The Privatisation Agenda Behind the Dunedin Hospital Betrayal
The Dunedin Hospital is the only tertiary-level hospital for the Lower South Island. It is the nearest tertiary-level hospital for well over 300,000 people and has around 400 beds. The hospital is ancient and no longer fit for purpose, it was constructed with asbestos and it leaks all over. The hospital needs to be replaced. […]
The Student Protest Movement for Palestine
“It has been a little less than a year since I started attending these protests […] At first I marked them out by numbers: the first protest, the second. Then by location: Tauranga, Palmerston North, The Embassy, Parliament. Still more passed and they started becoming milestones: the first time I led the chants, the time […]
Palestine – No Rest Until Liberation
At the time of writing, a ceasefire deal has finally been agreed to between Hamas and the Israeli government. This in and of itself is welcome of course, and frankly the deal is much better for Hamas than it is for Israel. Israeli journalist Yossi Yehoshua asserts “There’s no need to sugarcoat the reality: the […]
The US Election and Capitalism’s Deep Crisis
A busy year for general elections abroad has culminated in the return of Donald J. Trump as president-elect of the United States of America. Just four years after being ousted by Joe Biden and the Democratic Party in a resounding loss, Trump, despite facing a litany of criminal charges, rebounded to defeat vice president Kamala […]
The Mine Ain’t Yours: Primary Industry and the Material Interests in Racial Division
The coalition is racist. Nearly a year on from the fateful 2023 election that saw the two-term Labour government swept away in a tide of reactionary fervour, Te Ao Māori has come under fire. The New Zealand Herald spreading Hobson’s Pledge propaganda, a stringent rewrite of the Marine and Coastal Area Act on the table, […]
Hate That I Love You – The Migrant Worker
While I should be enjoying summer break, I’ve regrettably been made aware that current online discourse is once again focused on migrant workers and their position in Western society. The debate is taking place on the aggressively Nazi website X.com (formerly Twitter, formerly entertaining) and is centred around the leaders of president-elect Donald Trump’s new […]
Deny, Defend, Depose – Assassination as a Symptom of Class War
On 4 December 2024 Brian Thompson, the CEO of United States private health insurer UnitedHealthcare, was gunned down by a masked man. The attack took place in broad daylight, by an anonymous figure who handled his firearm in a calm and professional manner, and executed the CEO in a clearly premeditated assassination. The figure has […]
Hīkoi 2024 – Partnership from Below
When I arrived early there was already a sizable, largely Māori crowd. There was a stunning diversity of banners and regalia. A woman walking by me gasped “ah, look at our people!” The contrast must be striking when you are used to almost always being in a minority in a place like Wellington. And not […]
The State of the Unions in 2024
The end of 2024 marks one year in power for the National-led government. This retrospective look at the year for unions examines the state of the union movement in 2024 compared with the first year of the last National-led government in 2009. National Party leader John Key was sworn in as Prime Minister at the […]
Hīkoi as a protest of defiance, unity and hope
The Hīkoi mō te Tiriti was not just a mass gathering of people, it was an act of defiance, unity, and hope. Māori, pākehā, tauiwi, all heeded the call of the organisers of Toitū te Tiriti, and came out in our tens of thousands. And while the formal call from the organisers was to rally around […]
