Simon Court

Blasting a giant rocket off for a joyride around the Moon right now just seems like an excessive use of fuel and money at a time that the world faces an oil crisis that's fast turning into a global cost of living crisis.

It's fitting that 🇳🇿New Zealand's national bird is the kiwi: Because like the kiwi bird which was isolated with no predators, it lost the ability to fly and became easy prey when threats arrived. New Zealand imbibed the luxury belief that geography equals security, that "international order" is a given, and that someone else (the US or Australia) would always come to the rescue. Then when Chinese naval task forces started conducting live-fire drills near its waters and aggressively militarizing islands nearby, it finally woke up. Today New Zealand's army is small, while their navy barely has any fighting vessels left; their air force has NO fighter force whatsoever. This situation was really supercharged under the former PM Jacinda Ardern. Not only did New Zealand cuck itself by with pacifist posturing, it also indulged in her favorite ideological program, implanting DEI in every domain, and adopting the "Maori ways of knowing" in science curricula (lmao). Then Adern abandoned the country, took her family, and went to Australia (LMAO). Now, New Zealand has to build its armed forces practically from scratch. New Zealand is learning, late, that in a contested world, hard power still matters and predators don't respect flightless birds. This is the consequence of electing people drunk on idealism. Now, the NZ government is pledging billions to recruit personnel, buy helicopters, drones, anti-tank missiles, and boost spending toward 2% of GDP. It's a necessary correction, but rebuilding combat capability from near-scratch will take decades

Otago Regional Council let down its ratepayers today, but not without a strong stand from ACT Local Councillor Robbie Byars. Council is setting up a new environmental governance body with unelected, unaccountable iwi representatives on it. Robbie forced a vote, putting councillors on the record. His amendment to remove those roles was voted down 8–3. This is how co-governance spreads, quietly handing power to people voters can’t hold accountable. But now Otago voters can see exactly where their councillors stand. ACT is pushing back. In central government we’ve made real progress, and ACT MP Cameron Luxton has drafted a bill to ensure only elected representatives can sit on councils and committees. Well done Robbie for standing up for equal rights and democratic accountability.

If we start running out of fuel, shall we just make Ford Rangers illegal?