The other day I was talking with a friend of mine about the UK roll-out of a vaccine for Covid-19. We both agreed it was wonderful news but she expressed some concern about taking it herself, if and when, it becomes available in New Zealand.

She said she’s definitely not an anti-vaxxer, but she is worried about how fast the treatment has been developed, and that she has anxiety about having a jab herself.

I had to admit I had similar feelings. Again, like my friend, I believe vaccinations are an important tool in humanity’s war against disease. From Edward…

I don’t mind admitting that I’m an emotional chap and I often react to things in a visceral way — sometimes positively and sometimes negatively. Over the years, I’ve developed enough patience to not always outwardly react to things, but internally, I can often be a seething mass of emotion and not all of it is pretty or positive.

Too often I spend a lot of time worrying or obsessing over things that don’t come to pass. I also tend to think of things I’d like to do or things I’d like to own that I assume will make me…

Yesterday, two headlines caught my eye as I scanned the news. The first was about Playboy Mexico putting a transgender model on the cover for the first time in its history. It’s a stunning picture and Victoria Volkova looks beautiful and powerful.

On Instagram the magazine stated “Playboy Mexico is committed to the openness and diversity for which we fight daily in this country.”

Whatever your thoughts of Playboy and the industry it represents, this is a fantastic development.

Sadly, it was overshadowed by another story. The arrest of someone in connection with the brutal slaying of 27 year-old transgender…

After four years of the Trump Show, I honestly expected a Biden landslide, but on election night that wasn’t to be. Of course, there are still millions of votes yet to be counted so at this stage the result hangs in the balance. This morning (New Zealand time) Biden has won Michigan and Wisconsin, but the Republicans are taking legal action so the story could play out for a long time.

I find myself asking what is it in the American psyche that leads to more than 67 million people, virtually half of all voters, to cast a ballot in…

I have to tell you, I’m worried. This week, former journalist and UK Independence Party loyalist Suzanne Evans likened New Zealand to Nazi Germany. Yesterday, Fox News host Laura Ingraham said our government is throwing people into quarantine camps with a callous disregard for civil liberties.

With two such paragons of truth-telling and observation criticising our country, perhaps we need to ask ourselves the question — have we become a fascist state?

Let’s look at the facts.

First up, we did just have an election which was won in a landslide by a centre-left government. I’m sure if you asked…

The events of the past week have proved conclusively that I live in a liberal bubble. A record number of LGBT candidates were elected to our parliament last weekend which means it now has the largest proportion of queer MPs in the world.

But in this same week news reports showed that American religious conservatives actively helped defeat queer rights legislation in Ukraine, protests were held in Italy against proposed hate speech laws, and a month ago it was reported that over 60 LGBTQI people have been killed in Colombia in the first 8 months of 2020.

It makes for…

Wow. What a night that turned out to be huh? It’s been obvious for months that the government would be re-elected but I am stunned by the scale of it. For a single party to be handed a majority in our MMP electoral system is unprecedented.

Before I analyse how it happened I first want to say how proud I am of our country. When you look around the world at the rise of populism and the abject horror story that is engulfing the US political system, New Zealand had a safe and secure election without fake news, voter suppression…

When I was nine years old a member of my immediate family went into rehab for drug and alcohol addiction. I remember it being an incredibly upsetting time for all of us, and as a small child I found it all bewildering. I couldn’t understand what was going on or what exactly was causing this ‘illness’ he’d been diagnosed with.

My memory of this time is sketchy but I remember a deeply uncomfortable family conference with a lot of anger and confusion. One day, we visited him in the clinic and he showed us the room he was staying in…