Following on from Weka’s post yesterday concerning attacks on the right to protest in the United Kingdom, Australia has also shown a concerning tendency to attack and undermine that most important of rights.
Jordan Williams and the Free Speech Coalition are in the High Court protecting the rights of Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux to express views the details of which Mr Williams does not know.
Australia is responding to New Zealand’s concern at the forced repatriation of New Zealand citizens from Australia who fall foul of the law by dramatically increasing the potential for this to occur.
Everyone knows that getting employers to increase rates of pay and improve conditions of work takes real pressure and the only real way working people can exert pressure, in the unbalanced relationship that exists between individual employees and employers, is by acting together; collectively. And that’s what we’ve been doing week in, week out and getting real results.
Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, has permanently suspended the legislative proposal to enable extradition of Hong Kong people to among other places mainland China.
Australian Federal Police chief Neil Gaughan told media after raiding the ABC that “if police did not investigate the leaking of classified information, Australia would no longer be entrusted by FiveEyes partners with intelligence that saves lives.” FiveEyes didn’t save Muslim lives in Christchurch.
National has engaged in the most crass form of beneficiary bashing in opposing Government changes to the benefit system announced in the budget and passed under urgency.
Silencing dissonant voices only leads to more and stronger dissonant voices and further radicalisation.
Jacinda Ardern has shown over the past week that she is one of the country’s best leaders.
Stuff has reported that its opponent, the New Zealand Herald, has via its Chinese version amended stories to make them more acceptable to the Chinese Government.
* not a real union.
Welcome to TS’s Sunday think piece. It’s a blank sheet, a tabula rasa, waiting for your thoughts on the future and How To Get There.
There will be vigils for murdered tourist Grace Millane over the next few days. The grief we have shown over her death reflects the best of NZ. However, the routine violence inflicted on so many other women and children here in Aotearoa is our real shame. What are Kiwi men going to do about it?
Labour MP Louisa Wall has written an opinion piece in response to Herald columnist Rachel Stewart’s attack earlier in the week on the trans community and their LGBTIQ+ allies. It’s very good.
UPDATE: Rachel Stewart, as predicted, has blocked me on twitter. But not before going full on racist.
A guest post by Joel Walsham on the decision of the Auckland Pride Board to request the police not to march at the Pride parade in uniform.
A number of prominent academics and researchers have signed an open letter to Jacinda Ardern urging her to take the allegations of Chinese involvement in crimes against Professor Anne Marie Brady seriously and to make a clear statement in defence of academic freedom in New Zealand.
More than that, it needs to be torn down before it makes a serious bid at flight.
New Zealand First at its conference on the weekend passed a remit to calling for immigrants and refugees to “respect New Zealand values” which are founded on Christianity.
It seems that for some, trashing out the lives of ordinary people is fine, because “Russia bad”. It’s not fine…
Forward In 2016 I wrote the below dissertation as part of my History Honours degree at Victoria University. This dissertation explores the 1950s […]
Unite Union’s Mike Treen has been arrested in International waters by Israeli forces for being part of a flotilla that wanted to deliver medical supplies to Gaza.
The Government is getting ready to battle the most rapacious economic force in this country, real estate capitalism, for the good of people.
Earlier this year the United Nations expressed shock and concern at New Zealand’s rates of child poverty, homelessness, incarceration and violence. What is this Government doing to address these issues?
Something beginning with…wtf?!
It’s a principle.
The Free Speech coalition, formed to protect freedom of speech for the far right, has amongst its members some whose views on what freedom of speech actually is are unusual.
A Warkworth cake maker has refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple. The situation raises the question should she be allowed to discriminate against others on the grounds that she is exercising her rights of religious belief.
Far right journalist Lauren Southern wants to come to New Zealand to give a speech which will no doubt insult various communities. Should we let her in?
The United States Supreme Court decision to upheld Trump’s travel ban is but the latest example of bad news for international human rights we have had over recent times.
A data modelling programme that includes race and ethnicity as factors for consideration is a bad idea.
Partial transcript of a speech as reported in “The Independent”
It is predicted that today Parliament will pass a law allowing for the expunging of convictions of adults for engaging in homosexual behaviour.
The past week has seen the Herald focus on issues concerning Clare Curran to the almost exclusion of anything else, including the perilous state of our Health system and Kim Dotcom’s successful appeal against the last Government’s breach of his rights of privacy.
“I will apologise to the people of Parihaka who are here, while I do recount some of the important history that they have heard and know and live and breathed, but that still today, too many in our country are not aware of and are not familiar with and so I seek to put it on record in the House as part of my contribution.”
A good start from Labour on rent reforms, but will their bigger plans be enough?
“The Health Select Committee is about to consider the government’s changes to medicinal cannabis law. This is your chance to tell politicians they have not gone far enough.”
The Greens have a handy online submission form that you can send as is or add your own thoughts. Submissions close on Wednesday.
