Either Cameron Slater deserves our pity, or he deserves our contempt as the Peter Bethune of the right.
Is it wrong to break an unjust law? That's a question that has bedeviled serious moral and political thinkers for centuries - at least since Socrates chose to drink the Hemlock prescribed by the Athenian court rather than accept his friends' offer of escape.
Plato recounts his reasoning in Crito:
Don't be fooled - the "court challenge" to NIWA's temperature records is very little to do with the law and a lot to do with getting your attention.
It's no secret that I harbour a deep skepticism about the claims, motivations and tactics of those who would deny that anthropocentric global warming/man-made climate change is taking place. See, for instance, the (somewhat heated) comments thread to this Pundit post.
The Sunday Star-Times is very big on the need for accountability in others. How about it demonstrates a bit itself?
A few weeks ago, the Sunday Star-Times ran a front-page story about a fairly routine case in which a High Court judge varied the sentence of a woman convicted for drink driving, quashing her disqualification and instead tripling the amount of community service she must per
The latest episode in the unfolding story of Justice Bill Wilson sees our intrepid hero, Sir Edmund (Ted) Thomas, radically reduce the number of Christmas cards he will have to answer this year.
I think it is safe to say that the public availability of some 30-odd pages of email correspondence in which a recently retired judge and top lawyer variously debate how best to encourage a Supreme Court judge to resign from office, suggest a preparedness to overlook judicial misconduct if n
A new Bill proposes that incumbents shouldn't be able to use public funding to pay for their election ads. Surely that's cause for celebration?
Over at No Right Turn, Idiot Savant castigates National for its hypocrisy in introducing a Bill to limit what MPs and political parties can use their publicly funded parliamentary entitlements fo
If a 3-year-old's teacher adds $320,000 to the future income of that child's class, should we pay a bit more to keep that teacher in a job? Or would you rather have a tax cut now?
My journalist-trained colleagues on Pundit probably will wince at my opening with such a hackneyed cliche, but everything changes when you have children of your own.
On Wednesday I argued that New Zealand should fix the general election date in law. Here's how it could be done.
New Zealand should fix its election date in law. Otherwise, John Key needs to tell us when the 2011 election will be held ... and soon.
On Monday I had the pleasure (and I'm not being sarcastic here - it genuinely was a pleasant experience) of talking to Parliament's Electoral Legislation Committee for the best part of an hour about the bills to set up the 2011 referendum on MMP
In which the author tries his hand at satire. Results most definitely not guaranteed.
Auckland's new "party central" for the Rugby World Cup will be Prime Minister John Key's front lawn, it was revealed today.
Forget the World Cup. Expenses and allowances are still the real football of the moment.
Here's a wee lesson for any aspiring politicians out there, whether they have local or central government office in their sights, courtesy of current Manakau City councillor (and aspiring Auckland Supercity candidate) Dick Quax.
