Know Your Class Enemy: Graeme Hart
He is New Zealand’s richest man and yet virtually no-one knows about him. Famously recluse and avoiding media attention, Graeme Hart is New Zealand’s most successful vulture capitalist. He is valued by Forbes magazine last year at $11.6 Billion. Beginning life as a high school dropout and working as a panel beater, Hart’s rags to […]
Socialist Summer Reading – the Best of 2016
We asked writers, activists and intellectuals to offer picks from their reading and watching this year for others over the summer. Laura Toailoa If Moana is the example of the commodification of Pacific cultures by a multibillion dollar multinational conglomerate, then Three Wise Cousins is in contrast, what happens when a Pacific film crew pull […]
Making sense of politics in 2016
Andrew Tait gave this presentation to the International Socialist Organisation Hui-a-tau in Auckland last month. 2016, in New Zealand, has not been marked by major struggles or economic disasters or booms. The Key crew, masters anyway of administering sleeping gas, have managed to avoid major scandals or divisions. On the contrary, one of the worst […]
NZ First – no party for workers
Why does anyone ever discuss NZ First as a part of the centre-left? That fact the question even needs asked shows what a sorry state we’re in. And yet it keeps coming up. The mainstream political commentators routinely speculate on Labour-NZ First deals. But more worrying is the way this association has crept into the […]
Blethering Bishops’s Bigotry Blockaded
Under the second covenant Jesus died for our sins and God would no longer go around smiting people out of wrath until judgement day. Apparently nobody informed Bishop Brian Tamaki of this. His accusations that LGBT people and their sins are responsible for the Kaikōura earthquake has angered many not only in the Queer community […]
Key’s gone – now let’s get rid of National
All aboard for the gravy train. John Key just pulled off another coup, leaving at the top of his popularity (National just polled 47% to Labour’s 27%), forgoing the chance for a fourth term but avoiding any of the unpleasantness usually involved in leadership transitions. In fact, if anything sums up his style, it would be avoiding unpleasantness. […]
Labour wins Mt Roskill – what next?
Michael Wood, The Labour Party Candidate has swept the floor in the local Mt Roskill By-election to replace Phill Goff as the new MP for Mt Roskill. His main opponent the National Party’s Parmjeet Parmar trailed behind with a lower percentage of votes than her previous run against Phil Goff in 2014. Michael Wood received […]
Keeping the Faith – RIP Fidel
Fidel Castro has died. We mourn him from the depth of our hearts; for his victories and for his failings, for the achievements of the Cuban revolution and for its weaknesses but most of all for the achievements of his generation, for our own parents and our grandparents. Fidel Castro “invaded” Cuba, his homeland, in […]
Class struggle – key to liberation
Shomi Yoon gave this talk to the International Socialism Day School, Newtown, Wellington, last month. It seems obvious that we need to understand the world in order to change it. Socialist strategy and tactics for liberation is not only about the downfall of capitalism but also for genuine liberation for all. A Marxist understanding of […]
Against Trump: supporting the resistance
There has been a protest called in Wellington tomorrow in the wake of Trump’s victory. The Facebook event page gives details here. This is important. Leaving aside the more complicated questions about Trump’s victory, what is clear is that Trump’s campaign deployed racism, Islamophobia and the scapegoating of immigrants. It is clear that Trump is […]
