COVID-19: Ardern Government Caves to Business
The Cabinet’s decisions to drop Auckland from Level 4 to Level 3, and then on Monday 4 October to ease Level 3 restrictions, unnecessarily risks the Delta outbreak getting out of control. The proportion of the population vaccinated was far too low to justify these steps. It was still undecided whether under-12s could be safely […]
An Interview with Mau Whenua member Shamia Makarini
In 2016, a vote among people of Te Atiawa, Taranaki, Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Mutunga vetoed the sale of jointly held iwi land at Shelly Bay to property developers. The land in question, at Shelly Bay, was held by the Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust, a body formed by the Crown to be […]
Submission on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill
The piece below is the ISO’s submission in support of banning the torture known as “conversion therapy” To the Select Committee, We support the general intent of this bill, which is to protect queer people from the harms associated with conversion practices. We feel the bill is seriously lacking in the measures it proposes to […]
Rocky Times Ahead
A clutch of recent polls and economic statistics herald a hardening of the political and industrial landscape. Since Labour won the general election in October 2020 with 50.0 percent of the vote, no opinion poll has found the party’s support dipping to under 40 percent until just recently. Two Roy Morgan polls taken in June […]
Queer Endurance/Defiance
Serah A is a member of the ISO in Wellington. This is a speech she gave at the recent rally in support of trans rights You’ve heard from some great speakers tonight. You’ve heard about trans awesomeness. You’ve heard about the TERFs, and where their hate leads. You’ve heard about the BMDRR bill that will […]
A Win for Trans Rights
We are winning. Yesterday’s rally in Wellington for trans rights was a victory, and holds important political lessons. And the numbers matter: on a cold, wet, dark winter’s night thousands came out to answer the call to show solidarity with a basic message: queer endurance, queer defiance, trans visibility, trans dignity. Cisgender and transgender, women, […]
Should We Keep the Tiwai Point Smelter?
This article was first published in Socialist Review 79, May-June 2021 The Tiwai Point Smelter, located at the very south of Aotearoa’s South Island, is an operation jointly owned by Rio Tinto and Sumitomo, two massive multinational corporations to which the profits flow. Alumina is imported from Australia and refined into aluminium. Around 90 percent […]
The Struggle at Our Universities
In mid-April the University of Waikato announced plans to cut up to twelve jobs from its Management courses, following on from six cuts in its Science faculty already. Across the sector in 2020-2021 hundreds of jobs have been cut. Factoring in “voluntary” redundancies, jobs have gone in significant, damaging numbers: 300 at Auckland, 71 at […]
Make the pay freeze a dead letter
On Wednesday 5 May, the government announced a pay freeze for public sector workers. Pay, already frozen in 2020 to June this year, will continue to be frozen for another three years. Staff earning over $100,000 will not receive a pay rise at all over this period. For workers earning between $60,000 and $100,000 the […]
Tramways Union Threatens Wellington Bus Strike
On 14 April Tramways Union members working for NZ Bus in Wellington voted 204 to 2 for industrial action. Action could be called any time soon, but under the anti-worker Employment Relations Act the union must give the employer 24 hours’ notice, thus giving a little time for NZ Bus to organise to limit disruption, […]
