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Opinion

Cases made it a week for the ferals

OPINION: Turangi attack reminds us that the ferals' kids are growing up - and they're feral too.

Opinion: Time for Australia to claim NZ

JOHN BIRMINGHAM - Brisbane Times

OPINION: Australian columnist John Birmingham reckons it's time to take over New Zealand, and he's got a few ideas about what to do with the country.

Trouble in cyberspace

NICK VENTER - © Fairfax NZ News

OPINION: A malicious message that might once have been seen by a handful of people can now be viewed by millions.

Costings stumble costs Goff

OPINION: John Key was in his element last night as he repeatedly demanded that Goff "show me the money" during a rollicking debate in Christchurch.

National wakes from RWC slumber

OPINION: The pretence that the Rugby World Cup would be a politics-free zone has finally been dropped.

Downgrades hit National where it hurts

OPINION: Will John Key regret blithely carrying on with a radio station's publicity stunt while the economy was dealt a hammer blow?

Brash may have sounded death knell

TRACY WATKINS - © Fairfax NZ News

OPINION: Don Brash's old National Party minders would have winced over his comments on cannabis.

McCully acts true to form

OPINION: Rugby World Cup Minister Murray McCully's sudden takeover after Auckland's waterfront fiasco does not come as a surprise, writes Tracy Watkins.

Nats in hot seat over party central

OPINION: The Government's Achilles heel was always going to be a disaster at party central or in the transport network, writes Vernon Small.

No rankling expected over new list

OPINION: asks is there a secret National Party plan to bore the electorate into handing it a second term?

Voters pick up the dog tucker signals

TRACY WATKINS - © Fairfax NZ News

OPINION: On a day out on the campaign trail last week, Labour leader Phil Goff sounded for all the world like a man who knew his task was next to impossible.

Some curly questions to chew on

OPINION: Karl Du Fresne poses some tricky questions, including "why are there are no Scottish restaurants?"

Jane's a parody of youth

OPINION: Financial markets may rise and fall and Afghanistan defeat all comers, but Jane Fonda is eternal. I wonder, is it the teeth?

Stark reminder of market volatility

OPINION: This week's woes came at the worst possible time for the Government as it prepares to release a discussion document on KiwiSaver, writes Vernon Small.

Then and now - teens are still misunderstood

OPINION: Let me tell you what made me an antisocial, godless, illiterate criminal: comics.

Treasury's best course would do National nicely

OPINION: Alan Bollard is not, by all accounts, barking mad. Which is why the Reserve Bank is unlikely to hike interest rates today, writes Vernon Small.

Incivility, a hallmark of our service industry

OPINION: Not a lot cheers you up in freezing weather, with icy cold creeping up through floorboards – but cyclists are good value writes Rosemary McLeod.

Mutual back-scratching comes with the territory, fair or foul

OPINION: Whether or not you accept Labour's argument that it is a "stitch-up", Paul Goldsmith's selection for National in Epsom is the political equivalent of "taking one for the team", writes Vernon Small.

Oh, for the innocent days of guileless chaps

ROSEMARY MCLEOD - © Fairfax NZ News

OPINION: Though I'm wary of nostalgia, a wistful sigh wafted through my lipstick on reading about last weekend's celebration of the chap in London.

Key will have to say more on Israeli spy claims

OPINION: John Key's reaction to today's allegations about Israeli citizens operating out of Christchurch at the time of the earthquake is extraordinary, writes Tracy Watkins.

Only a political eruption can change the landscape

OPINION: Labour had to do something - anything - to get back into the political debate, writes Richard Long.

We're all boat people, except in election year

OPINION: New Zealanders beware! There is a sinister foreign threat coming to our shores, writes Dave Armstrong.

The four things Key wants from Washington

OPINION: Prime Minister John Key begins a four-day trip to Washington today. Terence O'Brien looks at what should be on the agenda.

Key, Goff hide behind super smokescreens

OPINION: It is time for our political leaders to say when, if ever, the retirement age should rise, writes Vernon Small.

Floundering plays right into Opposition's hands

OPINION: The PM's attacks on Labour's looming capital gains tax proposal have looked increasingly unfocused and contradictory, writes Vernon Small.

Murdoch hard-nosed, but crass excess not his way

OPINION: Murdoch would have been as horrified as the rest of middle Britain over the way a handful of reporters carried out these most appalling of intrusions, writes Richard Long.

