In the new weekly political podcast, The Bradbury Group, last night presenter Martyn Bradbury talked with visiting Palestinian journalist Dr Yousef Aljamal.

They assess the current situation in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and what New Zealand should be doing.

As Bradbury, publisher of The Daily Blog, notes, “Fourth Estate public broadcasting is dying — The Bradbury Group will fight back.”

Gaza crisis and Iran tensions.     Video: The Bradbury Group/Radio Waatea

Also in last night’s programme was featured a View From A Far Podcast Special Middle East Report with former intelligence analyst Dr Paul Buchanan and international affairs commentator Selwyn Manning on what will happen next in Iran.

Political Panel:
Māori Party president John Tamihere,
NZ Herald columnist Simon Wilson
NZCTU economist Craig Renney

Topics:
– The Legacy of Tarsh Kemp
– New coward punch and first responder assault laws — virtue signalling or meaningful policy?
– Cost of living crisis and the failing economy

• The Bradbury Group is sponsored by Waatea News live at 8pm Tuesdays on ROVA, Youtube, SkyTV and Waatea’s main Facebook page.

OPEN LETTER: By Martyn Bradbury, editor and publisher of The Daily Blog

NZME directors ‘have concerns’ about businessman Jim Grenon taking editorial control

NZME’s directors have fired their own shots in the war for control of the media company, saying they have concerns about a takeover bid including the risk of businessman Jim Grenon taking editorial control.

In a statement to the NZX, the board said it was delaying its annual shareholders meeting until June and opening up nominations of other directors.

Grenon, a New Zealand resident since 2012, bought a 9.3 percent stake in NZME for just over $9 million early in March.

NZME is publisher of a number of newspapers, including The New Zealand Herald, as well as operating radio stations and property platform OneRoof.

Within days of taking the stake, Grenon had written to the company’s board proposing that most of its current directors be replaced with new ones, including himself, and said the performance of the company had been disappointing and he was wanted to improve the editorial content.

NZME has now told the stockmarket it had concerns whether Grenon’s proposals were in the best interests of the company and shareholders. — RNZ News

Dear NZME Board,

I was once a columnist for The New Zealand Herald, but I’m too left wing for your stable of acceptable opinions and now just run award-winning political podcasts instead.

Normally as board members of a financialised media company in late stage capitalism with collapsing revenue thanks to social media, you don’t generally have to consider the actual well being of our democracy.

Let me be as clear as I can to you all.

You hold in your hands the fate of Fourth Estate journalism and ultimately the democracy of New Zealand itself.

As the largest Fourth Estate platforms in the country, your obligations go well beyond just shareholder profit.

Alt-right billionaire Jim Grenon has in my view been extremely disingenuous.

The manner in which NZME has been sold as underperforming so that the promise of a quick buck from OneRoof seems the focus point is made more questionable because I suspect Grenon’s true desire here is editorial control of NZME.

His relationship with a far-right culture war hate blog that promotes anti-Māori, anti-trans, anti-vaccine, climate denial editorial copy alongside his support for culture war influencers suggest a radicalised view of the world which he intends to implement if he gains control.

Look.

NZME is right wing enough, your first editorial in The New Zealand Herald was calling for white people to start war with Māori, Mike Hosking is the epitome of right wing commentary and the less said about Heather Du Plessis Allan, the better, but all of you acknowledge that 2 + 2 = 4.

Alt-Right billionaires don’t admit that.

Alt-right billionaires tend to lean into divisive culture war rhetoric and are happy to promote 2 + 2 = whatever I say it is.

You cannot allow alt-right billionaires with radicalised culture war beliefs take over the largest media platforms in the country.

This moment demands more than dollars and cents, it requires a strong defence of independent editorial content, even when that editorial content is right wing.

The NZ Herald, Heather and Mike are without doubt right wingers, but they are right wingers who pitch their argument within the realms of the real and factual.

Alt-right billionaires do not do that.

If NZME is taken over and the editorial direction takes a hard right culture war turn, you will be dooming NZ democracy and planing us on a highway to hell.

