Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
Matthew Hooton (19th July, NZ Herald) trots out the tired old John Key scarecrow of ‘Communism by stealth’ to debunk Working for Families (WFF). Hooton even wants to blame WFF for the nurses’ strike and low productivity.
IRONICALLY, THE CONCERN over Chinese influence in New Zealand is being raised against a backdrop of unchallenged American hegemony. Extending across the whole width of the nation’s political stage, this American backdrop has become so much a part of the play’s scenery that most Kiwis no longer notice it. The inclusion of a few Chinese props, however, is enough to induce something close to panic among New Zealand’s political class.
You know, it is a curious thing. When Pakistan made moves about potentially acquiring Russian-made S-400 anti-missile/anti-air system … there was, largely, silence. Yet when India goes to actualize acquisition of S-400 systems as part of a deal with Russia that was negotiated in 2016 – United States moves to impose sanctions on India.
THE NEW ZEALAND LEFT is not alone in being torn apart by what should and should not be tolerated. Only yesterday, the British Labour Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was publicly upbraided for being “an antisemitic racist” by Margaret Hodge, a senior British Labour MP. Hodge was furious that Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) has refused to accept, in full, the definition of antisemitism issued by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
The media is alive this week with the fall-out from Donald Trump’s visit to Europe. The snubs, the diplomatic faux-pas, the treatment of Theresa May, and NATO, and everyone (except Vlad-the-Lad). So much news to report, so many issues. Oh yes, and then the Great Reversal, where Trump said he said ‘would’ but meant ‘wouldn’t’. His performance at that press conference was odd; while he lies all the time, this time you could hear the lie in his voice.
Two damning and contrasting books about Indonesian colonialism in the Pacific, both by activist participants in Europe and New Zealand, have recently been published. Overall, they are excellent exposes of the harsh repression of the Melanesian people of West Papua and a world that has largely closed a blind eye to to human rights violations.
Mike Treen – National Director of Unite Union Auckland speaks before departing to join the 2018 Gaza Freedom Flotilla
While s61 of the Human Rights Act makes it unlawful to “excite hostility against or bring into contempt” racial/ethnic groups in a variety of contexts … I am unaware of any parallel and corresponding prohibition on doing likewise against religious groups or adherents on a similar basis.
Nothing could be more helpful to the cause of the Right than a Left which has lost its faith in the people. What, after all, is more likely to cause the people to lose faith in the Left than a nagging suspicion that their self-appointed liberators regard them as being either too vicious or too stupid to grasp the arguments in favour of individual freedom and social justice without instruction from above?
In this environment progressive New Zealanders must fight for free speech in every arena possible but this does not include defending “rights” of anyone to promote racist or religious hatred which smooths the path to fascism.