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, […]
Labour Pitches Right in Wellington
The Local Karori free newsletter is not my usual source of political information but, this month, a brief profile of Labour’s Wellington North candidate, and current list MP, Ayesha Verrall, is revealing. Verrall’s comments make clear the demoralising campaign Labour plans, and suggests some of the dangers it poses for all of us who want […]
How We Counter Fascism
Whether scrolling through a news website or a social media feed, you’re likely to encounter a variety of little windows into far-right and fascist activity, and of individual and collective efforts to counter them. It can be pretty confusing seeing this range. What’s effective? What’s inadvertently enabling? How can you contribute your time and energy […]
Modi and the Cockroaches: Indian Student Movement
In July 2026, prime minister of India Narendra Modi stepped onto the red carpet at Auckland’s Government House to the ceremonial embrace of New Zealand prime minister Christopher Luxon and other corporate executives at the Tāmaki Makaurau Spark Arena. Modi was met with cheers of tens of thousands of people whose motivations range from Hindutva […]
Leon Trotsky’s Fight Against Fascism
We are in challenging political times. Wins for workers have been few and far between, disillusionment in bourgeois politics is high, and we are seeing growing support for far-right and even fascist organisations. It is important in these moments to look to the past, when we have seen similar conditions, and draw lessons from history. […]
Students Against Fees – Lessons from the Education Action Groups of the ‘90s
The story starts back in the 1980s. Up until 1979, tertiary education had been virtually free for all – overseas students and domestic students alike – with everyone paying the same “administration fee” of around $100 a year. In 1979, a $1,500 tuition fee was introduced for overseas students. The government said that this would help to fund more places for domestic students, and promised that domestic students would never have to pay. In reality, as per usual, attacks on migrants were the opening shots of a war on everyone.
Students Strike to Fight Austerity!
2026 may be seeing the birth of a new wave of student activism across Aotearoa. On 29 July, approximately 500 students struck and marched through the University of Otago campus to make themselves heard. The demonstrators called on the Government with four key demands: Fees-free education, funding above inflation, independent student unions, and universal student […]
