Articles in ‘Opinion’

After what has felt like a very quiet few weeks around New Zealand's fuel ports, we're finally starting to see a bit more movement in the system. G'day everyone. · The good news is that fuel is still flowing. · The other good news is that several vessels are now either alongside, arriving, or scheduled across the country over the coming fortnight. That's a noticeable improvement from the sparse activity we've been tracking recently. · At…

Something is deeply wrong with a system where a company director can face prosecution, fines, disqualification, and even imprisonment for misleading shareholders, investors, regulators, or the public, yet politicians can make promises they know cannot be delivered, make statements they know are false, withhold critical information from voters, and suffer little more than a bad headline (if they are lucky). Enough is enough. · This week I came…

The Free Speech Union has welcomed ACT's commitment to stop professional regulators policing the lawful opinions of the people they license, and is calling on every party in Parliament to support the same principle - pointing to new polling that shows strong, cross-party public backing. Professional regulators were set up to ensure consumer protection and competence. Guarding against bad medical practice, dodgy legal advice, dishonesty, and…

The latest shipping activity suggests New Zealand's fuel supply chain remains steady through June, but there are a few developments worth keeping an eye on. So far this month we've recorded six fuel vessel arrivals, with at least two more vessels already scheduled, and current projections suggest June will finish with around 15 fuel vessel movements. That's neither exceptionally busy nor unusually quiet — just about where we'd expect the system…

The Coalition Government has committed to reducing New Zealand’s net greenhouse gas emissions to between 51% and 55% below its 2005 gross emissions by 2035. · Climate Change, Minister Simon Watts, stated that meeting the new 2035 target would mean New Zealand was doing “our fair share towards reducing the impact of climate change”. The Coalition Government has implied that man-made global warming cause’s adverse weather events and they remain…

For now, fuel is still moving around the country and there are no immediate signs of supply shortages. However, there are a few unusual vessel movements and some interesting international developments worth keeping an eye on. As always, the shipping picture tells part of the story — and the conversations amongst our Marsden Point Radio subscribers often help fill in the gaps. · Marsden Point Looking Ahead · The next scheduled arrivals into…

But while we are trying to improve water quality throughout the Waikato under PC1 we don’t want, and can’t afford, to end up failing to ensure food security, creating racial division in our region and further afield and causing an economic disaster. Unfortunately that is exactly the outcome that we are staring at as a result of the implementation of PC1. · Currently the Waikato Regional Council is working on the requirements from the…

This article addresses some of the most profound philosophical and spiritual questions that we ask as we seek to understand our existence. It challenges some popular notions that have derived from the discoveries of Darwin and modern genetics, from the perspective of an interdisciplinary comprehensive scientific understanding. On June 5 a paper was published by the prestigious journal Cell entitled “Replaying germinal center evolution on a…

Across the Tasman, anger has propelled Pauline Hanson’s One Nation from a fringe outfit to the most popular party, on 31 percent in a recent poll, ahead of both Labor and the Coalition. Yet Australia’s preferential voting, which redistributes losing candidates’ votes, could still return a Labor government. By Dr Oliver Hartwich · The same anger is loose across the democratic world, the product of a decade of crises that squeezed household…

!Image · !Image · !Image · !Image · !Image · Over the past couple of days, the fuel network has continued to function much as expected, although if you're watching vessel movements closely, you'll notice everything seems to be moving at a slower pace than normal. · My own feeling is that weather has played a part. I was recording wave heights yesterday ranging from around five metres to over ten metres in some areas, and that sort of sea state…