Guest and sponsored opinion pieces published on The Daily Blog, offering diverse perspectives within clear editorial guidelines.
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.
Taking 150 folk from Manus helps a few but solves nothing. We can do better. Let’s take the lot…the four hundred odd left over blokes and the 1200 odd others left to wait on the pleasure of a Trump led America.
New Zealand has an employment crisis that the last National Government has refused to engage with and this denial has left tens of thousands of Kiwi workers without the wages, job security and dignity that employment can give them.
Mainland want to build their mega factory farm in a small Waikato valley called Orini and many of the neighbours are already mobilising to stop them. The locals are worried about stinky odour from the farm, increased heavy traffic, potential pollution of their local river and many simply just don’t want a ginormous animal prison in their back yard.
If New Zealand is going to actively push this, then let’s hope the zombified agreement is one that benefits New Zealand and the people of the countries involved, and is not a Frankenstein-monster Labour regrets. I have hope that it will be, but the devil is in the detail.”