Christmas Message From Muriel Newman

Hi there,

Firstly, thanks so very much for your on-going support during this rather challenging year! In particular, I have especially appreciated your interest in my new think tank - the New Zealand Centre for Political Debate - and your willingness to get involved in the debate by sharing your views and concerns.

During the next few weeks I would like to encourage those of you with a penchant for writing, to put down your thoughts – on any issue you feel passionate about - and send in a contribution for our NZCPD website “Summer Soapbox Series”. Opinion pieces should be around 500 words and can be emailed to me at any time. I will publish them onto the NZCPD website as I receive them. Further, if you have suggestions for articles or issues that you believe I should be looking into next year, please don’t hesitate to send those ideas through as well.

If you don’t normally find the time during your busy year to log onto our www.nzcpd.com website, why not bookmark it in your favourites folder now, so that over the summer whenever you feel the urge for a dose of good old-fashioned politics, you can quickly log on and read the latest contribution!

Newman Weekly will start up again in early January and I have some exciting guests lined up. Among them are the President and CEO of Forbes, Steve Forbes, who twice ran for the Republican nomination for the President of the USA, and Johan Norberg, head of political ideas at a Swedish think tank and author of the controversial book Global Capitalism. I have also invited some of our Kiwi leaders to contribute to a series entitled: “If I were the Prime Minister!”

Update: Since the NZCPD was launched in October Newman Weekly letters on child abuse, welfare reform, Maori sovereignty, flat tax, sensible conservation and political correctness have been re-printed in major newspapers. The Herald, just this week published my updated “Ratepayer Bill of Rights” article. Our petition calling for a Select Committee Inquiry into the damage to children caused by long-term welfare dependency has been lodged in Parliament.

I have also used the website Guest Forum section as a means of promoting the good work being carried out by others - Dr William Rolleston of the Life Sciences Network, Garth McVicar of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, Owen McShane of the Centre for Resource Management, Steve Baron of the Better Democracy movement, flat tax advocate Prof Richard Epstein from Chicago University, public policy expert Stuart Birks from Massey University, private conservationalist Roger Beattie from Eyris Blue Pearls, and anti-PC campaigner Josie Bullock.

For those of you who took an interest in the “Feminist Agenda” article - Kay Goodger who was mentioned in the original article has asked, through her lawyer, that a clarification be published. The article and clarification can be viewed on http://www.nzcpd.com/weekly12.htm.

Finally, I would like to invite Newman News subscribers to consider joining up as members of the NZCPD. As you can imagine, there is a significant cost in running this operation, which not only includes the research and liaison work directly involved in the weekly publications, but also considerable daily website and database management. I am only able to operate as a result of the goodwill of supporters.

A new website enhancement which has gone live today, is the NZCPD Forum. The Forum will enable contributions to be posted directly on-line and I am hoping that it will become a ‘hotbed’ of political debate ranging from the highlighting of crazy examples of political correctness, to suggestions for fixing the dreadful child support system, the refining of the Ratepayers Bill of Rights, a discussion on the vexed issue of how to best eradicate possums, and so on. Over the years, the common sense contributions made by readers of my column has literally been an inspiration, and I am hoping that this Forum on http://www.nzcpd.com/forum.htm will allow those views to be given a public airing!

Since our website already gets over 100,000 hits a month with readers mostly from New Zealand (although the world-wide interest is rapidly growing), if you are interested in advertising on our website, please let me know.

Because of the political nature of the NZCPD’s work and the risks associated with un-edited material appearing on a webpage, I have been strongly advised to only allow Members to have free access to the Forum. That will therefore be an important benefit of membership.

If you enjoy receiving Newman Weekly, and would like to support its continuation, then please click here on the support link http://www.nzcpd.com/support.htm and give yourself a membership to the NZCPD with its weekly dose of political debate, as a special, personal Christmas present!

Thanks again for all of your feedback over the year, and don’t forget to send in those contributions for the Summer Soapbox Series. I hope you and your family have a wonderful Xmas and a happy, healthy and safe New Year, and I wish you good fortune in the year ahead.

With my warmest regards,

Muriel

Dr Muriel Newman

Director NZ Centre for Political Debate

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