anne-Marie Brady will get the chance to present her “Magic Weapons” paper to the select committee examining the last election. At long last it might get given some proper critical examination, of its content as well as it provenance. In my opinion it reads like a long list of the blindingly obvious, mixed with a large dose of conspiracy theory. It certainly doesn’t show much sign of the sort of critical thinking one might expect from an academic.

What China crisis?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 12:58 pm, February 18th, 2019 - 52 comments

Claims that New Zealand is at a crisis point in terms of its relationship with China appear to be somewhat overegged.

That federation campaign

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:50 am, January 24th, 2019 - 110 comments

There’s an ad campaign that says “New Zealand is doing Australia better than Australia is”, and recommends federation of New Zealand with Australia and Jacinda being the first Prime Minister. Maybe it’s time.

Go Democracy Go!

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:19 am, December 26th, 2018 - 68 comments

It’s going to be a strong year for democratic politics.

Random 2019 predictions …

Written By: advantage - Date published: 7:30 am, December 22nd, 2018 - 114 comments

What will happen in 2019?

A Right Shambles

Written By: te reo putake - Date published: 9:48 am, December 13th, 2018 - 34 comments

With the UK Tories self imploding, the US President contemplating jail time, Angela Merkel moving on and the conservative parties on both sides of the Tasman looking increasingly irrelevant, what should the left do to fill the gap?

Safe from prying 5Eyes

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 10:22 pm, December 8th, 2018 - 62 comments

I like my Huawei phone. Apparently the US National Security Agency can’t break its encryption. That’s presumably the “security” issue why Spark is being blocked from using Huawei, and why Meng Wanzhou is held hostage in Canada at the behest of US neocons.

Nutjobs and the UN Global Migration Pact

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 8:35 am, December 7th, 2018 - 137 comments

National and ACT have alleged that a United Nations Pact supported by New Zealand in 2016 will take away sovereign rights even though the pact itself says that it is not legally binding.

The dinosaurs are clinging on

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:42 am, November 28th, 2018 - 32 comments

The Trump administration has produced an official report outlining the perils of climate change which the POTUS has rejected. And in Australia the dinosaur Liberal Party has suffered a huge loss in Victorian State elections, the loss of their Parliamentary majority and ScoMo has criticised school students taking direct action against the Government’s totally inadequate policies.

Political interference

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 10:35 pm, November 20th, 2018 - 82 comments

China certainly has interfered in New Zealand politics, most notably by the offer of a free trade deal which delivered huge benefits to our economy. Party and government officials all stressed to us that they were grateful for New Zealand’s support for their accession to the World Trade Organisation, the rule-based trade body. The US and Australia in contrast want to build a military base on Manus Island north of Papua.