Posts in Politics
1/200 S2E128 - Trust Desserts

Waning trust in media alongside a failure to uphold standards and whitewashed investigations has NZ outlets in a bad spot. We discuss the examples of negative framing for Tamatha Paul’s comments about police, and the direct engagement between media leadership and far-right astro-turf groups. When will NZ political and media leadership pull in line with the electorate and reject the accelerating fascism in the US under Trump?

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PoliticsKyle Church1/200
1/200 S2E127 - The Shenzhen Zone

We start with a school lunch update. The NZ Govt is trying to take back control of the economic narrative with an Infrastructure Summit, amid global trade uncertainty. The UK Labour Party is abolishing 'NHS England' and making life harder for disabled people.

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PoliticsKyle Church1/200
1/200 S2E123 - The Lux Stops Here

The media/pol class are finally admitting that Luxon is not fit for purpose, while his coalition partners go from disaster to disaster, and his own Ministers propose wildly destructive policy. Meanwhile, NZ still isn’t anywhere near close to the speed of decline faced by the US.

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1/200 S2E122 - Destiny Church Terrorism

Last weekend Destiny Church was directed by their leader, Brian Tamaki, to undertake terrorism. They duly complied, storming a library to attack a children’s story event, injuring at least one person and forcing children and caregivers to barricade themselves in a room. We discuss the conditions that led to this and the need for a strong, ongoing response in the face of a political and media climate that, at best, isn’t interested.

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PoliticsKyle Church1/200
1/200 S2E121 - ComPass It On

We discuss the destruction of public services in Education and Health and the purely extractive nature of neoliberal privatisation. We then peer through time (at the current situation in the US) to understand where these decisions by the National Party coalition government are going to end up.

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PoliticsKyle Church1/200
1/200 S2E120 - a = Δ v Δ t

We weigh in on the accelerating fascist destruction of the administrative state in the US and consider how this impacts NZ, possible steps to take, and the way that media and politics here is being set up in a way to clear the path for rabid extraction and decline, particularly via the ACT Party.

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PoliticsKyle Church1/200
1/200 S2E119 - Name and Shame

We talk education and ECE reforms, the issues with Labour alongside the role of unions, and the news about ex ACT Party President Tim Jago having name suppression lifted after 2.5 years, following his convictions for sexually abusing two teenage boys in the 1990s.

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PoliticsKyle Church1/200
1/200 S2E117 - Under the Trump

With Trump’s inauguration so close what did the Biden presidency offer the world and what impacts might we see under a president roundly labelled as an outright fascist? Why are all the political parties in “western democracies” so avidly breaking institutional norms for reactionary reasons?

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PoliticsKyle Church1/200
1/200 S2E113 - Far-right Groundwork

In the final(??) current events episode for the year we discuss the ways in which western politics, especially on the rightwing, is intentionally creating a policy framework to support fascism. We talk education, criminality, the alignment of capital with the far right, and try to think of some high points.

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PoliticsKyle Church1/200
1/200 S2E112 - Wellington Airport Saga

Oliver Neas spent months this year investigating and conducting interviews to reveal what happened behind the scenes before & after the Wellington council debated selling shares in their own airport. We discussed what processes & principles were at play, how the issue connects to local economy governance, and how best to treat these debates in your community.

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PoliticsKyle Church1/200
1/200 S2E111 - PopuListomania

The Commerce Commission gets slightly more aggressive as the supermarket duopoly and government lean into failed, repressive carceral policy. The alleged UHC shooter has been caught -what does this mean for populos? TPM’s vote share looks to be on the rise, Māori continue to be the most likely electoral party for driving change. And the spectre of climate change is becoming a very violent poltergeist.

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PoliticsKyle Church1/200