That outcome would be likely because the kids most committed to social media are going to lie, get a VPN, cajole an older sibling or friend to set up an account, and/or head off into the less ...

No one likes being a downer at Christmas time, so…as we look forward into 2026, we can all agree that some economic growth is better […] ...

Decades ago, Alexander Cockburn wrote a column pointing out that the true believers in the power and precision of the defence industry’s latest weaponry tend to be (a) their gullible government ...

Tomorrow is a long time, as Bob Dylan once said, and while Dylan wasn’t singing about our prospects of economic recovery, the mood of frustrated anticipation seems apt. Supposedly, economic growth is ...

In the wake of the IPCA report, it is easy to understand why the politicians have been so willing to endorse terms like “cover up” and “ corruption.” It is convenient to explain what went wrong in ...

Politicians are often urged to reach consensus on certain issues, so that everything doesn’t just flip back again when there’s a change of government. Unfortunately, these calls for consensus are ...

If something isn’t really broken, no wonder people feel suspicious when government promises to “fix” it to the potential benefit of corporate interests. In 2011 ...

Mother’s Day, Father’s Day…there are a couple of other occasions when shopping is mobilised to express love and appreciation. (Black Friday panders to more basic instincts.) The wonder is that ...

These are the perennial political questions that every incumbent government has to face. Do people feel better/wealthier/more secure now than they were three years ago? Not much, it seems. In last ...

Good to hear someone calling “bullshit” on Winston Peters, and on his claims to have saved the taxpayer $2.3 billion on the Cook Strait ferries. As RNZ’s Ingrid Hipkiss pointed out to Peters this ...

So asset sales are back on the agenda, and will be dependent only on the coalition government getting re-elected next year. Yikes. Right wing governments are forever selling off the assets created by ...

In the context of yesterday’s teachers strike, Judith Collins claimed that teachers with ten years of experience “can” (not “do”) earn $147,000 a year. In reality though, teachers have to pay their ...