Oil Free Otago is holding a weekend of action and discussion on an oil free future.
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“Want to get some transparency back into politics funding in New Zealand? Tired of electoral funding skullduggery?” Standardista freedom suggests “NZ creates the Electoral Donation Register of New Zealand.”
There is an important debate for both Labour and the Greens to have about the level of cooperation they should display this year. Some commentators have suggested that the Greens will be sidelined and that the battle will be between Labour and National but this is MMP and every vote counts. The goal for progressives has to be to increase the overall left vote.
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There’s a tussle going on as Obama pushes to seal the deal and to limit Congress’s say on TPPA deals. But, Congress would still have more say about the deals than NZ MPs. It’s about democracy & sovereignty. It could slip under the radar over summer.
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The Southland Times devoted the whole of the front page to celebrate Shell’s decision to do some exploratory drilling in the Great South Basin. The best scenario will be that they discover a sizable gas field similar to the one in Taranaki. Then royalties we will get are only 5% of the value of what is sold, almost 40% less than the OECD average AND we will have to pay full commercial rates to have any of it ourselves. The worst case scenario…. Well that is really bad and has no effective cover
Since Edward Snowden leaked proof of widespread NSA spying on US citizens, people have been wondering who exactly they’re spying on. Are they spying on their own government? Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders wanted to know, so he asked them directly. The response was not reassuring.
Perhaps the same question should be put to the GCSB? After all its oversight seems even more incompetent and incestuous than that of the NSA.
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New Zealand was once considered one of the best places on earth to live. It could be again …
Three years ago John Key promised sort of that he could by diplomatic means stop the Japanese hunting of whales in the Southern Ocean. Given recent events it appears that his confidence was misplaced. Because the Japanese are slaughtering whales again in our back yard.
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The Local Government Commission is currently proposing to crush a number of local bodies together into the same kind of mess that the Auckland super city has been suffering. Undemocratic and divorced from anything local because only a wealthy few can consider standing and those few can ignore any local wishes from the token local boards. The only defense that citizens have against the LGC is to force binding poll. Be ready to do so for Northland and Hastings/Napier.
Garth George’s latest newspaper column has a progressive prescription for the abolishing of poverty, some marxist analysis, a heavy criticism of Australian Banks and a conclusion that laissez-faire capitalism has to go. I never thought he was a radical …
In The Matrix Neo discovers that his “reality”, is a virtual world that had kept him from seeing “the desert of the real”. George Monbiot cites research that shows how capitalism is eating itself and its consumers. The marketing con of “the good life” – desert of the real.
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Ah, heard this on weekend radio on radio NZ this afternoon. Perfect satire for the last US election. Beware the zombie apocalypse.
Hopefully our comedians and cartoonists will be equally inventive
The latest report on New Zealand’s performance under the Kyoto Protocol is out and the news is disturbing. Net emissions compared to our 1990 CO2 equivalent emissions are predicted to treble by 2030 at a time where they should be trending to below the 1990 level. And Government policies are shown to be making little difference. Meanwhile a report by Prof Euan Mason advocates that Agriculture should be in the scheme and that with a proper price for ETS credits significant reforestation with attendant benefits could occur. And meanwhile RWNJs continue to show their belligerent lack of understanding of the science of climate change …
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The New York Times has an editorial stating that Edward Snowden should be regarded as a whistleblower who has done the public there and elsewhere a service by revealing the illegal extent of the NSA’s surveillance. What is most interesting in the extremely well linked editorial is that there is this curious hole in the US whistle blower laws that many including Barack Obama have said he could have used. They don’t cover contractors….
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It has been a surprise at just how far the revelations about the GCSB governance have made into the collective conciousness of NZ. Bearing in mind the continuing outpouring from Snowden and other whistleblowers about the US and their allies surveillance efforts on citizens and friendly states, it isn’t going to be a surprise if this winds up being an issue in the election.
Josie Pagani objected to mickysavage’s post objecting to her post at Pundit, and wanted to publish this as a right of reply. That is something that doesn’t exist on this or any blog. After all there is always another site to put content up on. However the ongoing debate going on here about how the left and the labour movement should operate and communicate (from many different angles) makes it of interest.
Celebrity golf! Which one will get voted off the island first!? Meanwhile the world burns, the poor struggle, and the wealth gap continues to be a blight on our country.
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Readers of this site are probably aware that I like reading science fiction. They’d also be aware that we run this site targeted at the general left labour movement of New Zealand. Of course many other people confuse this with the Labour party. In truth it can be distinguished as being more like the late great Iain M Bank’s view of his fictional Culture which he divided up into various Mind/ship behavioural segments. It kind of fits…
😈
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In 2014 the New Zealand Left must have more on its agenda than “win power”. We should want to create a better New Zealand, and doing that is about so much more than economic policy (which is also, obviously, important). It has to touch everything. And it’s going to take people working in different areas on different parts of the plan to make it all happen.
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What would it take to set up and run one or two regular online progressive radio shows? Ones to counter the corporate dominance of politics, news and current events in the MSM, and on TV & radio, including on RNZ.
So Guyon Espiner is the new Morning Report host and Josie Pagani thinks that commentators on the Standard are being mean to her. Guyon’s appointment will provide some interest but Josie should reflect on the cause of criticism of her. Could it be that her beliefs and views are not reflective of the thoughts and views of most progressives and that her use as a representative for these views is failing the need for those views to be represented?
These are the most commented on posts for 2013. They presented an interesting mix, some showed a strong consensus forming while others involved intense and unresolved debate.