You must, you must, you must stand against this attack on editorial independence.

Republished from The Daily Blog with permission.

The Daily Blog, New Zealand’s most important leftwing website of news, views and analyses at the heart of the country’s most conservative mediascape in years, has been hacked.

It was silenced yesterday for several hours but is back up and running today.

The Daily Blog editor and founder Martyn Bradbury launched the website in 2013 with the primary objective of “widening political debate” in the lead up to the 2014 New Zealand election.

Since then, the website has united more than “42 of the country’s leading leftwing commentators and progressive opinion shapers to provide the other side of the story on today’s news, media and political agendas”.

It has 400,000 pageviews a month.

“These moments are always a mix of infuriation and terror”, admitted Bradbury in an editorial today about the revived website and he raised several suspected nations for “cyber attack trends” such as “China, Israel and Russia”.

Bradbury, nicknamed “Bomber” by a former Craccum editor at Victoria University of Wellington, was once branded by the NZ Listener magazine as the “most opinionated man in New Zealand”

The website includes columns by such outspoken writers and critics as law professor Jane Kelsey, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson, Palestinian human rights advocate and quality education critic John Minto, political scientist Dr Wayne Hope, social justice academic and former leftwing politician Sue Bradford, and political analyst Morgan Godfery.

It also hosts the popular live podcasts by The Working Group, which tonight features pre-budget “Economists of the Apocalypse Special” by Bradbury, with Matthew Hooton, Damien Grant and Brad Olson at 7.30pm on its revived website.

‘Sophisticated and tricky’
Explaining why The Daily Blog was displaying a “maintenance page” for most of the day, Bradbury said in his editorial:

The hack was very sophisticated and very tricky.

Thank you to everyone who reached out, these moments are always a mix of infuriation and terror.

We can’t point the finger at who did it, but we can see trends.

Whenever we criticise China, we get cyber attacks.

Every time we criticise Israel, we get cyber attacks.

Every time we criticise Russia, we get cyber attacks.

Every time we post out how racist NZ is, we get stupid cyber attacks.

Every time we have a go at New Zealand First’s weird Qanon antivaxx culture war bullshit we get really dumb cyber attacks.

Every time we criticise woke overreach we get cancelled.

This hack on us yesterday was a lot more sophisticated and I would be surprised if it didn’t originate offshore.

We have a new page design up and running in the interim, there will be updates made to it for the rest of week as we iron out all the damage caused and tweak it for TDB readers.

You never know how important critical media voices are until you lose them!

Bradbury added that “obviously this all costs an arm and a leg being offline” and appealed to community donors to deposit into The Daily Blog’s bank account 12-3065-0133561-56.

The Daily Blog can be contacted here.

Northland MP Willow-Jean Prime walked into the lion’s den when she took part in an election debate in Kerikeri last night.

The traditionally blue seat is currently held by Labour — the election of 2020 was the first time it had been won by the left since 1938 — but polls suggest that won’t last much longer.

Five candidates took part in the live-streamed debate at the Homestead Tavern organised by right-wing lobby group the Taxpayers’ Union.

• READ MORE:  Better ways than taxation to bring down living costs – Hipkins
• Other APR election coverage
• RNZ’s full election coverage
• Poll of polls and donations data
• Guide to party policies

With a partisan audience and The Daily Blog editor/publisher Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury and libertarian Damien Grant as MCs — political commentators from opposite ends of the political spectrum — it was a rollicking, raucous ride, sometimes rude but never dull.

For Prime it was a foray into hostile territory with the Labour MP all but drowned out by shouts and jeers.

She had little chance to defend her party’s record or set out her priorities above the din.

The loudest reaction came after mention of the C word — that’s covid, of course.

Covid response ‘saved lives’
Prime defended the government’s response, saying it was one of the best in the world and had saved lives, but acknowledged some in the room did not agree with her.

There were angry shouts from some in the near-capacity crowd anytime she used a word in te reo Māori, such as Aotearoa or puku [belly].

