Fightback 2014 Issue #6
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Publication information Becoming a sustaining subscriber Table of Subscriptions to Fightback are avail- able for $20 a year, this covers the costs Contents of printing and postage. At present the writing, proof reading, layout, and 3 Editorial distribution is all done on a volun- teer basis. To make this publication 4 National and its right wing friends sustainable long term we are asking for people to consider becoming ‘Sustain- 7 The politics, not the dirt is the problem ing subscribers’ by pledging a monthly amount to Fightback (suggested $10). 8 Whale Oil leaks: Anti-politics from above Sustaining subscribers will be send a free copy of each of our pamphlets to 12 Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? thank them for their extra support. To start your sustaining subscription set The Labour Party and MANA up an automatic payment to 38-9002- 0817250-00 with your name in the 14 Hone Harawira: Burning the flag or accepting particulars and ‘Sustain’ in the code the evil and email your name and address to [email protected] 15 Regional Joint Statement 15 New Zealand state’s quandary in the Asia- Pacific 18 Unite against poverty wages and zero-hour Get Fightback contracts: An interview with Heleyni Pratley each month 19 Elections and migrant-bashing: Full rights for Within NZ: $20 for one year (11 issues) migrant workers or $40 for two years (22 issues) Rest of the World: $40 for one year or 21 Miriam Pierard of the Internet Party: “Speak- $80 for two years ing the language of youth” Send details and payments to: Fightback, PO Box 10282 27 Coalition governments and real change Dominion Rd, Auckland or Bank transfer: 38-9002-0817250-01 Donations and bequeathments Fightback is non-profit and relies on financial support from progressive people, supporters and members for all its activities including producing this magazine. To financially support us please deposit to 38-9002-0817250-01 with your initials and surname (or anony- mous.) Large and small, regular and one-off donations are all appreciated and listed in Fightback from time to time. Fightback magazine is now in its 20th year as we continue the long-term fight for socialism. Readers and supporters may consider re- membering us in their will with assets or money that will help the struggle in the long-term. If this is you please put in your will ‘Fight- back, PO Box 10-282, Dominion Road, Auckland’ as well as what you would like to leave to us. 2 Fightback Issue 5 2014 Editorial This special, expanded election conservative parties. Cameron edition of Fightback magazine Slater is explicitly quoted in the comes at what seems to be a turn- book as saying that, if MMP stays About ing point in the 2014 election. The and the small parties of the Right shockwaves from Dirty Politics, fall out of Parliament, “National Fightback Nicky Hager’s exposé of the pos- is f**ked”. Byron Clark looks at sibly corrupt relations between the centre-right as a whole and National Party cabinet minis- examines its prospects. Under our current system, democracy ters and the tabloid attack blog What is the alternative, though? consists of a vote every 3 years. Most “Whale Oil”, are still reverberating. As Ian Anderson ably explains in of our lives are lived under dictator- Labour and the left opposition his article, Labour offers a kinder, ship, the dictatorship of bosses and parties want answers; John Key gentler face to the same old man- WINZ case managers. Fightback is stonewalling, and even the agement of neo-liberalism. While stands for a system in which our conservative press seem to realise Labour no longer shuns the Green workplaces, our schools, our universi- something has gone wrong. Party, this can only be because the ties are run democratically, for social Daphne Lawless’ contribution dis- Greens themselves have moved need rather than private profit. cusses this in terms of “anti-poli- inside the “big tent” of accepting Fightback participates in the MANA Editorial tics from above” in New Zealand neoliberal corporate politics – the Movement, whose stated mission is – a neoliberal-inspired political left wing of the establishment, the to bring “rangatiratanga to the poor, strategy to use smear and nega- party of comfortable but socially the powerless and the dispossessed.” tivity to demoralise activists and conscious small business and suc- Capitalism was imposed in Aotearoa deliberately depress voting turnout. cessful professionals. through colonisation, and the fight Ben Peterson takes on the same is- So under what circumstances for indigenous self-determination is sue as an attempted undermining can a