The Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill is going through it's final stages, and will likely pass this week. ¶ It is going to pass, and amendments - such as a sunset clause - or the exclusion of electorate MPs from its scope…
Signs that summer is on the way are not limited to the recent unnervingly early Spring weather: we're into festival reveal season and there are some things to discuss. ¶ Auckland's New Year's Eve party Wondergarden takes a big step up…
Public service advisories about drinking and driving – and road safety in general – have been with us for many years. For a long time, they had a common theme: to scare some sense into the public with, if necessary, the most…
Speaking shortly after the event at the Powerstation in Auckland was cancelled on Friday, Caolan Robertson, the self-styled agent for Canadian race grifter Lauren Southern declared that "powerful forces" were behind the venue's decision to dump the booking for Southern…
One of the issues on Jacinda Ardern's first-day-back desk today is medicinal cannabis – and specifically, the issue of how to respond to pressure to compromise and incorporate key elements of National MP Shane Reti's private members bill into its own…
The first time I met Tom Scott, I dropped some borrowed wisdom on him. ¶ We were conversing in the 'Talking Heads' format devised by Sam Wicks for the short-lived Herald offshoot Volume in 2011 and I happened to mention something…
The New Zealand Drug Foundation poll on cannabis law reform, whose results were published yesterday, is the first national poll to be conducted since the government promised a referendum on the issue. As such, it offers an insight not just…
It took no great insight to suppose that the main casualties of the report by the Office of the Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor debunking the "meth contamination" hysteria would be the companies who for years made a profitable business…
Flying Nun Records' donation of hundreds of original master tapes to the Alexander Turnbull Library, announced on Friday, is significant in any number of ways. Firstly, it's a big step in addressing the problem of deteriorating masters, which has been…
What's your darkest secret? ¶ She leaned toward me, locked her blue eyes with mine, and whispered in the most intoxicating Irish accent... ¶ "Clinton, I ran guns for the IRA." ¶ With those six words I was hooked. What followed has circulated…
Last week, The Lancet Public Health journal published the conclusions of a significant four-year cohort study into the use of cannabis by people suffering chronic pain. The results were, on the whole, highly unfavourable: participants who used cannabis tended to…
On 3 May Labour MP Rino Tirikatene had his Electoral (Entrenchment of Māori Seats) Amendment Bill drawn from the ballot. It hasn’t been before the House for its first reading debate yet, but it has already caused some controversy. ¶ The…
The news that Canada's Cannabis Act, which legalises and regulates the sale of cannabis, and its use and possession by adults, had passed its final legislative hurdle, was somewhat overwhelmed by the day-to-day madness of global news in 2018. But…
This week began with the best intentions. Having been off work following ankle surgery, the plan was creativity, productivity and loads of time in the kitchen. ¶ Painkillers and crutches aren’t the best mix when it comes to anything more than…
In recent weeks, it has been more difficult than ever to assess and comprehend all the stupid, awful deeds and words of President Donald Trump. The tantrum and chaos of the G7 meeting bleeds into his preposterous accounts of the…
Watching this week's episode of TVNZ's new I Am strand, I Am Living With Aspergers, the story of David RS Greer and his family, pushed a lot of buttons for me. ¶ To be clear, neither of our ASD sons has…
In Lee Borrie's oral history of Radio With Pictures, the first part of which is published this week on Audioculture, Bruce Russell recalls a Sunday night student ritual: you'd watch Radio With Pictures, and then you'd watch what everyone referred…
I published my Select Committee submission on the Contempt of Court Bill yesterday. Part of the reason it was both late and short was that I decided that my submission on the Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill was probably…
I have just filed a Select Committee submission on the Contempt of Court Bill. My submission was made a lot easier by the submission prepared by Leonid Sirota and Edward Willis, which raised almost all of the issues with the…
The email record shows that I worked pretty keenly to get an interview with Anthony Bourdain in 2005. I had been wholly captured one summer holiday by Kitchen Confidential, then loved A Cook's Tour, the book and the TV series.…
Amazon Studios' first venture into the New Zealand market, All or Nothing: New Zealand All Blacks, keeps being described in New Zealand media as a documentary series about the All Blacks' 2017 season. It isn't. It's not even described that…
My Dad loved his coffee strong and his food spicy enough to make him sweat. ¶ That’s what I remember a lot when I think of him. Waking up to the smell of strong black coffee permeating throughout the house, and…
UPDATE: Henry Cooke has been on it (and, unlike me, got a response from ADHB) and both ADHB and Waitemata DHB (which is the one that actually handles detox services) insist they didn't tell Housing NZ. In which case, what…
On this day five years ago, Audioculture, the "noisy library of New Zealand music", launched to the public. It really doesn't seem that long. ¶ At the time, I was on the board of the NZ On Screen Trust, which was…
‘Special Needs Kids’. I’ve always hated those words. ¶ Yet many parents of children who have needs that would not otherwise be provided for by any of our government-run systems have become accustomed to using this language and see it as…