Socialist Aotearoa

AntiCapitalists against Trump- Michael Treen Nadia Filistin Line Lux and Joe Carolan discuss the Trump Presidential victory and what it means for politics in America and elsewhere, on this month's Workers Voice radio show.    http://www.planetaudio.org.nz/workersvoice/player

US Election - How it happened & what it means - 30 November - AKL N 13:07 NZ Fabian Society ​​ NZ Fabian Banner US Election - How it happened & what it means - 30 November We will announce the details very soon but meantime, book this space. We are in the midst of organising a panel of 5- Ngati Paoa - Waka Kotuiti 2 NZ-US Navy & Chilean Death & Destruction Ships & 75th NZ Navy Celebration A local iwi in Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland NZ, Ngati Paoa is currently rehearsing their part on the waters of Tamaki Makaurau, Okahu Bay of their involvement in NZ Navy's 75th year of celebration. A Self proclaimed, leader, Hau Rawiri decided to welcome into the Hauraki Gulf, Waitemata Harbour, the USS Sampson & The Chilean Ship the Esmeralda. The latter ship was used by Augusto Pinochet in his reign of terror he imposed upon the people of Chile in the 1970

Deportation is a word that sends shivers up most ordinary people’s spines. Having invested all they own and can find financially, emotionally and socially, being deported out of a country that they want to make home temporarily or long term is every migrant’s worst night mare. Social stigma attached to deportation is so overpowering that most people fail to consider that the deportees may be innocent and being victimised. The issue of deportation orders being handed out to International Indian students in New Zealand has taken over much of the media and political arena to some extent in the last few months. Hundreds of students mainly from Hyderabad and Punjab are affected by the unfair deportations. Unfair because India based unscrupulous immigration agents acting on students’ behalf submitted fraudulent financial documents as evidence for living expenses to Immigration New Zealand. The agents have been committing this fraud together with corrupt Indian bank officials. The stu

International Indian students facing deportation from New Zealand continue to fight for justice with a protest planned outside a meeting on Monday evening being attended by National MP Dr Parmjeet Parmar and Minister of Finance Bill English. The students and their supporters are particularly incensed at the failure of several National MP’s of Indian ethnic origin who claim to represent the Indian community but have been conspicuously silent on this issue They students say they are victims of unscrupulous India-based immigration agents who have used fake financial documents to get them into the country on student visas. These students had no idea that fake documents were used by their agents. Deporting them for something which they have not done is unfair. The students held a peaceful protest on 3 Sep outside the offices of National Party list MP Dr Parmjeet Parmar. A petition by the name of ‘Justice for Indian Students in NZ’ will be delivered to the Minister of Immigratio

"There is something deeply morally wrong about a small minority in our society making huge profits from non-productive speculation, setting the economy up for a crash, whilst hard working people struggle to keep up with rack renting, never mind never being able to afford their own home," he says. "Unions have had enough of this, and we are going to build a movement to solve this problem like we did in the 1930s."- Joe Carolan, Unite Union. Ben Peterson, Unions Auckland Housing Action Committee Mike Treen, National Director of Unite Union For Sale ? For Living ? Who destroys our dreams ?

Recently around the country, mostly in Auckland, a peaceful protest movement called Park Up For Homes is growing and spreading. Organised by community members in conjunction with Child Poverty Action Group, the protest is about the complete inaction by the government to provide warm, dry, safe and affordable homes for the most venerable in our society. As a result of their inaction more people are homeless and sleeping in cars and many more people having 15+ people living in one 3-bedroom house as private rentals are becoming unaffordable for many. So the general public are coming out in support by sleeping in their cars overnight to show their solidarity for the people who this is a constant sad reality for. Hundreds have turned up at each protest. So far we have seen protest action in Otara, Mangere, Onehunga, Henderson, outside of parliament and protests also being planned for Hamilton and Napier. A few politicians have come out to give a speech and show support. The most

In recent times we have seen a lot of police brutality on a global scale and especially in the US, and then last week we saw similar crimes in New Zealand with two separate incidents within a few days of men being shot by police – one, who was unarmed, died, and the other is in a critical condition.   There seems to be a culture developing among US police that this is a war and that the public are the enemy, especially if you are black and poor. This trend has been continuing for some time now and is steadily getting worse. We have seen many examples of police shooting and killing unarmed black people for no apparent reason and yet we have yet to see a police officer brought t o justice. This year alone police in the US have shot 600 people. It is obvious from the actions of the police that they know they have complete impunity.   As someone who has been on the front line of pickets and protests I have seen this culture developing in NZ. While a lot of police are reasonable pe

