Consent and Workplace Safety in Performing Arts
Work in the performing arts – including dance, theatre and film – raises unique issues at the intersection of consent and workplace safety. Workers in these industries are fighting to raise awareness of these issues, promote safer practices, and strengthen protections against harassment and abuse. Denise Roche is the director of Equity, the Aotearoa performers’ […]
Protest Report: David Seymour Coming to Town
On Wednesday 9 July the Far Right deputy prime minister and ACT Party leader David Seymour paid a visit to Dunedin. He was here for an ACT party public meeting to talk to his supporters (and his supporters only) about ACT’s principles and policy platform. We know what Seymour and his party have to say. […]
Aotearoa Politics and Protest: The State of the Nation
The following was presented as a talk at the 2025 International Socialist Organisation hui-ā-tau annual conference. A recorded version is available here: https://youtu.be/2J-5seh9FKU Tēnā kautau o te Hāporikawa Angapaetua, greetings and salutations to the ISO, with special thanks to our branch in Pōneke for hosting our illustrious hui a tau. Kia kautau ngā mana, ngā […]
New Zealand’s Place in a Changing World Order of Imperialism
President Donald Trump took office, for the second time, on 20 January 2025. He has proceeded to rip up the certainties of the Western alliance that has held together since the end of the Second World War. He has threatened to annex Greenland and the Panama Canal. He is waging a trade war against all-comers, […]
Care Workers Successfully Rally for Employment Conditions
On the 8th June 2025 around 80 unionists of the Public Service Association (PSA), flanked by other supporters such as the E tū union and the Migrant Worker’s Association, descended upon the offices of Te Roopu Taurima, a kaupapa Māori residential and respite disability support provider. This was in response to what was described by […]
Attacks on Pay Equity to Fund Tax Cuts for the Rich – This is Class War
Two days ago, the ruling right-wing coalition government rammed through legislation under urgency to extinguish all ongoing claims for pay equity (the mechanism by which historically undervalued feminised work can be paid equivalent to historically masculine work), and made it more difficult for future claims to be successful. Presumably, the violently undemocratic urgency mechanism was […]
Ōtepoti for Transgender Liberation – Turn the Culture War into Class War
On May 3rd, 2025, LGBT+ activists and allies from around Ōtepoti gathered in the Octagon in a demonstration of solidarity with their trans whānau, who have become an increasing focal point of mainstream media and the global right-wing sphere. The rally represented opposition to New Zealand First’s recently proposed Members’ Bill, which aims to legally […]
Reflections and Questions on the Denniston Plateau Occupation
Over the Easter Weekend a group of activists set out to the Denniston plateau to protest mining company Bathurst Resources’, “Buller Plateaux Continuation Project.” The proposal sets out to “extend the life of the Stockton mine”, by expanding further South in attempts “to mine 20 million tonnes of coking coal for export from the Buller […]
Reject ANZAC Day – Speech at the 2025 Peace Picnic
On 25 April ISO member Jasper Auld gave this speech at the 2025 Peace Picnic – organised by Pōneke Anti-Fascist Coalition. Kia ora, I’m Jasper from the International Socialists. I’d like to talk about what ANZAC Day currently serves as: A day for our colonial state to hide its atrocities in emotional propaganda and outright […]
The Health Crisis, Privatisation Threat and Resistance
Everyone knows that we are in a health funding crisis. We know it because we experience it. Everyone has their horror stories of waiting, waiting, and waiting: for doctor’s appointments, for specialist referrals, for medical procedures. If it was bad under the last Labour government, it is even worse under Christopher Luxon. A key policy […]
