What the actual fuck?

Michelin Guide expands to NZ for the first time

The Michelin Guide’s arrival in New Zealand is being funded through a $6.3 million partnership between Tourism New Zealand and the International Visitor Levy.

Upston says the partnership recognises hospitality as a key driver of tourism and regional growth.

“Michelin represents an incredible opportunity for the food and beverage industry in four of our key culinary centres,” she said.

“Its presence here will mean more visitors dining in those restaurants and enjoying all New Zealand’s hospitality has to offer supporting small businesses, jobs, and local economies in the process.”

We are spending $6million for the food ratings of rich prick arseholes while the Government cuts back on food for food banks?

This is the food we are serving our children…

…how many Michelin stars would this get?

When parents complained about the dirt cheap shit they were feeding kids, the Prime Minister told them to make their kids marmite sandwiches.

Just as with the changing of rules to allow the rich to buy $5million mansions, paying $6m for the ultra wealthy to rate their food is an obscenity in a country that once believed in egalitarianism.

Luxon’s most pressing issue is to get Trump here to play Golf FFS…

Christopher Luxon hopeful Trump will take up his NZ golf offer

…How much much you hate Jacinda for this total capitulation to the rich to be acceptable to you Kiwi?

How will Michelin stars feed NZs homeless and hungry?

 

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YouTube erased more than 700 videos documenting Israeli human rights violations

“The move came in response to a U.S. government campaign to stifle accountability for alleged Israeli war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank,” reports the Intercept. Meanwhile Google, which owns YouTube, has been given a $45m contract by the Israeli government to amplify its talking points.

Israel bribes Google with $45m to place positive stories about Israel high on google searches…

Google under fire for $45m deal with Netanyahu’s office to spread Gaza genocide propaganda

Google signed a $45 million contract with the Israeli prime minister’s office to run a global digital advertising campaign promoting Israeli state messaging during its ongoing genocide in Gaza. The contract, first reported by Drop Site News, includes advertisements placed on YouTube and through Google’s Display & Video 360 platform, explicitly described in government documents as part of Israel’s propaganda war. 

Signed in June 2025, the contract with Google—covering YouTube and Display & Video 360, the company’s digital ad service—authorised an extensive propaganda campaign labelled explicitly as hasbara, a Hebrew term denoting state-backed propaganda, often deployed to whitewash Israeli military actions. 

The campaign was launched as international condemnation grew over Israel’s decision to cut off all food, fuel and humanitarian supplies to Gaza on 2 March, triggering what UN agencies describe as a man-made famine.

One of the most widely viewed outputs of the campaign was a YouTube video by Israel’s foreign ministry, falsely claiming, “There is food in Gaza. Any other claim is a lie.” The ad was viewed over 6 million times, heavily boosted through paid promotion under the government contract. 

…Israel are committing a genocide and are paying Google to hide that fact.

This is what we are dealing with as human beings of conscience, this is how evil Israel have  mutated into.

Any criticism of the terrible violence Israel has indulged in is considered ‘anti-semitic’ and justifies being removed.

Those who howl their justifications of this Zionism are never prepared to acknowledge the censorship required to keep their lie alive.

Where is the Free Speech Union?

 

 

 

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Former Free Speech Union boss heads charter school to build on ‘Western Civilisation’

A white African lecturing on Western Values?

The satire writes itself right?

What amazing classes will this new fascist youth Western Values Uber Alles Charter school in Wellington be teaching?

Guest Lecturer Damien Grant – Why can’t white rich Libertarians get a break?

Guest Lecturer David Seymour – Why Israel is the greatest country ever and if you say otherwise you hate Jews.

Guest Lecturer Don Brash – Honky and Cracker are hate speech 

Guest Lecturer Charlie Kirk – A special seance for Year 13 students where the class gets to speak to Charlie Kirk about why white christian nationalism is the only way to stop Liberal Satan.

Guest Lecturer Sean Plunkett – Bitches, am I right?

Guest Lecturer Jordan Williams – The right way to burn a cross.

Guest Lecture from the NZ Initiative – How to love Corporations with all your heart while shitting on Unions

Guest Lecture from the Taxpayers’ Union – How to steal from Māori and get away with it.

Guest Lecture from Federated Farmers – Identifying a socialist at night to justify self defence shootings 

Guest Lecture from Ani O’Brien – How to smear Politicians as sex offenders and write it off as a tax deduction

Your blessed little white child needs the freedom to expand their horizons and not be judged for their privilege.

