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Marama Davidson did not use the right words. She had been hit by a man on a motorbike, and hurt; and perhaps in another time or place, a public assault on a woman leader might have garnered concern. But this is New Zealand, and this is now, and Davidson did
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Posie Parker. I don't feel qualified to weigh in on the visa issue. I don't know what the rules are, whether they're reasonable, or whether they've been correctly applied. I feel fully qualified to weigh in on the Nazism issue. The rules
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Two cautions. The first is that this is a violent and traumatic story. The second is that I'm not a lawyer, so I've stuck as closely to others' expertise as I can. Any errors are entirely mine.
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She won't ever know, but she paved the way for my kid, because she expanded the horizons of that kid's mum. She was never to be reduced to a single thing, an identity, an obliging tick in a two-dimensional box. Trans and a leader. Trans and
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A formless reflection, because that's what you get when you stop imposing conditions.
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Chester Borrows died today. I didn't know the man in person. If I had, I can't imagine I would always have agreed with him. He was party faithful through and through: a dyed-in-the-wool Nat. I would struggle to sell my soul to the political machine; and
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You don't get to lay claim to big feelings when you're warm at home and the power's on. When there's food in the fridge, and you can account for the people you love. When the mysteries of climate and science direct the
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When my friend and I met at a café near my work, in January, neither of us could remember the last time we’d seen one another. That wasn't just because we were, let's be honest, having trouble remembering. It was the best part of three
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I'm so delighted that Campbell Johnstone has told the world he's gay - the first All Black to do so. What I'm ambivalent about is some of the responses. Not the homophobic ones: my response to them is pretty straightforward. It's some
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Another for my paid subscribers, again in strict confidence because of the dignity of the people involved.
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I must have driven through Pākaraka, near Whanganui, although I don’t remember. Whenever it was, the little town would have borne a different name. Objectors say you can’t change the name of a place: that’s wiping out history. And they insist, you can’t just wipe out
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My unease is with so many other people's ease. It's not that I have a problem with either of these men - or more than I would with any other leader of their respective parties. I'm grumpy: guilty as charged. My problem is with