The other candidates received a warmer reception, with Matt King — the former Northland MP who quit National and set up DemocracyNZ in protest at the party’s covid policy — having the loudest supporters.

New Zealand First candidate Shane Jones continued his campaign theme of describing himself as the politician who delivered for Northland when he held the purse strings for the Provincial Growth Fund.

He also said it was time Northlanders broke their habit of electing lions, only to find they turned into lambs as soon as they took their place in Parliament.

Jones promised a “laser-like focus” on Northland’s infrastructure deficit, especially when it came to roads, rail and shipping.

‘Squeezed middle’
National candidate Grant McCallum, a Maungaturoto farmer who won the party’s selection process to replace King, also promised a laser-like focus — but in his case it would be on costs and the “squeezed middle”.

He said middle New Zealanders had been hard hit by rising prices and interest rates.

King was initially denied a place in the debate, raising the prospect of a protest outside the venue by his supporters, with the Taxpayers’ Union saying he did not meet the criteria.

Those criteria included being a sitting MP or polling at least 5 percent in the electorate.

King was told on Monday he could join the debate after all because the weekend’s Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll put his support in Northland at 5 percent, once undecided voters were excluded.

King promised to “fight back for farmers” against what he called a “climate change catastrophist narrative”.

ACT list MP Mark Cameron, meanwhile, just wanted less government, saying New Zealanders should be left alone to do what they did best.

Gun register dismissed
He was questioned by MC Martyn Bradbury about ACT’s plans to reverse a ban on high-calibre semi-automatic weapons, which Cameron did not address — but he did say bringing in a gun register had not worked overseas and would not work in New Zealand.

Between the serious politicking there was also plenty of humour.

When New Zealand First was accused of being less interested in real issues than in culture-war talking points such as the use of public toilets by transgender women, MC Damien Grant asked — with some trepidation — how Jones defined a woman.

“Matua Shane Jones has 19 mokopuna [grandchildren],” Jones replied.

“And he has his beautiful wife sitting right in front. Bro, that’s a woman.”

The last word went to Prime, who warned the crowd a change of government would lead to cuts in basic services.

It is not clear, however, if anyone heard her above the jeers.

‘Lot at stake in election’
“There is a lot at stake in this election, and I implore you all, to ask the questions and do the research,” Prime said.

Earlier in the evening, the organisers released the results of a Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll conducted in the Northland electorate the previous weekend.

The poll showed McCallum had 43 percent of the electorate vote, followed by Prime on 18 percent and Jones on 13 percent.

Both King and the Greens’ Reina Tuai Penney, who did not take part in the debate, had 4 percent support with Cameron trailing on 2 percent.

However, the poll had a relatively small sample size of 400 and a margin of error of almost 5 percent.

The proportion of respondents who had not made up their minds was 11 percent. If they were excluded, McCallum’s share of the vote jumped to 49 percent.

The poll showed broadly similar trends when it came to the party vote, although personal support for Jones (13 percent) was much higher than support for his party overall in Northland (3 percent).

Situation reversed
The situation was reversed for Cameron who had just 2 percent support as a candidate while his party, ACT, polled 12 percent.

Cameron has, however, been campaigning for the party vote only and suggesting his supporters give their electorate votes to McCallum.

Respondents were asked what they believed was the most important issue facing Northland.

Unsurprisingly, given the state of the region’s transport network, 36 percent opted for roads, followed by the cost of living on 15 percent, health on 14 percent and law and order on 8 percent.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

It has been a decade since The Daily Blog (TDB) came into being informing all and sundry of the political machinations in New Zealand.

Run by the Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury it serves the left of politics.

It had almost five million page views in 2022.

• READ MORE:  How NZ’s Public Interest Journalism Fund can help ‘normalise’ diversity
• Other Daily Blog reports

“We had just under five million page views last year,” Bradbury told Asia Pacific Report.

“We have professor Wayne Hope from the AUT School of Communications; we have associate professor Susan St John from Auckland University, who is a poverty campaigner; John Minto who is a well-known political activist; and we have Mike Treen, a union boss.”

