Water In The Ballot Box
The Government knew this was going to happen. Remember Chris Luxon chiding local government about ‘doing the basics’ and David Seymour’s announcement that ACT are standing candidates in the local elections this year. They knew this was going to happen because they made it happen.
It’s to do with water, and water reforms - both the binned Three Waters/Affordable Water Act and the current Government’s Local Water Done Well reforms.
Read More
The true test of New Zealand’s humanity, does it include us all, or is it only for some?
“Wherever Palestinians have control is barbaric.” These were the words from New Zealand’s Human Rights Commissioner Stephen Rainbow.
During a meeting with Philippa Yasbek from ‘Jewish Voices for Peace’, Rainbow allegedly told her that information from the New Zealand Security Intelligence Services (NZSIS) threat assessment asserted that Muslims were the biggest threat to the Jewish community. More so than white supremacists.
Read More
Teachers don’t have to be amazing people to be paid properly
In the wake of pay equity blockages, a thousand or so people went to Parliament Lawn to protest the new Budget, where women and gender minorities have once again taken the fall for commerce and the army. To make the crowd show appreciation for the suffering workforces, the emcee asked us if we’d ever had an incredible teacher who changed our lives.
Read More
Gaza: “Holocaust” Is the Necessary Word in the Fight for Historical Memory
To put it another way the term “holocaust” is policed by people who want to mystify and confuse historical matters. The outrage of holocaust exceptionalists is based in the same studied ignorance and cry-bullying sentimentality that is used by fascists, racists, misogynists, nativists, transphobes, homophobes and authoritarians.
Read More
RNZ's Gaza Investigation vs Coverage of the Palestinian Red Crescent Massacre
Radio New Zealand gets the tick of approval from an investigation into its Gaza journalism - So let's see how it covered the Palestinian Red Crescent massacre
Read More
The Strange Case of Dr Chippy and Mr Keith: Will Hipkins be the Next Starmer?
NZ Labour are like Lucy in Peanuts repeatedly pulling away the football at the last minute, with the proviso that in this analogy NZ Labour are also Charlie Brown. They believe their own lies more than the electorate does.
Read More
New Zealand still feels the loss of our full employment economy
With “the big squeeze” put on working people, we can see how it is not such a reach that to reduce security in the nation—as represented by the rate of unemployment rising—is to guarantee rising social and personal ills. This will naturally extend to the most extreme social problems, such as suicide. What New Zealanders must confront is how tolerant are we of the degree of precarity that exists in our nation, and if so, are we comfortable with the dark consequences?
Read More
What should NZers know about Brookfield?
This week a coterie of Chrises (PM Luxon, Infrastructure Minister Bishop and presumably Building Minister Penk) will be welcoming some big name investors, pension funds, and construction companies to Auckland to try and flog off some big ticket public-private partnership deals. The $10 billion Northland Expressway is top of the list (although the list is understood to be only four projects).
Read More
Theatre of the Macabre: "Murdered in Cold Blood - The Tragic Fate of the Bibas Family”
The most bizarre thing about this is that everyone - both in Israel and in the West - already knew the Bibas family was dead. As Owen Jones points out in a recent Substack, Hamas announced back in November 2023 that they were killed by an Israeli airstrike and offered to return their bodies but Israel said no. It is now becoming abundantly clear why.
Read More
Chris Hipkins Is a Pathetic Loser
On a political level, Hipkins is a pathetic loser. On a personal level, I hate him.
Read More
Before ‘28
As long as Israel continues to insist on being a majority Jewish state controlling the majority of the former Mandatory Palestine they will be inimical to Palestinians. This has nothing to do with conflict, nor any action of resistance by Palestinian groups. Palestinians are enemies of the state of Israel merely by existing.
Read More
We Need to Talk About the Ceasefire: Part 2 – An Endless Nightmare of Torment
The sooner we mobilise against these acts of “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction”, the fewer people will die. If it is not stopped then ultimately this phase of genocide will take more lives than the Holocaust that has just ended.
Read More
We Need to Talk About the Ceasefire: Part 1 – The Killing Hasn’t Stopped
A ceasefire in Gaza does not mean the end of genocide and it does not mean the end of mass killing. The ceasefire is bringing in a new phase.
Read More
Racism and the Betrayal of Palestinians
While there are many concerns that need to be addressed with PSNA’s campaign, why has the conversation stopped there? Why has the core issue of this campaign been ignored? Namely, that IDF soldiers who have committed war crimes in Gaza have been allowed into New Zealand?
Why has any discussion about Israel, its violations of international law, and the international legal expectations for third party states to hold IDF soldiers accountable not been addressed?
Read More
The Monster Making Machine
The people of Germany during World War II were not a different species than us and we are not immune from the same descent into inhumanity. Monsters are not born, they are made. They are made by a machine. Germany had a monster making machine, and we have our own.
Read More
Domination and Submissions
We gathered, we roared our approval to a series of speakers who denounced the racist Treaty Principles Bill, and then we left. I have done this dozens of times. I want us to hold this beautiful moment of rupture in our minds, that egalitarian discharge of the mighty crowd, as we think about what is to be done. I was moved to write this article because last week, the deadline for public submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill was scheduled to close. So many of us chose to submit that Parliament’s website went down, and the deadline had to be extended.
Read More
A Concerning Merger of the University of Auckland Law and Business Faculties
Students and staff have concerns about the merging of the University of Auckland Faculty of Law and its proposed merger with the Faculties of Business and Economics, including the way in which the consultation process has been communicated and implemented.
Read More
Gaza’s “Safe Zone” is a Concentration Camp
Al-Haq, the oldest and most established Palestinian human rights organisation, released an important report about genocide in Gaza, but it should not be important at all. Everyone should already understand that genocide is an established fact.
Read More
Why did Winnie call the hīkoi "a Māori Party astroturf"?
Just shy of two weeks ago, the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti against the current government’s anti-Māori policies reached parliament after a much longer journey down Te Ika-a-Māui. The media has tried to downplay the number of attendees but I reckon there must have been close to 100,000.
Read More