Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
Nobody goes to work expecting to get hurt, sick, or killed. But in New Zealand, far too many people do. Every year 50-60 people are killed in a work incident and 600-900 more die early deaths as a result of work-related ill-health.
Anzac Day is important to remember because of the utter futility of being part of an imperialist military alliance. New Zealand casualties in that war, killed or wounded, were 58%. That is equal to one-quarter of the adult male population. Our death rate of those who served at 16.6% was higher than that suffered by Germany!
Freedom advocates and human rights activists will next week focus global attention on the “media blackout” long imposed by Indonesian authorities on West Papua, in spite of promises to open up access to the two adjoining independent Papua New Guinea.
When did the US worry about violating international law when it supplied $3 billion worth of weapons and other support for Afghan rebels to over-throw the Soviet-aligned government in Kabul?
On 15 March this year when then-Youth Minister, Nikki Kaye, launched into an ad hominem diatribe against Jacinda Ardern during a debate in Parliament. It was an orchestrated, pre-planned, personalised attack;
ANZAC Day should be a time when we pledge to use every means possible to avoid war. It should be a time when we assert an independent foreign policy with New Zealand’s foremost role as peacemakers and peacekeepers.
Notorious among journalists for his tendency towards tetchiness, the words “Gerry Brownlee” and “diplomat” seem particularly ill-matched. The truly great foreign ministers of our history have all been thoughtful, measured and principled individuals.
In the wake of the collapsed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), the New Zealand government has desperately chased new trade liberalisation deals, despite calls for a re-think of trade policy and the development of fair and sustainable agreements.
When it comes to fish-hooks, National has prior ‘form’. Even when National announces an ‘increase’ in social spending, it often takes that funding from other areas. Even special-needs children are not exempt from National’s shell-scam, as reported in The Daily Blog in August last year;
Israel contrives apparent justification of its persecution of Palestinian children by ensuring near-100% guilty verdicts. A non-governmental organisation, Military Court Watch, monitored the treatment of more than 450 Palestinian minors held captive by the Israeli military between 2013 and 2016. The data collected revealed that 94% of those taken prisoner in 2013 and 2016 reported being painfully handcuffed. In an even more needless and terrorising abuse, 82% were blindfolded. Verbal violence was experienced by 46%.