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 […]
The Corruption of Local Government: Plimmerton Farm, Porirua
A whiff of corruption hangs over moves to urbanise Plimmerton Farm, a 384 hectare greenfield property within the Porirua district that has been bought by Plimmerton Development Ltd (PDL). The Porirua City Council and PDL are working together to get the property rezoned under the district plan from rural to an urban zone and pave […]
Student rent strike wins
Victoria University students were right to feel anger. On the Friday evening before the ANZAC long weekend, they received an email informing them that they would now have to resume paying hall fees of $150 a week through Level 3 lockdown for rooms they were not occupying and would not be able to access. This […]
The Rental crisis in Aotearoa
Brandon Johnstone gave this talk to a national meeting of the International Socialists discussing our organisation’s response to the COVID-19 emergency on April 3. In February 2020, before the economic and societal impacts of COVID-19 were truly felt in New Zealand, United Nations Special Rapporteur on housing Leilani Farha referred to the housing situation in […]
Shut it Down! – A social response to COVID-19
Firstly, it has been inspiring to see the messages of solidarity and the networks that have sprung up around the country to support those in isolation. This solidarity is essential at any crisis – but more so now that our society will likely have to shut down, as it already has in many other countries. […]
Inadequate Action against COVID-19: Govt Must Put People before Profit
Around the world capitalist governments (there are no others, unfortunately) have criminally permitted COVID-19 to spread and cause needless deaths. From the political harassment of Li Wenliang by the Chinese Stalinist police state to the present day, governments have behaved appallingly. Why? Because they have sought to limit the impact of responses to COVID-19 on the business of […]
Why Hasn’t Labour Delivered?
On 19 September the Labour Party faces the hurdle of being elected into government for another term of office. Having the advantages of incumbency, re-election should be a cake-walk. One would think that all Labour needs to do is to deliver improvements in the standard of living of the working-class majority to ensure popularity. One […]
