A Profile on Wayne Brown
Current Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown ran as an independent candidate and won the election for appointment of mayoralty in October 2022. Described as “centre-right” by news publications such as 1 News and RNZ, the self-described ‘anti-establishment’ businessman campaigned on a platform of slimlining council staff roles, reducing rates and replacing all council entity directors. Just […]
Competition (And Cooperation) For A Socialist Future
Competition is lauded as a foundational aspect of both the capitalist economy and human development. It is proclaimed that because of competition in the market, capitalism forces businesses to distribute goods and services as efficiently as possible; that without competition, innovation would be minimal if not impossible, and people would have no incentive to do […]
Teachers and the Climate Crisis: An Interview With a Unionist
Note that this interview was conducted on the 8th of February 2023. Subsequent events such as Cyclone Gabrielle, which has devastated parts of the North Island, have shed further light on these issues. Simon Hirini is a secondary school teacher, chair of the Taita College branch of the Post-Primary Teachers Association, and Executive rep for […]
Thinking About Ecology with Marx – A review of Kohei Saito’s Marx in the Anthropocene
The destruction of the natural environment in the Stalinist regimes through the twentieth-century made it understandable that, for many, Red and Green seemed incompatible. Think about the disaster at Chernobyl and the erosion of the Black Sea coast in the USSR, the catastophes of the ‘Great Leap Forward’ in China, the coal-fired pollution across Eastern […]
Controlling Inflation, or Class War?
The Reserve Bank is tasked by the government to keep inflation low, in the range of 1 to 3 percent, while supporting “maximum sustainable employment.” Having regard for maximum sustainable employment was added to the bank’s remit by Labour in 2018. National’s policy is to abolish it. So is the maximum sustainable employment policy a […]
Planet, Politics and Power: Climate Justice is Class Struggle
The Problem In 1977 James Black, a senior scientist at leading oil and gas corporation Exxon, delivered a presentation to the company titled ‘The Greenhouse Effect’. He outlined, with startling prescience and the best modelling available at the time, the danger that humanity faces if we continue with our acceleration of fossil fuel consumption. He […]
After Ardern
So much has happened in these past years – the pandemic, the massacre in Christchurch, the disaster at Whakaari White Island, justice struggles at Ihumātao, the Climate Strikes, Black Lives Matter’s enormous mobilisations globally, war in Ukraine, resistance and rebellion in Iran, suppression in Hong Kong – it can be difficult to take stock of […]
The Wizards Who Delved Too Greedily
Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is, unfortunately, a commercial product owned by for-profit company Wizards of the Coast LLC (WotC) and therefore by that company’s owners: Hasbro Inc. We say unfortunately because D&D is also an experience, a source of joy, and a source of community for a lot of kids and adults alike. From fantasy […]
Iran’s Feminist Revolution – A conversation with local Iranian organisers
Masha Amini (or Jina Amini, her Kurdish name) was 22 years old when she was arrested in Tehran on 13 September 2022 by the Guidance Patrol (or “morality police”) of Iran for not wearing her hijab “correctly”. Three days later, she died in hospital. Leaked medical scans suggest this was a result of beatings by […]
Fair Pay Agreements: A Welcome though Imperfect Mercy
The Fair Pay Agreements Bill cleared Parliament on 26 October 2022 and will likely come into law in December. National and ACT voted against and vowed to repeal the new law as soon as they can. That is no idle threat. With a general election due next year any future for FPAs would appear to […]
