Election ’17 Countdown: Joyce – let the lolly scramble begin!
You can tell it’s election year; the lolly-scramble (aka, hint of tax cuts) has begun;
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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Why I’d Be Voting For Joe Carolan In The Mt Albert By-Election
I want Labour to run ‘to the left’ of where they were in 2014 – both because I’m sick of quasi-center-right warmed-over neoliberalism masquerading as progressive economic policy … but also because I genuinely believe that moving to the left will help Labour’s prospects later this year in September.
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The Wrong Sisterhood: Forgotten Lessons of the 1984 Women’s Forums
Sisterhood is, indeed, powerful – but only when your sisters can be relied upon to vote the right way.
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Labour’s law and order stance bad for the Left
Failure to properly address the roots of most offending, especially poverty, condemns us to a higher crime rate than we need to have, and poor communities to an alarming rate of incarceration. Tough policies, imprisoning more of the poor, is not the answer.
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MUST READ: A culture of denial at WINZ is what has put staff at risk
A culture of denying people their rights has infected management layers at WINZ. Targets have been imposed on management for benefit denial and prosecuting those who have allegedly been overpaid for some reason.
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The whole world is burning
‘On the last day of the world / I would want to plant a tree’ wrote US Poet Laureate WS Merwin. Indeed, sometimes it feels like the whole world is burning, and to act in the spirit of hope is to plant a whole forest.
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Election ’17 Countdown: The Strategy of Ohariu
Had Dunne been ousted from Ōhāriu in 2014 our recent history would have been completely altered. Anyone who believes that the Labour-Green accomodation was a “dirty” deal might ponder the ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ whilst spending the night in a car or under a tarpaulin. Preferably in winter.
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A Brief History of Entitlement
Entitlement. It’s a work that I’m reading more and more often of late. Used to describe an attitude born of various privileges. Take New Zealand’s former Prime Minister tugging on a waitresses ponytail. I’d class that as entitled behavior. Clearly John Key felt that he had tacit permission to lay his hands on this young lady.
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What If I Told You That Labour Has Walked Into A Trap In Mt Albert…
You’d probably shoot me a somewhat incredulous look. Mt Albert, as the received wisdom goes, is a safe Labour seat – so safe, in fact, that National’s not even standing a candidate there. Apart from a minimum modicum of expended campaign-funds, what possible detriment could Labour incur by winning in the Mt Albert by-election to be held later this month?
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Too Little, Too Late: Rachel Stewart On Climate Change
Neoliberalism has immobilised humanity in the manner of those parasitic wasps whose offspring excrete a chemical which fatally overpowers their host’s self-protective reflexes. Aware that we are being destroyed, we are nevertheless incapable of resisting our destroyers effectively.