Politics and the economy
What does Christopher Luxon have that Palestinian leaders do not have?
The answer – according to our reading of recent media reports – is an invitation to sit on the Trump-concocted “Board of Peace”.
Those appointed to this and the “Gaza Executive Board” will oversee the administration and reconstruction of Gaza, Continue reading “Luxon is asked to join board for talks (which are bound to be boisterous) on rebuilding Gaza”
The Green Party should be flying high right now. They’re not. As the 2026 election year begins in earnest, the Greens find themselves in a deeply anomalous position: polling has slumped, internal organisation has been shaken by staff departures and scandals, and the co-leaders seem strangely detached from the scale of their problems.
The political conditions could hardly be more favourable for an opposition party like the Greens. Continue reading “Have the Greens lost their mojo?”
New Zealand has never spent more on public services, administered by a workforce that has grown by a third in less than a decade. And yet hospital waiting lists stretch into years, students leave school unable to read, and infrastructure crumbles.
More money. More people. Worse results. If resources are not the problem, what is? Continue reading “The Hidden Architecture of Government Failure”
We must celebrate the achievement of a Free Trade Agreement with India, but only the uninformed attribute its success solely to the current Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, and to Todd McClay, the trade minister. The negotiations took a couple of decades involving many more politicians. Even less recognised – and more crucial – have been the diplomats who have been slugging it out over the years dealing with intricate details, spending their lives flying between the countries and in anonymous hotels. Salute to them too.
New Zealand’s skill in cutting back tall poppies is more in evidence than its success in transplanting them. John Clarke’s career suggests the latter may deserve more attention.
The documentary on John Clarke, Not Only Fred Dagg, is a perfectly judged piece of local understatement. We’re invited to recall the character everyone remembers, while being pointed to something else that was going on all along.
Woolworths has announced a partnership with Google to incorporate agentic artificial intelligence into its “Olive” chatbot, starting in Australia later this year.
Until now, Olive has largely answered questions, resolved problems and directed shoppers to information.
Continue reading “Do Woolworths shoppers want Google AI adding items to buy? We’ll soon find out”
These days, making sense of the chaos and confusion coming out of the White House is a full-time job. Threats, bribes, illegal use of the National Guard, family kleptocracy, foreign adventures, some well-intentioned, others the product of no serious prior contemplation, keep all Americans on tenterhooks.
The world watches with uneasy anticipation, and selective condemnation.
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay is bound to have been chuffed at being appointed Vice Chair for the World Trade Organisation’s 14th Ministerial Trade Negotiation Conference, “for a second consecutive time following his role at MC13 in Abu Dhabi two years ago”.
MC13 is trade-policy jargon for “13th ministerial conference”.
Todd is one of three Vice Chairs, alongside ministers from Jamaica and the Philippines. Continue reading “McClay (a Vice Chair again) is braced for another bout of WTO talks – but the future looks tariffying for free trade buffs”
Donald Trump is clearly in a hurry to dominate the political narrative in his second term of office. He began 2026 with strikes in Syria against Islamic State groups, the kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, threats to intervene in Iran and the declaration that the US would take control of Greenland – by hook or by crook.
Of all these the plan to add Greenland to the US either by negotiation or by force is easily the most controversial as it could lead to the break-up of the Nato alliance.
Some ideas cost nothing to believe but a great deal to implement. Political commentator Rob Henderson calls them “luxury beliefs” – convictions that signal virtue among the comfortable while imposing very real costs on those with much less room to manoeuvre.
New Zealand, for reasons cultural as much as political, has become fertile ground for them. We are a small, highly educated country that prizes good intentions. Yet too often, the people who congratulate themselves for their ideals are not the ones who bear their consequences. Continue reading “The High Cost of Luxury Beliefs”
Point of Order 