Author Archive

Joining US military alliance not in our national interest

Written By: - Date published: 1:56 am, April 22nd, 2024 - 23 comments

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark – the safest pair of hands this country has had in living memory – gave a masterclass on the importance of maintaining an independent foreign policy when she spoke at an AUKUS symposium held in Parliament’s old Legislative Chambers on April 18.

On Newshub and economic voice

Written By: - Date published: 1:21 pm, April 14th, 2024 - 16 comments

Nigel Haworth writes on some of the historic implications and strategy of the worker plans for companies in the context of the worker initiated initiatives for allowing Newshub to survive.

Guest Post – I was wrong about rainbows

Written By: - Date published: 11:41 am, April 1st, 2024 - 13 comments

Brian Tamaki, recent victim of self/God?-inflicted burns. Don't be like Brian.

Guest post by Brian Tamaki where he shares his change of thinking about rainbows.

Vale, Magista

Written By: - Date published: 12:37 pm, March 10th, 2024 - 5 comments

Respects to the falling of the Rt Hon Jonathan Hunt.

The apparatus behind the curtain – Part 2: The mainline

Written By: - Date published: 2:40 pm, February 11th, 2024 - 60 comments

In a guest post Seddonville Miner explores links between the Atlas Network and the Taxpayer’s Union.

The Subs and the Next War

Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, February 11th, 2024 - 9 comments

In March 2023, former Australian prime minister Paul Keating attracted significant media attention when he described AUKUS as a manifestation of the United States’s campaign to encircle China with hostile military allies and partners.

A modest proposal on Waitangi day

Written By: - Date published: 1:58 pm, February 5th, 2024 - 32 comments

While the Treaty of Waitangi continues to be battered back and forth, the clear reality is that Maori, after signing the infuriating Treaty, were systematically dispossessed of their land. Any reading of the history of colonial treaties shows that treaties were the primary method of dispossession and were designed to be broken. And invariably they were.

The Apparatus behind the Curtain

Written By: - Date published: 1:54 pm, February 2nd, 2024 - 6 comments

The release from the Public Health Communication Centre Aotearoa around tobacco industry interference was a glimpse behind the curtain into a troubling reality.

John Pilger, RIP

Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, January 2nd, 2024 - 8 comments

A bright star in the firmament of justice has gone out.   One of the greatest journalists of our era has passed away. John Pilger was always on the side of the oppressed.

Why Labour must change course

Written By: - Date published: 8:31 am, December 19th, 2023 - 49 comments

“A Left government with any claim to progressive credentials will focus on three policy areas – first, high-quality, high value production; second, taxation measures to reduce significantly wealth differences; third, strengthened democracy, including industrial democracy beyond collective bargaining. These three are indispensable. A Left politics, which does not build on these three, will founder.”

Nigel Haworth – Back to the Future?

Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, November 27th, 2023 - 22 comments

“Labour should be as focused on production as it is on distribution. Labour’s job is not simply to distribute such resources as accrue to the state; it is to promote production and trade that underpin fairer distribution, but under particular conditions.”

The Holocaust should be a lesson not a template

Written By: - Date published: 10:52 pm, November 11th, 2023 - 19 comments

“Jewish people exterminating men, women and children in a concentration camp is _______.”
How do you finish a sentence like that?

Nigel Haworth on Labour at the crossroads

Written By: - Date published: 6:10 am, November 8th, 2023 - 42 comments

Former Labour Party President Nigel Haworth: “Any decisions about leadership should follow a careful and comprehensive review of, first, the recent campaign, and second, the broader settings in which Labour has chosen to work in recent years”

The lost art of the heckle

Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, October 10th, 2023 - 12 comments

What has happened to the fine art of intelligent heckling?

New Zealand’s climate obligations and National’s climate policy

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, October 7th, 2023 - 18 comments

National plans to renege on our Paris Agreement pledge

Should you be more worried about co-governance or the top 1%?

Written By: - Date published: 1:13 pm, October 3rd, 2023 - 52 comments

To the those voting ACT or NZF or National this year because you are worried about co-governance. I have a secret for you. You have been co-governed by the richest 1% for decades.

Unease Over New Zealand Overtures to US in Pacific

Written By: - Date published: 8:36 pm, September 6th, 2023 - 9 comments

New security-state documents show Wellington aligning its military with the “rules-based international order” while preparing Kiwis for war with key trading partner China, writes Mick Hall.

