Electoral roll closes tomorrow

Election countdown special No 1 This pre-election series will include timely public interest notifications and random observations about polling (the electoral roll closes tomorrow),  leadership and grassroots campaigns. Readers are urged to share this with their young adult children, nephews and nieces and Joe at the bottle-oh. Most urgently, if you are not already on the electoral roll for the 2019 federal election, you need to do it by 8pm tomorrow (April 18).  If you…

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The budget that forgot climate change

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‘The budget that forgot climate change’ may be a slightly misleading headline, even though Greens Leader Richard Di Natale essentially said as much when interviewed on 2GB. He was elaborating on a press release issued on Budget night which castigated the Federal Coalition for virtually ignoring climate change. “(Treasurer) Josh Frydenberg said in his speech that we owe our children budget discipline,” Di Natale said. We owe our children a plan for their future, and…

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Media bias and quality news

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A couple of years ago I wrote an essay called ‘In search of quality news” which many people told me they found educational. The piece was sparked by a media bias infographic invented by US patent attorney Vanessa Otero. Vanessa supplied an updated media bias chart for today’s main picture. It is self-explanatory in that the quality news outlets are clustered around the middle. The worst of the fake news and extreme right (or left-wing)…

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A few words about Christchurch and global grief

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Last Friday’s massacre in Christchurch by a lone gunman was, as numerous people opined on Twitter, the per capita equivalent of New Zealand’s 9/11. The 50 people killed represent 3,000 fatalities in a similar attack in the US. That does give perspective to the overwhelming feelings of sorrow and confusion many of us felt last Friday and the global grief we have felt every day since. New Zealand rarely makes international headlines, unless it’s an…

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