Open letter: Bring New Zealand-bound asylum-seekers stopped by Australian authorities to New Zealand for processing

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March 8, 2017

The New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA) says that any discussion about retirement must address the issue of student debt.

‘With those born after 30 June 1972 affected by the government’s proposed new pension age, it is precisely the generation of student loan borrowers and who have had to pay for their tertiary education who will be most affected by a rise in the pension age’ says National President Jonathan Gee.

‘It is a particular irony that the dates chosen match exactly with the school leavers in 1990 who faced tertiary fees for the first time.’

‘Far more than those initial tuition fees, many students today are having to borrow more to meet their current living costs, which increases their debt burden and therefore their ability to save for the future’

Students tell us that they are extremely worried about the coupling of the issues of debt and retirement, with 72% of respondents in NZUSA’s recent Income and Expenditure Survey saying they believed that student debt would have significant impact on their ability to save for their future, including retirement.

‘Raising the pension age without any form of student debt relief for ‘Generation Debt’ will make students worse off than they have been not just as recent graduates, but for a lifetime.’

‘If the Government wants to make a difference to the lives of Generation Debt, then they need to be exploring ways to reduce the debt burden that students currently face.’

‘It is worth remembering that those with student debt include many in highly physically demanding jobs, as the period that has seen the introduction of fees has also seen many trades and other occupations that used to be learned on-the-job shifted into polytechnics and other training institutions where the learners incur debt. Often these debtors take longer to repay their debt, but also, necessarily, will not be able to work as long. They are also dominated by groups of New Zealanders who do not live as long.’

‘As an immediate step, we’re calling on the Government to increase the Student Allowance from its current rate of $176.86, and broaden its availability, so that students can borrow less and therefore graduate with less debt.’

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Yes, Andrew Little and Jacinda intend to campaign together – that’s because Labour intend to win

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March 7, 2017

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The Corporate Media narrative is it’s odd that Andrew Little and Jacinda intend to campaign together for the 2017 election.

Duh!

Why the hell wouldn’t they?

Jacinda appeals directly to the generation who don’t vote and she has built a huge social media presence. Andrew Little is not so shallow and needy that he has any problem sharing the lime light to reach out to electorates Labour have lost.

So yes.

Labour are playing this election to win.

As for the new mainstream media conspiracy that Jacinda will overtake Little in the popularity polls (alongside all the hypothetical questions of how that will weaken Little) – if anyone can seriously view Little’s staring down of a faction over Willie Jackson and Greg O’Connor’s candidacies and his surgical removal of Annette King and still think that Little doesn’t have the spine and strength to command Labour, I’d suggest they have dangerously underestimated the bloke.

Andrew Little wants to be the next Prime Minister, he has a passion for it and he is prepared to do everything possible to maximise Labour’s vote in September.

This is what wanting to win looks like, the corporate media’s reading is hollow.

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Toxic masculinity, Wellington College and social media

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March 7, 2017

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Wellington College investigating students’ social media posts

Wellington College has started an investigation after two students posted offensive comments on social media relating to rape and consent.

The two students described having sex with intoxicated, passed-out women in their posts to a closed Facebook group, with some of the comments “liked” by other students.

One of the comments, which were believed to have been posted on Sunday night, said: “If you don’t take advantage of a drunk girl, you’re not a true WC boy.”

The comments were also seen by other students who were so concerned about them, they notified parents.

Wellington College principal Roger Moses said he was notified by a member of the public and the school was investigating.

Macho posturing and toxic masculinity have collided at Wellington College.

It’s important to note that there were only a few of these voices and other students alerted parents, it would be wrong to write off all students there, and I think it would be wrong to crucify these two students with national media attention.

You want these young men to learn a lesson here, you don’t want to damage and brand them for life.

Calling for leniency however isn’t easy, especially when one of them is effectively boasting about raping drunk girls.

The horror of the damage of rape culture and toxic masculinity on women is an ever expanding horizon.

The day to day sexism, the gender pay gap, the double standards, the lack of justice when it comes to sexual assaults and the domestic violence rates all conspire to create an ongoing civil war against women.

I think for many men, they look back on some of their previous interactions with women and see how their own head-spaces were clouded by the sort of toxic masculinity these Wellington College students have exhibited and this past behaviour makes for a peer group too privately guilty to take any leadership.

We are a nation of fatherless children with boys and men unable to articulate emotion beyond anger.

Our ever growing prison population and suicide rates are proof of that.

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FLAPS Retouched

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The Liberal Agenda

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March 7, 2017

I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.

