New Zealand
Kiwi Life
Once upon a time here in New Zealand, when political dinosaurs still roamed the earth, Prime Minister Keith Holyoake startled…
Kiwi Life
It’s true what they say about ill winds. The coronavirus pandemic was a perverse blessing for New Zealand Prime Minister…
Kiwi Life
What has happened to the West, ignoring the lessons of history? Sweden, for example, long regarded as one of the…
Kiwi Life
‘Trustworthy, accurate and reliable news stories are more important now than ever. Support our newsrooms by making a contribution.’How wonderfully…
Popper, the outsider
New Zealand’s role in great philosophical thinking
Covid-19 and the creeping state
Did the New Zealand government act illegally on lockdown laws?
The best New Zealand wine I’ve come across
I was once invited to the Cheltenham races and found the experience underwhelming. Everything was too respectable: not nearly Hibernian…
Maori roadblocks
Covid-19 unmasks the true separatist agenda
Disaster’s long march through the institutions
Derelict thinking throughout central and local body government and indeed all our management (including academic) areas, is now recognised as…
Made-up Maori
In what may seem a strange request, I recently replied to a government department asking to be addressed in English,…
Deserter dads
Nearly everyone in New Zealand has been made to feel they could play a part in the forthcoming Royal Commission…
Jaded by Jacinda
On a Pacific cruise ship recently, passengers were subjected to a rant by an Australian ‘comedian’ – a word now…
Privilege points to prejudice
The other day I checked my points balance. I felt ashamed by how high it was, and wondered what I…
Black and white clouds over New Zealand
The Christchurch mosque massacres of March 15 brought out the best and the worst in New Zealanders. The best was…
Christchurch – and saying goodbye to so much
Our saddest times are when those we love leave us. When there is not even time to say goodbye, the…
Fake New Zealand
That sleeping giant, the public, is waking up this side of the Tasman, but late to redress the reality that…
Wimmin’s notes
Men aren’t doing it by themselves, either The recent triumphalist article by Speccie writer Declan Mansfield, ‘Sisters aren’t doing it…
Full of fabulous, but baffling, things: Oceania reviewed
At six in the morning of 20 July 1888, Robert Louis Stevenson first set eyes on a Pacific Island. As…
Brash free speech
It’s taken a while, but the speech wars have reached New Zealand – and an Australian is in the thick…
The bully boys and girls have gone too far
On both sides of the Tasman, too many of our MPs haven’t listened to the brilliant black American academic, Thomas…
Kiwi notes
Piggy’s prevaricating protégé Australians who like to poke fun at quaint, idiosyncratic New Zealand have, for once, got all the…
Split NZ
The only thing that can be said with any certainty about the next New Zealand government is that it will…
Off the radar
The gap between Australia’s and New Zealand’s defence capabilities is an embarrassment
Aftershocks and polo ponies in Christchurch, New Zealand
On my first night in Christchurch, I woke at 3.32 a.m. to what felt like an explosion. My bed was…
Mavericks and ratbags threaten the NZ Nationals
A coalition of cartoon-like characters and events could spell the end of John Key’s conservative government