class war
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When an “accord” is not
Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, May 17th, 2013 - 130 comments
Yesterday’s budget is a sop to affordable housing & aims to privatise state housing. Penny Hulse says the government’s related “housing accord” Bill is at odds with the agreement her council has not yet ratified. It overrides local democracy & endangers the AKL “agreement”. [Update] Waitakere News analysis
A banquet for the elite, crumbs for the poor
Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, May 16th, 2013 - 26 comments
“When National is not selling something like Mighty River Power, it is busy selling out to the likes of SkyCity” – John Armstrong. He could have added ‘or defending the elite’s rentier profits’. To fudge the fact that National works for the elite, there”ll be crumbs for the poor in this budget. Something’s better than nothing but, unless it matches the $2b tax cuts for the rich, it’s just window-dressing.
The budget’s flawed premise
Written By: - Date published: 1:02 pm, May 15th, 2013 - 27 comments
The whole austerity driven focus of the budget and National’s economic policy is based on a premise which is in turn based on a spreadsheet error.
What’s done can be undone
Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, May 13th, 2013 - 220 comments
SkyCity will get more pokies and cashless gambling in return for building the convention centre that it always wanted to build. (…excuse me, I’m just trying not to puke watching Len Brown on Breakfast as he shrugs off the problem gambling increase from this deal…) The convention centre will be a white elephant. SkyCity should know that what’s done can be undone.
Update: Anyone buying in to the Nats’ “Labour did it too” line should read Russell Brown’s demolition of that lie.
The cost of our clothes
Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, May 9th, 2013 - 23 comments
Big Western retailers provide us with relatively cheap clothing, through paying low wages in countries where industrial health and safety is poorly regulated. Last month a big garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed, killing over 700 800 people. Ultimately we are all damaged by the profiteering of the elites.
Because things aren’t quite tough enough
Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, May 9th, 2013 - 24 comments
Because things aren’t quite tough enough for first-time home buyers yet.
We’re leaving & we’re taking the dams
Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, May 7th, 2013 - 18 comments
Following the Labour and Greens’ rejection of their demand that the parties drop their NZ Power policy to lower power prices, the business elite has announced capital flight. ‘If Origin Energy loses its rentier profits, who’s next? said Phil O’Reilly, close to tears, ‘The banks? The Telecoms duopoly? The petrol companies?* The construction materials oligopoly? The ports and airports?
John Key’s NZ: the nasty side of the “brighter future”
Written By: - Date published: 8:25 am, May 5th, 2013 - 45 comments
John Key promised a “brighter future” – “wave good-bye to higher taxes not your loved ones”; a higher standard of his MPs, and honesty for the PM. John Key’s NZ is actually one of callous entitlement of the elite, and dis-entitlement and Struggle Street for battling Kiwis.
It’s all in the “game”
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, May 4th, 2013 - 192 comments
Supporters of the sale of the powercos, portray the Labour-Green NZ Power policy in terms of political strategy and game-play. They focus on the “market”, risk, profits & “fat cat hatred”. They avoid dealing with the guts of the issue: fuel poverty, income inequality & damaged lives.
Political vision?
Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, May 3rd, 2013 - 61 comments
Today’s NZ Herald editorial on Auckland’s up-coming mayoral election campaign, says Brown has vision, but Minto and Williamson lack it. What sort of vision should the left provide in the up-coming local authority elections around NZ, and in NZ’s parliamentary elections in 2014?
The NZ Herald – advancing Auckland backwards
Written By: - Date published: 10:52 am, May 1st, 2013 - 32 comments
To the Herald the Fourth Estate must be a greenfield development on the outer margins of Auckland: a Dickensian space, hiding the poor from the upper middle-classes. The Herald lacks critical balance & equal weighting for diverse views: it scaremongers about the Akl Unitary Plan & undermines public transport.
Happy International Workers’ Day – have a pay cut
Written By: - Date published: 7:58 am, May 1st, 2013 - 64 comments
The Nats have chosen International Workers’ Day as the day that legislation allowing employers to slash youth wages takes effect. According to the Same Work Same Pay campaign “Youth rates failed to create jobs in 1990 when youth unemployment reached an all time high” and “the burden of the Government’s failure to drive job growth is now being put on young people”. Protest action is planned.
NRT: National hates families
Written By: - Date published: 2:48 pm, April 29th, 2013 - 26 comments
I/S at No Right Turn on the Nats’ excuses and choices as they oppose the extension of paid parental leave.
It’s not us: it’s the big banks
Written By: - Date published: 10:01 am, April 29th, 2013 - 31 comments
MSM articles show the big Aussie banks are making record profits, Kiwis can save, and Adam Smith worshiping think tanks are not to be trusted. Cunliffe & Norman said it a while back – NAct policies and government spending cuts are not the answer.
