Genocide Versus “The Basics”
The National Party is the principal partner in this three-way unnatural disaster that is the current governing coalition of New Zealand. The Party’s website claims its focus is on “fixing the basics and building the future.” We might reasonably ask: what are these “basics” that they’re claiming to be “fixing”? Basic humanity, perhaps? If only. […]
Vote Out the Government – Build a Socialist Alternative
The words on the cover of issue 25 of The Socialist, ISO’s primary publication, urge readers to Vote Out the Government and Build a Socialist Alternative. This is a call to action: a call against abstentionism from voting, and crucially, towards a view of politics where voting once every three years is a minuscule portion […]
The Socialist Party in Australia
Across the Ditch in Australia, a serious socialist political force is taking shape. Mid-2025 the Victorian Socialists (VS), following respectable results in the most recent federal election, launched nationwide. This new nationwide political party has attracted over 6,000 members and counting. With the rotten right-wing Labor Party in power and the far right on the […]
Electoral Reforms: An Attack on Democracy
The role of bourgeois democracy under capitalism is to operate as a smokescreen for the most acute elements of oppression. Giving people the opportunity to vote every three years channels any desire for better away from grassroots organising and into appeals to capitalist state power. As ostensibly you can vote anyone into those seats of […]
Party Profile: Te Pāti Māori
Though only 22 years old, Te Pāti Māori (TPM) has evolved significantly since its founding in 2004. The Māori Party originated from a Māori MP, Tariana Turia, splitting from the Labour Party in protest against the state-sponsored raupatu (confiscation) of the takutai moana (foreshore and seabed). It has transitioned from its nine-year alliance with the […]
Solidarity with Bogdan Syrotiuk
As we press forward into the 21st century and witness a US Empire struggle to rein in its imperialist overreach, and an ascendant China rise to challenge the US’ economic hegemony, against a backdrop of scrapping sub-imperialisms, international employer offensives, and rising tides and raging fires, we can be assured that imperial realignment will accelerate. […]
A Hot New* Party Enters the Polls: An Opportunity Party Profile
In a crowded Union Hall at the Otago University Students’ Association Leaders Debate on Wednesday 11 August, Opportunity deputy leader Daniel Eb made a compelling case for the party’s recent rise in the polls. The debate was a raucous affair. Jeers and snide remarks came from the crowd and party candidates alike. Candidates from National, […]
Fear Now: Revisiting the Far Right in New Zealand
The massacre at Al Noor mosque in 2019 was, for many New Zealanders, their first close encounter with violent right-wing extremism. The Parliament Occupation of 2022, in turn, revealed the breadth and diversity of the paranoid fringe of New Zealand politics. For Byron Clark, researcher of the far right, these events provided the impetus behind […]
Lenin’s Pamphlet: What Is to Be Done?
Lenin’s famous pamphlet What Is to Be Done? (WITBD) was published in 1902. Although called a pamphlet, it is a lengthy one; my 1973 Beijing edition runs to 236 pages, excluding notes. It belongs to its time; that is, the fractious period between the foundation of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1898 and […]
The Red Scare Today: New Zealand and the FBI
On July 16, US secretary of state Marco Rubio gathered officials from over 65 countries – including New Zealand – to launch an “unprecedented global offensive against the transnational threat of Radical Left terrorism.” Warning of a supposed upsurge in left-wing violence, Rubio conjured images of a vast international network spreading propaganda, technology, training materials, […]
