Guest and sponsored opinion pieces published on The Daily Blog, offering diverse perspectives within clear editorial guidelines.
NZ First’s persistent refusal to announce a preference between working with Labour or National puts those of us who would prefer the coming election to yield a Labour-led government in a very awkward position
The Māori Party had a HUGE LOSS last week that went largely unnoticed by mainstream media and that’s of course because mainstream get somewhat confused at times about Maori issues and then equally confused when the Māori Party come out with all their babble, babble nonsense about how they just failed the Māori nation. But of course it’s for the good of everyone!
The opinions of white urban political commentators don’t matter to Hone Harawira right now. The only opinions he cares about this year are the opinions of the voters in the volatile Te Tai Tokerau electorate, where he’s seeking to reclaim the seat he narrowly lost to Labour’s Kelvin Davis in 2014.
Why not say it as it is! Not an open air prison. It’s a concentration camp, a death camp. Now, today. The 21st century. A death camp for roughly 2 million men, women and children. Don’t forget the children.
Being a beneficiary doesn’t mean I don’t still have dreams and a goal of eventually being able to support myself again. I’m never thrilled at the prospect of needing to book an appointment at my local WINZ office. In fact the only time I ever feel like a second rate citizen in my own country is when I’m forced to leave my dignity at the door of WINZ, and join the queue to plead my case for whatever meagre assistance I may be entitled to. Today was one of those days.
In the past week, the options have narrowed for Labour.
The Greens, through motormouth Metiria Turei, have ruled themselves out of the next Government. Labour’s tax proposals, while progressive, are too easily dismissed as complicated and paternalistic. The polls, while probably underestimating the left as usual, give no comfort.
With Labour, 70% of New Zealand families will be better off than with the package National announced in their election year Budget.
National’s tax cuts do nothing to address the failing mental health service, nothing to address the failing public health system, nothing to address the housing crisis or address the chronic underfunding in education; Labour’s Families Package on the other hand provides some real solutions and answers to the major issues in our communities
Auckland has had the Super City for more than six and half years now and for a lot of people it’s starting to feel like a sentence. It should be recalled Aucklanders were never allowed to vote on this massive amalgamation – the government just imposed it. Over time even the Auckland Council’s own polling has revealed the council has become increasingly unpopular – and mistrusted.
Election fever is on the rise. Paraphrasing Lenin, elections are those things when every few years we rise up as alienated subjects and entrust our lives to a bunch of the paid servants of capital. That makes us slaves of capital. Bourgeois parliament is a fig-leaf for bourgeois class rule in a state that is the “organising committee of the capitalist class”. Elections therefore only legitimate capitalist class rule in the name of democracy, which, when examined, turns out to be a fraud.