Who knew what and when? Asks our Australian correspondent If Australia’s federal exchequer had a spare half billion or so dollars sloshing around in the vault, might it not have been a better idea to use it to secure the ownership of the strategic port of Darwin instead of earmarking it for a vague investment in Pacific islands aid; aka climate change? The government’s willingness to allow the port of Darwin to end up in China’s control for want of the same amount of money it has just topped up in the name of climatics its existing billion dollar contributions…

Island Leaders applied concise and concerted use of linkages Big hearted Australia in the end got the slap in the face reserved for all generous donors when a more powerful and deeper-pocketed benefactor materialises. After its immense contributions to Oceania topped up by a half billion dollar bonus, Australia’s premier Scott Morrison was bluntly told by Pacific leaders to shut down its coal mines, the source of its open-handedness, writes our Australian correspondent Australia’s premier Scott Morrison maintained his stony fixed smile as he and his country were publicly put in their place and compelled to coldly digest the resentment…

Airline anticipated susceptibility to progressivist ideologies Faced with having its newspapers chucked out of Air New Zealand’s Koru lounges the Fairfax chain could only respond by claiming that its newspapers were made from otherwise unwanted offcuts and were thus sustainable. No mention was made about the value of the information such as the actual news held in the newsprint. Neither was there any mention of the unique benefits to the airline’s premium travellers in for example the crossword puzzles, quizzes, word games, anniversaries and other such intellectual minutiae still favoured by newsprint buffs. Instead of castigating the airline for its…

Hunt for Mole Futile Because Leaked Memos Widely Circulated En Clair The faith-based conviction that Donald Trump would lose the United States presidential election led New Zealand into awkward foreign policy fumbles in the aftermath of the Trump ascendancy. These embarrassing and very public stumbles were compounded by, for example, continuing government donations to the Clinton family foundation. The utter partisan conviction that Hillary Clinton would win baffled many observers at home and abroad but following the leaking of the British Embassy in Washington memos there is a glimmer of an explanation which is that New Zealand was taking its…

Mogul-directed industrial-scale plant-only diet strategy brings premium branding value scope to commodity exporting nation… Animal foods substitutes made from plants and on an industrial scale will be produced by an enterprise led by Canadian-born New Zealand resident James Cameron who anticipates that the scheme will have the eventual effect of shifting diets from animal to vegetable. Mr Cameron’s fellow film mogul Sir Peter Jackson is also said to be involved with the scheme. Both are land holders in the sparsely-populated Wairarapa Valley which is an hour’s drive north of Wellington, centre of the nation’s film industry. Go-to operations guy in…

“Emergency” Status used to counter low turnout and galvanise younger voters The climate alarmist proclamation of civic emergencies in Auckland and in other municipalities is centred on a belief that climate alarm is the key to securing the allegiance of the younger vote in New Zealand’s pending local government elections in October. In the 2016 local government elections voter turnout was 42 percent. Public information pre-election campaigns to lift the turnout to the 50 percent experienced in the 1980s have failed to lift the turnout. These new civic emergency declarations follow on the heels of a series of millennial apocalyptic…

In Washington and Wellington the Fading vendetta for scalp of Megaupload Founder now looks more like Trouble than a Trophy The tightly knit and warm pattern of alliances which inaugurated the seven year campaign to send Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom from his domicile in New Zealand to the United States to face piracy charges have now chilled and evaporated. These close sets of relationships converged on the Obama era White House and the keystone alliance was then the one between Hollywood and the White House. Since president Trump took office this relationship has turned sour. It is characterised by the…

Government extreme social equity posturing degrades performance and authority The New Zealand Treasury’s failure to encrypt its pro-forma models of the actual budget can be traced to an engrained governmental procedure of elevating contemporary social sensibilities at the expense of applied practical ability. This was further emphasised at the time of the budget “hacking” flap when it became clear that a cross-section of departmental officials failed to understand that the budget models had been accessed simply by intruders applying permutations and combinations to the Treasury’s home page search bar and doing so without recourse to passwords. The access to the…

Holier-than-thou ploy triggers unintended consequences A review of bullying and harassment within Parliament instigated by the Speakers Office which is responsible for who are entitled to work in Parliament and for what they do there has involved this same office in obloquy and sensationalism. The release of the report was accompanied by dire portents from the Speakers Office conjuring up images of at least one rapist stalking Parliament’s carpeted corridors and this sinister figure accompanied by a cohort of like-minded individuals in the sex pest category. In the event once the hue and cry settled down this somewhat spooky scenario…

Oceania nation resonates as perfect sounding board for social activist Atlantic policies United Nations exercises a supranational influence over New Zealand’s body politic in a way that has not been experienced since the waning of Westminster’s sway followed soon after by Washington’s. Nothing emphasises this realignment more than the view that the nation’s highest office, that of prime minister, is but a way station en route to assuming the real power which resides in the real high office which is that of secretary general of United Nations. Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark had, at best, a good outsider’s…

Antitrust action on information technology sector blamed for opening door to China In the 1970s and 1980s the United States federal government applied antitrust actions against its two dominant computer and telecommunications companies IBM and AT&T. The federal government threats and moves to break up these two companies is considered now to have preoccupied the companies to the point at which foreign competition now started to slip through under the cover of the government diversion. The belief now is that IBM for example became more focussed on coping with the extended anti-trust proceedings than with expanding or holding its 70…