Millionaires, Mana, and the Poverty of Politics
What the hell was Mana party boss Gerard Hehir thinking? When German millionaire Kim Dotcom picked up his Swarovsky crystal cellphone and dialled Hone Harawira, why didn’t Hone just hang up? If Mana aims to represent the poor, is a deal with a millionaire going to build the “brand”? Mana struggles to be taken seriously […]
Review: Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Chadwick’s Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is a biographical film about the late Nelson Mandela’s life. The film takes its audience through Mandela’s life from his early years as a lawyer to him eventually becoming president. One of the first things which stood out to me about this film was the amount of violence. Long […]
Christchurch: No Place for Race Hate
For the last couple of years, Kommandante Kyle Chapman, New Zealand’s answer to Benito Mussolini, has been rallying the troops on the United Nations Race Relations Day. In what the ballheads no doubt consider a masterful stroke of strategy, the swastika-tattooed, jackbooted, blackshirts deny the march is inspired by racism, let alone Adolf Hitler, instead […]
Under Which Flag?
“Treasury tells us there are 285 000 kids living in poverty, the Ministry of Health tells us that 100 000 of them are going to school hungry every day… and the Prime Minister tells us he wants to change the flag! Eliminating child poverty, homes for all families and jobs for everyone – those are […]
Once We Built a Tower
Once We Built a Tower, a new play from award-winning socialist playwright Dean Parker, has just opened at Bats in Wellington. Socialist Review caught up with the play’s director, David Lawrence, to get some sense of this production. The Bacchanals have quite a history of putting on political plays, and have worked with Dean Parker […]
Matt McCarten and Labour
Matt McCarten has joined Labour as the leader, David Cunliffe’s, chief of staff. If I hated elections and thought they were just a distraction designed to dupe the poor, then I would be worried cause Matt might just be able to get some of the 800,000 to 1 million non-voters interested in voting again. But […]
Migrant Workers Abuse Scandal in Christchurch: Immigration Bill Not the Answer
In early January there was a rerun of stories in the media about a new law to “crackdown on migrant exploitation.” When the Immigration Amendment Bill No. 2 was introduced in Parliament in October last year First Union highlighted the case of Filipino workers in Christchurch being told that they must work on Saturdays without […]
Web Round-Up: February
A round-up of interesting links and articles from February. The Government was recently revealed to have used ‘mistaken’, i.e. bad, i.e. wrong data in its estimates of child poverty, which – surprise surprise – meant they underestimated the number of children who currently do not have the means to a decent standard of living in New […]
WINZ: Poverty and Pep Talks
Yesterday I attended a ‘work for you seminar’ at the WINZ office on Queen Street, central Auckland. After the usual waiting around for 30 mins we went into the work seminar room. To my horror I look up and see an supposedly inspirational quote from Margret Thatcher on the wall… “I do not know any […]
Boycott Batsheva at NZ Festival
This year’s NZ Festival includes four performances by the Israeli Batsheva dance company. Batsheva is an integral part of Israel’s Brand Israel public relations campaign. The dance company receives funding from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), which has described Batsheva as ‘the best known global ambassador of Israeli culture’. Artists who receive funding […]
