In 2015, Don began writing articles for elocal, a monthly magazine focused on the Franklin county/Karaka area of South Auckland. In recent years, it has been available both in print and digital editions (the latter at www.elocal.co.nz). In reverse chronological order, these are those articles.
One of the most amazing aspects of politics in New Zealand in recent decades is the enduring popularity of a Prime Minister who leads a Government which has failed in almost every major policy area. It is indeed a sad reflection on democracy itself that voters seem more impressed by...
In January 2004, I addressed the Orewa Rotary Club by asking:
Last month, I wrote about the way in which radicals are working to reinterpret the meaning of the Treaty of Waitangi, often arguing that the Treaty of Waitangi (in English) and Te Tiriti o Waitangi (in te reo) are two quite different documents, and that there is no way that...
A couple of issues back, I wrote about the way in which the Government had passed legislation under urgency to prevent ratepayers having any right to demand a referendum before local authorities establish Maori wards, as a previous Labour Government had explicitly legislated for.
Throughout my almost 14 years as Governor of the Reserve Bank, Michael Reddell was one of my most insightful advisers. And one of the many issues he warned about was the danger to social and economic stability of a continuing escalation in house prices.
So much has happened since I wrote my last column for the February edition that it’s hard to know what on Earth to focus on both internationally and here in New Zealand.
Days after Donald Trump was elected as US President in November 2016, I wrote one of my very first columns for Elocal. This was my opening paragraph:
Earlier this year, I wrote a column headed “The country is going mad”. I was wrong: we have already gone mad. I produce three pieces of evidence.
My column this month argues that we’ve gone mad, with the widespread push to create local government wards based on race; with the increasing use of the Maori language in situations where almost nobody understands it; and with the rather ridiculous assertion that in 1840 Maori chiefs didn’t really surrender...
In the middle of November, the Real Institute reported that the median house price across New Zealand had risen by 19.8 percent over the year to the end of October. Across the country as a whole, the median price had risen to an astonishing $725,000, while in the Auckland region...
This year’s election is one for the history books: it was the first since MMP was introduced in 1996 which resulted in a single party being able to govern without the aid of allies.
It was suggested that I do an additional short article 10 days out from the election with an appraisal of the economic policies being proposed by Labour and National. I’ve found this extraordinarily hard to do!
As I write, there’s one month to go. Everybody will have their own views about what problems the next Government should try to solve, but for me six issues should be priorities.
As I write this month, Auckland is again in a Level 3 lockdown, with all the frustrations and irritations of that situation. I myself got caught up in a huge traffic jam, which had four lanes of traffic (including the bus lane) at a total stand-still for more than an...
Not 48 hours after I sent what I thought was the final version of this column to the editor, events proved just how true the headline was: Todd Muller resigned as Leader of the National Party just eight weeks after he assumed the role.
Unless you were living under a stone, you will know that towards the end of May a black American by the name of George Floyd was killed when a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, while three other police officers looked on.
In the middle of May, the Government announced its Budget for the next financial year. New Zealand has never seen anything remotely like it. It made clear the Government’s intention to spend vast sums of money in an attempt to protect New Zealanders from the economic shock caused by the...
Perhaps it is dangerous to write about such a fast-moving situation as the Covid-19 pandemic when what I write may not be published for 10 days or more, but at time of writing my strong impression is that the public believe that the Government has done a remarkably good job...
It’s hard to believe that when I signed off my article for the March edition of elocal, on 11 February, I didn’t mention the words ‘pandemic’, ‘coronavirus’, or ‘Covid-19’. In the four or five weeks since, the media – and I mean all the media – have talked about almost...
It seems no time at all since we were celebrating (or lamenting) the election of the Labour–New Zealand First–Green Government in 2017. And now, in little more than six months’ time, we’re going to the polls again.
Copyright © 2024 Don Brash.