Dying for an invitation to Washington
John Key and his colleagues are going to send the Special Air Service to Afghanistan. The current talk about whether National should do so is, unfortunately, academic. The decision is already made.
Category: Opinion
There’s actually only one John Key, just not the one on show
National’s campaign is hiding a front bench full of 1990s-style free marketers behind John Key’s well-scripted one-liners….
Hooton’s hollow complaints, comment, Pundit website
Nicky Hager was invited by the Pundit website to reply to a column by Matthew Hooton.
Finance bill strengthens democracy
The Herald launched a campaign against the Electoral Finance Bill last week, saying it is repressive, curtails democracy and breaches human rights. Despite changes to the bill this week, the criticisms have continued. But they seem strangely one-eyed….
How to decide who is a terrorist
The Solicitor-General will shortly make a decision whether to approve terrorism charges against the Maori, peace and environmental activists arrested last month. Nicky Hager describes how the decision will be made and the factors the Solicitor-General needs to take into account….
Election funding: What’s National up to?
The great weakness of much journalism is a process-worker approach to assembling quotation-based stories….
Donor cash stays in shadows
MPs have stepped back from proposals that would have lifted secrecy
surrounding party donations….
Beyond the spin-doctoring, democracy is at work
I would like to propose a New Year’s resolution for news organisations: sorting out the difference between genuine media commentators and giving regular media space to political party spin doctors….
Reply to Michael Bassett and Richard Long
Michael Bassett and Richard Long used their recent columns to criticise me and my book The Hollow Men but they barely mentioned, much less debated, the contents of the book. Nor did they acknowledge that they both feature prominently…..
In defence it’s not size that matters
The latest ‘debate’ about defence consists of the usual moans about the military being dangerously underfunded and ill-equipped…. but this says more about the feeble standard of debate than any reality concerning our military forces….