At Altum Academy all students are free to use the N word anytime they like while throwing stones at poor children from public schools.

Because there is no climate change, students don’t need to learn science.

School teams perfect the skill of taking food out of the mouths of others while singing, ‘The white man marches on‘.

Each week students get to pick a book from the library to burn and our facilities are greater than any other school.  We have two swimming pools, one for the coloured and one for the whites.

At Altum Academy, it’s the Land of the Wrong White Crowd all day, every day.

 

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Devastating critique of the Free Speech Union on Newsroom…

Who Benefits: The rise and rise of the Free Speech Union

The union’s critics say its veneer of reasonableness hides a darker mission of knocking institutions, sowing the seeds of racial division, and importing culture wars on issues like transgender rights.

Some, like University of Auckland academics Sereana Naepi and Peter Davis, say a free speech “crisis” at universities has been manufactured – and amplified by like-minded groups, like the NZ Initiative.

…I have always felt that Free Speech Union was a Zionist front group that weaponised free speech for right wing purposes.

It is part of the Taxpayers’ Union stable of clients and is an important mouthpiece for the wealthy and powerful.

The irony is that it would never have come about if woke middle class identity politics acolytes hadn’t decided to start a culture war on free speech.

Good one wokies.

The reality is that the astroturf constellation of Taxpayers’ Union, Free Speech Union, The Campaign Company, Groundswell, Federated Farmers, The NZ Initiative, The Atlas Network, Business NZ etc etc etc are all having enormous success at pushing for corporate interests while distracting with culture war talking points.

Kiwis are having their petty bigotries manipulated by these astroturf organisations to advance corporate interests.

Take the recent local elections, Dr Bryce Edwards makes the following point…

…the issue isn’t that the right are using dark money to run influence campaigns and winning, the issue is why the hell can’t the Left counter that influence?

How does NZ Left beat influence of astroturf Taxpayers’ Union/NZ Initiative stable of clients? 

The problem is that while the right all hate each other, they put that aside to work for their masters.

On the Left, we are far too focused on attacking each other.

On the Right they search for recruits, on the Left we search for traitors.

This has become a real issue for the Left because the next generation don”t see themselves as a class or as citizens, they see themselves as hashtag identities and the woke infiltration of many Left wing groups (as seen most tragically in 2021 when Auckland Students Against Climate Change cancelled themselves for being too racist) has ended up with a brittle dispirit group of Wellington based groups that are still on talking terms with each other.

The current ‘unity’ on the Left is like a threesome that goes bad.

Hilariously when you speak with Left Wing Generals in private, they all acknowledge that the woke cancel culture of 2016-2020 has left us decimated to the extremes of the reactionary anti-woke right.

I believe there is infrastructure within the NZ Left that could be harnessed in time for the election to act as a counter weight to the Right’s astroturf influencers, it is finding the will to make then Left work together.

We need to build a group of think tanks and support their work through amplification that goes beyond Action Stations list of approved Wellington friend group.

THINK TANKS

In this area, we desperately require real intellectual weight to argue for Left Universalism and capitalist critiques.

The Helen Clark Foundation – The amazing work Helen’s Foundation does and the issues they raise mark her Foundation as one of the best think tanks we have.

Dr Bryce Edwards – Bryce has probably had the best insights into the influence of the right wing astro turf organisations.

Greenpeace – Continue to be the best critic of the Government’s denial of climate change.

NZCTU – They have the money to fund research and step up as leaders.

AMPLIFIERS: 

There has to be an acknowledgment that if we are to win the next election, it has to go beyond Action Stations rainbow of the approved Wellington friend group association.

Against the Current, Nick Rockell, Gerard Otto + BHN – All important voices on the Left that need to be patched into this flow of info from the think tanks for distribution online.

Māori Media – Waatea has built their Facebook page to 110 000, Māori media are doing better at building influence than most of the mainstream media.

Political Party social media – They need to step in here as well and promote wider content that isn’t just party based.

Spinoff – Scoop is dead, which is a problem because their press release section once mattered. The Spinoff has social media muscle and they should become the new place for all press releases for the Left.

WHO SHOULD LEAD THIS LEFT INFLUENCE INFRASTRUCTURE:

Max Harris is the obvious candidate to act as the bridge between all these groups.

If the Left doesn’t work to build a counter weight to the right wing astroturf organisations, we can’t win hearts and minds.

 

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I have been fortunate enough to work around many Māori organisations in my time, and I have witnessed first hand the power and beauty of Tikanga.