FLAPS Retouched is the second cumming of the sell-out 2016 season of FLAPS, a visceral, honest, celebratory exploration of all things VAGINA. After being nominated for four awards and winning Most Innovative Set at the Auckland Theatre Awards, Bits and Pieces Ensemble’s FLAPS are back and are Retouched.

The piece feels and pokes its way around the unashamed vagina-laden experience. Exploring hidden truths and relationships, celebrating difference and acceptance. FLAPS Retouched offers a myriad of styles and genres throughout the journey of over 40 vignettes.

FLAPS Retouched welcomes director Torum Heng (Go Girls, Keep Out Of My Box, Filthy Rich) to lead the cast of seven emerging female artists. An exciting addition, Heng has already made waves as an actor and writer in both New Zealand and Edinburgh.

FLAPS Retouched is produced by Bits and Pieces Ensemble, a company founded in 2015 by The Actors’ Program graduates Emily Campbell and Brie Hill; and UNITEC graduate Alice Kirker. The Ensemble aims to provide a platform for female practitioners in the NZ theatre industry and to cultivate an ethos of collaboration among established and emerging female creatives.

“Such a personal, fresh and warm experience from a diverse group of women exploring beautifully taboo topics with great heart and humour” – Sara Wiseman (actor – A Place To Call Home, Rake)

“FLAPS is a rebellion, a celebration, a call-to-arms, a grab at your heart, a sigh of grief and relief” – Amanda Billing (actor – Shortland Street, Boys Will Be Boys, The Book of Everything)

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Who’s cumming? FLAPS Retouched will amuse you, include you, heal you and encourage you, from March 28 – April 8, at Basement Theatre, Auckland. Maybe you’ll cum twice.

FLAPS Retouched
Dates: 28th March – 8th April
Venue: Basement Theatre
Tickets: $15 – $20
Bookings: Basement Theatre – or iticket

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E tū; Saturday event rallying point for public over Cadbury

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March 7, 2017

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E tū has welcomed a community initiative to rally support for saving Dunedin’s Cadbury factory and the jobs of its workers.

Neville Donaldson, E tū’s National Industry Strategy Director (Food) says the rally planned for Saturday will be a chance for the public to make its feelings known about the proposal by Mondelez International to close the plant.

He says it will also be a rallying point for Cadbury workers, and others in Dunedin who have watched as manufacturing jobs have headed out of town or businesses have been shut down.

“To date the community has not had a forum to express its support for Cadbury and this will be the perfect opportunity.

“If people care about Cadbury, they should seize this chance to make their voices heard, and express their anger and frustration at Mondelez for this misguided proposal,” says Neville.

“We have been in talks with Mondelez who are supposed to genuinely consult over their proposal. However, to date they have shown little interest in working through the issues or any concerns about the effect on staff.

“A strong show of opposition on Saturday to its plans for Cadbury may persuade them it’s time to take the consultation process seriously and reconsider.”

Neville says E tū will do everything possible to see a change of plan by Mondelez and this action will help.

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Rally in Dunedin to oppose proposed closure of Cadbury

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The Liberal Agenda

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March 7, 2017

A rally will be held on Saturday, March 11th in Dunedin to protest the proposed closure of the iconic Cadbury factory, with the loss of nearly 400 jobs.

The rally will begin at 11am in the Octagon and will feature guest speakers.

The rally is being organised by the Save Cadbury Community Action Group, comprising concerned locals who want to save the factory.

Its Chair, Don Pryde says this will be the first opportunity for the people of Dunedin to express their opposition to the planned closure.

“To date the Dunedin community has not been able to express its anger and dismay over the plans by Mondelez to shut this factory down”, says Don.

“There are civic and business leaders who support keeping it open and saving these jobs, while many working people are very emotional and angry about this. This is a chance for people to have their voices heard.

“We are not letting this factory go without a fight”, says Don.

“Cadbury is a profitable business and a major private sector employer in Dunedin. Mondelez needs to know the people of Dunedin support this business which has been a part of its DNA for decades.”

What: Rally to protest closure of Cadbury, Dunedin
Where: The Octagon, Dunedin
When: Saturday, 11 March, 11am-1pm

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GUEST BLOG: John Stroh – Pragmatic Politics

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March 7, 2017

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Next Tuesday, 14th March the TOP party is holding a meeting to introduce itself to Christchurch. The meeting is at 5:30pm in the Phillip Carter Family Concert Hall, 156 Armagh Street.

I like TOP’s pragmatic approach, the policy focus, the well researched rationale and the core values that sit behind the vision of TOP. The Education policy is no exception. What I feel may be missing, however, is an overarching statement of principle that is easily understood by a voting public. It will take time to absorb the mostly inevitable changes required to constructively participate in a deliberative democracy.

