"National will have built lots and lots of charging stations all over the country so that the relatively wealthy New Zealalnders – farmers and corporate high flyers alike - who are able to afford Teslas without government assistance, will be able to travel long distances in comfort. Somehow, National has found a way to make even its climate change policy serve only the top five per cent."

#GordonCampbell, 2023

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2309/S00013/on-climate-discounts-and-corporates-as-children.htm

#Election2023 #ClimateChange #EV

"Rather than rely on the market to deliver large numbers of EVs at a reasonable price, European countries have offered incentives to stimulate consumer demand and to get the EV production lines moving. As a consequence in many parts of Europe EVs are available, affordable, and increasingly the vehicle of choice... markets might have (eventually) got there by themselves, but on climate change issues we don’t have the luxury of waiting to see."

#GordonCampbell, 2033

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2309/S00013/on-climate-discounts-and-corporates-as-children.htm

"[Iran's leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sees an Islamic civilization led by Iran, a Russo-Slavic civilization led by Russia, and a Confucius-communist civilization led by China, all at war with Western civilization—and he thinks now is the best chance they’ve had in decades to uproot the West."

#ForeignPolicy magazine, quoted by #GordonCampbell, 2023

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2304/S00030/on-chinas-big-new-power-troika.htm

"One would have hoped that a centre-left government would also be feeling impelled to challenge the Reserve Bank’s pursuit of higher unemployment as a corrective to inflation. In stark contrast, there has been little or no public debate about the role of excessive profits in fuelling inflation. Here’s an example of an argument rarely heard in New Zealand..."

#GordonCampbell, 2023

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2304/S00023/on-the-morning-after-three-waters.htm

#inflation #InterestRates #MonetaryPolicy

"if data privacy is the main issue, Tik Tok is hardly the only social media platform posing a potential threat to ordinary Americans. That is AOC’s point. The solution should therefore entail regulatory powers being applied fairly and equally to all players, and not just as a selective ban on only one of them."

#GordonCampbell, 2023

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2303/S00055/on-the-banning-of-tik-tok.htm

#privacy #TechRegulation #SocialMedia #TikTok

"In 2020, it seems that [Labour MP Stuart] Nash emailed a few of his cobbers (and a couple of his donors) in the commercial property sector, about the nature of confidential Cabinet discussions to do with issues in which they had a financial interest."

#GordonCampbell, 2023

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2303/S00055/on-the-banning-of-tik-tok.htm

Post-Rogernomics Labour is shot through with self-serving carpetbaggers like this guy. This is why we can't have nice things, like secure housing for all.

#Aotearoa #NZ #StuartNash

"... lobbying need not always be seen in conspiratorial terms, as an inherently negative process... Yet on any controversial public policy issue, there already tends to be an imbalance of p.r. resources between the groups involved. If, in addition, one side of the case enjoys privileged access to deliver a clause by clause, line by line commentary on upcoming legislation then democracy is not operating on anything like a level playing field."

#GordonCampbell, 2023

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2304/S00009/on-regulating-the-love-affair-between-lobbyists-and-law-makers.htm

#PR

The Tyee: BC’s Orwellian LNG Con (in Analysis) https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2023/04/06/BC-Orwellian-LNG-Con/ #bcnews #TheTyee - via @tyee@mstdn.ca #ImpactAssessmentCooperationAgreementBetweenCanadaandBritishColumbia #EnvironmentandClimateChangeCanada #GreenhouseGasReductionTargetsAct #EnvironmentalAssessmentOffice #ImpactAssessmentAct #CedarLNGproject #LNGCanadaPhase1 #GordonCampbell #ChristyClark #CleanBCplan #JohnHorgan

"Unfortunately, the job of Police Minister has often involved little more than talking tough on crime, and issuing calls to “lock up the crims” and throw away the key. That’s the Mitchell approach. It has been an expensive failure, socially and economically. Ginny Andersen at least, looks like someone able to conceive of the need for solutions at the top of the cliff, rather than just funding the building of more prisons for people at the bottom."

#GordonCampbell, 2023

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2303/S00040/on-how-similar-vladimir-putin-is-to-george-w-bush.htm

"For China, the trade sanctions against Iran and the US killing of Soleimani – the one figure in Iran who might have resisted China’s influence – have been golden gifts. China has not only won unlimited access to Iran’s oil on the cheap, but can also now exploit its access to Iran’s newly discovered deposits of lithium, which have almost overnight turned Iran into the world’s second biggest source..."

