Yesterday was Labour Day – the Public Holiday set aside to celebrate the rights of workers and in particular the right to an 8 hour working day.The great irony is that like many New Zealanders I am working today because I’m a contractor and not an employee with rights to holiday pay.
Labour Day became a national holiday in New Zealand in 1899. It was to commemorate and celebrate the rise of worker powers and how the earliest Pakeha settlers coming to New Zealand fought to create a fair balance of power between the boss and the worker.
Oh! how that song takes me back to the 1960s, when my friend’s parents used to include me in their holidays, due to my own family’s catastrophic breakdown. On our drive down to West Wittering (I am not making this up) we would sing our hearts out in the car.
There’s a few things to be said around Shane Jones’ recent skirmishing with part of the Indian community over immigration changes.
As part of her defence for giving Pan Pac a free ride for 3 years to buy up to 20,000 hectares of NZ land Minister Sage was reported by RNZ as saying ” Pan Pac had been in New Zealand since the 1970s, was a large exporter of quality timber and needed to secure its wood supply.” also” They’ve got a long standing reputation in New Zealand.”
The government’s decision to allow Japanese-owned Pan Pac Forest Products to bypass the Overseas Investment Office and make up to 25 purchases totalling 20,000 hectares of land for forestry for the next three years tells you how deeply embedded neoliberal thinking is entrenched in our government.
New Zealand will kick off the International Day of Action to Boycott Puma – Saturday 26th October.
This week: Sky City fire, Mediaworks, Euthanasia referendum & Tauranga Councillor Andrew Hollis’ treaty comments
The government has implemented a series of racist and elitist changes to immigration policy that is going to create huge hardship and hurt in the migrant communities for anyone who is not already very wealthy.
WHO WILL RESCUE TV3? Almost certainly not the private sector. Not only is the commercial free-to-air broadcasting model broken, but TV3 remains burdened by its previous owners’ insatiable appetite for debt.