Cannabis referendum: Bring it on!
Great news today with the Government announcing it is considering bringing forward the binding referendum on legalising cannabis to next year, 2019, rather than during the 2020 general election.
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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The Mendacities of Ms Amy Adams – 2,000 more state houses?!
Soon after criticising the Coalition for “hiding debt in SOEs” – a capital offense that National was guilty of in 2009, and which contributed to bankrupting Solid Energy by 2015 – National Party’s finance spokesperson, Amy Adams, was at it again.
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MUST READ: Does this budget turn the tide?
Let’s be clear, the family poverty inherited from the last decade of entrenched poor policies, sheer neglect or deliberate attacks on living standards won’t be fixed overnight. We get that. We know the PM has solving child poverty at her core, and her values and integrity are the best thing that has happened to children for a very, very long time. But CPAG is the critical friend and has to say the hard stuff on behalf of children.
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MUST READ: Budget 2018 – Half of something and half of nothing
In its first Budget the Government had an opportunity to break the neo-liberal mould which has been the basis of every budget for the past 32 years but they didn’t.
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MUST READ: I’ve read the PWC Stadium report and it didn’t take me very long because so many words were redacted from the version I got!
I’ve read the PWC report and it didn’t take me very long because so many words were redacted from the version I got. But in light of a looming regional fuel tax, which hits poorer communities hardest and representing a Ward with the lowest level of home ownership… a stadium in the middle of the city to host a future Commonwealth Games and the odd Abba comeback concert, is the last thing on their minds.
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MUST READ: Budget 2018: Labour’s Pre-Emptive Capitulation To Kiwi Capitalism’s Discontent
Grant Robertson’s dutiful and fiscally timid first budget has furnished New Zealand business leaders with all the proof they could possibly need that neoliberalism’s sharpest teeth are all perfectly safe.
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Union leader Mike Treen to join flotilla to Gaza in July
Mike Treen spoke with acclaimed US/Palestinian author Dr Baroud who is currently on a speaking tour of New Zealand on why he is going on the Flotilla to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. (See link below)
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The Mendacities of Ms Amy Adams – “hidden borrowing”?!
National is at it again; indulging in rank hypocrisy by criticising the Labour-NZ First- Green Coalition Government of policies that they themselves carried out.
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Dr Liz Gordon – A just nation?
It has been a very long time since a New Zealand government has had an agenda of justice sector reform. In truth, justice has been run on the fuel of the agony of the victims of crime. It has been stoked by rage and fear. There has been little that is dispassionate or even that over-used phrase, evidence-based, about justice policy. To be honest, justice policy since about 1990 has been stark raving bonkers.
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Budget 2018 – Fiscal restraint and state housing – ideological craziness exposed
The government has decided to increase the building of state housing from their extremely modest target of 1000 a year to the still very modest target of 1600 a year over the next four years.
Housing NZ is not being given any extra money to do this.
They will have to borrow on private financial markets at higher rates than the government can borrow money for.
The cost to the government will be more as a result.