Socialist Aotearoa

The Socialist Aotearoa "Hero of the People" award this New Year goes to rugby star Sonny Bill Williams,  for his services to Syrian refugees.

Workers Voice December 20- Joe Carolan talks to tertiary union activist Suha Aksoy, percarious worker-blogger Chloe Anne King and socialist campaigner Stephen Hassan  on issues from poverty to pedagogy in Aotearoa today. Also- from Star Wars to Class Wars- do we need a Rebel Alliance?  tertiary union activist Suha Aksoy  percarious worker-blogger Chloe Anne King  socialist campaigner Stephen Hassan

If we want to stop Climate Change, we need to end, not reform, Capitalism. To do that will require a revolution. Today's Global day of action will demonstrate internationalism and people power as an alternative to parliamentary reformism and green capitalism. We stand in solidarity with French anti capitalists who will defy the State of Emergency to bring the movement onto the streets of Paris, against those governments who are destroying our world with War, greed and pollution.  System change, not climate change. -Socialist Aotearoa

FIGHTING FOR MIGRANT WORKERS RIGHTS IN AUCKLAND- Listen to Mexican refugee Diego Compa, Anu Kaloti from the Migrant Workers Association of Aotearoa and Sunny Sehgal , organiser for E tū talking about the exploitation of migrant workers in New Zealand to Joe Carolan on Unite Union's "Workers Voice" radio show.

The shout of ‘Whose streets? Our streets!’ never sounded better than on yesterday’s Hikoi for Homes from Glenn Innes to Orakei. It was a bleak day but even the vicious rain couldn’t dampen spirits or the sense of growing empowerment as hundreds of trade unionists, campaigners, activists and political party members defied a police appeal to ‘stick to the sidewalk’ on the 6km march.  Historic change never came from sticking to the sidewalk; we were there to shout it loud, shout it proud: A home is a basic human right – and we want decent housing now. The march, organised by Child Poverty Action Group, brought together a number of campaigners and activists – among them First Union, Unite Union, Socialist Aoteaora, the Green Party, Labour Party, Auckland Action Against Poverty, Child Poverty Action Group and many other individuals - unified in the aim of securing decent housing, an end to state house sell-offs, and rent control.      While good weather would have meant a larger marc

by Emir Hodzic, artist and social justice activist Being in New Zealand now, while the Middle East burns and Europe is overwhelmed with refugees, is like being on the other side of the planet. Well, New Zealand is actually on the other side of the planet. So far away in fact, that nothing disrupts Prime Minister’s “rebranding” project. Nothing except rugby, that is. Everything is fine and dandy in Godzone. Except, sometimes thousands of “uninformed” and “politically irrelevant” New Zealanders take to the streets in protest of the TPPA free trade agreement, and the unusual secrecy behind it. Unfolding human tragedy does make it to the 6 o’clock news, but it is so far away that it isn’t our problem. Most have accepted the Government’s explanation that we can’t afford to take more refugees, and some have even embraced good old-fashioned racism and bigotry. “All they will do is sit around dreaming of ways to kill us” one concerned Kiwi commented, “What you people need is a boo

  can’t share that picture of the drowned toddler on the beach of Fortress Europe. He was the age of my daughter Aoibheann. But things need to change. The boy’s name was Aylan. He was 3, and came from Kobani. Kobani, where the socialist and feminist grassroots resistance to ISIS is now attacked on the other side by the Western ally, Turkey. I’m an Irishman who moved here from the North of Ireland first in 1999. Our hometown Dundalk took a huge amount of refugees from the Loyalist pogroms in the North of Ireland in the early 1970s. It was the biggest movement of displaced people internally in Europe from the end of World War Two, until the fall of Yugoslavia. We grew up in a town of solidarity, where thousands of people fled for their lives from burning houses and deathsquads, from a regime that shot civil rights protesters dead on the streets. We did it then, we can do it now. Some of these people who talk about “looking after our own”, I’ve never seen marching against priva

