I was seriously disappointed to read a long article from Duncan Greive which discusses and quotes extensively from Sarah McBride's interview with Ezra Klein - one that generated extensive discussion amongst trans communities internationally a full month ago when it aired - and takes a similarly naive, centrist position along the lines of "how can we effectively argue and bargain for our rights while we compromise and allow disinformation campaigns to push the Overton window further right?"

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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).

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On a political level, Hipkins is a pathetic loser. On a personal level, I hate him.

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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.

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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.

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