#GordonCampbell, 2023

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2303/S00028/on-the-hipkins-cutbacks-and-the-major-saudiiran-deal.htm

Here's an Aotearoa perspective from Gordon Campbell on the US Supreme Court cases involving Section 230 and why it matters to us that 230 protections are upheld:

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2302/S00034/on-how-the-us-supreme-court-could-ruin-the-internet.htm

#Section230 #GordonCampbell

@sj_zero
@icedquinn

A sizable chunk of the opposition to the Three Waters reforms were driven by fears of public water infrastructure being commercialised, and maybe even sold off, like the phone and power networks. As #GordonCampbell points out, this is much more likely under National's plan:

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2303/S00001/on-the-sacking-of-rob-campbell.htm

#Aotearoa #NZ #ThreeWaters #privatisation #privatization #NationalNZ

#GordonCampbell's 2022 comment on the public media merger :

"Were other options fully explored? You’d think that a bigger, centralised entity might not be the most nimble instrument for reaching niche and neglected audiences. Instead of a merger, a separate digitally based entity tasked with reaching those young, brown, and LGBTI audiences might have delivered better outcomes, less controversially - and perhaps at roughly the same extra cost of $109 million annually."

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2212/S00014/on-the-tvnzrnz-merger-battles.htm

The Tyee: Beyond Carbon Taxes: Even Better Climate Solutions for Government (in News) https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/02/14/Beyond-Carbon-Taxes-Better-Climate-Solutions-Government/ #bcnews #TheTyee - via @tyee@mstdn.ca #ClimatePolicyinBritishColumbia:AnUnexpectedJourney #FrontiersinClimatejournal #CleanElectricityStandard #ClimateActionSecretariat #ClimateSolutionsCouncil #GreenhouseGasEmissions #BCPremierChristyClark #lowcarbonfuelstandard #MalcolmFairbrother #BCPremierDavidEby #GordonCampbell

"Already, the [Retirement] Commission’s review found, 40% of the renters in the 65-to-74 age group are paying up to 80% of their pension on housing costs. In the Commission’s view, it is imperative to increase the Accommodation Supplement that was capped at $8,100 nearly 30 years ago, back when this amounted to 10% of the cost of an average house. Times have changed."

#GordonCampbell, 2022

http://werewolf.co.nz/2022/12/gordon-campbell-on-nationals-clueless-stance-on-national-super/

#Aotearoa #NZ #SocialWelfare #retirement

Well, some of us knew. As Gordon Campbell pointed out in March 2020:

"... it has actually been the fiscal conservatism of the Cullen/Clark and Robertson/Ardern administrations that has left this country well prepared to weather an economic crisis... Even now, some of the costs of coronavirus support will be met by borrowing – which largely thanks to Cullen (and to low interest rates) we can amply afford."

http://werewolf.co.nz/2020/03/gordon-campbell-on-the-economic-stimulus-package/

#GordonCampbell #WereWolf

"Perhaps because the diseases related to sugar intake do happen to regressively hit poor communities the hardest, this poll outcome shouldn’t be surprising:

'A UMR poll from July 2017 found that New Zealanders on the lowest income bracket were most supportive of a SD tax.

A tax on sugar-sweetened beverages would be a vital first step."

#GordonCampbell, 2022

#Aotearoa #NZ #sugar #SugarTax

"Here and elsewhere (e.g. Ireland) the take-up rate for [WINZ dental] grants is known to be abysmal. Either the people with greatest need don’t know such grants exist, or the hoops to be jumped through to obtain this “emergency” relief amount to a significant deterrent. The grants tend to be restricted to emergency remedial care, and do not fund the preventative work required to avoid future problems."

#GordonCampbell, 2022

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2211/S00030/on-the-case-for-universal-free-dental-care.htm

#Aotearoa #NZ #WINZ #DentalCare #Dentistry

"Europe’s rivers are turning up bleak omens — the receding waters in parts of central Europe have revealed old 'hunger stones,' markers placed along riverbeds that locals centuries prior left as guides to earlier droughts. One stone that emerged out of the Elbe read: 'When this goes under, life will become more colourful again.'”

#WashingtonPost, via #GordonCampbell, 2022

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2209/S00005/on-king-coals-comeback-plus-a-music-playlist.htm

#ClimateChange #Europe #drought

@stever
"That brings up the wider problem with Nash’s commentary. It felt at odds with how most New Zealanders regard our natural environment. This may be where you can find the last vestiges of the egalitarian impulses that once used to run right through our entire social fabric."

#GordonCampbell, 2022

#Aotearoa #NZ #equality #NZLabour #StuartNash