Last weekend, we had our first game of Monopoly with the kids in the Carolan household. It was Oisin’s birthday present, and pretty soon both him and his sister Aoibheann were buying up the streets of the old London version, from his cheap 100 pounds fixer upper of the Angel, Islington, to her well appointed exclusive 400 pounds loft in Mayfair. The kids asked what all the green houses and red hotels were for. “Collect all the streets the same colour, and then you can build houses on them to jack the rent up by hundreds of dollars” said Heather. “But that’s not fair, Mum”, said Ois- “houses are for living in. What if we can’t afford it?” Ahhh, that’s my socialist boy! And in a nutshell, that’s why the original Landlord’s Game was invented by socialist Elizabeth Magie . The world is not fair, and Auckland has turned into one big board game of Monopoly, one where everyone does not start equally with fifteen hundred pounds, and the Bank is rigged. The kids are angry- so here’s my propo

The outlawing of Zero Hours Contracts in Aotearoa this April was big news for the Left and union movement abroad, with the result that Unite union activists were invited to speak at conferences and parliaments in Ireland, Britain and the USA last month. Myself, MIke Treen, Alastair Reith and Unite president Victoria Hopgood spoke to a panel in Westminster, where the Jeremy Corbyn led Labour Party is seriously examining our campaign, both industrially and politically, of how we scored this victory. We had a very good meeting with Shadow Chancellor John Mc Donnell, where he outlined an ambitious plan to unionise millions of fast food and zero hour contract workers working with fighting unions and other left wing and socialist activists. In Ireland, I spoke to a cross party committee in the Dail, where TDs and activists from Sinn Fein, the Anti Austerity Alliance and People Before Profit considered how Irish unions could turn to the Left, in the wake of the decimation of Ireland’s

The social welfare of today would be unrecognisable to those who witnessed the birth of what was known as the cradle to the grave. Sadly I was barely out of the cradle when the social welfare of old was consigned to the grave. In its place a welfare system that barely satisfies the loosest definition of the word. A welfare system that’s acts as a brutal tool of capitalist oppression rendering its very existence a contradiction of principle. Today work and Income works to perpetuate poverty encourage debt and intimidate the unemployed in to unsuitable employment. Debt is a curse on the proletariat yet even work and income is in the business of putting low paid workers and the unemployed in to debt a situation that has become necessary as these people can no longer afford basic living costs that WINZ should be covering but for some reason is unable to. In recent years rent has spiralled beyond what the basic benefit can cover. This is compounded by the WINZ department’s unwillingnes

Our biggest city is going through its worst housing crisis since the opening of the first state house in 1937. The dire situation in Auckland is now extending to other urban areas like Tauranga, as was recently reported in media. People are homeless, sleeping on streets, in tents, in cars - and where they do have a roof over their heads, as many as 10-15 can be sharing a three-bedroom home. The working middle-class cannot afford to buy houses as they’re now worth more than 10 times the average annual salary of over $76,000. The people of our country are suffering. So what has caused this? There are a number of contributing factors but the biggest and most important is supply. We now have the lowest amount of social housing per population since 1949. The seeds were sown in the 80s, when the capitalist left (Labour Party) turned its back on the working class, passing its own economic version (Rogernomics) of what the right-wing politicians call neo-liberalism. These reforms paved

Videos By Bharti and Anu Kaloti

In the past few days the Indian media in New Zealand has proudly reported that Pranab Mukherjee will be the first Indian President to visit this country. During his short visit from 30 April to 2 May the President will, among other events, address the students at Auckland University of Technology’s (AUT) Business School and meet with Indian business and community leaders. What does the Indian President’s visit have in common with the title of this article? The same media articles have also reported that 23000 Indian students studied in New Zealand last year alone. While it sounds very impressive for a country like New Zealand to educate and provide skills to international Indian students, we need to unravel the situation to uncover the actual facts. The serial exploitation of Indian students begins long before they set foot on New Zealand soil. The process of course selection, education provider selection and visa applications is mostly conducted through agents in India. The leg