A Full Tide for Socialism
When the International Socialists met for our national conference over Queen’s Birthday weekend, we had an opportunity to reflect on how exciting, but also how difficult, the past years have been. Exciting because, finally, after decades of low levels of class struggle, our side is on the move again: there have been strikes and struggles […]
Book review: Workers Can Win
Legislation such as the Employment Contracts Act in New Zealand and in much of the world has successfully outlawed many of the most powerful tools workers’ unions might wield to improve industrial conditions, and that legislation has remained relatively unchallenged since implementation. Capitalist propaganda has wormed its way into the wider discourse, and many workers […]
Countering the Far Right in Aotearoa Today
This is a report and analysis of far right parties in New Zealand, with consideration given to the nature of those parties. Serah Allison’s report, published on 29 August 2022, contains much more detail on the far right rally and counter-rally in Te Whanganui-a-Tara on 23 August. The first part of this report complements Serah’s. […]
Protesting the Far-Right in Te Whanganui-a-Tara
July and August 2022 saw Destiny Church’s Freedom and Rights Coalition (FRC) organise several rallies around Aotearoa, most of which were counter-protested. The counter-protest in Ōtepoti was particularly successful. These FRC rallies formed a campaign culminating in a convoy from both ends of Aotearoa to converge with a march to Parliament on the 23rd August. […]
Imperialism in the Pacific
The following was originally presented as a public talk to the Te Whanganui-a-Tara branch of the International Socialist Organisation and the Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington ISO club. The talk was on the topic “Imperialism in the Pacific”, and was pitched to be of value both to experienced organisation members as well as […]
Stop the far-right ‘Freedom and Rights Coalition’
The Freedoms and Rights Coalition, a creation of Brian and Hannah Tamaki, is associated with the Christian-fundamentalist Destiny Church. It came to notice last October when, in contravention with the health emergency restrictions, it organised an anti-lockdown protest on Auckland Domain. The FRC continued to organise or participate in anti-lockdown, anti-vaxx and anti-mandate demonstrations. It […]
The Working Class Reality of Abortion in the USA
The United States supreme court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade on 24 June 2022. This comes almost 50 years after the initial 1973 ruling that legalised abortion in the US on the grounds of the right to privacy to make medical decisions. This decision has stripped away any legal protection of those seeking or […]
Confrontation in Dunedin: Anti-Fascists v Right-Wing Coalition
On July 2nd, at 10am on a crisp but clear Saturday morning, left-wing activists under the banner of Antifascist Ōtepoti begun setting up for a counter-protest of the “It Ain’t Over March” by the Freedom and Rights Coalition (henceforth FRC), a right-wing activist group largely dedicated to continuing the efforts of this year’s occupation on […]
The Political Situation in Sri Lanka – To Early 2022
This piece was first given as a talk at the Te Whanganui-a-Tara branch of the International Socialist Organisation To understand the political situation in Sri Lanka we must first understand the historic past of the peoples of Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon under the British empire. I say peoples because even to this day they are […]
Should we Support the Public Sector Pay Adjustment Proposal?
Let’s not beat about the bush; our “Labour” government is disgracefully holding down pay in the public sector below price inflation. According to Statistics New Zealand, while prices rose by 6.9 percent in the year to the end of March 2022, public sector pay only rose by 2.7 percent over the same period: a significant […]
