You've probably seen the video of Te Pāti Māori leading a haka in New Zealand's Parliament by now. It's close to a billion views combined at this point, and reactionary media has been quick to jump on it as some sort of "stone age" display, as if protest has never been a part of parliamentary politics before. You might even hear people say that this is about shutting down "equal rights", and what this current government wants is just an honest discussion about what the treaty means. This is all a smokescreen for what this bill is actually about: rewriting history to protect extractive capital.

Next Tuesday is election day in the United States of America, the land of democracy — where billionaires buy elections, where the President is not elected by popular vote, and where the nominee of the Republican Party attempted to overturn the results after he was voted out of office four years ago. Somehow, despite every crime Donald Trump has been tried and convicted for, the former President is a coin-toss away from taking back the White House.

A month ago I emailed my manager and his manager and told them that I was resigning. I didn’t give a reason, just the minimum amount of notice required. Now my notice period is up and I need to start writing.

My decision to quit may have been reckless but it wasn’t completely spontaneous. Things had gotten pretty unpleasant in the office and, although I found pleasure in organising alongside my colleagues, I wasn’t necessarily going to be able to continue sending impish all-staff emails forever.

The US's pivot to the greater Asia-Pacific region, away from the Middle East, has been the subject of much focus. Increasingly, Washington and its allies are asserting themselves again in the region as China seeks to gain more geopolitical influence. Over the past few years, the US has been re-establishing embassies, soft power organisations, and inking security agreements with countries that haven't seen much attention from the US since the Cold War wound down.

At the same time as we are forced to make these sacrifices the government has invested billions into ideological pet projects. There's $1.9 billion going into building a mega prison. $15 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest few. There’s money to spend on roads and boot camps. This isn’t hypocrisy however. It’s a plan. 

It's a wild worldview that doesn't have any internal coherence (but remember, that doesn't matter any more - the incoherence is a strength) that has really come to the forefront this week as the world watched Imane Khelif in the boxing at the Olympics. Well, some of the world watched, and then people who have never watched women's sport once in their life decided it was suddenly incredibly important to make their views known.

In 2004, over twenty thousand people marched from the tip of Te Tai Tokerau to Parliament in protest of the Labour government’s decision to extinguish Māori customary property in the foreshore and seabed. Tariana Turei crossed the floor in response, forming Te Pāti Māori, which toppled the Labour government in the next election. Twenty years later, the National government wants to steal the foreshore from Māori again. 

There is a spectre haunting New Zealand media: China. Since the late 2010s, there's been an ever-increasing focus on and bias towards the Chinese government with dredged up allegations of spying, breathless reporting on China's activities in the Pacific, and repeated calls to "turn away from China" from think tank talking heads and war hawks.

Doc Edge, New Zealand’s very own Academy Awards qualifying international documentary festival opens next week. After pressure from activists two years ago, the festival removed the Israeli Embassy from its Partners page. Unfortunately, old habits die hard and it has still found space in its 2024 programme for We Will Dance Again, a documentary about the events of 7 October, made to justify Israel’s actions in the months since then.

On Budget Day, while tens of thousands were out protesting the budget and the attacks on Tino Rangatiratanga, I was over the hill, in Bargaining at one of my sites in the Wairarapa, checking my phone during our adjournments for updates on a lesser-known local issue - the council’s discussions about the future of Wellington Airport. By the end of the day, I’d learned that the Wellington City Council had voted 10 to 8 in favour of selling the council’s 34% share in Wellington Airport. 

We cannot buy into the Right’s framing, because it is the Right’s frame. If you’ve ever wondered why so many people – sensible, reasonable people – hold true to the idea that the National Party are good sensible fiscal managers and Labour are just tax-and-spend profligates, and therefore The Sacred Economy does better under National than Labour, despite decades of evidence to the contrary, congratulations: you’ve discovered the power of frames. 

In which Karyn Taylor-Moore makes a complaint to the head of TVNZ about an interview in which a representative of Palestine was grilled harder over genocide & civilian deaths than the Israeli Ambassador 2 weeks before