Strategies Of Right-Wing Resistance: It Can Happen here
CAN WE REALLY DO THIS? As the euphoria of victory wears off, and the sheer enormity of the challenge confronting…
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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A reminder to Labour about the TPPA
Next Monday officials from the eleven remaining TPPA parties will reconvene in Japan. They will continue working through a list of 50 items that different countries want to put on ice unless and until the US re-joins. Relatively few of those items have been settled.
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Will Winston Peters be Israel Lobby’s Trojan Horse?
The Israel Institute’s New Zealand co-director Paul Moon was quoted as follows: Whichever party is put into power, the almost inevitable alliance with New Zealand First presents an opportunity for New Zealand to recalibrate its relations with Israel. Effectively, the government could draw a line under its disastrous sponsorship of UN Resolution 2334, and look to strengthen its ties with Israel.
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Labour must address its own criticism of TPPA – Professor Jane Kelsey
‘Before the new government can decide its position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), including whether it would genuinely boost…
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David Macpherson: New Government needs new action on Mental Health & Suicide
Still feeling a warm glow of satisfaction over Labour Weekend following the ousting of former Health Minister Jonathan Coleman, whose inaction on mental health and suicide was legendary, I was brought down to earth sharply by a story published on Labour Day about Jonny – a young male Christchurch suicide victim.
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The new Labour-led government has agreed to hold a binding referendum on legalising cannabis by or at the next election in 2020.
After years of denial and obfuscation by the National-led Government, this is a massive opportunity. The world is watching.
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New Government’s TPPA Problems Start Next Week
‘The new government of Labour, New Zealand First and the Greens will have to move fast if they are going…
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New Zealand Democracy; looking backwards and forwards
The new government got off to a pretty good start – indeed a few minutes before it was announced – when Winston Peters indicated that its mission is no less than to humanise capitalism in New Zealand. This reminds us that Winston Peters is by far the most qualified person in this government to be Minister of Finance, and that it’s Finance Ministers that make or break governments.
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Dark Transactions: Winston Peters Decision To “Go Left” Has Already Set His Enemies In Motion
IN ALL ECONOMIES, and in every political system, there are roped-off areas of shadow and hidden places swathed in deliberate darkness. In these light-starved locations all kinds of disreputable economic and political transactions take place.
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What I want from a Labour/NZ First/Green Government
It was one of the mad failures of the nine-years of the last Labour-led government that union membership density as a percentage of the working class was lower at the end than the beginning. The changes to industrial and other laws were too inconsequential to allow unions to grow easily – especially in the private sector which covers fewer than 10% of the private sector workforce. The goal should be to double or treble that percentage.