And they also have one of the country’s leading left analysts, Chris Trotter.

“We have anywhere between 10 to 20 bloggers,” Bradbury said.

TBD has been one of the go to blogsites for the political left.

“I think the idea when we set it up in 2013 was to provide an alternative commentary on the leftwing of opinion shapers,” he said.

Bradbury, who studied English at Auckland University and became a journalist on the job, believes debate is essential when discussing politics.

“I think we enjoy robust debate,” he said.

Nor does he blindly carry a candle for the leftwing government of the day even though he professes to belongs to the left.

“I think you have to be critical of everyone in power regardless of whether they are on your side or not,” said Bradbury, who was given his moniker “Bomber” by the Auckland University student newspaper Craccum.

“If you are writing commentary about the politics of the day you have to equally scathing for when the left are in, or the right are in, or you don’t have any credibility.

“We (TBD) are able to talk about things that are going on in politics and that is happening 24-48 hours ahead of the mainstream media; so I think people that are hungry to find out what is going on and have better oversight into the New Zealand political system can? So they come to us before you see it turn up in the mainstream media.”

He believes that journalism must be held to account.

“We have an obligation if you are the Fourth Estate to hold the powerful to account and the most powerful is the government of the day,” said Bradbury.

Public Interest Journalism
He said the government must provide for more investment in Public Interest Journalism (PIJ).

PIJ, a programme which started three years ago and is set to be concluded this year, needed to be continued, Bradbury said.

“I think it is a good start for the problem we have always had in New Zealand which is the market driven model, which is audience based advertising. We have always had too small a population to be able to support good journalism.

“But, there needs to be a lot more investment in public journalism for it to work.”

Nor does he see it, as many perceive it, as the government attempting to purchase favours from the media.

“I don’t see it as the government buying the media, I know that is a common critique that is used and brought up, but I don’t see it as black and white as that,” Bradbury said.

“We need to have public money go into journalism and there needs to be better checks and balances as to how that money is getting out there.

“There is a problem there, but overall I think that you can’t get a well-funded Fourth Estate that critiques the government of the day without having the state invested in that.”

He is advocating for a campaign to promote the benefits of better public interest journalism.

“We need a public service campaign similar to the one we have on our beaches where we have the ‘swim between the flags’ mantra.

“There has to be more public journalism funding to a vastly different group of media players and, by getting that funding they are able to show a little flag and we have a public campaign where we talk about ‘reading between the flags,’ so they know what they are reading is accurate and true.”

TVNZ-RNZ merger
Although the government has now shelved the TVNZ-RNZ merger after five years of work and many millions of dollars, Bradbury said it was only needed to see what was happening out in the public to realise people did not trust mainstream media.

“I think that the reason why we should have the merger is because we need to have a baseline public broadcasting that people can trust,” Bradbury said.

“We have all seen with real horror what happens when a large chunk of your population no longer believes certain agreed truths and we saw that on Parliament lawns last year.

“It is important to have public broadcasting that is trusted and believed because if we don’t have that it is very difficult to find common ground.

The emergence of rightwing radio — The Platform
“What we are seeing is the fracturing of the media world in New Zealand, and there are people who don’t believe in mainstream media anymore; people who have moved away from it and are searching out their own news,” Bradbury said.

“That’s fine as long as those media that are operating adhere to the basic values of journalism and stick to them.”

Jacinda Ardern
In the TBD Bradbury shared an excerpt from a podcast from TDB’s The Working Group which was rated as the best podcast in New Zealand in August last year by the Sunday Star-Times.

Bradbury related a story from January 24 the week that former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had to endure:

“Matt McCarten tells us a story of how at the end of last year, Jacinda and [her preschool daughter] Neve went out for a coffee with a friend of theirs at a cafe just in their private capacity. The way any mum with their daughter does every weekend.

“However, when Jacinda and their friend and Neve had settled down at a table, two people walked into the cafe after learning of Jacinda being in there, and started screaming at Jacinda and Neve telling them how they intended to hurt and kill Neve and Jacinda.”