By The Coordination of the International Socialist Tendency 1. Europe is facing what has been called its “greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War”. Global levels of displacement due to war and persecution have reached horrific proportions. Some 13.9 million were displaced in 2014 alone. The numbers entering Europe in July were three times higher than a year earlier. The largest source of refugees making the desperate journey to Europe is Syria. Here the civil war that started with the Assad regime’s attempt to crush the uprising that began in 2011 has been exacerbated by the rise of Islamic State. However, this can only be understood in the context of the disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq, led by the US and Britain. This Western-led offensive, the devastation it caused and the attempt of the occupiers to use sectarian forces to stabilise the country paved the way for the sharpening of conflict across the region. Afghanistan, another country invaded an

As an Irish Kiwi, I could never be represented by a flag with that Butcher's Apron in the corner. It flew over Ireland when British imperialism put our people through a Late Victorian Holocaust, a famine genocide where millions died and millions more were dispersed through diaspora. The origins of the Irish community in Aotearoa and Australia spring from that trauma. The Butcher's Apron was flown by State forces that crushed the revolutions of 1798, 1848 and 1916, and flew over my head as we endured the military occupation and repression in the North of Ireland through thirty years of deathsquads , civil rights violations and slaughter some call "Troubles". The flag that makes my heart rise in Aotearoa is the red, white and black of the Tino rangatiratanga of the Maori people, and the red flag of the international working class. The red on both of these flags has a deeper spiritual symbolism than the blood that the Butcher's Apron is soaked in forever. Jo

Erasure of people of colour in a Hollywood feature is nothing new. Nor is the tired practice of casting a cisgender man in the role of a Transgender Female character. Roland Emmerich’s Stonewall movie however takes erasure to new heights. The 1969 stonewall uprising was by all means the turning point for LGBT liberation The stonewall uprising it ‘self was not an Isolated incident but rather another in a series of protest actions in major cities across the United States of America the earliest occurring a decade before stronewall at Coopers Doughnuts in Los Angeles. This was followed by other direct actions throughout the United States most being led by Transgender Women of colour. Its important to realize the class as race distinctions played a huge part in LGBT oppression during this era. Rich Homosexual men tended to suffer under the anti-gay laws in the USA during this time period. Working class Queers suffered far more than the rich and Queer people of Colour faced discriminatio

originally published on the Daily Blog. published here with the permission of the author. Solidarity with and for meat workers more important than ever More than 70% of AFFCO’s meat workers are Maori, in communities where alternative work options are few, where jobs are a scarce and valued commodity, and where loyalties to the industry are strong. The wealth of the Talley family is over $300 million. That’s more than any family needs to meet reasonable life time aspirations. It’s certainly enough to carry great currency in a country where family dynasties influence environmental and employment law. It’s an obscene amount when Talley’s workers face worsening employment conditions under increasing pressure to maximise throughput, long hours in dangerous settings, increasing casualization, real health and safety risks, threatened loss of seniority rights and a stripping away of union protections and voice. But there’s a convergence of both class and racial injustice in the way the Talley

A return to street politics with tppa demos throughout Aotearoa. Thousands of peeople took to the streets of Auckland and many more in other centres throught Aotearoa to protest the tppa. Socialist Aotearoa were out in force at the auckland demo.

 

By any measure, the housing market in Auckland is overheated.  Thousands of Kiwi first home buyers are being forced out by Speculators looking for a way to trade printed  money for physical assets.  New Zealanders are witnessing the effects of the quantitative easing “tsunami” washing up on our shores.  Some see this as an opportunity, a rising tide.  But all tides must eventually turn, and when this one does, the Working Class will watch helplessly as all prospects of ever enjoying housing security will be washed out to sea. Ordinary home owners have to work for their money, and they pay significantly more than the 0% interest rates offered to Wall Street insiders. New Zealand has one of the most open housing markets in the world.  Unlike Greece, Mexico, China and even Australia, where it is difficult for foreigners to buy houses without meeting stringent requirements, foreigners can buy New Zealand residential property over the phone, so long as they are prepared to do a little pap