ARTICLES
There is a spectre haunting New Zealand media: China. Since the late 2010s, there's been an ever-increasing focus on and bias towards the Chinese government with dredged up allegations of spying, breathless reporting on China's activities in the Pacific, and repeated calls to "turn away from China" from think tank talking heads and war hawks.
Read MoreDoc Edge, New Zealand’s very own Academy Awards qualifying international documentary festival opens next week. After pressure from activists two years ago, the festival removed the Israeli Embassy from its Partners page. Unfortunately, old habits die hard and it has still found space in its 2024 programme for We Will Dance Again, a documentary about the events of 7 October, made to justify Israel’s actions in the months since then.
Read MoreGreed. It is an all-consuming beast, and it is being unleashed by New Zealand’s new Coalition Government to an unprecedented degree.
Read MoreOn Budget Day, while tens of thousands were out protesting the budget and the attacks on Tino Rangatiratanga, I was over the hill, in Bargaining at one of my sites in the Wairarapa, checking my phone during our adjournments for updates on a lesser-known local issue - the council’s discussions about the future of Wellington Airport. By the end of the day, I’d learned that the Wellington City Council had voted 10 to 8 in favour of selling the council’s 34% share in Wellington Airport.
Read MoreWe cannot buy into the Right’s framing, because it is the Right’s frame. If you’ve ever wondered why so many people – sensible, reasonable people – hold true to the idea that the National Party are good sensible fiscal managers and Labour are just tax-and-spend profligates, and therefore The Sacred Economy does better under National than Labour, despite decades of evidence to the contrary, congratulations: you’ve discovered the power of frames.
Read MoreIn which Karyn Taylor-Moore makes a complaint to the head of TVNZ about an interview in which a representative of Palestine was grilled harder over genocide & civilian deaths than the Israeli Ambassador 2 weeks before
Read MoreIn which Karyn Taylor-Moore makes a complaint to the head of NZ's public broadcaster for giving the Israeli Ambassador - 6 months into a genocidal war - free reign to lie, obfuscate and smear the Palestinian people.
Read MoreWhen the ‘toxic debate’ about trans rights is discussed, it’s not just billionaire authors making extremely unpleasant social media posts or local “researchers” claiming “...I feel the kindest thing I can do is to remain sceptical that transitioning is ever a solution or that anyone is actually transgender” which is a very polite way of saying something extremely unpleasant about trans people.
Read MoreOn 5 April 2024, thousands of school children and supporters across the country took to the street to march for climate justice, a free Palestine and te Tiriti. The students spoke with moral clarity, issuing a wero to the adults who are ‘not doing their job'. Rangatahi can see we’re hurtling towards planetary extinction and no one in the halls of power is doing anything about it.
Read MoreIn creating Israel the British were following a policy of divide-and-rule to create an outpost as a way of projecting power into the Arab world and its oilfields. In practical terms British power could only be projected through the maintenance of immanent or actual armed hostility. The success of this strategy, as the baton was passed to the US empire, has caused the region to suffer 100 years of instability and strife while the Palestinians have suffered a long slow genocide of everyday brutality punctuated by massacres and outbreaks of resistance.
Read MoreFour months into my new Covid-based heart problems, I went for a walk and had one drink of alcohol, and the next day was unable to stand up without my heart rate going up to 110 BPM, at one point exceeding 140. This phenomenon is called postural tachycardial syndrome, or POTS, and is pretty common for Long Covid sufferers. I’m writing this from a reclining position, and am not sure when I’ll get up again.
Read MoreIn recent years I’ve become weary of demonstrations; rallies, specifically. Some of the problem is standing around for eight or ten often-repetitive speeches, or the cringe of half-hearted chants. But mostly it’s the feeling that these rallies are not part of a bigger strategy or theory of social change. The rallies are the theory of social change—except they plainly aren’t working.
Read MoreThe year is 2003.
The US President is unbending in his determination to wreak as much destruction as possible upon civilians in the Middle East. People around the world take to the streets to protest the bloodlust of the American military machine but it’s hard to stop when it’s already in motion.
More importantly, though, it’s also the night of Hollywood’s biggest celebration!!!
The revenant of Austerity Britain looms over Aotearoa New Zealand today as the current Government insists that they can cut their way to surplus, provide tax cuts, and promise recovery.
Read MoreThe mask I wear leaves lines cut into my face after I take it off; 12 hours after stepping outside, getting onto a bus, working an 8-hour shift at a daycare, getting some groceries, going home to the one 3 by 4m bedroom where I know I can safely breathe
Read MoreThe film festival has been a highlight of each year since I moved to Te Whānganui-a-Tara well over a decade ago. A love for, and knowledge of, cinema and a respect for audiences underpinned its decisions during this time. This was driven by its programmers and the late, great Bill Gosden who had been Director of the festival for 40 years.
Read MoreI didn’t write this essay because I don’t like Barbie. I wrote this essay because it’s clear many people felt Barbie with almost reverent fanaticism. They didn’t just like Barbie because it was fun to dress up and get drunk with the girls at. They didn’t like Barbie for its design or cinematography or direction. They attached to Barbie as a feminist symbol instead.
Read MoreAs the tide goes out on New Zealand election season after the traditional post-election conference debrief and Hipkins having presented himself for a round of what-me-worry interviews, there’s been a little circuit of right wing discussion in local media about Labour’s loss, praising the Taxpayer’s Union and New Zealand Initiative for consistently putting out press releases, white papers and manipulating media narratives. It’s all out in the open now.
Read MoreIn 2024, the “no ethical consumption under capitalism” argument has extended far beyond the fact that not all of us can easily buy organic carrots. These days it’s trotted out to justify things like buying the Hogwarts Legacy game, despite knowing that J.K. Rowling will use a portion of those funds to torment trans people.
Read MoreConsensus is great. And citizens' assemblies are great. The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand are pretty hot on both.
But I think citizens' assemblies work for very different reasons, and those reasons matter, and shutting down this wilfully apolitical, "we can all get along if we just stop shouting" narrative is important.
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