I am developing more and more dislike of our personality politics and the kind of class-conscious elitism that comes in the guise of most, if not all, “isms” that drive our traditional political parties in New Zealand.

Surely there is one guiding social principle that a majority in New Zealand will subscribe to, now and in a more mature deliberative democracy of the future: ‘cohesive community’ at all levels of society.

In the Netherlands’ Green leader, Jesse Klaver, has quadrupled his party’s polling in a few months on the back of a simple tactical formula: Out would go the old “holy trinity” of economic growth, the market and the rollback of the state, and in would come empathy, economic equality and protection of the climate.He wants to fight inequality and create a more equal society. But the nature of the inequality is different in Holland. But there is a common thread: the wish to reinvigorate social cohesion, inter-connectedness, community spirit.

The ongoing, largely inane, laughable political charades in the U.S. are an example of what can happen when a political system is based on confrontational and largely thoughtless personality politics. Society goes haywire and succumbs to primitive patterns of social behaviour.

In simple language, our political activity should focus on creating balance in society and the cohesion of diverse interests within the Community. That does not mean leveling to a lowest common denominator and it does require a willingness to not only tolerate but to support healthy diversity across our communities. We need to urgently pursue ways of devolving political responsibilities and developing ways of introducing accountability at a local community level.

We have so much going for us and are fortunate to be geographically remote from the mayhem. I sincerely believe that TOP’s policies can make New Zealand an even better country to live in.

About John Stroh
Following a professional and management career with IBM in New Zealand and overseas, John owned and managed small companies in IT, niche market food exports to Japan and business consultancy. After his first wife, Annie, died in 2010, John ‘retired’ and spent several years in the remote outer Sounds. Now a Gold Card holder, he has remarried, has a husband & wife landscaping business and lives in an old farm homestead near Christchurch.

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NZ Politics is broken – lowering voting age to 16 could be a solution

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March 7, 2017

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Mixed reception in Rotorua to debate on lowering voting age to 16

There’s been a mixed reception in Rotorua to a call to have the voting age lowered to 16.

Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft said New Zealand should consider changing the voting age to 16, saying it could help with voter engagement and while 16-year-olds could drive, get a job and get married, they could also have a say in their own futures.

While most countries have 18 as the voting age Austria, Scotland, Brazil, Argentina and Ecuador have legislated to allow 16-year-olds to vote.

Rotorua Lakes Council people portfolio leader Tania Tapsell said she would support the move, saying it’s something that should be considered seriously.

“There are a lot of very independent 16-year-olds who work and are active in their community; I think they should be able to have their say.

“Legally, they are allowed to do a lot of other things, so I think they are mature enough.

Let’s be honest, New Zealand’s Political System is broken. The manner in which Political weight is solely targeted on the wealthy who have a vested interest in a no capital gains tax economy, kills off youth participation in politics. The grim reality that policy is built for baby boomers and the rich is blindingly obvious to 18 year olds who have a cynical view of politics. The difficulty in getting them to engage is that they are actually right, the system is built by those who profit from it and numerically that’s baby boomers. The state subsidised universals of education, healthcare, superannuation and housing have been denied younger generations as they also have to deal with climate change which will impact them far more disproportionately than those with a property portfolio.

So how do we change the dynamics in NZ politics? We lower the voting age to 16. The sudden influx of tens of thousands of new voters with their own concerns and their own voice finally being heard could be the very means of not only lifting our participation rates, but reinvigorating the very value of our democracy.

How would we go about this? I think that a compulsory unit of the Social Studies curriculum is a civics course that explains NZer’s rights as citizens and the importance of democracy as our political system, and that part of this is activism by students to lower the voting age to 16 so that their views on the world they are inheriting can be heard.

I don’t see the lowering of the age to 16 as a means of getting the Left elected, that’s not the point of my argument. The current weighting of politics is for baby boomers, if we are to change that, younger voices with their interests need to be included. I’m not suggesting the lowering of the age of voting to 16 so that ‘the left can win’, I’m suggesting the lowering of the voting age to 16 to end the intergenerational theft that has become official party policy under National. Ongoing inequality, renter rights, tertiary education debt and climate change are concerns that 16 and 17 years olds face in a way that boomers don’t, forcing politicians to listen to those voices is the only way to ensure the quality of our democracy isn’t simply tipped in favour of those with the money to play the game.

If we want people to buy into society and the common bond upon us all, then we need to have a universal suffrage that takes into account those younger citizens whose interests are being ignored.

We would be a better democracy for it.

