Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
As unions struggled to organise workers over the last 25 years governments de-regulated the labour market or sat back and watched organised labour fall apart. The art of civil society is to organise for the common good whereas the art of politicians is to compromise, for their own good.
Regardless of what and whether you feel about New Zealand military involvement in Iraq. Irrespective of whether you think putting Kiwi boots on the ground in Iraq makes us a target; or if you think that training up Iraqi forces somehow makes us safer here at home … the Government has lied, distorted, spun, manipulated and mislead its own people a score of times over this particular issue. There’s just simply no way around it.
…these efforts only seem like solutions because they temporarily fix a visible symptom of homelessness. None of them can make a problem as complex as homelessness go away. Most countries in the Western world have struggled with it since the ’80s; thirty years is too long to not have a solution in sight.
First, *can* Harawira pull it off; and second … what are the likely effects going to be if he does, in fact, win Te Tai Tokerau once again.
The answers – particularly to the second question – may be surprising.
The case manager looks her straight in the face and says “you don’t look blind to me” then pulls out a piece of paper from her drawer and asks my aunty to read it, as proof that she’s visually impaired. About to explode with rage I sit there allowing my dear Samoan aunty to handle this despicable situation, with the case manager sitting behind her desk, arms folded with that ‘well, go on prove me wrong look’.
Big ups for New Plymouth mayor Andrew Judd who last week led a hikoi from New Plymouth to Parihaka to help local Pakeha get a better understanding of Te Ao Maori.
The US labour movement and US politics more generally are undergoing a profound transformation. Titanic battles are brewing, between the working class majority and the one percent, and between radicalising political forces on the right and left. The future of life on the planet may well hang on how this battle is resolved.
When it comes to helping out the victims of war – refugees – the government says it can only afford $25 million a year for an extra 250 refugees, a derisory amount.
OWEN JONES: democratic socialist, LGBTI activist and Guardian journalist: takes homophobia seriously. So seriously, that earlier this week he pulled off his microphone and stormed out of Britain’s Sky News studio in protest at the network’s treatment of the Orlando massacre.
“The biggest human rights disaster in the Pacific is happening [just north-west of New Zealand] and we West Papuans are worried that if this genocide and illegal occupation continues to be ignored, in the next few decades we will be completely wiped out from our own country.” – Benny Wenda