At its best it is an amazing bond of solidarity that lifts a group of people to do extraordinary things, but I have also witnessed people weaponise Tikanga as a means of controlling group dynamics purely for their own purposes.

That is what is happing inside te Pati Māori right now and is the reason why this entire fiasco has blown up.

It is a pure temple tactic used by schisms to exclude, and it’s one we have seen erupt most recently inside the Greens.

When the uber woke clique inside the Greens gerrymandered the voting process to advance identity candidates to challenge the leadership, they did so because Marama wasn’t ‘woke enough’!

I know, I know, I know – how could anyone believe that?

It’s an ideological schism based on purity tests and we are seeing that inside te Pati Māori right now.

The justification Doc and Mariameno were organising a leadership coup against Rawiri and Debbie was because they weren’t tikanga enough.

John Tamihere has many sins, but sweet Jesus, he has built te Pati Māori into a true political force that could have a serious role in the next Government, the Doc/Kapa-Kingi clique are prepared to risk all that based on the leadership not being tikanga enough???

While this hard right Government prosecute an anti-Māori, anti-Treaty, anti-Worker, anti-Renter, anti-Beneficiary, anti-Disabled and anti-Environment agenda for their donors, the Doc/Kapa-Kingi clique believe they have the luxury to start a destabilisation campaign against the leadership on points if tikanga that they have decided they are the sole arbitrators of!

This isn’t just a Māori issue, to defeat this terrible hard right Government, we need Labour + Greens + Māori Party – that the Doc/Kapa-Kingi clique would put their own personal ambitions for leadership ahead of the common good is about as far from Tikanga as I can imagine!

Don Brash, David Seymour, Sean Plunkett and Mike Hosking are laughing and laughing and laughing with glee.

Putting your ego before the waka is unforgivable, te Pati Māori leadership must move ruthlessly to ensure solidarity.

 

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Let’s be VERY clear.

Erica Stanford’s changes to the curriculum is dangerously racist and a deep disservice to our students, parents and teachers.

By adding unreachable education targets in the curriculum, she is setting public schools up to fail so that they are ripe for the kind of 3rd party hostile charter school takeovers we are seeing at Kelston Boys.

By focusing only in time stressed testing of students to answer quick fire questions, we are manufacturing failure to ensure worker drones, not critical thinking citizens.

But it gets worse.

I think the most important part of this story is who is advising the Minister and what are the interests being served.

Erica Stanford is an amazing salesperson, but who has designed what she is selling?

The decision to ban all Māori words for under 5s and remove the Treaty obligations for schools is being driven by advisers who have been caught quoting some pretty questionable race ideology.

None of this is being explained to the public.

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Once Were Warriors director Lee Tamahori dies

Acclaimed Kiwi film director Lee Tamahori has died after a battle with Parkinson’s disease.

Tamahori, aged 75, died peacefully at home surrounded by his close family.

A statement from Tamahori’s family said he died surrounded by his long time love Justine, his beloved children Sam, Max, Meka and Tané, his daughter-in-laws Casey, who is expecting, and Meri, his darling mokopuna Cora Lee, and whānau.

“His legacy endures with his whānau, his mokopuna, every filmmaker he inspired, every boundary he broke, and every story he told with his genius eye and honest heart,” the family statement said.

“A charismatic leader and fierce creative spirit, Lee championed Māori talent both on and off screen.”

His artistry, his intelligence, his charisma.

Tamahori was a legend in his own right and his body of work showed he had a talent far above the ordinary, but it it all somehow lived in the shadow of his greatest creation, Once Were Warriors.

The brilliance of that movie culturally reset what it meant to be a Kiwi in NZ. It was a harsh examination of the neoliberal policies that had left so many behind.

The opening scene of the billboard next to the reality of a NZ underpass was a juxtaposition that  till brings me goosebumps.

It was the first time I had seen domestic violence that looked relevant to the life I grew up with, I can only imagine its resonance with wider Māori society.

The stories that Lee chose to tell examined us in away no one had every managed before.

He was a unique story teller and the world is a bit dimmer with his passing.

Rest in peace Lee.

 

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Dick Cheney obituary

The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died aged 84, was one of the most influential holders of that office in American history. While many vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or ceremonial roles, Cheney held a huge sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was often referred to as the “real president”.

Bush resented such a characterisation and said the relationship was more complex. He noted that Cheney was respectful, always referring to him in public as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their relationship as a partnership because it implied that they were equals. In spite of such protestations, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a whole raft of policy decisions.