Self-destructive stupidity, New Zealand style

Written By: - Date published: 5:51 am, August 27th, 2023 - 25 comments

Belief in capricious gods would explain the perplexing habit of governments with intelligent and informed people to embrace policies which are manifestly an example of self-destructive stupidity. Clever people doing stupid things.

Enter the Patriarchy

Written By: - Date published: 9:57 am, May 26th, 2023 - 68 comments

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; send him off to fish and you get a matrilineal society.

NZ history of voting systems in elections

Written By: - Date published: 12:46 pm, May 13th, 2023 - 33 comments

A guest post by Seddonville Miner outlining the history of voting rights in New Zealand and how Christopher Luxon’s recent claims about our voting system are hopelessly incorrect.

About Wayne Brown’s dereliction of duty

Written By: - Date published: 12:42 pm, April 15th, 2023 - 22 comments

Dear journalists, please do not let Mayor Wayne Brown off the hook regarding his appalling dereliction of duty.

How I answered the census ‘gender’ question 

Written By: - Date published: 10:44 am, April 13th, 2023 - 77 comments

Guest Post by Laura López on the complex problems with the “What is your gender?” question in the New Zealand 2023 Census.

Wayne’s budget has nothing to do with saving money

Written By: - Date published: 11:08 am, March 26th, 2023 - 53 comments

We have heard numerous claims from Auckland mayor Wayne Brown and his supporters that the proposed budget is about saving money and getting rid of a nearly $300 million hole. This is a huge disservice to Aucklanders and hugely misleading.

She who channels her inner Monroe

Written By: - Date published: 1:34 pm, March 22nd, 2023 - 138 comments

A Guest Post on the vexed questions posed by Kellie Jay Keen Minshall, her apparent preparedness to ally with religious fundies and right wing extremists, and the predictable calls from sections of the left for her to be banned from entering/speaking in Australia and NZ.

India and Free Trade – finally someone turned the lights on

Written By: - Date published: 12:26 pm, December 19th, 2022 - 16 comments

After nearly 20 years of frustrating ‘Free Trade’ talks between India and New Zealand, the chair of the India New Zealand Business Council (INZBC), Earl Rattray, has acknowledged that “a different approach to the traditional Free Trade Agreements which have served us well in many markets will be needed for India.” Whew. About time.

An appeal to Putin’s Apologists

Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, June 12th, 2022 - 121 comments

Guest with a life of anti-fascist and anti-war activism in their rear-view mirror, alarmingly finds at fifty that they are staring at the green shoots of fascism in their headlights.This is not where any progressive expected to be. But for the left, there is also no discounting fascist action by offering up the reasoning of the aggressor.

Why Sweden is changing its gender transition policy for children and young people

Written By: - Date published: 8:15 am, March 18th, 2022 - 105 comments

In the last couple of weeks, Sweden has joined a small, but growing number of countries that have changed their policies regarding medical gender transition for children.

Down With Farmer Bashing

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, August 13th, 2021 - 126 comments

A Guest Post by DB Brown on how and why regenerative stock grazing matters ecologically, and where best to place our anger about climate change.

RNZ’s Chinese Spies story doesn’t add up

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, July 2nd, 2021 - 47 comments

On Monday, RNZ reported that “Chinese Communist Party spies are infiltrating New Zealand universities”. Our guest poster views this thin and anecdotal ‘investigative’ reporting with deep suspicion. Was any of this activity was reported to the proper authorities. Or is it just the usual paranoia / racist dog-whistling or a paid story?

Hate speech wide-eyed scaremongering

Written By: - Date published: 11:13 am, June 30th, 2021 - 111 comments

A guest post by Clint Smith who has actually analysed the effect of the proposed changes and makes comment on the detail of what is proposed.

Social insurance, a premium not afforded to all.

Written By: - Date published: 12:02 pm, June 20th, 2021 - 59 comments

One of the details announced in the budget was funding to explore a ‘social unemployment insurance’ scheme. This scheme has been pushed by the Council of Trade Unions and Business NZ, which will work with the Government in a newly set-up Tripartite Working Party. When we dig into it though, we realise it is no safety net. It’s a parachute that slows our drop, giving us time, before we hit that real net – down so far below. 

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

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    Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia.   Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
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