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Which party are “we” bringing food to, Judith?

Written By: - Date published: 3:10 pm, February 2nd, 2024 - 27 comments

War with China? Or cocktails with the Colonels? I haven’t got the invitations, but I’m a no for both.

ACT’s performative FedFoke virtual signalling

Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, February 1st, 2024 - 11 comments

Take your dirty boots off at the door ya numpties.

Does the Western World really want to starve Palestine?

Written By: - Date published: 3:43 pm, January 30th, 2024 - 17 comments

Western Nations including New Zealand have suspended urgently needed aid for Palestine after revelations that a tiny minority of UNRHA workers may have been involved in Hamas raids and despite the UNHRA taking immediate action to address issues arising.

Economy improves dramatically thanks to Labour

Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, January 27th, 2024 - 26 comments

This week there were two pieces of economic news showing a dramatic improvement credit for which should be given to the last Labour Government.

The Government is planning to cut tobacco excise duty

Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, January 25th, 2024 - 78 comments

Hot on the heels of the Government’s walk back from the previous Government’s smoke free policies is the disclosure that the Government is considering halting increases to excise duties on tobacco. And the Government tried to hide this.

Labour and the Democrats

Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, January 20th, 2024 - 64 comments

Both the US Democrats and NZ Labour need to take hard looks at themselves. Failure is not inevitable. But there is now only one English-speaking centre-left democracy left in the world: that is the state of where we are now. 

Mood of the smokoroom – fearful

Written By: - Date published: 9:11 am, January 18th, 2024 - 53 comments

The Council of Trade Unions has completed its annual survey of workers and the mood is grim.

Dirty Politics 2024?

Written By: - Date published: 12:50 pm, January 11th, 2024 - 89 comments

Some of the usual suspects… how would we know what is really going on?

Darkness Towards Peace

Written By: - Date published: 10:51 am, January 5th, 2024 - 39 comments

Can Israel lose a moral battle in Gaza and yet still win?

The Useful Rich

Written By: - Date published: 9:03 am, December 31st, 2023 - 64 comments

New Zealand’s rich are endlessly fascinating, but as wealth concentrates ever tighter we are poorer.

Repealing the Tax Principles Reporting Act is performative nonsense

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, December 29th, 2023 - 29 comments

National’s 100 days of action is frankly performative nonsense. But it did not include the repeal of the Tax Principles Reporting Act which National smashed through under urgency in the last sitting day of Parliament. What was it trying to hide?

Wanaka Has No Crime

Written By: - Date published: 5:06 pm, December 28th, 2023 - 47 comments

The purpose of everyone in New Zealand is to keep Wanaka pure.

NZ policy is consistent about Russian invasion

Written By: - Date published: 10:18 pm, December 23rd, 2023 - 118 comments

Unlike Mike Smith and other noisy members of the imperialist cohort, I applaud that NZ foreign policy has remained consistent in upholding UN and ICC policies against invasions and forced annexations. Ardern, Hipkins and now Luxon have all said the same thing.Supporting the UN charter has massively reduced war casualties over the last 70 years. Clearly the Russian Federation finds this constraining.

National’s complete indifference to climate change

Written By: - Date published: 9:05 pm, December 18th, 2023 - 18 comments

This is the only possible explanation.  As well as celebrating all things car National has a pathological hatred of cycleways and walkways and public transport.

Who leaked the Fair Pay Cabinet Paper?

Written By: - Date published: 12:39 pm, December 7th, 2023 - 33 comments

My initial impression was that the person who leaked the Fair Pay Cabinet Paper to the media was probably a disgruntled Public Servant but was it?

The inspiring Pope Francis

Written By: - Date published: 5:36 pm, December 6th, 2023 - 18 comments

Pope Francis has been pope for a bit over 10 years. He’s made a difference.

Labour needs to open the military-political front

Written By: - Date published: 10:13 am, December 3rd, 2023 - 28 comments

The new National coalition cares little about defence. Defence is surprisingly a large and under-appreciated strength for Labour.

Just One Term

Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, December 2nd, 2023 - 74 comments

There is every reason to believe National will be chucked out in 2026.

Gangs rejoice as Pseudoephedrine is back

Written By: - Date published: 8:51 am, December 2nd, 2023 - 18 comments

For a Government that hates gangs you would think that they would be more circumspect with policies that may enrich gangs and increase illicit drug use.  But this is exactly what the current Government is planning.

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 Left Do Not Own Maori

Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, November 26th, 2023 - 52 comments

Labour, the Greens and liberal parts of the media have not adjusted to the fact that liberal and Maori are different things.

Highlights quoted out of the National-New Zealand First coalition agreement

Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, November 25th, 2023 - 73 comments

Some of the more unusual policies from the National-New Zealand First coalition agreement.

What Is peace Anyway?

Written By: - Date published: 7:29 am, November 16th, 2023 - 12 comments

We are further away from peace in parts of the world than a decade ago. But pessimism about peace isn’t a foregone conclusion.

Caption contest

Written By: - Date published: 2:28 pm, November 15th, 2023 - 64 comments

Keep it seemly.

Negotiation of chaos

Written By: - Date published: 8:23 am, November 15th, 2023 - 132 comments

So the coalition negotiations are going as well as I thought they would.

Australia just made a high impact treaty with a Pacific Island state that puts a question on New Zealand about climate change

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, November 11th, 2023 - 9 comments

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Tuvalu Prime Minister Kausea Natano have announced a deal whereby Australia is offering permanent residency to Tuvaluans affected by climate change, and a security guarantee that will bind both countries close together.

What will National do about special voting rights?

Written By: - Date published: 10:55 am, November 11th, 2023 - 45 comments

One of the most democratic changes that Labour made to the electoral system was to allow people to enroll and vote on election day. The right hate it.  And may be planning to change it.

Labour’s leadership

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, November 3rd, 2023 - 34 comments

Now that the dust is settling it is time for the Labour Party to think about its future.

The Injustice of Blackball

Written By: - Date published: 8:04 am, November 2nd, 2023 - 14 comments

There is no “just transition” occurring on New Zealand’s west coast and there should be. 

Don’t get angry, get organised

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, October 23rd, 2023 - 87 comments

Labour day is a good day for all progressives to start getting organised for the next three years and working on the election of the next progressive Government.

Politics By The Armful

Written By: - Date published: 11:07 am, October 17th, 2023 - 9 comments

I’m going to show you what a large scale effective political act in a second hand store looked like recently.