Guest and sponsored opinion pieces published on The Daily Blog, offering diverse perspectives within clear editorial guidelines.
I live in a very blue part of New Zealand but even there people have been coming up to me, people I know who vote blue, to say that they feel hopeful about this new Government. I am glad, I am proud but I am also very aware that over the next few years we must deliver for New Zealand and New Zealanders. That is our biggest challenge and we accept it.
We here in NZ need to debate our role in the world. There is too much at stake. New Zealand should not be afraid to have an independent foreign policy. Someone must say NO to militarism , NO to war, YES to sanity, YES to humanity.
I can remember many years ago being told my one of my senior academic colleagues that I should not be so impatient for women’s equality – that it would come, but probably take about 25 years. Well, 25 years has been and gone and progress have been sporadic and regression all too common. In particular, men are still mostly in charge of things. In the private sector and the state, most CEOs are men, most board chairs are men and most of the voices heard are males.
The NZ Drug Foundation has published its Briefing Document on Drug reform for the incoming Parliament. The indications are that its approach is one that the Government might favour because while it argues for decriminalisation to remove the worst aspects of our demonic cannabis laws, it also recommends heavy regulation of “production, consumption and sale”.
The Jonesy is a passionate bloke and mate of mine who wants to do what is right by our people who have been forgotten in the regions when it comes to jobs. He fired up last week and went on TV wanting to force beneficiaries into work with plenty of sticks to prod and push them into jobs.
How to comprehend the brutal conflict that has enveloped Syria for almost seven years?
Marxist economist Michael Roberts takes on Noah Smith’s claims that neo-liberalism is making a comeback and is actually increasing GDPs and reducing inequality. But to make that claim Smith has to use China and India as examples of successful neo-liberal economies. Roberts says that growth in these two countries comes not from market reforms but from heavy state intervention.
When we discuss poverty, the two extremes seem to fall in two categories: beneficiaries and the uber rich. The “middle class” seems to be an amorphous blob which fills the gap between the two, and (according to the law of post-90s politics) is the demographic which politicians have to appeal for votes.
Recent disclosures about an unbudgeted blowout on staff salaries amounting to $42m, ‘communications’ costing $45.6m per year, and $1.3m spent on business class travel and luxury hotels, unhappily have coincided with widespread public complaints about the council’s failure to manage even basic services such as mowing the grass in local parks.
This matters because work without dignity is merely wage slavery with no quality of life and in a country with the type of leadership we have historically shown on so many progressive issues, it is unacceptable to me to see us go backwards on something as vital as quality employment.