“No mother should have feral lunatics screaming death threats at them and their child in a cafe.”

— TDB’s The Working Group

The TDB Working Group of 24 January 2023, Matt McCarten at 41m 46s.

“No doubt there was a tsunami of vileness that I don’t think I have seen in my political life that hit Jacinda,” said Bradbury.

“There was danger with forcing her out the way the angry right activists did, but the danger for them was that it was going create a backlash from the political swing voters who are 50+ female, tertiary educated.

“They would have seen the way Jacinda was forced out and they would have been quite angry with that; and we saw that in the first polls which saw Labour jump back up into the lead was a result of a political backlash.”

Radical social media
With the fracturing of media there has now developed radicalism on social media.
“Now we have a level of radicalism at play within social media,” Bradbury said.

“There are some strident leftwing voices and we’ve certainly seen some middle class identity politics and their de-platforming campaign; and we also have very extreme rightwing bloggers who are taking the debate in a very conspiratorial place which is very dangerous and polarising to the political debate in this country.

“We need healthy debate, but is it healthy when people in that debate have nothing but malice and spite to trade and are actually creating problems and not providing any solutions.”

Journalism
Bradbury believes journalism is at a crossroads but its principles must be upheld.

“Journalism is one of the most important careers in a democracy right now, and I bring it back to the misinformation and disinformation we have seen on so many online formats,” Bradbury said of the covid-19 pandemic years.

“If you can’t trust the material you’re reading, and if you have a citizenship that doesn’t know what is true anymore, then the basic standard of your democracy, the entire foundation that we are built on crumbles.

“So journalism is as important now than ever before.

“This is why we need a strong public service, this is no longer a nice-to-have, because I believe journalism is under so much threat because the alternative is voters who don’t know what is real and what is not.”

Roll on the election on October 14 and once again TBD will be at the forefront.

As a postscript, Bradbury was asked how was TBD faring financially.

He laughed before offering: “We get by, we are here for this election, we’ve been around for 10 years and I am always surprised that there is still a need for it.

“I’ll keep blogging as long as there is a readership for it.”

Sri Krishnamuthi is an independent journalist, former editor of the Pacific Media Watch project at the Pacific Media Centre and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

Last month The Daily Blog offered its New Year infamous news media gongs — and blasts — for 2022. In this extract, editor and publisher Martyn Bradbury names the mainstream media “blind spots”.

Graham Adams over at The Platform made the argument this year that the failure of mainstream media to engage with the debates occurring online is a threat to democracy.

With trust in New Zealand media at an all time low, I wondered what is the list of topics that you simply are NOT allowed to discuss on NZ mainstream media.

Here is my list of 17 topics over 30 years in New Zealand media:

1. Palestine: You cannot talk about the brutal occupation of Palestine by Israel in NZ media. It’s just not allowed, any discussion has to be framed as “Poor Israelis being terrorised by evil angry Muslims”. There is never focus on the brutal occupation and when it ever does emerge in the media it’s always insinuated that any criticism is anti-Semitism.
2. Child Poverty NEVER adult poverty: We only talk about child poverty because they deserve our pity. Adults in poverty can go screw themselves. Despite numbering around 800,000, adults in poverty are there because they “choose” to be there. The most important myth of neoliberalism is that your success is all your own, as is your failure. If an adult is in poverty, neoliberal cultural mythology states that is all on them and we have no obligation to help. That’s why we only ever talk endlessly about children in poverty because the vast majority of hard-hearted New Zealanders want to blame adults in poverty on them so we can pretend to be egalitarian without actually having to implement any policy.
3. The Neoliberal NZ experiment: You are never allowed to question the de-unionised work force that amputated wages, you can never question selling off our assets, you can never criticise the growth über alles mentality, you are never allowed to attack the free market outcomes and you can’t step back and evaluate the 35-year neoliberal experiment in New Zealand because you remind the wage slaves of the horror of it all.
4. Class: You cannot point out that the demarcation line in a capitalist democracy like New Zealand is the 1 percent richest plus their 9 percent enablers vs the 90 percent rest of us. Oh, you can wank on and on about your identity and your feelings about your identity in a never ending intersectionist diversity pronoun word salad, but you can’t point out that it’s really the 90 percent us vs the 10 percent them class break down because that would be effective and we can’t have effective on mainstream media when feelings are the currency to audience solidarity in an ever diminishing pie of attention.
5. Immigration: It must always be framed as positive. It can never be argued that it is a cheap and lazy growth model that pushes down wages and places domestic poor in competition with International student language school scams and exploited migrant workers. Any criticism of Immigration makes you a xenophobe and because the Middle Classes like travelling and have global skills for sale, they see any criticism of migrants as an attack on their economic privileges.
6. Hypertourism: We are never allowed to ask “how many is too many, you greedies”. The tourism industry that doesn’t give a shit about us locals, live for the 4 million tourists who visit annually. We are not allowed to ask why that amount of air travel is sustainable, we are not allowed to ask why selling Red Bull and V at tourist stops is somehow an economic miracle and we are certainly not allowed to question why these tourists aren’t directly being taxed meaningfully for the infrastructure they clog.
7. Dairy as a Sunset Industry: We are never allowed to point out that the millisecond the manufactured food industry can make synthetic milk powder, they will dump us as a base ingredient and the entire dairy industry overnight will collapse. With synthetic milks and meats here within a decade, it is time to radically cull herds, focus on only organic and free range sustainable herds and move away from mass production dairy forever. No one is allowed to mention the iceberg that is looming up in front of the Fonteera Titanic.
8. B-E-L-I-E-V-E victims: It’s like How to Kill a MockingBird was never written. People making serious allegations should be taken seriously, not B-E-L-I-E-V-E-D. That’s a tad fanatical Christian for me. It’s led to a change in our sexual assault laws where the Greens and Labour removed the only defence to rape so as to get more convictions, which when you think about it, is cult like and terrifying. Gerrymandering the law to ensure conviction isn’t justice, but in the current B-E-L-I-E-V-E victims culture it sure is and anyone saying otherwise is probably a rape apologist who should be put in prison immediately.
9. The Trans debate: This debate is so toxic and anyone asking any question gets immediately decried as transphobic. I’ve seen nuclear reactor meltdowns that are less radioactive than this debate. I’m so terrified I’m not going to say anything other than “please don’t hurt my family” for even mentioning it.
10. It’s never climate change for this catastrophic weather event: Catastrophic weather event after catastrophic weather event but it’s never connected to global warming! It’s like the weather is changing cataclysmically around us but because it’s not 100 percent sure that that cigarette you are smoking right now is the one that causes that lump inside you to become cancer, so we can’t connect this catastrophic weather event with a climate warming model that states clearly that we will see more and more catastrophic weather events.
11. Scoops: No New Zealand media will never acknowledge another media’s scoop in spite of a united front being able to generate more exposure and better journalism.
12. Te Reo fanaticism: You are not allowed to point out that barely 5 percent of the population speak Te Reo and that everyone who militantly fires up about it being an “official language” never seem that antagonistic about the lack of sign language use. Look, my daughter goes to a Māori immersion class and when she speaks Te Reo it makes me cry joyfully and I feel more connected to NZ than any other single moment. But endlessly ramming it down people’s throats seems woke language policing rather than a shared cultural treasure. You can still be an OK human being and not speak Te Reo.
13. Māori land confiscation: Māori suffered losing 95 percent of their land in less than a century, they were almost decimated by disease and technology brought via colonisation, they endured the 1863 Settlements Act, they survived blatant lies and falsehoods devised to create the pretext for confiscation, and saw violence in the Waikato. Māori have lived throughout that entire experience and still get told to be grateful because Pākehā brought blankets, tobacco and “technology”.
14. The Disabled: Almost 25 percent of New Zealand is disabled, yet for such a staggeringly huge number of people, their interests get little mention in the mainstream media.
15. Corporate Iwi: You can’t bring up that that the corporate model used for Iwi to negotiate settlements is outrageous and has created a Māori capitalist elite who are as venal as Pākehā capitalists.
16. Police worship: One of the most embarrassing parts about living in New Zealand is the disgusting manner in which so many acquiesce to the police. It’s never the cop’s fault when they shoot someone, it’s never the cop’s fault when they chase people to their death, it’s never the cop’s fault for planting evidence, it’s never the cops fault for using interrogation methods that bully false confessions out of vulnerable people. I think there is a settler cultural chip on our shoulders that always asks the mounted constabulary to bash those scary Māori at the edge of town because we are frightened of what goes bump in the night. We willingly give police total desecration to kill and maim and frame as long as long as they keep us safe. It’s sickening.
17. House prices will increase FOREVER! Too many middle class folk are now property speculators and they must see their values climb to afford the extra credit cards the bank sends them. We can never talk about house prices coming down. They must never fall. Screw the homeless, scre the generations locked out of home ownership and screw the working poor. Buying a house is only for the children of the middle classes now. Screw everyone else. Boomer cradle to the grave subsidisations that didn’t extend to any other generation. Free Ben and Jerry Ice Cream for every Boomer forever! ME! ME! ME!

