Wait, wait, wait – WHAT?

Public Service Commission’s ads targeting strike ‘absolutely unbelievable’ – Labour

The Labour Party is concerned the public service commissioner is acting in an “overly politicised way”, as teachers and health workers prepare for a ‘mega strike’ later this week.

It comes as the Public Service Commission started running Facebook advertisements on Monday encouraging people to find out more about the strike action happening.

The ads contained information about previous offers that had been made to nurse practitioners, senior nurses and graduate nurses.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins says the Commission is overstepping, and Labour’s public services spokesperson Camilla Belich says it was an “absolutely unbelievable decision to weaponise the Public Service Commission against striking workers”.

Tens of thousands of teachers, doctors and nurses will walk off the job on Thursday, demanding better pay and working conditions.

…the Public ‘Service’ have spent taxpayer money attacking Unions for striking against policies that are detrimental to those same taxpayers???

This is outrageous!

Judith, Simeon and Luxon fear the Mega Strike…

• Public Service Minister Judith Collins published an open letter yesterday accusing nurses, teachers and doctors of launching a politically motivated and coordinated attack on students and patients with their Thursday ‘mega-strike.’

…let’s get this straight.

Judith has $400million for attack helicopters but claims the Government can’t afford to pay teachers, nurses and Drs properly?

Simeon threatens to change the law to stop Unions from striking…

Health Minister Simeon Brown mulls law change over feud with striking doctors

…yet his Government has hundreds of millions for the tobacco industry…

Govt set aside $216m to pay for heated tobacco product tax cuts

…Luxon blames the unions for the strikes…

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blames unions for ongoing strike action

…yet he borrowed billions for landlords and rich tax cuts!

Don’t tell me we don’t have the money to pay our workers more when this Government have borrowed billions for the military, landlords, Big Tobacco and rich tax cuts!

Judith, Simeon and Luxon fear the Mega Strike because the Unions have finally woken up to the fact that this anti-worker Government fronted by the Minister of Handmaids, Brooke van Velden is here to destroy them.

The Union movement has finally realised they have to fight and that scares the bejesus out of the Right.

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Election 2026: Labour pitches an alternative to tax

I think Labour’s first big announcement was clever and shrewd.

It’s straight as fuck because it is appealing to those who voted Labour in 2020 and voted National in 2023.

Most Kiwis have no idea what a National Fund is, but what they do understand is investment and building up rather than tearing down and that is the impression most will have.

National, ACT and NZF are only focused on protesting their donors interests while cut everything else back, what Labour is suggesting is building up our economic sovereignty and protecting NZ businesses.

There are questions of course, the dividends of these State Owned Enterprises are currently providing revenue that  is paying for public services, if that money is being channeled away into a National Fund, who is providing the revenue that is paying for those public services?

This is where Labour’s tax plan needs to step in.

In terms of economic sovereignty, Labour’s plan is a powerful one as CAFCA points out…

The Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) applauds the Labour Party for recognising the harm that dependence on overseas “investment” is doing to the people of New Zealand.

CAFCA Organiser Murray Horton says Labour Leader Chris Hipkins’ signal that the Party wants to retain more business profits in Aotearoa and reduce the number of skilled Kiwis leaving the country is very positive.

“Mr Hipkins said that: ‘For too long we have leaned on overseas investment and too often the jobs and wealth that start here end up offshore’. He also said we need a Government that backs our people, our ideas, and our industries so our people and wealth stay here at home,” Horton says.

“CAFCA could not have said it better. In fact, we have been saying the same thing for 50 years as Governments of both flavours have made it easier for overseas corporates to buy local businesses”.

Horton says Labour’s fresh approach comes at an important juncture because the ACT-National-NZ First government is currently pushing a Bill to make it even easier for overseas investors to gain access to New Zealand resources.

“Kiwis are constantly told that ‘We need overseas investment’. What we have had, however, is not foreign investment, but foreign takeovers”.

“We do not see overseas investors building up green field businesses that create jobs and bring in new technology. Instead, foreign companies buy farms and businesses that Kiwi entrepreneurs or the Government have created, and the returns to New Zealand are minimal at best”.

“They suck profits out our country, they do not create more jobs, and while we are told we need overseas money to pay off the national debt, our debt has increased as overseas ownership in the economy has grown”.

CAFCA’s Website (see below) provides figures on the impact of overseas takeovers in Aotearoa.

Based on Government statistics, the figures show that in the 2023-2024 financial year transnational corporations extracted profits of $11.1 billion from the NZ economy. In the 2022-2023 financial year they extracted $12.2 billion, and over the last decade, their annual profits averaged $9.9 billion.

In the decade 2015-2024, overseas corporations made $99.5 billion in profits from New Zealand. Over that time they only reinvested 33.6% of these profits back into the NZ economy.

“Foreign investors make massive profits here and they are not great for employment either,” Horton says. “They only employ 17% of the workforce and this has steadily declined from 20.5% in 2000″.

