Grid of posts 2×3

  • Activist cancels benefit to protest lax security

    A beneficiary rights activist has cancelled her benefit to draw attention to the vulnerability of beneficiaries’ private information following the revelation that thousands of private files were accessible through public internet kiosks at WINZ offices. Olive McRae, a domestic purposes beneficiary and spokesperson for Welfare Justice Dunedin, said she believed the incident was the largest Read more

  • Who watches the watchmen? Kim Dotcom and the GCSB

    Joel Cosgrove The Kim Dotcom affair is an intriguing one. As interesting as Dotcom might be as an individual (see Mega Conspiracy: Kim Dotcom, SOPA and Capitalism in the Feburary 2012 issue of The Spark or online) the issues swirling around him and the wider ramifications of the behaviour of the police are even more Read more

  • October issue of the Spark online

    Editorial Last month saw the one year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street Movement. Despite the New York Police Department closing off the financial district, the one year anniversary protest attracted just a few hundred people, far less than the thousands involved at the movements height. Marni Halasa, a protester interviewed by the Associated Press during Read more

  • A radical mental health consumer’s thoughts on the welfare reforms

    Polly Peek This month, the Mental Health Foundation is organising activities and events for Mental Health Awareness Week. For the last few years, the theme of awareness week has been based on the ‘Five Winning Ways to Wellbeing’, the essence of a number of studies into what makes people (whether labelled with a mental illness Read more

  • NZ’s Injured Workers “Would Fill Eden Park Four Times Over”

    The number of injuries occurring in New Zealand workplaces every year would fill Eden Park almost four times, and that’s on top of the hundred workers who die in the workplace every year- an average of nearly two a week. “This is simply not good enough and needs to change” said Rob Jager who chairs Read more

  • Australia: Hundreds rally for refugees outside detention centre gates

    By Chris Peterson, Melbourne First published in Green Left Weekly About 200 people rallied at Melbourne’s Maribyrnong Detention Centre on September 22, against deporting refugees to danger and mandatory detention. Dayan Anthony, a Tamil refugee, was deported to Sri Lanka in July against his will from Maribyrnong. Antony’s Lawyer Sanmati Verma said: “Each and every Read more