Labour: Stop Pretending and Actually Fund Tertiary Education!
Aotearoa’s universities are under threat. In October 2022, Auckland University of Technology (AUT) vice-chancellor Damon Salesa announced an intent to cut 170 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) staff across a range of academic areas (Morton, 2022). 90 staff accepted voluntary redundancy before AUT was knocked back by the Employment Relations Authority, forcing the university to commence […]
Education in Crisis
Photo Credit: John Tregonning Introduction After 30 years of neoliberal cuts and running education like a business, the chickens have come home to roost. Secondary and tertiary students are looking around wondering whether their courses will be offered next year, or whether they will have a teacher or lecturer in front of their classroom or […]
$355 Million for Tertiary Sector Reappropriated
Lower enrolment rates saw money syphoned away from unis The below article was originally published in University of Otago student magazine ‘Critic Te Arohi’ and is republished here with permission. Otago Uni Associate Professor Brian Roper claims that $355 million budgeted towards tertiary education is going unspent. This is enough money to bail out Otago, […]
Students Against Cuts – Statement of Support
A statement from the Victoria University International Socialist Club, the VUW club of the International Socialist Organisation. This week the Victoria University International Socialist Club has come together with other student groups to help launch the campaign group Students Against Staff Cuts (SAC). The Labour government needs to fund universities adequately. These institutions are not […]
Labour and National Agree on Neoliberal Housing Plan
In a nauseating spectacle on 19 October Labour’s Megan Woods and David Parker went on air with National’s Judith Collins to announce their cross-party agreement on a change in the law to allow higher-density building development without the need for a consent process. The fact that National are a partner in the Resource Management (Enabling […]
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 […]
Labour’s 23 March Housing Announcement
The housing crisis is without doubt the most grievous of Labour’s failings. Super-inflated rents and mortgages are claiming ever greater portions of incomes. Inequality is worsened as workers are bled dry by landlords and the banks. Every day the media carry news items on the crisis. To deflect responsibility falling on her government, Ardern claims […]
The Resource Management Act Is No Good, but Beware its Replacement
If you were to only listen to the media pundits, the National and Act party spokespeople, and the various heads in the property development sector, you would be forgiven for thinking that the Resource Management Act 1991, or RMA for short, was drafted by Satan himself. At the very least it seems to be universally […]
Private Tenants Held to Ransom by Landlords
Over the years of the ever-present housing crisis the amount of people renting in the private sector has grown. One in three Kiwis now rent, and they are renting for longer and having to pay out more of their income as well. Despite this, our tenancy laws are still heavily based on a time in […]
Renters United making its mark
A sharp, clear demonstration by Renters United in Wellington over the weekend injected some much-needed class demands into the election campaign. Renters United focus on the one-sided class war that’s been waged over the last decade or more not in our workplaces, but in our homes: rent out of control; power tipped massively to landlords […]
