It is now legal for anyone in New Zealand to get hold of and read a copy of Into the River. This happy ending to a sorry saga demonstrates that it perhaps is time for a change of leadership at the Film and Literature Board of Review.
Caution: contains sweary stuff ... you may need to wash your eyes afterwards.
Read MoreJane Kelsey's court victory over the evil MFAT/Tim Groser empire is probably too little, too late for her campaign against the TPPA. But it sends some important messages to a range of public actors in New Zealand's governing arrangements.
Read MoreWith just a week to go in Canada's Federal elections, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been roundly accused of racism and dog-whistle politics in order to draw attention away from the failings of his administration. Next Monday he will know if his tactics have worked.
Read MoreA couple of recent cases show that being right about the law isn't enough - you also need to get the courts to do what you want. Because if you can't, you may even end up worse off than when you started.
Read MoreHow Much of New Zealand Has to Be Owned and Controlled by Foreigners?
Read MoreThe TPP may not deliver an immediate big bang for our dairy industry. But there's an awful lot to like in it - and New Zealand really has to be a part of it.
Read MoreTPP can help lift incomes in New Zealand but to make a difference for people, there’s a lot more work still to do.
If the Trans-Pacific Partnership becomes an Agreement, New Zealand will become bound by a set of "Investor State Dispute Settlement" procedures. What are these, and why should anyone care?
Read MoreYou can't get away with much on a rugby field these days. It used to be different, and some argued that whatever was good enough for rugby was good enough for politics
Read MoreThe Greens and National have combined today to add Red Peak to the flag referendum, and in doing so have ensured a troubled process has crossed into slapstick
Read MoreYou would never know from the Republican Presidential nominee hopefuls that they have lost their battle to defeat Obama on the Iran nuclear deal….but electioneering is not known for being mindful of facts.
Read MoreA year on from the election and we now see loud and clear what defines the John Key government - a willingness to bend to public opinion and give the people just enough of what they want
Read MoreParliament's powerful Privileges Committee has had a hard look at how social media is being used to report on Parliament ... and decided that everything is working pretty much fine as it is. Hooray!
Read MoreIt's one thing to galvinise the base, quite another to win over the general electorate. And it's hard to see a strategy which Jeremy Corbyn can use to achieve that
Read MoreWill taking the Union Jack off New Zealand's flag "open the gates of hell" and give John Key absolute power? No. No it won't.
Read MoreThe reasons given for imposing an order stopping anyone from being able to access Into the River do not justify it. The order is wrong.
Read MoreJust how dangerous can a book be? And in order to combat that danger, how far should our expressive freedoms be restrained?
Read MoreHow long has it been since the death of a single child has saved so many other lives? And now that we are paying attention, how do we get the next step right?
Read MoreToday’s refugee crisis is one result of doing nothing to stop Bashar al-Assad after he used chemical weapons against Syrian civilians.
Everyone talks about the human consequences of intervention. But we also need to look at the human consequences of doing nothing.
Read MoreThis was an introduction to a presentation by Stephen Jacobi: "TPP – Where to from Here (And How Did We Get Here Anyway)?" To a NZIIA lecture, 2 September 2015. (Some editing)
Read More