Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
It was with some personal disappointment that despite several letters from my friends and colleagues, there appeared to be no action by the New Zealand government to protest the hijacking of the boat I was travelling on, Al Awda, and from which I was kidnapped and detained by the Israeli military from international waters on Sunday, July 29.
‘It is worrying that the Prime Minister aims to ensure New Zealand’s values and sovereignty were not “unduly compromised” in the quest for more market access. But the shroud of secrecy continues, leaving us in a “trust me” zone with a government that has given us no grounds to do so’.
While the Left has been fiddling about with much gnashing of teeth and tears of concern over the right of two Canadian neo-fascists to speak at an Auckland City council venue – National’s focus has been laser-like at regaining power in 2020.
In her book Everyday Sexism, British author Laura Bates explains how girls and women are shaped by everyday discourse into gendered disadvantage. Whether it be pay, employment, daily life, love, or whatever, the systematic disadvantaging of women takes place all the time in every place that we live. How to explain the ‘inexplicable’ equal pay gap? Women are conditioned to have lower expectations and are much more likely to accept less. They value themselves lower than men do.
The most significant injustice isn’t that some barely credible white supremacists travel the world vomiting diatribe, but that racial inequality still informs and shapes life outcomes marginalising ethnic groups here and in every nation on a daily basis.
Right-wing Australia would like nothing more than to close its borders to these damned annoying Kiwis. Unfortunately, that would involve tearing up the Australian-New Zealand Closer Economic Relationship and toppling New Zealand into a full-scale economic and social crisis.
The debate about WFF including Matthew Hooton’s extreme view that WFF is communism by stealth is full of sound, fury and little substance. Eric Crampton contributes a more academic approach to support the view that Working for Families is an employer subsidy.
Far from promoting the liberalisation of drug laws, Labour contributed significantly to the dramatic expansion of the state’s powers of intervention in the lives of those Kiwis deemed to have deviated from the “caring” agencies’ expectations.
TO HEAR THE National Party and other assorted right-wing beasts tell the story, the Greens have just sold their soul to the Devil. By whom they mean, presumably, that double-breasted Lucifer, Winston Peters, and his attendant pandemonium – NZ First. The Devil’s price, allegedly, is Green Party support for Winston’s “Waka-Jumping Bill”.
Last week, Facebook’s share price had the largest one day drop in Wall St history, at almost 19%. They were punished not only because members of the public care about abuses of their privacy, but also because investors are choosing not to invest in companies that behave unethically.