At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that included the defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. While Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive planes approaching the Capitol building.

Dick Cheney, the great Darth Vader of the Republic Party is dead and the world is a better place for his death.

Caitlin Johnston, the Australian blogger who is viciously critical of western foreign policy puts it best…

Cheney Should Have Died Alone In A Cage

Dick Cheney, arguably the single government official most responsible for the expansion of US warmongering and militarism in the 21st century, has died. 

The worst worst war sluts of the US empire have issued statements expressing their condolences, including Democrats like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Bill Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi. Because if there’s one thing that can bring Democrats and Republicans together, it’s war crimes and the slaughter of millions of middle easterners.

Dick Cheney died far too old and far too free. The fact that such monsters get to pass away in their eighties surrounded by loved ones instead of alone in a cage is an indictment of our entire civilization.

In a truly sane society, Richard Bruce Cheney would have lived a life of relative obscurity, working as a gardener or something without ever getting anywhere close to power. In a fairly sane society, people would have realized what a monster Cheney was before he could do any major harm in Washington, and he would have been driven out of any town he tried to enter. In a slightly sane society, he would have been punished for the rape of Iraq and lived out the rest of his life in a cell in The Hague.

But we do not live in a truly sane society, or in a fairly sane society, or even in a slightly sane society. We live in the sort of society that lets a man unleash a chain of events which kills millions and displaces tens of millions causing more human suffering than the mind can possibly comprehend, and then live out the rest of his life in comfort and privilege, with zero consequences of any kind.

…Caitlin is right, Cheney was a war criminal. No one manipulated the tragedy of 9/11 to justify invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 quite like Dick.

The move, ‘Vice‘, is perhaps the best examination of Cheney, he was a young Republican captured by the most extreme elements of the Party and believed that a President was above the law.

His push for legalised torture, extreme military violence and illegal invasions all based on the belief that the President could do anything in the name of Amerika laid the ground work for the hyper militarised American Executive and the acute authoritarian thresholds we see Trump adopting all had their genesis with Cheney.

Where Nixon pushed boundaries, Cheney shattered them and his legacy is the one that Trump now embodies in its most bloated and deformed representation.

That Cheney freaked out in later life at how the conventions he broke were being manifested by someone as unhinged as Trump is telling.

Cheney believed he gained total power for a wartime President, what he actually created was the blueprints of American fascism.

There are not many people whose death leaves us a better place, Dick Cheney is absolutely one of them.

He distorted the legal constraints upon the Presidency for a ‘greater good’, that was neither great nor good.

Cheney does not deserve to rest in peace for the carnage, torture and murder he unleashed upon the world.

 

 

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The manner in which Trump uses his secret Police to target immigrants in Blue States with masked snatch arrests off the street vs the way he uses them ion Red states is on purpose.

The more distress he can create in Democratic States, the better because he then follows that up by sending in Federal Troops to escalate the chaos.

The manner in which he wants to use the Insurrection Act to use military against his own citizens alongside the Government shut down are all ingredients for a Police State and Trump is itching to bake that cake.

In 1998, American Writer Richard Rorty wrote this eery prediction about a leader like Trump rising in his book, Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America…

“Members of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported.

Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers — themselves desperately afraid of being downsized — are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.

At that point, something will crack.

The non-suburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for — someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and post-modernist professors will no longer be calling the shots.

A scenario like that of Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here may then be played out.

One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out.

Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion.

The words nr and *ke* will once again be heard in the workplace.

All the sadism which the academic Left has tried to make unacceptable to its students will come flooding back.

All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet.”

…if the AI bubble bursts, the American Economy will be plunged into a Depression era collapse, that is when Trump will strike in full Police State horror.

The American Midnight is upon us.

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Comrades.

I appreciate Covid was difficult for many of us.

Jacinda won the Covid War and lost the Covid Peace.

By refusing to rebuild a new paradigm, Labour merely built back to the old inequality.

That was frustrating.

That was angering.

Labour broke our hearts, yet saved our lives.

That frustration however has been manipulated by a hard right anti-Treaty, anti-Māori, anti-Renter, anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-beneficiary Government who have strangled the common good for their donors interests.

Your unblinkered hatred of Jacinda, Trans and Māori is enabling corporations and the mega wealthy to screw us all collectively.

I appreciate your sweaty angry ‘truths’ enabled by social media hate algorithms keep you locked in an echo chamber of perpetual malice and spite, but  you are being manipulated by the Right into acquiescing to Banks, Corporations and the mega wealthy.

