Business New Zealand at war with the poor

by Don Franks

A just-released Salvation Army-commissioned survey of over 1000 New Zealanders showed 45 per cent of them went without heating last year, due to cost. Doctors’ visits were not made by 44 per cent because they couldn’t afford it. 

Manager for the Salvation Army’s welfare services, Jono Bell, said his first response to the figures was disbelief. 

“But on reflection, I thought, actually the numbers are not too dissimilar from what we are seeing on the frontlines,” Bell said. 

“It’s not just beneficiaries but people in our community who are working are still not making ends meet and are being forced to choose. It is a widespread problem.”  Bell said it was wrong working families were being forced to choose between food, housing and heat. 

“Some of the numbers have serious implications,” he said.

“People can’t heat their homes, so they are getting sick more often, so they have to go to the doctor but can’t afford it.  More medicine is required so they are having to make a choice between medicine and food.  And then there’s the house prices on top of that.”

 In the same week as the Salvation Army survey, an alternative opinion was published in the New Zealand Herald, by one of the economy’s most 

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Remembering the soldiers from our patch

by Don Franks

At the end of our street, there’s a little stone memorial. It was raised in 1920, for local working people whose lives were cut short or ruined by the Great War. The young men from Holloway Road and surrounding streets came from tiny dwellings of two rooms and a scullery. Many of them, no doubt excited at the prospect of overseas adventure, which would have hardly been their lot in peace time.

Wellington City Council’s official description of the monument reads:
“The Mitchelltown War Memorial has artistic value. A four-sided obelisk upon a concrete base with marble plaque, a feature of notable interest is the lemon squeezer hat that decorates all four sides of the memorial. The lemon squeezer hat is a symbol closely affiliated with New Zealand. It was rare for New Zealand World War 1 memorials to feature New Zealand iconography, so in this regard the Mitchelltown memorial is slightly unusual.” 

Auckland protest against the massacres in Gaza

by Daphna Whitmore

Protest in Auckland against the Israeli massacres in Gaza

Around a hundred people gathered today in Auckland to protest the massacres in Gaza. Roger Fowler from Kia Ora Gaza spoke about the appalling conditions in Gaza ‘the world’s largest prison’ and noted the Government has said nothing about the recent killings. Tali Williams from First Union spoke about Israel’s latest attacks on the March of Return protesters. Sid Aksoy recalled as a child in Turkey his family giving refuge to Palestinians.

The war on indigenous schools in the Philippines

Hear Lumad Educators speaking at Auckland University Law School
Wednesday 28 March 2018 at 6pm
Stone Lecture Theatre (room 316) 9 Eden Crescent.

This month the Auckland Philippines Solidarity (APS), has been hosting a speaking tour of three Lumad (Indigenous peoples) educators from Mindanao, Southern Philippines.

Children of South Auckland Clendon Park Primary giving our guests from Mindanao (southern Philippines) a warm Aotearoa welcome.

In June last year Philippine President Duterte, immediately following his State of the Nation Address, and when confronted by thousands of indigenous activists, threatened to have the military bomb the independent indigenous schools that had been established in the ancestral domains of the Lumad tribes (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/26/philippines-duterte-threatens-to-bomb-indigenous-schools).

His threats are not hollow; Mindanao is currently under ‘martial law’ and under the guise of “counterinsurgency” and in the interests of big mining corporations, hundreds of military and para-military attacks against the schools have occurred. The attacks include military encampments within the schools, indiscriminate firing against schools, threats, harassment and intimidation of students and teachers, the destruction and divestment of school property, imprisonment of school leaders and even the killing of students and teachers. Thousands of students have been affected and several schools have been forced to close.

In response, the Lumad communities launched the Save Our Schools (SOS) campaign and gained national recognition after a 

A slap in the face for Israel

by Daphna Whitmore

Ahed Tamimi

On December 15 sixteen year old Ahed Tamimi became the face of Palestinian resistance when videos of her slapping and pushing Israeli soldiers out of her driveway made headlines. Her younger cousin had been shot through the head at close range just a few hours earlier.

In the middle of the night on December 20 Israeli soldiers raided Ahed’s home and detained her. They arrested her mother the following day when she went to the police station to visit Ahed, and also arrested Ahed’s cousin Nour who had pushed the soldiers from the family driveway.

Fifty years of occupation, continual land confiscations, demolition of homes, grabbing of resources, martial law, curfews, checkpoints, abductions, imprisonment without due process, are a horror without end for Palestinians. Lorde’s announcement yesterday that she is cancelling her planned concert in Tel Aviv at the request of the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign is very good news and a sign that the campaign is broadening its support.

Marching for Jacinda

by Don Franks

Wasn’t it cool to see our Kiwi prime minister give that arsehole Trump some cheek when they met in Vietnam last week?

“Nobody marched when I was elected” Jacinda quipped on being introduced to the most marched against US president in recent times.

 Well actually, we may need to be marching in Aotearoa, pretty soon.

On arrival back home, the Prime Minister lost no time showing her true stance towards the Trump administration, stating her policy on joining US led war.

Jacinda Ardern told Patrick Gower on Three’s The Nation on Saturday North Korea is “absolutely a genuine and real threat” and New Zealand is ready to play a role if requested.

All options are being explored by the New Zealand Government, Ms Ardern says, but she made it clear military intervention is a definite option, if it had United Nations support.

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