Four eighty-year-old books which are still vitally relevant today. Between 1942 and 1945, four refugees from Vienna each published a ground-breaking – seminal – book.* They left their country after Austria was taken over by fascists in 1934 and by Nazi Germany in 1938. Previously they had lived in ‘Red Vienna’; ruled by Social Democratic…
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A distinguished economist on the tensions of centralisation Newsroom. 16 April, 2025. It was not originally envisaged that the government of New Zealand would be highly centralised. The Colonial Secretary’s instructions to Hobson are about a minimalist state. That explains the provisions in Te Tiriti o Waitangi which allocate ‘kawantanga’ to the Crown and ‘rangatiratanga’…
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Neville Gibson ‘Will Labour’s failure condemn the future, book questions’, NBR, 29 Sep 2024.
This was offered to a media outlet but they chose another piece. Based on the Epilogue of ‘In Open Seas’. Because New Zealand is very centralised, its central government has considerable influence over the public discussion. Thus, a change of government, as happened in 2023, may change greatly the tone and even direction of cultural…
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Peter Frankopan’s The Earth Transformed: An Untold History is a compelling account of the interaction between humans and the environment. We would be unwise to ignore it. The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Oxford professor of history Peter Frankopan was initially widely admired. But critics point out that the book exaggerated…
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Paper to NZ Fabian Society, 26 February, Wellington. The New Zealand Fabian Society has posted my paper Transforming New Zealand: Why Has the Left Failed?, which is a follow-on from my just published book, In Open Seas: How the New Zealand Labour Government Went Wrong: 2017-2023. The paper points out that the Left no longer…
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Fabian Society Website Writing contemporary history is challenging. New evidence appears; events move on; it is hard to provide thoughtful reflections about events close to the writing. The last chapters of my economic history of Aotearoa New Zealand, Not in Stormy Seas, are no exception. I tried to avoid providing a conclusion in Chapter 55…
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AIRAANZ 2025 Conference, 3 February 2025. It is perhaps extraordinary that the Ardern-Hipkins Labour Government, which said it wanted to be ‘transformational’, did not establish a Ministry of Labour. In 2012 the Key-English National Government had merged the century-old Department of Labour into the newly established mega-agency, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MoBIE)….
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Tēnā koutou katoa. Apologies for the limitations of my voice. It is the consequence of surgery on my larynx. My written submission focuses on two elements of the Treaty Principles Bill which are insufficiently covered in its public discussion. The first is that the bill is bad history. Our understanding of Te Tiriti has evolved,…
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Spinoff 23 January 2025. Even democratically elected dictators try to avoid accountability. Until there is a considerable strengthening of the accountability mechanisms, the parliamentary term should not be extended. A British Lord Chancellor described the British political system as an ‘elected dictatorship’. Even so, it is meant to act in the interests of the people….
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Can we trust the Trump cabinet to act in the public interest? Nine of Trump’s closest advisers are billionaires. Their total net worth is in excess of $US375b (providing there is not a share-market crash). In contrast, the total net worth of Trump’s first Cabinet was about $6b. (Joe Biden’s Cabinet total was about $118…
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Chapters in Books Not in Narrow Seas (VUP: Ch.8) In Open Seas (Kea Point: Ch.12) Making Aotearoa New Zealand (Forthcoming: Ch.7) Articles ‘Was There A Treaty of Waitangi?: Was it A Social Contract?’ (Archifacts: April 1997, P.21-49) ‘What the Hell Happened At Waitangi?’ (Newsroom 9 May, 2023) Treaty Claims The Maori Broadcasting Claim: A Pakeha…
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Recommendations 1. That Parliament should not proceed with the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill. 2. That Parliament endorse the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi as set out by the Court of Appeal in New Zealand Māori Council v Attorney-General (1987) (C.A. 54/87), while acknowledging that the understandings of Te Tiriti o Waitangi…
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While we may not always have quality political leadership, a couple of recently published autobiographies indicate sometimes we strike it lucky. When ranking our prime ministers, retired professor of history Erik Olssen commented that ‘neither Holland nor Nash was especially effective as prime minister – even his private secretary thought Nash was ineffectual’. Even so,…
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It is difficult to make sense of the Luxon Coalition Government’s economic management. This end-of-year review about the state of economic management – the state of the economy was last week – is not going to cover the National Party contribution. Frankly, like every other careful observer, I cannot make up my mind. Certainly Christopher Luxon and…
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This was offered to a media outlet ‘accepted’ but not published. Excerpted from the just published In Open Seas. The Labour Party halved its vote between the 2020 and 2023 elections (while National barely increased voter numbers). The coronial enquiries into the last election are yet to be held, but they will conclude Labour’s loss…
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Brian Easton Published in 2024 by Kea Point ISBN 978-0-473-72573-0 380 pages The book is rich in analyses of policy directions to progress Aotearoa New Zealand. An account of the policy development of the Ardern-Hipkins New Zealand Labour Government (2017-2023) which focuses on its policies in the context of New Zealand’s longer term economic history,…
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The Dangers of Delusions of Grandeur This is a column about MAGA – Make America Great Again. But as a prequel I scroll back sixty years to when I was teaching in England. I have fond memories of the students – bright and personable as they were. But their attitudes to England and the world…
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Notes for a Friend Te Tiriti gave ‘kawanatanga’ (governance) to the Crown but ‘rangatiratanga’ to Iwi (I’ll come to a complication). ‘Sovereignty’ confuses the discussion because it could be either kawanatanga or rangatiratanga – the sovereignty of the state vs the sovereignty of the individual. The governance vision in 1840 was a minimalist state. The…
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Some analysis by a social statistician. A note for myself. On 20 November 2024 around 42,000 people crowded in and around Parliament Grounds nominally protesting against the Treaty Principles Bill after a Hīkoi which came from the North Cape and the Far South. What exactly was going on was more than just a protest against…
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