I want to celebrate the promise from Labour and the Greens that we will get another public holiday to celebrate Matarike – the star cluster that Maori use to mark the new year’s arrival.
The government should develop a national strategy to transition beyond the current system of commodity production for profit to a system based on the needs of working people and the planet.
Nevertheless, what has become clear is that large parts of the government bureaucracy is simply incapable of doing a job to protect working people. They appear institutionally paralyzed when it comes to seeing workers as anything other than an expense to manage rather than a power to enhance to get things done effectively.
In the words of Rosa Luxemburg, it is “Socialism or Barbarism”
I want to address a sort of big question because clearly the system is breaking down. What is that system that is breaking down? Can we do a system reset by tinkering with that system or is a more fundamental change necessary? What is the nature of that change and how do we get there? All in ten minutes of course.
This is a chance in a generation to do the right thing to those who have been so cruelly exploited and abused by the state as well as private employers.
In the current crisis we have the absurd situation of the government-owned companies continuing to behave like profit-maximising private companies and sacking as many workers as they think will help achieve that goal.
SkyCity is ripping off the wage subsidy system.
The Green Party has done us all a favour by bringing the issue of wealth taxes and improved income support for those not working onto the agenda.
In an interview with the Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway on Radio NZ last week it became clear that the entire country is now hostage to a bottleneck in the managed isolation/quarantine system that means only 250 people a day can be allowed into New Zealand.