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.
Shortly after his election in November 2016, I wrote an article for elocal headed “Could President Trump be as dangerous as candidate Trump sounded”. I concluded that article by quoting political commentator Matthew Hooton with approval saying that
Late last year, five district councils – Western Bay of Plenty, Whakatane, Palmerston North, Manawatu and Kaikoura – voted to establish one or more Maori wards in their districts. The intention was that those on the Maori roll for Parliamentary elections would vote in these separate wards, but not in...
In the lead-up to last year’s election, the Green Party announced that it was their policy to make it compulsory to learn te reo Maori in all primary schools by 2030. Not to be outdone, the Labour Government has announced that it is their policy that all early childhood, primary...
A few weeks ago, at the height of the general back-slapping which accompanied Waitangi Day celebrations, a University of Waikato researcher Dr Arama Rata, urged that “acknowledgement of the Treaty of Waitangi be made part of the rite of passage for every new New Zealand citizen”.[1]
Just before Christmas, the Reserve Bank announced that it had granted a banking licence to China Construction Bank, making that bank that 25th bank to hold a banking licence in this country, and the fourth Chinese bank to do so.
The new Labour-New Zealand First-Greens Government is under way, and already there have been some unexpected positive developments and some pratfalls. Few would have expected the new government to sign up to an only-slight-modified Trans Pacific Partnership, and that is clearly good news for our economic future; but on the...
There’s been a huge amount of comment since our election on 23 September about the inordinate length of time that Mr Peters took to decide which of the two main parties he was going to anoint, and a great deal of anger when he finally anointed Labour.
Writing about the 2017 election on the day after that election is full of risk. With well over 300,000 special votes still to be counted, the final composition of Parliament is yet to be determined.
Over the last year, the Hobson’s Pledge Trust has been promoting the message that New Zealanders are one people, with equal rights to live in this land – not two people, Maori and “the rest”, as successive governments have asked us to believe.
In last month’s edition of elocal, I argued that there are strong economic arguments for scaling back quite sharply the number of non-New Zealanders allowed to settle in New Zealand.
There seems little doubt that immigration is going to be a big election issue this year. Sensing this, the Government recently moved to tighten the rules while still arguing that a large-scale immigration programme was in New Zealand’s interests.
With less than four months to go till the general election on 23 September, the question exercising the minds of many of those who voted National in the last few elections is: Do they deserve another term?
A couple of weeks ago, the media made quite a fuss about an open letter “Supporting Freedom of Speech in New Zealand Universities”, initiated by Professor Paul Moon, professor of History at the Auckland University of Technology, and signed by nearly 30 well-known New Zealanders.
A few weeks ago, the Hon. Peter Dunne, a minister in the current coalition Government, denounced a pamphlet distributed in his Ohariu electorate as “racist drivel”. The pamphlet was distributed by Tross Publishing and was promoting a book entitled “One Treaty One Nation”.
On 23 September, New Zealand will have its eighth general election under the MMP voting system and there are a few signs that both the political parties and the public are finally getting their collective heads around how it works.
Much was written about the Prime Minister’s refusal to attend Waitangi Day ceremonies in Waitangi following his being “banned” from speaking at the powhiri.
Just the day before John Key announced that he was stepping down as Prime Minister, I wrote the article below and submitted it to the editor. The editor kindly gave me the opportunity to modify it in the light of his resignation.
It’s a very long time since I’ve felt so depressed about the future of the United States and of the world. In President-elect Donald Trump we have a man who, at least to judge from his pre-election rhetoric, seems to have not a single redeeming quality.
Unless you’ve been hiding under rock over the last few weeks, you’ll know that a group of us has launched Hobson’s Pledge, committed to ensuring that all New Zealanders have equal political rights.
A few months ago, a friend contacted me. He was very worried. He felt the country was going seriously off the rails, with the Government creating more and more divisions between those of us with a Maori ancestor and those of us without.
Copyright © 2024 Don Brash.