Our liberty cannot be guarded but by freedom of the press. But does a free press really have to suck so bad?
I've had some unkind things to say about Mayor Michael Laws. Last week I fulminated about what appears to be his attempt to extract vengance against the local newspaper for an editorial stance he disapproves of.
It's the job of MPs to push the policies they believe in. It would be constitutionally outrageous if they didn't.
Dr Michael Bassett occasionally ventures into cyberspace to vent his spleen on the decline of civilization and the
Just what is there in Whanganui's water that makes people there act like morons?
I don't think anyone would disagree that Michael Laws has a rather healthy ego, or that he takes his job as mayor of Whanganui exceptionally seriously.
Who says impending destruction can't have a good soundtrack?
Sunday morning, I listened to National Radio's wall-to-wall coverage of the impending Tsunami for a couple of hours.
Probably not. But Phil Heatley's decision to fall on his sword over two bottles of wine is an awfully extreme act of contrition.
Let's assume that, contra some fevered speculation on the part of Labour's online cheer squad, the whole story about Phil Heatley has come out, and there isn't any nasty skeleton lurking in a d
The question and process for the 2011 referendum on MMP have been announced. It's all good.
I am aware that three posts in a week on electoral law matters may be bordering on overkill. But this last topic probably is the most important of the lot, so I want to say something about it.
The Government has announced what it plans to do with the law on electoral financing. Not all that much, actually.
For anyone who doesn't know, my specialist area of academic research is electoral law, with a particular interest in the law that regulates how electoral contests are financed.
Paul Quinn wants to take us back to the days when all prisoners could not vote. Why on earth would he want to do that?
Last week, for my sins, I attended a couple of conferences in Wellington. One involved a comparative look at Canada and New Zealand, seventy years after the first diplomatic connections between those countries was established. The second, "We the People(s)", centred on the vexed question of how popular participation in government occurs, and how it should occur.
I have a pet. Being cruel to animals is wrong. But why put more people in jail for it?
A quick, and I trust unnecessary, upfront disclaimer. I think torturing kittens and deliberately starving puppies to death is wrong and worthy of criminal punishment.
The Judicial Conduct Commissioner's preliminary inquiry into Justice Bill Wilson's conduct has begun. Did you notice how much our constitution has changed?
I've already posted on the curious case of Justice Bill Wilson and his failure to step aside from deciding a case in which he had a fairly substantial conflict of interest, looking at the Supreme Court's ultimate response to that failure.
