Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
Much of the progress we have made over the last year can be traced back to what Rose Renton started. Rose’s son Alex Renton was the first New Zealander to use medicinal cannabis in a hospital setting. After Alex tragically passed away, Rose continued to campaign for safe legal access for all patients.
This clear detriment to social housing in Tauranga has in our view not come with any discernible other improvements and delivery by Accessible Properties. For all intents and purposes they will slot into the same role as HNZ in being a landlord providing social housing for MSD.
I’VE ONLY EVER MET ONE serving agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. As far as most of us lefties knew he was a liberal American academic; friendly, generous, with a fund of interesting stories to tell. Outwardly, at least, the man seemed harmless.
One of the more unusual sights in the post-Key scramble for top jobs was that of nonentity Health Minister Jonathan Coleman putting his hat in the ring, and following up with the promise of more cash for the mental health sector.
So MSD have been forcing investigation staff to get at least one prosecution a month, often for the non-crime of ‘relationship fraud’. They have quotas to recover at least $30,000 in debt per month!
For those of us who live and breathe politics, the general indifference of our fellow citizens is perplexing. It shouldn’t be. Most people have enough to do just keeping their personal, working and family lives on an even keel. The idea that they should devote more than a moment or two of their precious time to the machinations of politicians would strike them as nuts.
For many on the neo-liberal Right, education is a business not a public good and therefore should be no different to electricity supply (semi-privatised); Air New Zealand (semi-privatised – again); or a whole host of other services and assets that were once owned by the tax-payer but have been sold off over the last thirty years.
UNICEF frequently reports widespread, systematic and institutionalised ill-treatment of Palestinian children by the Israeli Army, with armed soldiers seizing children as young as 11 years and taking them prisoner. Palestinian homes, even in UN refugee camps, can offer no security for terrified children, who are dragged from their homes, often in the middle of the night.
We must build existing unions and form new ones that are able to struggle much more effectively that we have. We need to forge allies with everyone in the community being exploited and abused. We need community organisations willing to fight as allies.
The Left are a pretty optimistic bunch. And with good cause – after eight successive years of grueling hard-neoliberal governance, and having to watch National’s number of seats only grow regardless, you pretty much have to be. It’s either that, or give up in despair.