Comrades, your enemy isn’t some kid transitioning, it’s not a Māori woman in politics, Māori women in media, or Māori women outside walking!

Your enemy isn’t drag queen story time, it’s not environmentalists, it’s not beneficiaries, it’s not state tenants, it’s not renters, it’s not the Treaty.

Your enemy is who it’s always been, the banks, the billionaires, the corporations, the powerful who use social media hate algorithms to warp you into believing their interests are your interests when nothing can be further from the truth!

We face an existential crisis in the form of the climate and the demand to radically morph into adaptation mode is far greater than any political party is currently envisaging.

Your anger, cynicism and fury at the political failures is legitimate but let’s be clear, a National/ACT/NZF Government is no solution to the problems we face, they are only exacerbating them!

Dear Kiwis – your debt and under regulated capitalism is what’s killing you, not co-governance, not bilingual signs, not alienating Trans activists and those fears are being used by the astroturf Right to manipulate you!

We used to mock Jacinda’s kindness mantra, but when a Government department was caught being unkind, they could expect media coverage with demands of, ‘Is this Kind Jacinda’? and whatever the issue was, the Department would suddenly find an exemption and the person not treated like shit.

Under this Government however, it seems like a weekly competition by Government Departments on who can be the biggest arsehole to Kiwis.

How angry at Jacinda in your post Covid bitterness must you be to find all of this acceptable?

 

 

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You would have thought after the Māori Party plunged 3 points in the Roy Morgan poll that the haters and wreckers might pause in self mutilating and self sabotaging.

Apparently not…

Former Te Pāti Māori staffer Eru Kapa-Kingi doubles down on leadership shortcomings

…the timelines is clear.

This entire fiasco has been generated by those who put their ego before the waka.

The success of the protest against the Treaty Principles Referendum was misinterpreted by Doc, Mariameno and Eru as a support for them. That victory quickly turned to aspiration and as we know now led in July to an attempted coup against Debbie and Rawiri…

…Just as the Greens had with their uber woke clique who attempted to remove the leadership because they believed Marama wasn’t woke enough, this crew inside te Pati Māori believe the leadership team aren’t ‘Tikanga’ enough.

This inane attempt on the leadership as this Government unleashes hell on Māori is narcissistic and deeply counter productive.

In light of Eru’s latest outburst and attack, it is time for the Māori Party to seriously consider using the Waka jumping legislation.

Up until now the Party simply wished for basic stability and were content to banish Doc and Mariameno to the back of the room until the next election, but Doc’s constant attacks means te Pati Māori must seriously consider the waka jumping legislation and start work towards a 2 by-elections in the early part of next year.

The Tikanga Police with their Māori only sectarian rhetoric from Doc are convinced they are right and are more than prepared to put their interests before beating this Government.

The reset by te Pati Māori was to signal to Labour and the Greens and voters that they were prepared to evolve from a party of activists playing political theatre into a trusted stability for a change of Government.

John Tamihere is being unfairly maligned here, he wasn’t the one who attempted to stage a needless leadership coup.

The actions of Eru, Doc and Mariameno to put their aspirations ahead of the collective by weaponising Tikanga for a leadership coup has damaged that reset.

This has to be dealt with now so that a Labour/Green/MP alternative is credible and stable for voters in 2026 when the economy will be far worse.

The enemy isn’t Debbie and Rawiri, the enemy is this terrible Government with its abusive agenda, to forget that because of personal ambition is unforgivable.

 

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At there recent conference, the NZCTU laid out a blueprint for a better economy based on worker rights…

Unions call on opposition parties to deliver worker priorities in first 100 days

The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi is calling for public commitments from opposition parties to deliver Fair Pay Agreements, Automatic Union Membership, and contractor reform in the first 100 days of a new government.

With polling showing the election of a new government is a real prospect in 2026, unions are proposing A New Deal for Workers, a policy programme that political parties are expected to adopt if they want the support of working people.

“Over the past 35 years, attacks on labour rights and standards have suppressed wages, increased inequality, and left many New Zealanders working longer hours on lower pay and with less agency in the workplace,” said NZCTU President Richard Wagstaff.

“Since 2023, life is even harder for workers. The current Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety has wasted no time in dismantling workers’ rights. This Government is actively hostile to workers and their unions.

“A fundamental shift in employment relations policy is needed – an enduring framework that supports good work, high wages, and productivity,” said Wagstaff.

The NZCTU is prioritising three key employment relations priorities for the first 100 days.

