Panel discussion with Sue Bradford (Left Think Tank), Michael Treen (UNITE Union), Daphne Lawless (Fightback) and Jonathan King (Auckland Action Against Poverty)
Sue Bradford:
Mike Treen:
Daphne Lawless:
Discussion:
Audio: Where To For The Left (AKL event)
August 22, 2015 by
WGTN action tomorrow: No NZ support for war in Iraq or Syria
February 25, 2015 by
Join Peace Action Wellington on Thursday the 26th at 5pm next to the Cenotaph to show our opposition to New Zealand’s support for war in Iraq and Syria.
This is part of Peace Action Wellington’s Lest We Remember campaign opposing the hijacking of ANZAC day to promote yet another war in the Middle East.
As the country gets ready to commemorate the loss of thousands of New Zealand lives 100 years ago at Gallipoli, the government is preparing to commit us to another brutal intervention in Iraq – a war that the American government expects “could last years.”
Today’s government is now discussing a joint ANZAC military force, despite publicly committing itself to no more than a “training team” compared with Australia’s promise to the United States of fighter bombers and a 200-strong elite SAS fighting force.
The NZ Defence Force is training its soldiers for the Middle East combat “just in case.”
Gallipoli was a bloodbath. 131,000 young men were killed.
The US invasion of Iraw in 2003 was a bloodbath, 171,000 were killed, and 30,000 have been killed since America’s withdrawal.
Both wars were avoidable. Both were wrong.
Oppose New Zealand involvement in the current conflict.
WGTN action tomorrow: Let Greece Breathe!
February 22, 2015 by
Germany and the European Union are seeking to throttle Greek democracy, and the movement against austerity.
The recently elected Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) reached a stalemate in negotiations, but all is not lost.
Oppose EU terms everywhere!
Let Greece Breathe!
Monday, 23rd February, 12pm
Greek Embassy (38-42 Waring Taylor St), Wellington
[Facebook event]
Fightback plans for 2015 and beyond
January 30, 2015 by
Fightback members gathered in Akaroa over the weekend of the 23rd-25th of January, to discuss the future direction of the organisation. Although turnout was certainly modest, participants made a number of resolutions which we hope will provide a firm strategic basis for Fightback’s work in the coming period.
Programme
The conference resolved that Fightback is based on a political programme, which is not only a set of goals for social change but a plan of action to bring them around. Fightback seeks alliances with other progressive forces and organisations of the oppressed and working class, to develop and enact this programme. The purpose of Fightback is putting our programme into action in political activism, amending that programme in line with experience, and training its membership in Marxist theory and practice.
As a basis for this work, members passed the following 10 Point Programme:
- Constitutional transformation based on Tino Rangatiratanga, Mana Motuhake and workers power. Tangata whenua and community co-ops to operate as kaitiaki over public resources.
- Secure jobs for all who are ready to work, with a living wage and a shorter working week.
- The benefit system to be replaced with a universal basic income.
- Full rights for migrant workers.
- Opposition to all imperialist intervention and alliances, including New Zealand state’s participation in military occupations and the Five Eyes agreement.
- No revolution without women’s liberation. Full funding for sexual violence prevention and survivor support, free access to all reproductive technologies. For socialist-feminist solutions to the marginalisation of all gender minorities, within the movement and in society.
- For an ecosocialist solution to climate change. End fossil fuel extraction, expand green technology and public transport.
- For freedom of technology and information. Expansion of affordable broadband internet to the whole country. An end to Government spying on our own citizens and on others. End corporate copyright policies in favour of creative commons centred on producers and users.
- Abolish prisons, replace with restorative justice and rehabilitation.
- Free health-care and education at every level, run by those directly affected. In healthcare; remove inequities in accident compensation, move towards health system based on informed consent, opposition to “top-down” efforts to change working people’s behaviour. In education; full public funding for all forms of education and research, enshrining education in te tiriti and te reo.
Recent years have seen an offensive struggle against casualization in previously unorganised sectors such as hospitality, alongside a defensive struggle against casualization in ‘traditional’ union sectors. This accompanies a decline in participation in mass organisations, in a period of neoliberal entrenchment. Fightback passed a basic Union/Workplace Policy as a guideline for members in various sectors of the workforce and union movement.
Alliances
Comrades agreed to initiate a series of broad monthly forums with groups including the ISO, Hobgoblin, MANA, the ‘Left Thinktank’, and other individuals and groups.
Additionally, comrades resolved to initiate a process of debate and discussion with the ISO to test strategic possibilities for organisational unity.
Fightback also recommitted to participating in the MANA movement, as a vehicle for linking the struggles for Maori Sovereignty and socialism. As members of this movement, Fightback committed to developing a Mana Wahine policy and wahine caucuses. Finally, in line with the aim of supporting Maori sovereignty, Fightback committed to sending members to the 175th anniversary of Te Tiriti at Waitangi.
Fightback aims to be a socialist-feminist organisation. In line with this, the conference passed a Safer Spaces policy, as part of an attempt to challenge sexism within the movement. Comrades also resolved to investigate possibilities for a nationwide campaign for consent education in primary, secondary and tertiary education.
Finally, Fightback endorsed Sue Bradford’s proposal for a left-wing think-tank, and committed to a small monthly financial contribution to this project.
