There has been a struggle, and we are coming out the other side
"My kids hated me. My son used to tell me every day how much he hated me and how ashamed he was of me on the meth. But I didn't care. Nothing mattered but my next puff on the pipe."…
Recent Posts
Friday Music: Non-conforming New Zealanders
The New Zealand International Film Festival programme this year includes two very different New Zealand music films: Simon Ogston's picture of Bill Direen, A Memory of Others, and Julian Boshier's Head Like a Hole story, Swagger of Thieves. ¶ I've been…
Our own fake news
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key was forced to resign after being caught giving $13.7m in taxpayer money to the Clinton Foundation. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), John Key was forced to step down after…
Drug Symposium day two: Māori women in the room
ACLU lawyer Alison Holcomb, a woman with a long history of looking the system square in the eye, was struggling to hold back tears. ¶ She had taken the stage as respondent at last week's Parliamentary Drug Law Symposium, immediately after…
Hearing privilege and Deaf disempowerment
The New Zealand Herald recently published a story reporting that Deaf are being “elbowed out of top spots” in their own organisations. It was timely. Recent events have picked the scab off a climate of fear, anxiety and conflict in…
One big day at the drug symposium
About the time I got on the train at Paraparaumu, in the pre-dawn darkness, the Armed Offenders Squad was assembling in our street back home in Point Chevalier. No cause for alarm, one of them told my neighbour. ¶ It turned…
Drug Law Symposium Day One: This is actually real
Kia ora koutou! This the post for the first day of the 2017 Parliamentary Drug Law Symposium, which takes place in Wellington at a time when drug law is actually changing. ¶ To wit: Hon. Anne McLellan, chair of Canada's Chair,…
Know Your Stuff: getting real about drug-checking
This past summer, like every summer, many New Zealanders went to music festivals and parties and took recreational drugs. But at some events there was something unprecedented going on. ¶ Wendy Allison, the pioneer of of event harm reduction in New…
Friday Music: a New Zealand story
It's an odd, but pleasing, feeling seeing a screen drama whose characters you know in real life. And it's a feeling quite a few people will have if they're in front of the TV in a couple of weeks' time…
Meth Perception
According to a story by Kirsty Johnston on the Herald website today landlords are avoiding telling local authorities if their properties have tested positive for methamphetamine residue – because even if it is cleaned up, the fact of a positive test…
Drug policy: women lead the way
There's a game you can play at conferences in any sector: count the women scheduled to speak and contemplate how far the event is from a true share of voices. The New Zealand Drug Foundation's two-day Parliamentary Drug Law Symposium…
Blockchain, what is it?
Many people will have heard Blockchain or “distributed ledger technology” and some may have dismissed it as hype – especially when you hear claims that Blockchain is possibly the most important IT invention of our age. But no matter what your…
How journalism looks now
There is more than one thing to be taken from the BBC Panorama programme London Tower Fire: Britain's Shame. The first is, of course, its damning indictment of the authorities whose catastrophic failure of care allowed so many people to…
Friday Music: Digging ASMR
A week ago today on Lorde Listening Day, the singer and producer Chelsea Jade (who has a good new tune out, see below) tweeted that she was "getting ASMR shivers cascading down my skull from ella's voice all through this…
The Family Carers case – here we go again!
Oh, yes indeedy, I would much rather be "out on the harbour" than sitting here in my bus with Peter snoring away behind me, writing yet again about this sorry issue. ¶ Forever the multi- tasker, I have managed to combine…
Seeking out the Spomeniks
Dotted about the former Yugoslavia are Spomeniks – largely forgotten monuments, often erected in silent, empty landscapes, like sentinels from another world. Even their collective label sounds alien. (It's Serbo-Croatian for "monuments." ) ¶ "They're truly hideous," wrote one design critic. But…
Barclay and arrogance
It's not especially unusual for someone to to compare the governing political party to a criminal gang – that's every day somewhere on Twitter, right? – but when the person making the comparison is a respected legal commentator and he's quoting the…
Being Inconvenient
The thing about Twitter is that is forces you to choose your 140 characters carefully. ¶ To say what you really think as artfully and briefly as possible. ¶ To be pithy. ¶ Understood. ¶ So when Nicky Wagner gazed out of her inner…
Touching Waterview
Yesterday, I joined thousands of other Aucklanders on the first public walkthrough of the 2.4km Waterview tunnel that will, when it opens to traffic early next month, bring SH20 all the way to SH16, thus completing the Auckland motorway network.…
The Fall
In every respect I’d rather just forget about the last month of my life and move on. I won’t be able to do that for months yet. The thought of that is so distressing. The psychological impact has been immense.…
Friday Music: Melodrama
"Bet you rue the day you kissed a writer in the dark," Lorde sings to her departing ex in 'Writer in the Dark', a standout track on her second album, Melodrama. "Now she's gonna play and sing and lock you…
Grenfell: a signal moment
When I left London in 1991, it was with mixed feelings. Five years there on my own cognisance had been good for me. I'd grown, and had some of the best nights and days of my life. But we had…
Friday Music: Proper Lorde
One of the consequences of Lorde's remarkable early trajectory has been that home audiences have not – a couple of industry showcases aside – been able to see her in a small room. The first time most of her fans had a…
Interesting Britain!
It's the nature of modern elections that as the polls close the exit poll result determines whether it's going to be a dull night for someone or an interesting night for everyone. And the UK general election exit poll – with…
Genter's Bill: Starting at last on medical cannabis
Julie Anne Genter's private members bill on medical cannabis emerged from the ballot this morning – and it raises some interesting questions. ¶ The first thing you need to know is that there is no chance of Genter's bill (or David Seymour's…