Fair Pay Agreements

“The Government’s removal of Fair Pay Agreements has incentivised employers to compete on cost by driving down the terms and conditions of employment for workers, trapping entire industries in a low-wage spiral,” said Wagstaff.

“We need a mechanism to set minimum employment standards at the industry level. Fair Pay Agreements will ensure higher wages and better standards across low-wage industries.

Automatic Union Membership

“All newly employed workers whose job comes within the coverage of a collective agreement should be automatically covered by the collective and should automatically become members of the union, unless they opt out of doing so.

“Automatic Union Membership would protect workers from undue pressure from the employer regarding joining the union or accepting different conditions of employment.

Safeguarding the rights of employees and contractors

“Sham-contracting arrangements are being used to undercut wages and workers’ rights, and to force the cost of doing business onto workers. This is being encouraged by the Minister who is changing the law to suit the interests of multinational corporates like Uber.

“We must ensure that workers are not misclassified as contractors by clarifying in law how employees and contractors are defined. This will prevent employers from driving down conditions in precarious occupations, including in platform and gig economies.

“We are calling on political parties to deliver these policies as a matter of urgency. Anything less than full support will leave workers short of what they deserve,” said Wagstaff.

In the lead up to the election the NZCTU will release additional policies focused on equal pay, health and safety and reversing the ongoing attacks made by the current Government.

…it’s about bloody time.

The reason why we have stagnant wage growth is because the neoliberal experiment of NZ Inc robbed workers of collective bargaining and destroyed the Union movement…

…instead of lawfare to progress Worker rights, the Unions have had to learn that Mega Strikes are the only force left to them when facing a Right Wing Government this extreme.

That’s the reality Union Members and Union Leaders have had to comprehend when facing a Government led by ACT Party lunatics who have no interest in good faith relationships with Unions.

They are here to destroy Worker Rights, not protect them.

This Government represents a full scale attack on public services, and the Unions and their menbers need to understand that they are NOT on the streets simply demanding their interests, they are on the streets fighting for an egalitarian NZ whose infrastructure is built upon those well funded public services.

You are fighting for a NZ that stands for the many, not the few!

You are fighting for a NZ that is not led by right wing astro turf organisations!

You are fighting for a NZ beyond the thrall of corporations, speculators and polluters!

You are fighting for OUR NZ and you need to be ready to step up that battle in the election year because this fight IS political, cultural and economic!

The self serving right wing fantasy that Unions have to be apolitical must be challenged.

Simeon Brown, Judith Collins, Chris Luxon, Ryan Bridge, Duncan Garner and Erica Stanford all clutched at their Pearls last week crying out that the Unions were being political and that their mega strike put the union over their patients/students/vulnerable people.

It is such a bullshit self serving right wing fantasy that Unions have to be apolitical.

Look at the Federated Farmers, Taxpayers’ Union, Business NZ, NZ Initiative, Atlas Network, Campaign Company, Hobsons Pledge, Free Speech Union and Groundswell – THEY ARE ALL OVERWHELMINGLY POLITICAL, yet the Unions working together to criticise the appalling agenda of this Government that undermines all the egalitarian good the State Public Sector is supposed to represent, and suddenly its the end of Western Civilisation!

The Unions SHOULD be political, they SHOULD stand for values deeper than corporate profit margins or donors interests, they SHOULD proudly uphold the egalitarian foundations of this Nation, they SHOULD empower worker rights.

To pretend that they shouldn’t be political is a right wing fantasy and we shouldn’t indulge such blatant double standards.

It is time for the Unions to step up and be counted.

We need to focus on how to combat this terrible racist, anti-worker, anti-Treaty, anti-renter, anti-beneficiary, anti-environment Government who are selling out the common good for the interests of their donor friends.

We have to re-establish the egalitarian mission by promoting policy that directly challenges the capitalist status quo in meaningful ways.

Without vision, the Left is lost.

There are 4 magical pillars of the NZ economic ‘success’

1 – Stealing Indigenous land and never paying back the full value.

2 – Selling basic milk powder to China

3 – Selling each other houses and pretending that makes us rich.

4 – Addiction to a low wage economy.

The migration exploitation rules are garbage because NZ loves exploiting migrant labour!

We are addicted to it.

We say locals are too lazy for these jobs when really what we say is locals won’t allow themselves to be exploited as easily as migrant workers.

There is of course a solution here.

Universals Union membership for every migrant worker crossing the border.

That way domestic workers know they are not competing against exploited labour.

That way migrant labour can’t be exploited without the Union stepping.

 

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