“Foreign ownership can add to unemployment. Over the past couple of years, for example, we have seen a number of manufacturing businesses close in the regions because power prices have jumped and overseas companies have decided they can operate more cheaply in other countries”.

Neither has foreign ownership improved New Zealand’s foreign debt problem. In 1989, total private and public foreign debt stood at $47.5 billion, about two-thirds (67.8%) of NZ’s GDP. In March 2024, it was $363.6 billion, or 87.5% of our GDP, despite all of the asset sales and takeovers that have occurred in that time.

Horton says CAFCA is very concerned about the Government’s Overseas Investment Amendment Bill, currently making its way through Parliament.

Among CAFCA’s concerns are changes that would speed up approvals for overseas takeovers and that would make it easier for overseas companies to buy forestry land or sell bottled and bulk water overseas.

Bill Rosenberg and Jane Kelsey are long-standing experts in this field. They have have alerted the public to the fact that the Bill weakens the current special forestry test, which holds that a sale of forestry land must pass a Benefit to New Zealand test.

The new Bill also removes the current investor test, which examines the character of a potential overseas buyer of forestry land. The character test examines whether the an investor has been imprisoned, fined, or penalised for illegals acts.

Proposed amendments to the Overseas Investment Act also remove protections on sensitive land that is not residential or farm land. This would make it easier to sell offshore islands, marine and coastal areas, conservation land, and land subject to a heritage order or wahi tapu.

A mining company looking to buy or lease land native forest on an offshore island or coastal area for exploration or mining would no longer have to undergo the benefit to New Zealand test or investor test, for example.

…economic sovereignty is going to matter more and more in the future, which is why we need to start considering the creation of a Sovereign Credit Fund.

The greatest mistake Labour did over Covid, was that they borrowed the money from private banking rather than do what Mickey Savage did, create Sovereign Credit!

In the 1930s–40s, the first Labour Government (Savage & Fraser) used the Reserve Bank to directly finance social housing, infrastructure, and employment schemes. This was sovereign credit creation — money issued into the economy for public purposes.

New Zealand used sovereign credit creation in the 1930s for housing and recovery. Since the late 20th century, reforms locked us into a bond-based system to satisfy global financial orthodoxy and inflation fears. The difference is simple: bonds create debt to outsiders, sovereign credit creates money internally.

Why borrow from private banks when we should be directly creating sovereign credit to build the vast infrastructure deficit and climate adaptation investment net we face.

If the Reserve Bank or Treasury created credit for targeted, productive investment (like, green infrastructure, affordable housing, climate resilience):

• The economy could benefit from extra capacity and jobs.

• Inflationary pressure would be limited if the spending matched real productive needs.

• International markets might notice but wouldn’t necessarily “punish” NZ — especially if debt-to-GDP stayed stable.

Let’s call it the Tino Rangatiratanga Sovereign Credit Fund.

A Tino Rangatiratanga Sovereign Credit Fund that is used to build infrastructure and community climate change adaptation.

A Tino Rangatiratanga Sovereign Credit Fund could build all RSAs and Marae’s up as civil defence fall back hubs while putting solar panels on all their roofs and on every school, hospital and public state house to reach 100% renewables.

A Tino Rangatiratanga Sovereign Credit Fund could build the big infrastructure projects, Second Harbour crossing, mass public housing build, wind farms, sea turbines, and hydro dams alongside next generation hospitals.

A Tino Rangatiratanga Sovereign Credit Fund could fund a new inner coast marine transport  service.

Climate change and geopolitical upheavals exacerbated by Climate change are coming whether we want to believe in them or not.

A Tino Rangatiratanga Sovereign Credit Fund could be the mechanism we use to make that investment now.

As a first step, Labour have done bloody well for brining economic sovereignty back to the main stage.

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In the battle between Old Zealand and New Zealand in the 2026 election, Gen Xers are going to be the difference.

Look at the demographics.

Estimation for 2025 (or more recent)

If similar age proportions hold, then:

• • If 60+ voters are ~28-30% of the voter roll, and

  • Under-40 voters are ~35%,

then in a total roll of ~3.6 million enrolled voters (approx current size), you’d expect:

• • 60+ voters ≈ ≈ 1.0 to 1.1 million

  • 18-40 voters ≈ ≈ 1.25 million

Polling data tells us that you are more likely to be a reactionary redneck if you are over 60 (and male) and are far more likely to vote Left if you are 18-40 and female.

There are around 1.3million Kiwis aged between 40 and 60, that is Gen X, we are the ones who are going to be the decider in this election.

As a generation, do we want to side with the rednecks of Old Zealand or support New Zealand?

Thanks to our middle class woke activists during the social media cancel culture Lynch mobs, we drove many young men into the arms of the reactionary right, we need to show those men that there is a place on the Left for them.