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Why raising Superannuation to 67 is so unethical

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March 7, 2017

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Raising the age of Superannuation to 67 in 20 odd years is ethically wrong.

For National, they are always focused on destroying and eroding any universal benefit they can seize upon. For them, pushing Super up to 67 is just step 1, means testing it will be step 2.

For Maori, working people, Pacifica and Gen X however, raising the age of eligibility is a slap in the face.

Maori and Pacifica live shorter life spans, working people have broken bodies and Gen X and under are the first generation who will suffer most from obesity and a lack of wealth.

The impact of raising benefits on those who have bugger all is a special kind of cruelty.

On top of saving for a house in a property market Gen X, Gen Y and Millennials have been speculated out of, on top of paying for their education and on top of paying for their Kiwisaver we might now have to also wait 2 years longer before we can retire?

If National are concerned about future costs, they should dump their tax cut plans and put that money into the Cullen Fund now and restart paying into it.

It is insane that this Government have money tax cuts but not for our pension scheme.

Bill English is far more a slave to neoliberal philosophy than Key ever was. If he gets his hands on another 3 years, privatisation and elimination of basic Government obligations will follow.

With shorter life spans, it is unethical to allow Maori, Pacifica, working class and unhealthier generations to wait two more years to get to Super so National can bribe the electorate with tax cuts that benefit the rich.

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Makeup Purchases

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LaQuisha St Redfern

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March 7, 2017

The first time I purchased my own makeup was in 1994 at a pharmacy in Chartwell Square, a sprawling shopping mall in suburban Hamilton. I’d been pilfering my mother’s for years, but in my ill-fated first year of university I had drawn down the “materials costs” component of my student loan and I was heading in for some concealer.

My friend had come along with me, because to me, it was a too subversive and scary an act to be carried out alone. I still remember the shiny deep crimson of the smooth plastic clamshell case that contained the foundation, and another matching case that contained a light green concealer that was to perform a colour correction, that these days I wouldn’t worry about.

There was some awkwardness at the end of the transaction, as the EFT-POS terminal refused to process my card, and we were taken to another counter. The discomfort of the sales assistant had grown with each fruitless swipe of the card.

I’d made some new friends at university, as I’d hoped to do so; Waikato University, in 1994, was my ticket out of the repressive world of small town Ngāruawāhia. It wasn’t until later that I realised that I would need to move further than just Hamilton to be myself without public harassment. One of my new friends was a drag queen, a new species of humanity that I found fascinating. She told a funny story about purchasing makeup in Hamilton and being asked “are you in a show?” her dry response, as she told the story was “my whole life is a show”.

Drag Queens in Hamilton in the 1990s were a tough breed. Although I never saw it myself, there were stories about the lads from the public bar down the road from the gay bar, both located in Hamilton’s own rust-belt: Frankton. The lads would give girls cheek and, as the story went, they would be chased across the railway lines and bashed by the queers.

Twenty years later and I still get a little sense of unease when I wander into the women’s wear section of Farmers Lambton Quay, or spend fruitless hours looks for a non chintz print edition of a t-shirt dress in the Lyall Bay Warehouse. I still notice the glances I get when I’m going around with makeup on my face, that are absent when I’m being read as male.

I used to love the attention I got being an outrageous drag queen, but these days, I’d like an off button. I’d like to be myself, in my own quirky way, without causing a lot of fuss and bother. I’m a walking contradiction and I know it, and as I like to joke semi-seriously “the pills help”.

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The Daily Poem – 1st Gardenia by Sonya Young

By

The Liberal Agenda

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March 7, 2017

1st Gardenia by Sonya Young

She was in a midnight mood
in the middle of the day again,
with thoughts that smelt
like dark chocolate.
Her hair was on fire…
flaming saffron tresses.
The music she had chosen
surrounded her like
a velvet cloak
and her voice was
like wild honey
as she sang along
half-heartedly.
She sipped spiced-whiskey
from a heavy crystal glass
and sighed blissfully
as it slid down her throat.
She wore a floaty silk dress
that whispered softly
as it caressed
vanilla scented skin.
The finest French lace kissed soft
gardenia thighs as her
elegant fingers caressed the
fur-throw…
This went some small way
towards calming
her restless spirit….
A heady incense swirled exotically
around the room
and she wondered how many times
she would have midnight moods
In the middle of the day

http://poetry.org.nz

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Political Caption Competition

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March 7, 2017

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Daily Blog Guerrilla Radio – Lorde – Green Light

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March 7, 2017

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TDB Top 5 International Stories: Tuesday 7th March 2017

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March 7, 2017