While American lawmakers try to stop any Syrian refugees from reaching their shores, Canada is pushing on with a pledge to bring in 25,000 by the end of the year….and that is in full knowledge of a passport complication connected with the Paris terrorist attacks.
Read MoreThe Future of Trade Agreements
Given a long history of numerous trade agreements, why has the public become especially concerned about the TPP?
Read MoreFour things we can do after Paris
The ISIS attacks on Friday the 13th in Paris, in Beirut, and when the Russia plane was attacked, were an attack on all modern civilisation and society from Lebanon to France. The target on Friday was the values first articulated on Paris streets in the 18th century that led to a modern liberal revolution and eventually liberty in speech and assembly, fraternity expressed in tolerance and plurality, and equality between genders.
Read MoreSo now, where does NZ go?
A hundred years on from Gallipoli, and a few days after the massacre in in Paris, where does New Zealand stand in the western alliance and what is out role in the world's troubles?
Read MoreWhy does the Waitangi Tribunal insist on following the law?
The Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson is wrong in his public criticisms of the Waitangi Tribunal. Perhaps the Attorney-General Chris Finlayson could have a quiet word in his ear about the importance of the separation of powers in our Constitution?
Read MoreCan bias be in the eye of the beholder - and can you call it like you see it?
Parliament's powerful Privileges Committee (P3C!) is going to have to decide the boundary of fair criticism of the House's Speaker. This should be fun!
Read MoreFeeding the world
New Zealand is leading the way in sustainable agriculture, and that presents an opportunity to cash in
Read MoreAustralia: purging the convict stain?
Australia's mandatory deportation of (many) criminal offenders is causing us in New Zealand to get very excited. And now John Key realises he can't do anything about it, he's getting ugly.
Read MoreThe detainee spin battle: Backing rapists vs immoral weakling
Labour and National have found a fight they both want to have, as they use the Christmas Island riots as part of their over-arching PR strategies. Yet for once it's National looking rattled
Read MoreThe TPP, Sovereignty and Copyright
While TPP – any trade deal – compromises sovereignty it does not mean we cannot respond constructively to unsatisfactory aspects such as those involving intellectual property.
Read MoreLabour: Taking out the trash, hanging up new tinsel
It's a big day of transitioning for Labour, as it clears the decks for it's 'small targets' strategy. But one particular new policy caught my eye
Read MoreCamp Goff: old news, new tactics
Phil Goff's latest lift of his skirt reveals nothing new about his mayoral ambitions, but something more about his thinking and tactics
Read MoreTrudeau's Carnival Arrives in Ottawa
In 1968 Canada's Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau was sworn in with a Cabinet of suited white men. Forty seven years later his son has delivered Canada a Cabinet of gender parity, cultural, age and geographical diversity - all in a carnival like atmosphere open to the public.
Read MoreThrive: The Power of Psychological Therapy: Richard Layard & David M Clark
The book’s ‘message is as compelling as it is important: the social costs of mental illness are terribly high and the costs of effective treatments are surprisingly low'. Daniel Kahneman (psychologist and Nobel economics laureate).
Read MoreGM showdown: Minister & Councils face-off over who decides
The rights and wrongs of genetic modification are resurfacing as a political issue, as National signals its intent to introduce more GMOs, despite opposition from some councils and business
Read MoreThe Ports of (outside) Auckland
Can candidates for the Auckland mayoralty next year find a way to move the Ports of Auckland? If so, where to and at what cost?
Read MoreLessons From Greece
Travel extends the mind. Here are some of the things I learned from a recent trip to Greece: about the age of the human condition, about how civilisations end with environmental depletion, about the stresses to the current Greek economy and about how trivial are New Zealand news websites.
Read MoreWe need to talk about the one per cent
One per cent of the world's population now control half its wealth.
The concentration of more and more resources in fewer and fewer hands has actually accelerated since the global financial crisis. This is no accident. It is the outcome of policy decisions made – or avoided – by political leaders either unable to learn the lessons of the crisis or unwilling to act on them.
Read MoreCanada's new Trudeau
An anti-incumbant pro-change wave took hold of Canadian politics this week…thrusting to victory the 43 year old son of one of the country's most enigmatic politicians. Canadians may have had a love-hate relationship with Trudeau Snr., but they sure feel the love for his scion.
Read MoreDixon v R: An easy case that raises hard questions
There's a legal saying that hard cases make bad law. But sometimes the opposite can be true - an apparently easy case can lead a Court into some pretty swampy terrain.
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