Old Zealand trades in the spite and malice of culture war hate while in lockstep with the Billionaire class, the Banks, the speculators and the polluters, isn’t it time to break the power of these pricks?

It’s time for Gen X to step up.

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The real damage that Eru and Mariameno have caused with their hollow allegations and overspending is that they have handed the Right an enormous amount of political ammunition to attack the Left with, look at Heather…

Te Pāti Māori has vaporised its chances of being in government with Labour – Heather du Plessis-Allan

…by putting their ego before the waka, by airing their dirty laundry in front of the Marae, they have handed Sean Plunkett, Don Brash, Mike Hosking, David Seymour, the NZ Herald, ZB and every other redneck arsehole attack lines to destroy the chance of kicking this Government out.

Perhaps they should be reflecting upon that rather than cause te Pati Māori leadership more smears.

Who is the real enemy here? This anti-Māori, anti-Treaty, anti-worker, anti-renter, anti-disabled, anti-beneficiary, anti-environment hard right Government or te Pati Māori leadership for pulling Mariameno up for over spending and hiring her son who has then gone on to violently threaten Parliamentary staff?

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Those tasked with ensuring the donor interests of the Right are always protected are terrified.

The greatest fear the Banks, the Billionaire Class, the Speculators, the Corporations and the Polluters have is a Labour/Green/Māori Party Government.

Normally those interests can rely on Labour’s incrementalism to prevent any real progressive legislation ever passing, but the Greens and Māori Party simply won’t allow Labour to be incremental in any future Government so the Right are shitting themselves.

There is a rumour being sold by Right Wing Trolls that te Pati Māori, Greens, ACT and NZF are so extreme that National and Labour are considering a grand coalition.

The Right Wing Trolls are so frightened by the possibility of a Labour/Green/Māori Party Government, that the grand coalition idea is being pimped as the solution.

It shows the lengths the Banks, the Billionaire Class, the Speculators, the Corporations and the Polluters are prepared to go to stop a real democratic threat to their interests.

I love their tears, they are delicious.

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I am deeply disappointed by Starmer.

The way he used false claims of anti-semitism to smear Jeremy Corbyn was always disgraceful and the manner in which he’s sold out all of Labour’s values once in power should be a political disgrace.

His latest pathetic Zionist apologist position saw him criticise British Police for banning a soccer match from the violent Maccabi Tel Aviv club has become a farce…

…because in their most recent attempt of a match, the Maccabi Tel Aviv turned violent and it was the Tel Aviv Police who cancelled the match, is Keir going to claim the Israeli Police are antisemitic?

Maccabi Tel Aviv hooligans: lies, smears – and the truth

Tel Aviv’s police ban the city’s derby after Maccabi hooligans rioted. You cannot make this sh*t up.

The reality is that Israel needs to be banned from all cultural and sporting events. The Maccabi Te Aviv fans are Zionist Hooligans whose violence has made Keir Starmer’s defence of them a joke.

Israel’s genocide and war crimes against Palestinians is deeply rooted inside the Israeli psyche (you can see this in polling data that highlights the majority of Israeli’s want to cleanse Gaza altogether) and they want to riot and fight against a world that is still reeling at their naked violence.

Israel must be removed from sporting and cultural events, banning Maccabi Te Aviv is a good start.

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Jesus wept…

Donald Trump shares AI video of him bombing protesters with brown liquid during ‘No Kings’ marches

…even for Trump this is fucking unhinged.

Just consider how close Trump is edging towards a Police State…

Troops on the streets, a polarized country and climbing prices: welcome to Trump’s ‘golden age’

With the federal government shut down for more than two weeks, the nation more polarized than at any time since the civil war, political violence growing and the job market slowing, it doesn’t feel remotely like a golden age, unless one focuses on Trump’s Louis XIV-like effort to gild as many things as possible in the Oval Office.

Decoration spree aside, it in no way feels like a golden age when Trump sends the national guard into Los Angeles and Chicago to fight “the enemy within” or when he says the governor of Illinois and mayor of Chicago should be in jail for opposing his plans to deploy troops to Chicago. I doubt that the 27 Chicago police officers who were accidentally teargassed by Ice agents think it’s a golden age and ditto for the growing number of US citizens Ice has arrested.

Nor does the US seem like the shining city upon a hill when Ice agents slam a 79-year-old US citizen to the ground in Los Angeles. Nor when Trump’s Department of Homeland Security posts thuggish videos of stormtrooper-like Ice agents – videos that seem more like Germany in the 1930s than any golden vision of the US as it approaches its 250th birthday.

Only a huckster would boast of a golden age when his public approval ratings are deep underwater. According to a CBS/YouGov poll in early October, 58% of the US public disapproves of Trump’s performance, while 42% approve. Another poll found that 62% of Americans believe the country is heading in the wrong direction.

…I told you when he was elected that he was a fascist and every passing week he edges closer to an all out Authoritarian Police State.

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