A for alienation

For A ko te Alienation in Te Reo Māori Consider the basic building blocks of society. Among the most fundamental of these is how we make and distribute the things that we need and want. The things you need in order to do this (the land, the tools, the resources) are called the means of […]

A E I O U: Hei hanga ao mo te kaimahi ABCs of Socialism

Nau mai, whakatau mai e te ti, e te ta ki ngā taihuringa āhuatanga  o te wā, Ā, ki te punipuni korero nei o A E I O U: Hei Hanga Ao mo te Kai Mahi. Welcome to The ABCs of Socialism, a series of short introductions to key socialist concepts for would-be world-changers. A […]

C mo te Capital

— Pānui C is for Capital ki te reo Ingarihi Nau mai, whakatau mai e te tī, e te tā ki ngā taihuringa āhuatanga o te wā, ā, ki te puna kōrero nei o A E I O U: Hei Hanga Ao mo te Kai Mahi. I ngā pānui e rua kua pahure, kua whakataki […]

The Struggle at Shelly Bay and Memories for Future Fights

Shelly Bay, Miramar Peninsular, Wellington City: a land occupation is heating up. Last Wednesday, a call for support went out; on Thursday, developers stood off against a line of protestors. Arrests have been threatened, but the cops have held off while numbers are strong. What’s it all about? The management of assets from a treaty […]

Shelly Bay Update – 9th November, 2021

Mau Whenua - no sale

On Monday morning 8th November 2021, news website Stuff reported Motu Kairangi Shelly Bay occupiers were served with an eviction notice from Shelly Bay Taikuru by Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust (PNBST) chief executive Lee Hunter, PNBST chair Holden Hohaia, and development manager Earl Hope-Pearson. The eviction notice apparently stated Shelly Bay Taikuru had exclusive […]

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 […]

A review of Tina Ngata’s Kia Mau: Resisting Colonial Fictions

Tina Ngata of Ngāti Porou has recently published Kia Mau: Resisting Colonial Fictions. At the launch of this book on 28th November 2019, Tina Ngata described how she had started with a blog called The Non-plastic Māori, exploring “the experience of living for a year without purchasing any new plastics”, which quickly developed to explore […]

Land is the Price: colonialism then…and now

Throughout history capitalists has searched the world for profitable exploitation. To create a paradise for capital, lands were sought, claimed and the people that lived there forced off their communal property. Those commoners then became the pool of labour that the industrial revolution was built on. From the enclosing of the commons in Britain to […]

Ihumātao: a Struggle for Justice

The fight for land rights in Aotearoa is the essential question for radical social change for both mana whenua and tau iwi. To resolve this question requires challenging some of the most fundamental aspects of capitalism in New Zealand – the rule of private property. Property held purely for profit, for factories, for land farming […]

State ‘care’ and stolen generations

“Oranga Tamariki told me I had five minutes to say goodbye to my baby and then they were going to take it… I hung onto my baby but I was worried they were going to hurt me and the baby.” These are the words of a young mother who in May resisted multiple attempts by […]