Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
New Zealand has a long history of active anti-nuclear NGOs, several of whom are involved in ICAN via their international parent bodies. These include the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Pax Christi – all of whom are represented on the ICAN international steering committee.
In the month just ended, one that also marked the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the Palestinian people continued their struggle to survive under Israel’s profitable and cynically-imposed regime of population-control.
The Labour Government says it will introduce legislation within 100 days to legalise medicinal cannabis, but what does that actually mean, and would Helen Kelly approve?
The test of any proposed new law should be, “What would Helen Kelly want?”
Hint: it’s not expensive pharmaceutical derivatives.
The grim picture painted in the BIMs is the consequence of National’s class-driven programme of austerity. Labour’s seeming helplessness in the face of the multiple crises they reveal, is the direct consequence of its refusal to accept that the wounds of austerity can only be healed by applying the sovereign remedy of substantial increases in state spending – facilitated by a radical expansion of the tax base.
US President Trump’s surrender to Israel’s territorial ambitions reveals contempt for international law, in particular the Fourth Geneva Convention. Trump’s announcement contradicts even the most recent Security Council Resolution, UNSCR 2334 of December 2016. Israel’s control of East Jerusalem, including the Old City, is illegal because under international law, an Occupying power does not have sovereignty over foreign territory it militarily occupies.
By announcing the United States recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Trump has sent two very important messages to the extreme Zionist elements in Israeli society. The first message is brutally simple: the so-called “two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is dead. The second, to the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, is that, as the political logic of the two-state solution’s demise is followed to its inevitable and brutal conclusion, the United States has got Israel’s back. Not just at the UN Security Council, but everywhere Israel needs American support.
Last week Statistics NZ released the National Accounts for the year to March 2017, which revealed that working people are receiving only 48.7% of the national pie compared to a peak of 58.7% in 1981.
Brash’s comments criticising the use of the Maori language on Radio New Zealand are childish and pathetic. And that’s before we get to the underlying oppressive racism.
We discovered less than a week ago that MFAT is hosting ‘consultations’ around the country, with David Parker, this week on the TPPA-11. It appeared to be a last-minute decision to do something before Xmas, and somehow they forgot to send invitations to critics who have attended previous ‘consultations’. Presumably the business sector was given priority notice. There is no information on the MFAT website, but we know at least about these:
Don Brash also overlooked the historical and contemporary diversity, and complexity of New Zealand, saying ‘New Zealand values are British values’, and that a lot of socio-economic deprivation among Maori is because they ‘don’t speak English properly’.