The kiwipolitico collective

We share environmentalist, and centre-left/left-of-centre perspectives and values as well as an abiding interest in public policy and the political process. Within this broad frame, we are very diverse. Some of us are more green than red, and some more red than green. Some have party allegiances, and some don’t. Regardless, we are committed to providing an independent, critical commentary on political issues in New Zealand and overseas.

You can contact us all at kiwipolitico@kiwipolitico.com

Jafapete

Jafapete lives in Auckland, of course. He spends too much time talking politics over beer at Galbraiths, New Zealand’s number one brewpub. He has worked at various times as a policy analyst, ministerial private secretary, trade union negotiator and academic. Also worked many years ago on Capitol Hill for a major political party, a gentleman’s gentleman, and as a cook on a Costa Rican horse ranch.

Peter first joined the Labour Party in 1975, and has continued to support left goals and principles ever since. This meant joining the New Labour Party on its formation in 1989. Has stood for various public offices as a Labour Party candidate. Currently, Labour Party membership has lapsed.

Anita

Anita lives in Wellington (yeah, I know) and spends way too much time keeping the chooks out of the veges in her garden. She’s worked in both the public and private sector, and is now balancing a private sector job with a little study.

Over the years she’s been involved in issues around peace, disability advocacy, feminism and an ever increasing list of others. If given only one issue to work on it would be participation – how do we rebuild a society where people can have their say and make a difference?

Pablo

Raised in Latin America by expat American parents and involved in anti-authoritarian politics beginning in his early teens , he combined a career in academia with episodic forays into the US security and defence apparatus before emigrating to New Zealand in 1997. While in New Zealand  he developed an interest in small state analysis and is writing a book on the security politics of peripheral democracies (Chile, New Zealand and Portugal). Currently residing overseas, hoping to return to New Zealand, his policy interests are in comparative labour politics, regime dynamics, strategic thought, intelligence analysis, threat (net) assessment and unconventional warfare.

Roger Nome

Roger Nome is currently completing a Masters degree in Political Studies. His areas of interest/study include Industrial Relations, Environmental Politics, Democratic Theory, The Mass Media and Bi-culturalism/Treaty Politics.

Lew

Lew also lives in Wellington where he works as a media analyst, but he was born in Taranaki. As a small kid he was brought up on confiscated land which his parents and others ceded back to the descendants of those from whom it was confiscated. He studied film and political science, then worked in a bunch of unrelated jobs before going to live and work in Asia for a spell and coming back to study some more. His research interests include symbolic politics, propaganda, political discourse and communication, political use of the media/media use of politics and identity politics, especially to do with Māori issues. A MA on the māori party’s influence on NZ political discourse is indefinitely postponed due to family commitments.

Speaking normatively rather than descriptively, he calls himself a sensible moderate – but not in the same way as Peter Dunne. In no particular order, he believes in democracy but not in populism; in doctrine but not in dogma; in the rule of law but not in its iron fist; in peace but not in passivity; in liberty but not in libertarianism; in community but not in communism; in markets but not in free-marketeers; in feminism but not because of guilt; he is green but for pragmatic rather than ideological reasons; is an indigenist but not a separatist; is agnostic but not aggressively so; and reckons that if most people were entirely faithful to their own internal moral and ethical standards (whatever they are), then generally they’d treat each other a great deal better than they do.