ARTICLES
Roger Douglas, the most revolutionary Finance Minister in the postwar history of Aotearoa, knew how to change more in three years than most governments do in three terms. Rogernomics transformed the structure of our economy with dizzying speed, from protectionist welfare state to neoliberal free market.
Read MoreThis whiplash is being felt by activists across Aotearoa, some of whom have spent years and others decades fighting for climate action, workers’ rights, livable incomes for all, access to decent housing, and for Te Tiriti o Waitangi to be honoured. Campaigners spent years organising and marching for a fair and sustainable future, were given crumbs by the last Labour Government, and are now watching aghast as the new government tears up the minimal progress that was made in the previous six years whilst advancing their own right-wing agenda at a breakneck speed.
Read MoreMany people reacted to the ICC’s prosecutor’s application for warrants for 2 Israeli and 3 Hamas officials as some sort of triumph, a signal moment for the growing pressure to hold Israeli leaders accountable, but it is not. People for whom I normally have utmost respect are steadfastly ignoring the ICC’s record and refusing to think through the actual ramifications of these charges. A simplistic, even childish, authoritarianism seems to grip them, leading them to the delusion that some stern authority figure will get the baddies and make everything right. Even the admirable Francesca Albanese asserted that this is a “watershed”. It is not a watershed, nor is it simply an empty gesture, it is a disaster in the making.
Read MoreWay back in early April of this year we had a rally for Palestine here in Christchurch which had as its theme the phrase ‘Unmute Gaza’.
There were three speakers that day and each of them – in their own different way - spoke of how Palestinians, and the Palestinian cause, have been silenced for over 100 years and how lethal that silencing has been for the Palestinian people.
Read MoreIt's a wild worldview that doesn't have any internal coherence (but remember, that doesn't matter any more - the incoherence is a strength) that has really come to the forefront this week as the world watched Imane Khelif in the boxing at the Olympics. Well, some of the world watched, and then people who have never watched women's sport once in their life decided it was suddenly incredibly important to make their views known.
Read MoreIn 2004, over twenty thousand people marched from the tip of Te Tai Tokerau to Parliament in protest of the Labour government’s decision to extinguish Māori customary property in the foreshore and seabed. Tariana Turei crossed the floor in response, forming Te Pāti Māori, which toppled the Labour government in the next election. Twenty years later, the National government wants to steal the foreshore from Māori again.
Read MoreIn 2024, centrist politicians attempting to uphold the status quo are like the light of stars which have already been extinguished. Support for their system is already dead. They just don’t know it yet.
Read MoreThere 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!!!