Organisation
Online forums offer opportunities for participation aside from weekly branch meetings. Participants amended the membership policy from a requirement to “attend branch meetings” to “work in collaboration with Fightback structures,” alongside agreement with the 10 Point Programme, and minimum dues of a $10 monthly sustaining subscription to the magazine.
Fightback continues to publish a printed magazine, but the bulk of readers engage through the website and social media. Participants resolved to use our social media platforms for more rapid tactical responses, while using the magazine for longer-term analysis. Fightback therefore endorsed a less regular magazine publication schedule, with themed issues including a crowd-funded issue dedicated to women’s writing.
Housing under Neoliberalism
November 1, 2014 by
Joel Cosgrove (Fightback/MANA Poneke).
It is a generally acknowledged political fact that housing is unaffordable. Within the awkward blame shuffling and finger pointing, MANA’s policy of building 10,000 well-built and insulated homes per year until demand for affordable housing was satisfied, was a good policy. The policy called for an expansion of state-housing. Yet the Internet MANA alliance also endorsed renting-to-own, a policy which maintains the need for private home ownership.
The nature of private home ownership
Why do people want to rent-to-own? In part because there is no surety now in state housing tenancies, with the National government revoking the right to lifetime tenancies, and the opposition Labour Party raising barely a whisper of opposition. The current alternatives to private home ownership are the vagaries and insecurity of private renting or the modern, run-down state housing ghettos, the product of budget cutting and under-maintenance by both National and Labour governments over the past thirty years.
The collapse of state housing as a serious alternative to private rentals makes for grim reading. Currently, 3,700 of 68,460 current state houses are empty, with a majority ready to be immediately occupied.
The current situation has its origins in the massive attacks on workers’ conditions that were carried out in the early 90’s. The CTU estimates that if pay rates had kept up with productivity rates, the average wage would be $35.91 per hour as opposed to $28.20 currently, a gap of over 20%.
Alongside attacks on wages and benefits was a massive escalation of house prices and housing-based debt. According to the Reserve Bank, household debt has increased from around 60% of disposable income, to around 144%. Around 97% of that debt is in housing.
To a certain extent, as long as you were able to maintain ownership of a house, you could leverage the increasing value of housing (which is now 75% above its historical value), swimming on debt in the assumption that capital gains from the sale of the house would bring a tidy profit. In Auckland alone, average house prices have risen from $340,000 in 2004 to over $700,000 in 2014. Those with houses have profited mightily. Those without have had to weather continual rent increases.
With average national house prices having risen by over $30,000 in the last year, and average wages by only $1500, the gap between those who own houses and those who don’t is only increasing. The Dominion Post reported in August this year that investors who already own ten properties or more brought two out of every five homes on the market.
That the overwhelming amount of household debt is property-based further demonstrates the divide – those with property have potential access to hundreds of thousands, while those without are left with credit cards, overdrafts and loan sharks.
Stable living standards are increasingly tied to atomised individual asset ownership, as opposed to a collective process of winning wage increases in worksites. This is a departure from the historical period of Fordism, with large industrial worksites, with relatively clear identity, tied in part to collective work.
While speculation on properties increases, and rents increase, rents are (relatively) constrained by wage growth. This leaves a yawning gap between the going price of a property and what can be charged in rent for it.
We live in a country of abysmal housing, with the recent Housing Warrant of Fitness survey finding that 94% failed on at least one of 31 criteria that they were judged across. Criteria included weather-tightness, insulation and ventilation, lighting, heating, condition of appliances and general building safety. Yet the system of housing speculation specifically pushes people to provide the bare minimum to maintain their properties, as the point of houses is not primarily to be lived in, but to appreciate in value and make money for the owner.
Social base of the National Party
There was a lot of (important) talk of the missing million at the most recent election; non-voters uninspired by the options on offer, largely the most poor and marginal. Another million is also important, namely the million who have voted for the National Party over the past three elections.
National is favoured by business; however this is not the whole story. Ninety-seven percent of the 112 chief executives who responded to an NZ Herald ‘Mood of the Boardroom’ 2014 survey indicated support for National leader John Key. However, that only accounts for 108 votes all told.
Debt encumbered home owners, although being rich on paper, are nonetheless in a precarious position – one needs only to look at the sudden fall of Terry Serepisos – and this ties them to the status quo. This is a form of social pacification, binding people to a capitalist hegemony.[1]
Building state houses, until demand for affordable and safe housing is met, would cut at the base of a significant part of New Zealand society. Currently there are over 570,000 homes rented out, according to Statistics NZ. This is a question of billions of dollars in yearly rents and hundreds of billions in speculative value. The National Party allays the anxieties of a middle-class and other property owners operating on a speculative bubble.
Fighting for public housing
In seeking to reverse the upward redistribution of wealth, we call for more and better state houses.
A serious public-housing building programme would make a major difference to the overcrowding and poverty-related illnesses that currently exist within New Zealand. It would also undercut the dependence on speculation as a basis for security.
On one hand, there is something to be said for satisfying people’s desire for security in housing. On the other hand, by upholding private housing, there is a danger that those trying to challenge the situation end up being absorbed into the status quo. We need to be clear about the need for a public, collective solution to the housing crisis.
Whatever private home ownership might have meant in the 70’s, it increasingly serves class stratification. Those with access to property profit from those without.
The human need for shelter plays only a secondary role at best in this dynamic.
[1] ‘Hegemony’ refers to a situation where an oppressive social system is so entrenched that many consent to it, not requiring direct violent coercion.
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