Labour-Green Budget Responsibility Rules Nonsense
The Labour Party has a death wish. In what looks like a bid to make sure it loses September’s general election, last Friday the Labour-Green alliance launched a major plank of its election platform titled Budget Responsibility Rules. What the Labour Party is saying is that if it wins the election it will hold public […]
Pensions under attack – Superfund not the answer
Under Bill English the National Party has made one major policy change so far as it heads into the general election on 23 September. This is to adopt Labour’s old policy of ratcheting up the age of retirement. Bill English is proposing that from 2037 to 2040 the retirement age will be incrementally increased to […]
Mass Action Can Change Society
The mass of ordinary people who can change society. The ruling class, the capitalist media, and academia all stress workers’ powerlessness, and these ideas often filter through to people who want to change the world. The emphasis can get put on heroic individuals, spectacular action designed to ‘shock’ the masses out of their alleged passivity, […]
Wellington students organise against rape culture
Hundreds of people gathered yesterday outside Parliament to protest rape culture in New Zealand. The action was called by several students from Wellington East Girls College. The protest, a direct response to rape jokes made on facebook by students from Wellington College, was loud, angry, defiant and empowering. Chants of “2,4,6,8 Stop the Violence, Stop the […]
Cadbury: Fight for every job
Join the rally in the Octagon tomorrow at 11am, and spread the word. This protest, called by the Save Cadbury Community Action Group, is supported by E Tū, the union of Cadbury workers. Amanda Banfield, Vice President for Mondelez in Australasia, claims closing Cadbury in Dunedin is about ‘its long term sustainability’. Try telling that […]
Housing battle in Glen Innes
Ioela Niki Rauti is standing firm in the face of property developers. Late 2014 Niki Rauti was served a 90 day eviction notice to vacate the Housing New Zealand state home she has lived in for over twenty years. With support from the local community, young activists and the Tamaki Housing group, she has fought […]
Keep the ‘European Students Association’ off Auckland University campus!
So Trumpism has hit New Zealand shores. A group calling itself the ‘European Students Association’ is trying to set itself up at the University of Auckland. The group’s website is covered in all the usual muck of the far right, with slogans echoing SS phrases from Nazi Germany and weasley phrases about ‘European culture’. This […]
Class War in Plain English
Bill English, like John Key before him, has long cultivated an image of himself as a dull, middle-of-the-road moderate. A bit boring, no surprises. His 2002 election campaign – around the slogan “all paddling in the same waka” – anticipated Key’s rejuvenation and liberalisation of the National ‘brand’, shedding its older Pākehā racism in favour […]
Vote Socialist in Mt Albert
The by-election in Mt Albert caused by David Shearer’s resignation from Parliament takes place on 25 February. This is the first possible electoral test for the National Party under Bill English, but they have bottled-out of standing rather than risk another drubbing after the party’s poor performance in Mt Roskill. Given that National won a […]
Solidarity for Sanctuary – no deportations!
Unionists and members from the wider community came together last Saturday afternoon in a show of solidarity with 9 Indian students facing deportation. The students, many of whom have finished their studies, face deportation as it was discovered that agents in India had falsified documents without their knowledge. The students were lured to New Zealand under […]
