by Ian Anderson

In its initial workshop run, Goldilocks and the Three Queers made for an unforgettable night out. There’s maybe a bit of chaff to cut, with the play running overlong in a packed Fringe season, but the wheat makes for delicious brownies. Definitely worth catching on its return season at BATS.

Goldilocks is the second in a trilogy of fairytales, devised by theatre company Short Term Visitor Parking. The first instalment, Hansel und Gretel, interpreted Hans Christian Andersen’s famous tale as a Nazi parable. This one gives us a potted history of the ‘70s gay liberation movement, with a dash of ‘80s (AIDS, cocaine, paranoia) thrown in for good measure.

The production is uniformly excellent, with set designer Fern Karun milking the unusual venue for all it’s worth. In a cramped building next door to a strip club, cantankerous landlord (landlady?) Ling Ling guides the audience into an intimate 1970s basement pad, where couches and beanbags await. Divider screens serve as changing rooms, and funkadelic music-man Tane Upjohn-Beatson sits in full view of the audience. We’re accepted as guests in the rented abode of an unconventional nuclear family; the Queers.

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Ben Peterson is a young Australian activist who spent a year in Nepal witnessing first hand the revolutionary struggle. He is touring NZ 21-26 March 2010.

Auckland: Sunday 21 March @ 2pm Trades Hall, 147 Gt Nth Rd, Grey Lynn Monday 22 March @ 1pm Function Room (over Quad café) Auckland University

Hamilton Tuesday 23 March  1 -2pm (followed by discussion) @ SUB G.20 (Guru Phabians room) Student Union Building Waikato University

Rotorua, Wellington, Dunedin and Christchurch venues and dates to be advised soon.

Don Franks

 The Accident Compensation Commission has “blown out’ financially and needs major reform, ACC minister Nick Smith claimed last year. The government now says it must control costs by raising levies, cutting entitlements and coverage, and privatising parts of ACC.

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Seasonal and part time workers, people needing hearing aids and sexual abuse survivors stand to be particularly disadvantaged by proposed ACC cuts.

On February 16th  two hundred people opposing these measures rallied at parliament .The protesters were mostly unionists and bikers, angry at ACC levy increases specifically aimed at them.  [Read more…]

For many people, especially on the left, the answer to this question is an unqualified “yes”. They might agree there is not much happening on the campuses in New Zealand right now, but point to big protests and even occupations over the past decade over issues like fee rises. However, if we think more deeply about the question, the unqualified “yes” tells us more about the studentist politics of much of the left than it answers the question.

To be radical means to go to the root, to deal with the core problems of the existing society and work out a strategy to solve those problems by doing away with the system that causes them. [Read more…]

1. We are revolutionary socialists

We all live in a capitalist society – which means that the working-class majority experience exploitation and poverty in order to guarantee profits and luxury for the ruling-class minority.

The capitalists have many weapons at their disposal – not just the army, police, courts and prisons, but a system of ideas, developed over centuries, that shape people’s beliefs about what is normal, natural, and possible. These prevailing ideas tell us that we can do no more than tinker with the current system. [Read more…]