Geoffrey Miller

New Zealand needs to speak out against allegations of mass torture and brutality in Belarus following the Eastern European country’s recent elections, a Belarusian national living in New Zealand says. Last Sunday’s election – which saw strongman Alexander Lukashenko claim 80% of the vote in a result that is widely seen as fraudulent – has triggered days of mass protests throughout Belarus, often referred to as Europe’s last dictatorship. Lukashenko has been in power since 1994. Over 6000 protesters have been detained since Sunday’s rigged vote, with many detainees reportedly being beaten or tortured in the country’s prisons, according to...

By Geoffrey Miller Prominent refugee advocate Murdoch Stephens says he is disappointed by Judith Collins’ reaction to Immigration New Zealand’s decision to grant refugee status to Kurdish-Iranian writer Behrouz Boochani. Judith Collins told media last month that “there’s a lot of concern in New Zealand about what they see as queue jumping and so I’m putting in quite a few questions today…to clarify whether there was any preference given to him over all the other United Nations certified refugees.” But in a wide-ranging interview with the Democracy Project podcast, Murdoch Stephens said that he was disappointed by the comments. “[Judith...

By Geoffrey Miller A former MP and Associate Minister of Defence says that New Zealand’s Covid-19 border and quarantine issues illustrate why a new dedicated national security agency is needed. Heather Roy, a former deputy leader of the Act Party who held the associate defence portfolio from 2008-10, told the Democracy Project podcast that a new national security agency would assume a key co-ordination role across existing departments – a function that she believed the recent border problems and New Zealand’s overall response to the coronavirus pandemic had demonstrated was severely lacking. “I think that the problem initially for New...

By Geoffrey Miller A New Zealand academic specialising in Latin America believes that NZ’s relationship with Latin America will remain strong, even if direct flights do not immediately resume to the continent after the immediate coronavirus crisis subsides. Nikita Kent, a Victoria University of Wellington graduate who studied in Peru and recently completed a UN internship in Chile, told the Democracy Project podcast that the NZ-Latin America relationship would continue even without direct flights to the continent. Until last month, Air New Zealand operated a non-stop Auckland-Buenos Aires flight that started in 2015, while LATAM Airlines flew from the Chilean...

By Geoffrey Miller A former Labour press secretary and speechwriter who worked under late Prime Minister Mike Moore says that it’s far from certain that the lockdown solution is the best response to Covid-19 – and we should be questioning the government’s response to the pandemic much more vigorously. Mark Blackham, now director of Wellington public relations firm Blackland PR, told the Democracy Project podcast that “the reaction from the chattering class, the ruling elite and from the media is that this [the lockdown] was the only option that was possible, as if questioning it would be a very dumb...

By Geoffrey Miller The National Secretary of the Unite union, Gerard Hehir, says government departments are failing to ensure low-paid hotel cleaners are given personal protective equipment while the hotels are housing returning New Zealanders in quarantine. Hehir gave the Democracy Project podcast an example of a Christchurch hotel which told its employees that they could wear protective equipment, but only if they supplied it themselves. Hehir, whose union mainly represents workers in primarily low-paid jobs in the hospitality industry, said the situation was “outrageous”. “The Ministry of Health generally are supplying protective gear, but what we’ve found is that...

By Geoffrey Miller A New Zealand-based academic from Iran says the coronavirus pandemic is unlikely to spark fundamental change in the country. Iran was one of the first countries outside China to see a major outbreak of the coronavirus. Figures from Johns Hopkins University on Sunday showed there were 35,408 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the country, with 2,517 deaths, making it one of the worst-affected countries worldwide. But Sirous Amerian, a doctoral candidate at Massey University’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies, told the Democracy Project podcast that he is pessimistic about any longer-term reforms arising from the Covid-19...