Time for an Empty Homes Tax
The Christchurch Progressive Network has written to Housing Minister Phil Twyford urging the government to consider implementing an Empty Homes Tax similar to the tax recently introduced in Vancouver, Canada.
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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In support of Golriz Ghahraman
Golriz Ghahraman should be congratulated for her courageous outspokenness. In spite of myriad UN Security Council and General Assembly Resolutions, the Israel Lobby’s malevolent political influence among Western-allied states continues to contribute massively to Israel’s impunity. The lack of informed reporting by the mainstream news media regarding Palestine is also of great help to Israel. Protest is essential – silence is shameful.
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The Kiwi Connection In Palestine
I DON’T KNOW which is more embarrassing: to have a lawyer called Trotter defending a woman who prostituted her own daughter; or a PhD history candidate called Trotter “Exploring the Kiwi connection as Israel turns 70”.
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Breaking the billionaires’ grip on our economy and our lives
Our lives have been hijacked by billionaires.
They cream off the wealth we create and leave us and our families struggling.
Most of us work longer hours for poor pay in insecure jobs. We have less money, less choices and face lives of increasing struggle. Most of our children will never own a home and face bleaker life chances than us today.
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Syria: the mendacities of the mainstream media (part tahi)
“The first casualty when war comes is truth…”
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Dr Liz Gordon: Bees, guns and cults: recent happenings in education
I see the point of pupils knowing how to react if something happens. In most cases, actually, the ‘drop, cover, hold’ rules of earthquake reaction is the best response. What I don’t see is why a security agency should be employed, unless schools in New Zealand are thinking that they are about to get targeted by a mad gunmen.
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Western Economic and Military Groupthink on Parade This Week
So while leaders from European superpowers, Five Eyes nations and the Commonwealth parade, in self-congratulatory back slapping and hand shaking in front of the cameras, they engage in lock step and group think, marching as one over firing missiles at Syria that are actually aimed at Russia, in a real battle for supremacy of the ‘There is No Alternative’ approach to economic management, monetary policy, growth, trade and the neo-liberal agenda.
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Proportionality and international law
Decades of alien military dictatorship, annexation and racist, colonial settlement have rendered impossible the Palestinian people’s right to lead a normal, decent life. The malevolence is undeniable even though world leaders and the mainstream news media prefer to look away.
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MUST READ: Letting In The Light
The position of Jacinda’s government is not made any easier by elements within the news media who act as if the Right’s suspicion and resentment is, in some unexplained way, justified. In spite of the fact that the Labour-NZF-Green government has been in office barely six months, and ignoring the almost daily revelations of the previous government’s extraordinary derelictions and mismanagement, they lash Jacinda’s ministers as if they alone are responsible for the fact that the country’s infrastructure is, quite literally, rotting away.
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Wage theft at Maccas – $1 million a year in lieu days or public holiday pay
It has been over three years since we first wrote to the company questioning how they calculated annual leave and asking them to fix it. At first, they simply ignored or rejected our arguments out of hand. We then applied for an Employment Relations Authority hearing on the issue.