I'm belatedly adding to my website a photo of me being invested as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit "for services to human rights advocacy" by the Governor-General, Dame Patsy Reddy on 20 April 2021.
I saw the award as recognition of the great work...
Keith's storyThe life path Keith Locke ended up taking was largely mapped out at birth. He was born into a family in which it was natural to be politically active. His parents were Elsie Locke - peace campaigner, environmentalist, novelist and historian - and Jack Locke, a leading member...
Jim Anderton made a great and irreplaceable contribution to our society and democracy. Without his leadership of NewLabour and the Alliance – and his support of MMP – we might still be stuck with a narrow, two-party, first-past-the-post political system – like Britain, Australia, Canada and the United States. We owe Jim a lot.
The extra attention our Courts are now giving to Bill of Rights matters can help slow the erosion of our civil liberties which occurs when MPs play excessive attention to the “law and order” lobby.
Wouldn’t you think a Countering Terrorist Fighters Bill would actually mention “terrorist fighters” in its text? The Bill, as released yesterday, does not. It’s simply another generalised counter-terrorism exercise giving extra surveillance powers to the Security Intelligence Service and enabling the Minister of Internal Affairs to cancel passports for a longer period.
Predicting the prospects for a party that hasn’t yet been launched is a risky business, but the Internet Party has certain things running in its favour:
As a former bookseller I have been disturbed that some booksellers (Paper Plus and the Warehouse) have been panicked by a Facebook campaign into refusing Read More