Game on as Labour prepares to sell capital gains tax plan

OPINION: Advocating a capital gains tax has long been seen as the political equivalent of a kamikaze attack, writes Vernon Small

Speaker soothed by a spot of argy bargy

JANE CLIFTON - ABOUT THE HOUSE - © Fairfax NZ News

OPINION: You could almost have sworn that Prime Minister John Key had been practising his lines when Parliament resumed yesterday.

Moral outrage fans the spread of acute sensitivity disorder

KARL DU FRESNE - CURMUDGEON - © Fairfax NZ News

OPINION: New Zealand has been stricken by the most serious outbreak yet of the highly contagious condition I call acute sensitivity disorder.

Happy Feet may be setting up a colony

HOME SWEET HOME: Happy Feet has been living at Peka Peka beach since Monday.

OPINION: Happy Feet is a sort of pioneer, looking for a new place to live, writes Richard Sadleir.

Umbrage over a book is great in this hi-tech age

OPINION: Dave Armstrong asks, to stock or not to stock? People power or Facebook fascism?

Weird text puts Da Vinci Code in the shade

The Voynich Manuscript leaves Dan Brown's mystery - detective novel The Da Vinci Code for dead, writes Bob Brockie.

Naked truths and wonky judgments

JANE BOWRON IN CHRISTCHURCH - © Fairfax NZ News

OPINION: On Thursday I drive out to the North Canterbury town of Kaiapoi to meet the president of the new residents association, Peter Jenkins, who indicated through a relative that I should take a look at his forgotten town.

Hasty US troop pullout may leave Afghanistan haven for terrorism

OPINION: The Taleban attack on a Kabul hotel frequented by foreigners is an ominous sign for President Obama's plan to accelerate the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, writes Aaron Lim.

Voting system lobbyists still boxing at shadows

OPINION: There is little more fundamental in the political life of a nation than the electoral laws that determine how politicians are chosen, writes Vernon Small.

Why saying 'I do' is good for our families

THEY DO: The very public wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton was a dream that many aspire to.

Bob McCoskrie - happily married for 22 years - argues there will be major problems from a decline in marriage rates.

Brownlee off the hook - but it may not last long

OPINION: Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee has done what he had to do - finally, writes Vernon Small.

Earthquake minister accepts the heavy flak the job attracts

OPINION: Gerry Brownlee's job as earthquake recovery minister has him walking an impossibly taut tightrope, writes Tracy Watkins.

At least gorse flowers in Wellington's colours

RICHARD LONG - © Fairfax NZ News

OPINION: In quake-stricken Christchurch, living "a continuing seismic event", despairing householders are digging out liquefaction for the third time, wondering if their house is one of the 12,000-odd about to be condemned.

One time only, some non-curmudgeonly praise

KARL DU FRESNE - © Fairfax NZ News

OPINION: A recent sequence of unconnected events brought on an uncharacteristic attack of bonhomie; a sense of wellbeing and goodwill toward my fellow human beings which, try as I may, I cannot suppress.

There's 1080 in our tea, so what's all the fuss about?

OPINION: If you want to learn the truth about 1080 poison read the recent report of the parliamentary commissioner for the environment, writes Bob Brockie.

Are schools forcing beer down pupils' throats?

OPINION: I hope parents will allow their teachers to stop cramming for exams long enough to tell the pupils that alcohol can be pleasurable, but that it can also kill you;

The sea bed and the sea flaw

OPINION: As a nation, we're responsible for 5.8 million square kilometres of ocean, writes Rod Oram.

Wright's plain-English report pops the 1080 mythology balloon

OPINION: The Cawthron Institute has reproached me for recent comments about the West Coast's "pristine" Mokihinui River having a "poor ecosystem".

Report symptomatic of science's deficient expertise

OPINION: To hear the news media tell it, the story of Professor Sir Peter Gluckman's report to the prime minister was one of disinterested science versus ill-informed populism, writes Chris Trotter.

Brownlee caught between rock and a hard place

OPINION: It's hard not to feel for Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee as he prepares to bring the worst possible news to Christchurch homeowners, writes Vernon Small.

Jury's still out on Labour leader

OPINION: Bad judgment, not a police investigation, killed Darren Hughes' political career, writes Tracy Watkins.

Back in my youth, I had a cool car too

OPINION: Joe Bennett recalls when he went in search of vehicular manhood.

The Greens' five-cylinder car

OPINION: The Greens are trying to have it both ways and risk having neither, writes John Pagani.

The scourge of the mutant teenage nutters

OPINION: Well we all know teenagers are nuts. But till Sir Peter Gluckman's report last week few would have realised that ours are just about the worst, writes Richard Long.

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