The "leftist activist" who spent a decade working undercover for New Zealand police and intelligence
Transcript: 1/200 S2E149 - Sport NZ and Transgender Inclusion
This episode of 1/200 was recorded on July 26 released on July 27 2025
I was seriously disappointed to read a long article from Duncan Greive which discusses and quotes extensively from Sarah McBride's interview with Ezra Klein - one that generated extensive discussion amongst trans communities internationally a full month ago when it aired - and takes a similarly naive, centrist position along the lines of "how can we effectively argue and bargain for our rights while we compromise and allow disinformation campaigns to push the Overton window further right?"
The Government knew this was going to happen. Remember Chris Luxon chiding local government about ‘doing the basics’ and David Seymour’s announcement that ACT are standing candidates in the local elections this year. They knew this was going to happen because they made it happen.
It’s to do with water, and water reforms - both the binned Three Waters/Affordable Water Act and the current Government’s Local Water Done Well reforms.
“Wherever Palestinians have control is barbaric.” These were the words from New Zealand’s Human Rights Commissioner Stephen Rainbow.
During a meeting with Philippa Yasbek from ‘Jewish Voices for Peace’, Rainbow allegedly told her that information from the New Zealand Security Intelligence Services (NZSIS) threat assessment asserted that Muslims were the biggest threat to the Jewish community. More so than white supremacists.
In the wake of pay equity blockages, a thousand or so people went to Parliament Lawn to protest the new Budget, where women and gender minorities have once again taken the fall for commerce and the army. To make the crowd show appreciation for the suffering workforces, the emcee asked us if we’d ever had an incredible teacher who changed our lives.
To put it another way the term “holocaust” is policed by people who want to mystify and confuse historical matters. The outrage of holocaust exceptionalists is based in the same studied ignorance and cry-bullying sentimentality that is used by fascists, racists, misogynists, nativists, transphobes, homophobes and authoritarians.
As the Omicron wave wanes worldwide, countries have been quick to declare COVID-19 officially endemic- the pandemic we are told is over.
In the 53 years since the term entered the lexicon, the social terrain of politics has radically changed. The median voter today is very different from the median voter of 1969.
As we settle into the current Red Light setting and as the cases of Omicron climb each day, the hospitality sector in Auckland has had its life support switched off.
The centre-left will fail to deliver for working-class people if it doesn't embrace universal basic services. We can only tackle the housing, inflation and inequality crises by decommodifying and guaranteeing the essentials of life for all.
Here are the ways working-class people fought back in 2021. There are many examples, I've only picked my favourites; the thing about something like a global pandemic is it exposes how the system works and whose labour makes the world go round
I think it is fair to say that 2021, like 2020, was an awful year globally, and sadly there is no reason to believe that 2022 will be any better.
Fair Pay Agreements (FPAs) offer Labour the chance to live up to their promise of being a transformational government. It is vital they forge ahead with FPAs in spite of bad faith criticism from the right and business interests.
Listening to Christopher Luxon’s maiden speech I got the impression I had somehow discovered time travel. It appeared I had managed to go back to the halcyon days of 2007. This 2007 was very similar to the one I remembered, it was a period of business as usual.
A Common sensibility is something we’ve been thinking about since a couple years back when a group of us in the left media space met to discuss communication and direction of the broader left project.
New Zealand's success at eliminating COVID in 2020 saw the Sixth Labour government receive international praise and fanfare. In the early stages of the pandemic, our small island nation demonstrated the virtues of evidence-based governance and of listening to the science on issues.
Western media continues to be complicit even as Israeli atrocities get slightly more coverage. In NZ more details come out about the FBI office - who is leading the country when security details are actively hidden from the PM? And there are serious questions to be asked about what’s happening at the Reserve Bank.
This week we discussed austerity and attacks on the public sector. This government has declared war on teachers and healthcare workers, alongside renters, young people and the working class in general. Now even the big business community is noticing. On top of that, establishment media is isolating issues and blaming young people for not having enough kids.
We speak with Mardi O’Connor about her time working with ISM as a ‘protective presence’ in Masafer Yatta, the West Bank.
Greens coleader Chlöe Swarbrick was kicked out of the house this week for speaking against the genocide in Gaza. Meanwhile NZ media aligns itself against teachers and healthcare workers to support the lies of the National coalition government in increasingly overt ways.
Uh oh! The dads are away and the children will play! A heavily edited version of 1/200 for you this weekend (at least 293 libelous bits cut) that covers this weeks current events from NCEA changes to a brief stint on Tim Jago reporting, or lack thereof
Voter Suppression, RNZ failing to report on genocide and the FBI have popped their horrid little head up in NZ’s Parliament. Things aren’t looking good as NZ’s right-wing government hurtles towards overt vassal status.
Climate Action Aotearoa are currently leading a direct action in Denniston Plateau on the west coast of the South Island where two activists are stopping the mining operation by literally putting their bodies on the line - they are dangling on coal buckets above the pristine forests of the West Coast. We speak with Rosemary Penwarden about what’s happening.
We host Jen Shields and Alice Soper to discuss the sudden Ministerial direction to Sport NZ to remove transgender inclusion guidelines. We discuss the impact of this for trans people against a media backdrop that has failed to either adequately challenge anti-trans proponents or platform experts.
Local Govt NZ had their conference and it's becoming clear that central government only likes local democracy when it's convenient. Cost of living and homelessness increases for everyone except the elite. The Epstein and McSkimming cases in the news prompt a discussion about power, broader political risks and perverse incentives in a hierarchy.
We discuss the filthiness of right-wing discourse and strategy, particularly the latest targeting and smears by Ray Chung in Wellington. The ACT Party is moving openly further right, pulling NZ pol along with the aid of media. And across the West the “centre left” parties continue to accelerate rightwards themselves, could new parties and messaging ameliorate this?
