The Māori Party have selected the exceptionally talented Debbie Ngarewa-Packer as their candidate in the very vulnerable seat of Te Tai Hauāuru and it represents the biggest threat to Jacinda’s dreams for a second term than any other political challenge.
John Key personally signed off on this fiasco, he must be held accountable for it!
We need an out of the box idea, not more tinkering at the edges.
The manner in which middle class identity politics has eclipsed the class based left as the movements dominant ideology has created all sorts of intellectual paradoxes.
Aucklanders weaponised their apathy because the Supercity democracy is a farce, a grotesque masquerade of democratic representation to trick people into participating so that it has the pretence of legitimacy, and Aucklanders, stuck in their gridlock see how hollow the promises of infrastructure investment really are.
It’s a harsh lesson for Labour that allegations in the age of social media trump actual guilt or innocence but as insane as that is, that’s where we are now.
Even at the height of accusing Jacinda of covering up a sexual assault, only 2.5% more liked Simon Bridges. When you can’t win any more favour off the person being accused of covering up a sex crime, you really do need to ask some serious questions.
There needs to be a wholesale re-investment into Local Government so that instead of being a faux democratic choice, citizens actually feel like their vote means something rather than an act masquerading as democracy for the illusion of legitimacy.
Goff limps home to victory in an election that barely a third of the City has bothered to vote for and will preside over a divided Council. Who are the winners and who are the losers in Auckland Mayoralty 2019?
The neoliberal welfare state in New Zealand is designed to be as punitive as possible so as to frighten the beneficiary from even daring to ask for help in the first place.