Reminder: Day of Action Sat 27 April
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, April 27th, 2013 - 123 comments
Aotearoa is Not for Sale is counting down to the National Day of Action this Saturday 27 April. Now is the time to support NZ (People) Power & say there are alternatives. Get your banners & placards ready, polish up your chants and slogans, and get ready to make some noise. [Update: added poster][Updated posting time to move it to the top today] Update – AKL photos]
NZ dis-empower
Written By: - Date published: 8:39 am, April 27th, 2013 - 42 comments
A year ago the nats announced massive changes to employment law. And then they went quiet.
Now with a new Minister of Labour they’ve decided it’s time to move.
We would love to see wages drop
Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, April 27th, 2013 - 5 comments
Key said “we would love to see wages drop”. Sure enough National’s anti-worker employment Bill is designed to have that effect, as stated in a Cabinet briefing paper.
Monbiot on our misplaced faith in “the market”
Written By: - Date published: 11:22 am, April 25th, 2013 - 23 comments
Relevant in so many ways to current events in NZ, here are extracts from an excellent article by George Monbiot. Read the full piece in The Guardian or at monbiot.com.
Fletcher-Key meetings: networks of influence
Written By: - Date published: 8:23 am, April 24th, 2013 - 90 comments
There were a number of meetings between Key and Ian Fletcher prior to Fletcher’s appointment as GCSB boss. Key tried to cover up his cronyism, and preoccupation with undemocratic shifts in the government’s control of the GCSB, and its focus on intellectual property & commerce.
Economic sabotage
Written By: - Date published: 12:54 pm, April 23rd, 2013 - 185 comments
Which is really the party of “economic sabotage”?
Loss of wealth? No, a redistribution of wealth
Written By: - Date published: 8:50 am, April 23rd, 2013 - 29 comments
Eddie explored yesterday who stands to lose from falling asset values in electricity companies resulting from lower power prices. The answer: the Crown and foreign investors. Now, JBWere has estimated those book value losses at up tp $1.4b for Contact and Trustpower, meaning $4b all up. But, despite the cries from the Right, that doesn’t mean wealth is being lost, it’s moving.
Meanwhile, in the real world…
Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, April 23rd, 2013 - 27 comments
So, John Key, Bill English, and Steven Joyce are now devoting all their energy into trying to stop the asset sales programme collapsing after the Greens and Labour gave notice the excessive profits are going to end, and National confirmed they’re for real by suspending the sale. While the government’s wasting its effort on that, real families are suffering.
National Day of Action vs Asset Sales: Sat 27 April
Written By: - Date published: 12:31 pm, April 22nd, 2013 - 18 comments
Aotearoa is Not for Sale is counting down to the National Day of Action this Saturday 27 April. Some people have explained why they will be joining the Day of Action on Saturday. Why do you support action against asset sales? What are the alternatives? [Updated: details of actions around NZ]
Nats still at panic-stations over NZ Power
Written By: - Date published: 8:29 am, April 22nd, 2013 - 16 comments
Can there be a greater sign of the threat that National sees in NZ Power than the fact they have put out 5 press releases condemning it in 4 days? I bet Key spends his Monday media round attacking it too. National knows they’re on to a hiding – they’re defending excessive profits over lower power prices for people. But they’re ideological bound to reject the solution.
Poverty Watch – Special edition on fuel poverty
Written By: - Date published: 7:06 am, April 20th, 2013 - 6 comments
Given the drama surrounding the Labour / Green electricity policy it seems appropriate for this week’s Poverty Watch to explore the topic of fuel poverty in NZ. It’s a killer, and it’s long past time that something was done.
The disconnected: the future of the left?
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, April 18th, 2013 - 42 comments
The current direction of Key’s government, and the challenging circumstances of the 21st century create a need for urgent attention to the form of a new left politics; one that embraces the working class, trade union solidarity, gender, diversity & the emerging “precariat”.
Tough on tax cheats?
Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, April 18th, 2013 - 51 comments
This government is tough on welfare cheats and soft on tax cheats, and they shouldn’t bother trying to pretend otherwise.
Telecom’s little dictator
Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, April 16th, 2013 - 23 comments
Telecom’s $1.3 million a year CEO has announced a pay freeze. Says workers who don’t like it should quit. The rich fuck’s already sacked a thousand workers, now he thinks he can dictate the terms of employment contracts. I’ve got news for you, arsehole. Employment contracts are bargains between worker and employer, not diktats from rich dickheads.
GCSB changes – outrageous anti-democratic
Written By: - Date published: 6:13 pm, April 15th, 2013 - 42 comments
Key has announced changes to the GCSB roles that will include assisting business and the police in spying against Kiwis. it is anti-democratic, and will increase lack of accountability of the intelligence and crime fighting services.
Defence Force Members Are Workers Too
Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, April 14th, 2013 - 84 comments
The Court Martial of Flight Lieutenant Dan Pezaro by the NZ Defence Force is making me uneasy. The internal Court of Inquiry into this accident hinted at major disfunction within the upper reaches of the Forces in terms of health and safety. On my reading of that report, the RNZAF itself could be liable in […]
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