Comment & Analysis Archive

No Fringe, No Indie is a column that aims to sketch the trials and tribulations of different sub-cultures in the cultural capital of New Zealand.

Fat people earn less, don't get promoted and face public shaming.

When removing goods and services tax becomes a food fight.

Trusts law reform set out to make things easier but liability tweaks will unsettle some.

Conflict, anger and unrest is as rampant online as it is in real life around the world.

Everyday Rewards promises perks, but the real price tag might be your privacy.

Self-regulated basis has sector progress lagging behind global peers.

What exactly is name suppression and what happens to the social media fiends who happen to breach it?

A brief guide to deductibles for the self-employed Kiwi

Who would have thought Weet-Bix would bring the country’s questionable competition and charities framework into focus and open Pandora’s box in the process?

Mainzeal’s Supreme Court reckoning and what it means for directors.

A whistle-stop tour of the lawyer precinct: tofu, flat whites, and quiet despair.

What prisoners earn, and what they spend it on.

Victoria University bans staff-student relationships. Is this overdue protection or political correctness gone mad?

Remember the $1m prison slushy saga? A revisit of the politics, panic, and what became of the machines.

Satire: A tongue-in-cheek look at Christmas in the office

Why plain language matters in law, business, and everyday workplace culture.

Satire: A fictional law-firm Christmas memo revealing the absurdity of modern corporate workplaces.

Why NZ’s contracting laws fail dancers, and what the Calendar Girls dispute reveals about exploitation in the gig economy.

A look at the tension between open justice and name suppression, and how sexual violence cases involving a deceased victim reveal the limits of our current laws.

AI tools are entering the justice system faster than the law can keep up. Here’s what hallucinations, privacy risks and weak regulation mean for courts and lawyers.

Budget 2024 boosts prisons and policing but leaves rehabilitation, youth justice and legal aid behind — a recipe for more crime, not less.

What the Consumer Guarantees Act means for those terrible Christmas presents — from repairs to refunds to re-gifting.

An explainer on what the Royal Commission uncovered about abuse in state care — and why the Government’s new youth boot camps risk repeating the same failures.

An explainer on how misinformation, hate-speech gaps and political rhetoric shape public perception — and how NZ’s legal system is struggling to respond.

A look at the privacy, policing, and surveillance failures behind the Ghahraman CCTV leak.

Free speech for one, safety for others: how New Zealand’s legal protections for gender-diverse people are being tested by trans-exclusion activism.

An analysis of the human-rights obligations behind NZ’s housing crisis — and why government responses keep falling short.

It’s not the first time alcohol has been used as a convenient scapegoat to solve systemic issues associated with power imbalances, inadequate complaint mechanisms, sexism, and valuing profit over people.

A breakdown of the Geneva Conventions and how humanitarian law applies to the current violence in Gaza — and why the legal framework can’t stop the conflict.

A look at how greenwashing claims, climate-law court battles, and government rollbacks reveal the widening gap between NZ’s climate promises and its actions.

With Uber challenging whether its drivers are workers or contractors, the gig economy faces its biggest test yet in New Zealand.

A shout-out to some of the legal trailblazers rising through the ranks and changing the system from the inside out.

Male entitlement resulting from the fundamentally unequal distribution of power is the real issue undermining gender equality.

A first time voters guide.