"It probably goes without saying that Luxon’s asset sales plan is a throwback to the 1980s, and to the privatisation excesses of the fourth Labour government that continue to cripple our economy ... Talking of which, we sold Air New Zealand and then had to buy it back when the private sector ran it into the ground. Christopher Luxon used to run the same airline. He knows the history of failure behind what he is proposing."

#GordonCampbell, 2025

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2511/S00026/on-asset-sales-and-targeting-the-homeless.htm

#AssetSales

"The marker dominance of the banking cartel and the supermarket duopoly have been left untouched. Far less attention though, has been given to what has been taken away. Routinely, all three coalition parties rail against Big Government. It is part of their political DNA. In reality however, the centralised power of the corporate state has vastly increased under this government."

#GordonCampbell, 2025

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2511/S00011/on-mamdani-and-how-the-luxon-government-is-expanding-the-powers-of-the-state.htm

#NZPolitics

"So far, the oil proceeds have not led to significant diversification of the Timorese economy, or to much in the way of private sector development. Successive Timor-Leste governments have pinned their hopes on the Greater Sunrise liquefied natural gas field — estimated to have a potential worth of over US$33 billion— as the country’s economic saviour."

#GordonCampbell, 2025

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2510/S00066/on-labours-cgt-the-governments-mean-spirit-and-timor-lestes-future.htm

(1/2)

#TimorLeste #FossilFuels #EconomicDevelopment

"... the advocates of a social media ban for kids under 16 appear willing to ignore the privacy implications that the proposal would have *for everyone*. For a glimpse into the void, check out the United Kingdom’s Offcom advice page on the subject, which cheerily makes a case for wholesale privacy intrusions, with a minimum of reliable safety rails."

#GordonCampbell, 2025

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2510/S00066/on-labours-cgt-the-governments-mean-spirit-and-timor-lestes-future.htm

The OffCom page Gordon links to is;

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/protecting-children/age-checks-for-online-safety--what-you-need-to-know-as-a-user

#privacy #B416 #OffCom

Oh no, I'm wrong. More like 12-14 iRex deals per frigate;

"With luck, the fully kitted out version will cost (not quite) double the basic construction cost, but a conservative estimate would still put the final tab for New Zealand’s two ships at between $6-8 billion dollars."

#GordonCampbell, 2025

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2510/S00070/on-our-looming-spending-spree-on-japanese-frigates.htm

This tells you everything you need to know about this govt's priorities. It's not cutting spending, and it's certainly not building critical infrastructure.

#NZPolitics

"As the influential Diplomat website reports, Japan’s defence budget for fiscal year 2025 stated that the basic construction cost per improved Mogami-class vessel was 105 billion yen, or $NZ 1.194 billion. That basic unit cost to us may well be higher, since we will be paying either Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) in Japan, or the Henderson shipyards in Western Australia to build the ships for us."

#GordonCampbell, 2025

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2510/S00070/on-our-looming-spending-spree-on-japanese-frigates.htm

(1/2)

#frigates

About a week ago, #GordonCampbell threw cold water on the prospect of regime change in 2026;

"National can win with Luxon regardless. This country hasn’t had a genuine one term government since the Labour government of 1957-1960. (If Norman Kirk hadn’t died, his government would probably have been re-elected in 1975.)"

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2510/S00044/on-why-the-nation-seems-to-be-stuck-with-christopher-luxon.htm

I'm not so sure. In 2019 there was equally good reason to think a one-party majority would never happen under MMP.

(1/?)

#NZPolitics #NZElection2026

"To recap: tens of thousands of people working in construction and in the public service have lost their jobs. The retail economy has tanked - in Wellington in particular. GDP has shrunk. Although the services sector constitutes about 60% of the New Zealand economy, it has been in ongoing contraction for 19 months in a row. Consumer spending has dried up etc etc."

#GordonCampbell, 2025

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2510/S00039/on-the-governments-dodgy-claims-about-reading-achievement.htm

#NZPolitics

"If we truly do care about the mental health and wellbeing of vulnerable young people, the decision to means test every 18 and 19 year old young receiving state assistance (in every household earning $65,000 or over) is a bizarre way of showing it."

#GordonCampbell, 2025

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2510/S00011/on-the-social-media-ban-for-young-kids.htm

(2/2)

As usual, Gordon hits the nail right on the head;

"... talk of creating a viable under 16 barrier to social media looks more like an abject version of performative politics. It seems to be all about the gesture, in that it offers a way for politicians to claim they care about the kids, even though their economic and welfare policies are often saying the exact opposite."

#GordonCampbell, 2025

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2510/S00011/on-the-social-media-ban-for-young-kids.htm

(1/2)

"14,000 babies are about to die of starvation in Gaza, with food sent by the world sitting on the other side of a wall, and once again the British establishment is focused on us. We deny this ‘offence’ and will vehemently defend ourselves.

This is political policing. This is a carnival of distraction. We are not the story. Genocide is..."

Irish rap group Kneecap, quoted by #GordonCampbell 2025

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2505/S00054/on-wealth-taxes-and-capital-flight.htm

#Gaza #genocide#KneeCap

Another excellent column by Gordon Campbell, from a couple of weeks ago, on the crusade against social media use by under-16s.

Campbell looks beyond the obvious privacy risks created by enforcing age limits, to the corporate conservative roots of the policy's Australian variant (particularly Rupert Murdoch's role in it). He mentions the way it violates teens' human rights, and limits their access to peer support;

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2505/S00025/on-the-parental-panic-over-young-kids-online.htm

#SocialMedia#Under16Ban#GordonCampbell#RupertMurdoch

"Basically, since the US is no longer a reliable defence partner, India has been presented with an opportunity to serve as a significant counterweight to China in the future defence alignments now taking shape in the Indo-Pacific."

#GordonCampbell,2025

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2504/S00048/papal-picks-and-india-as-a-defence-ally.htm

Oh Gordon really? You're leaning in to the Asia-Pacific equivalent of the "Gulf of America"? Why?

"There is so much chatter about how divided we now are, as a nation. Yet for the past 30-40 years, our two major parties have been remarkably unified in their indifference to the social repercussions of the economic settings."

#GordonCampbell, 2025

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2504/S00052/on-the-trump-upside-and-peters-persecution-of-trans-people.htm

(3/3)

"... sacrificed environment wellbeing on the altar of economic growth, offloaded costs from central government onto local ratepayers and so on and on.

Subsequently, when the people displaced and the communities ravaged by these policies turned to drugs and crime, successive governments have spent money on locking them up so that the public can then 'feel safe'.”

#GordonCampbell, 2025

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2504/S00052/on-the-trump-upside-and-peters-persecution-of-trans-people.htm

(2/3)

"But hold on. If the new normal is chaos, the old normal wasn’t that great, either. We have had over 30 years of economic policies that have – deliberately, as a point of policy principle – sacrificed secure well-paying jobs and replaced them with low paying insecure ones, relentlessly prioritised shareholder profits over the social good, deferred investment in people, technology and infrastructure ..."

#GordonCampbell, 2025

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2504/S00052/on-the-trump-upside-and-peters-persecution-of-trans-people.htm

(1/3)