You’ll also note that because so many media are dependent on real estate advertising, there’s never been a better time to buy!

• Pacific Media Watch notes that the the brutal Indonesian military occupation of West Papua, a half century of colonisation, and violations of human rights ought to be cited on this list too.

Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury is a New Zealand media commentator, former radio and TV host, and former executive producer of Alt TV — a now-defunct alternative music and culture channel. He is publisher of The Daily Blog and writes blogs at Tumeke! and TDB. Republished with permission.

OPINION: By Martyn Bradbury of The Daily Blog

I love New Zealand’s democracy. It’s representative, it allows for indigenous political representation and it gives everyone the chance to have a say whether they are a citizen or permanent resident.

What annoys me is our media coverage of that democracy. I believe that the mainstream media do an appalling job of giving you – the voter – real choice by limiting political parties from appearing in their debates.

Did you know that we have 16 Political Parties competing in this election?

Tonight from 8pm, live streamed at The Daily Blog and on www.kiwidebate.online , I will interview 13 political parties to hear what they think the big issues of our country are and how they intend to solve them.

I will be joined by The Daily Blog panel of unionist Kate Davis and political commentator Curwen Rolinson to review the answers.

We also have a guest Twitter Panel tonight using the hashtag #KiwiFairGo with Twitter commentators The NonPlastic Māori, Jo Bond and LaQuisha St Redfern.

• Some of the parties taking part – check the rest here.

Radio Waatea and The Daily Blog featured the Pacific and climate change on their daily live Fifth Estate programme tonight.

Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury spoke to a panel, including Labour spokesman on Pacific affairs Sua William Sio who was stranded at Tarawa on a fact-finding mission to Kiribati.

Sua spoke about the “fighting spirit” of Pacific islanders trying to sustain life in the face of the reality of climate change and called for a better United Nations framework for Pacific people impacted on by the dramatic changes as a result of global warming.

Many of the speakers talked about New Zealand needing to accept Pacific climate change migrations, adopt humanitarian policies and tackle the issue of sovereignty of their communities.

“We have to recognise and have a serious discussion about people from the vulnerable climate change frontline states who are overstayers in New Zealand because I now recognise that some of them, depending on which islands they belong to, cannot go back to those islands,” said Sua.

“You can’t be an overstayer if you have got nowhere to go back to,” said Bradbury.

In the studio for the programme were:

International refugee Michael Timmins, a lawyer who has worked internationally with NGOs and the UN refugee agency UNHCR

Professor David Robie, director of AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre

On the phone from Samoa: Ötara-Papatoetoe Local Board Councillor Efeso Collins

And on Skype live from Kiribati as part of his fact-finding mission in the Pacific: Labour Party Spokesperson on Pacific Affairs and Pacific Climate Change Sua William Sio

• Watch Fifth Estate and climate change on YouTube
• Discussion plus at The Daily Blog