A voice from inside Housing New Zealand Corporation
Last week I received this message from a former employee at Housing New Zealand Corporation.
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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Universal Super – No steps forward. Two steps back?
Better off people can simply save less in other funds if they are forced to contribute more, while the poor just get poorer. On retirement, low income workers may get little advantage from their forced saving as they will need a top-up to get just to the level of NZ Super.
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No concern for Palestinian security
Every country, including New Zealand, that supported the original plan to surrender Palestine and its people to the ambitions of Zionist ideology, has a responsibility for their security and the restoration of UN-recognised Palestinian human rights.
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The workers strike back! BK, Wendy’s, Event Cinema workers take action
This weekend it is likely that you will see workers at Burger King, Wendy’s and Event Cinemas taking action to bring an end to their status as part of minimum wage industries as well as to protect or establish margins for skill and service.
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If Labour Wants Fewer Prisoners, Then It Needs To Create More Prison Space – Not Less
STUPIDITY ON STILTS. How else should the decision-making on Waikeria Prison be characterised. From practically every perspective, the Labour-led government’s determination not to proceed with the construction of a new 3,000-bed “mega-prison” was flawed. Most particularly (and most worryingly) it demonstrated the Cabinet’s inability to think politically. When your business is politics-at-the-highest-level, that’s a very serious flaw indeed.
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SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Mycoplasma bovis, foot and mouth, National Party, and other nasty germs
The Mycoplasma bovis crisis confronting New Zealand is a story that will be dissected and commented on for decades to come.
This was not simply a matter of a bacteria infecting cattle. This was a story on many levels; of flouted rules; a significant inadequacy of the “free market”; critical under-funding by National (no surprises there); and the best silver-lining that farmers could possibly hope for…
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What’s Wrong With The Progressive Movement’s Bloody Ships?
ABOUT THE TIME the second of Britain’s battle cruisers exploded, Vice-Admiral Beatty famously remarked: “There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today.” Trying to make sense of the political passivity of New Zealanders in the twenty-first century, I am often minded of Beatty’s words at the Battle of Jutland. Throughout the vicious class warfare of the past 35 years there does, indeed, seem to be something “wrong” with the progressive movement’s bloody ships!
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Judith Collins wins a Hypocrisy Award
Playing politics with social issues is nothing new. National has perfected the art with it’s “tough on crime” rhetoric. It has also demonised solo-mothers; the unemployed; young people, and Housing NZ tenants with it’s meth-testing/contamination moral-panic.
Now National has added housing to it’s list.
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What They Do In The Shadows: Winston Saves Labour From Itself
THANK GOD FOR WINSTON PETERS! The decision of the NZ First Party to torpedo the Labour Party justice minister’s proposal to scrap the “Three Strikes” legislation came in the very nick of time. Andrew Little may be a good man, and Sir Peter Gluckman a powerful advocate for evidence-based decision-making, but neither of them would appear to possess Peters’ gut instinct for what is – and is not – politically possible.
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Petition urges the government to stop Super Fund from investing in illegal settlements on Occupied Palestinian Territory
A new petition to Parliament urges the Government to direct Super Fund to stop its investments in Jewish only settlements in the Occupied Palestine as soon as practicably possible- and to inquire into whether any other such investments exist.