Laila Harré – Labour Protections
The panel at the hui in October 2018 on What an Alternative and Progressive Trade Strategy for New Zealand Should Look Like on sustainable work, began with this contribution Laila Harré.
Setting the Agenda
Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
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What Arthur Taylor’s journey tells us about crime and rehabilitation
When Arthur Taylor was eleven he was sent to the Epuni Boys Home for skipping school. It was a brutal institution (and Arthur later received a government apology and compensation for being mistreated there). Like most such institutions the Epuni Home was a school for crime, so it was no surprise that Arthur committed his first crimes, for burglary and car conversion, after he escaped from the Home. He was in and out of prison from that time on and has spent two thirds of his life, around 40 years, behind bars.
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Commentary Is Free – But Facts Are Sacred
POLITICAL COMMENTATORS tell us a great deal about themselves when they turn their gaze away from home, and towards events unfolding overseas. Domestic politics inevitably presents a rather muddied picture. There is so much happening: so many players – all with competing agendas – that achieving clarity is extremely difficult. With events overseas, however, there is much less in the way of clutter. The issues seem so clear, and the players so compelling, that the temptation to apply only the brightest primary colours to one’s analytical canvas is very hard to resist. Muted palettes are best reserved for the politics of one’s own homeland.
The commentary currently being offered up to New Zealand readers on the crisis playing-out in Venezuela strongly confirms these observations. And nowhere is the tendency to apply the brightest colours with the broadest brushstrokes more in evidence than in the commentaries of Liam Hehir.
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Penny Hulse: I joined the Pride march
I joined the Pride march yesterday and now as I read the comments on it today I want to deal…
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Dave Macpherson – Forget the headline, this is a video you need to watch
Matthew Tukaki (featured in the video) is Chair of the National Maori Council, but is not someone I have ever met, or had anything to do with. He has also previously been the Chair of the Australian National Suicide Prevention Council – I think he knows what he’s talking about.
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MUST READ: Dr Susan St John – Justice delayed is democracy’s undoing
Individuals arguing their case for justice have been caught up in Kafkaesque-like experiences at WINZ, MSD, ACC and IRD, where unresponsive officials impose anachronistic rules and laws made for a different time and era. For those who don’t cave in at this point, there may be appeals to the Benefit Review Committee, the Social Security Appeals Authority, and then the daunting prospect of higher courts. Some disappear for years in the labyrinth of the Office of Human Rights Proceedings (OHRP) and the Human Rights Review tribunal (HRRT). While getting to a hearing in the HRRT can take years, after the hearing an actual decision can take many more years and even then, a finding of unlawful discrimination does not bind the Crown to reform the laws.
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Dr Liz Gordon – Testing the Consumer Guarantees Act
Expensive consumer products, whether cards, furniture, technology or appliances, usually come with a warranty, often for one or two years. Many people believe that this is the end of the story. If the thing fails or breaks down once the warranty has expired, there is no cover for the purchaser.
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Annette Sykes – Waitangi Tribunal claim and the TPPA
The panel on a Tiriti-compliant strategy for Aotearoa at the October 2018 hui on What an Alternative and Progressive Trade…
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MUST READ: Nikki Kaye – playing politics with children’s health
The increase in child obesity occurred under National’s watch and was not helped by then-Minister of Education, Anne Tolley and then-Minister of Health, Tony Ryall, who scrapped the previous Labour government’s Healthy Food in Schools policy;
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China flexing it’s economic muscle again?
It would not be the first time that inexplicable “problems with paperwork” had impacted on New Zealand commerce with China.