socialist organisation like intimately connected with the fight of democracy itself. National lost Fightback – pushing for a funda- for an egalitarian society. We also under Don Brash in 2005 because mental transformation of relations maintain an independent Marxist he allowed the naked, nasty face of of work, production and power organisation outside of parliament, to neoliberalism to assert itself. The throughout society – support an offer a vision of a world beyond the project goes much more smoothly alliance of the tino rangatiratanga parliamentary capitalist system. under John Key, the “relaxed” and / broad left MANA movement Fightback stands against all forms of cheerful frontman, who plays at with the upstart Internet Party, oppression. We believe working-class being an “ordinary bloke” who just founded by a German millionaire power, the struggle of the majority happened to make $50 million in with an outlandish personality? for self-determination, is the basis currency speculation. Meanwhile, Fightback works within MANA for ending all forms of oppression. big corporates dictate policy, and because of its commitment to rep- However, we also recognise that daily cronies and friends like Cameron resent te pani me te rawakore [the inequities such as sexism must be Slater and Jason Ede play the poor and the dispossessed]. We addressed here and now, not just after politics of personal destruction. are able to keep working because the revolution. Will Hager’s revelation of the na- it is a democratic party – when the Fightback is embedded in a range of ked face of attack politics behind leadership is wrong, it is willing struggles on the ground; including National’s carefully bland façade to listen to activists; and because building a fighting trade union move- damage their prospects for a third no real change in Aotearoa-New ment, movements for gender and term? A lot depends on the other cont. p4 sexual liberation, and anti-racism. Fightback also publishes a monthly magazine, and a website, to offer Coordinating Editors Layout: a socialist perspective on ongoing Daphne Lawless, Ian Joel Cosgrove struggles. Anderson Assisting Editors Monthly magazine published Fightback stands for struggle, solidar- Proofing/Content Wei Sun, Kelly Pope, by: Fightback ity and socialism. Bronwen Beechey Grant Brookes, Byron Fightback Issue 6 2014, Vol.2, No 6, Issue No 15 Clark, Thomas Roud Fightback Issue 5 2014 3 Editorial/National politics Editorial cont. in this issue. While not attracted to a MANA alliance aims at complementary “traditional” socialist programme, these audiences with the same vision seen Zealand is possible without the most young people – according to Pierard from two perspectives. With current intimate involvement of the tangata – have a strong belief in civil liberties, polls showing five MPs to be elected whenua. social equality, freedom of information from this alliance, this is the best chance But to some degree MANA repre- and an antipathy to corporate power. since the 1990s for those excluded from sents “traditional” constituencies for Traditional politics has had nothing to the “rock-star” neoliberal economy to the radical left. The Internet Party, in say to them until now. vote for an alternative. Fightback en- contrast, aims at the young and the It is precisely the Internet Party and courages all readers to take that chance. wired. Although funded by Kim Dot- MANA Movement’s constituencies com, the party is led by activists of the which the strategy of Whale Oil and his traditional social-democratic Left such co-thinkers want to keep out of politics as leader Laila Harré, and kept moving altogether. They want electoral choice by younger activists such as Miriam restricted to, at the extreme, the now Pierard, who is interviewed extensively rather tame Green Party. The Internet- National and its right wing friends by Byron Clark, Fightback. up as many as 15% of respondents. At of its leader and candidates. National the last election, the number who didn’t has very little to campaign on, as much vote was even higher. In 2011, just over of government policy is a holdover from National today appears to be seeing a a third of the population voted for Na- the previous Labour government, which level of popularity unheard of in the tional, a quarter didn’t vote at all. in turn did little to reverse the neolib- MMP era. But behind the polls, the The party has barely campaigned, be- eral economic reforms of the 80s and reality is much more mundane. Most yond some tough-on-gangs murmuring, the 90s. political polls exclude undecided voters the meaningless #teamkey hashtag and The changes National has made are and those planning not to cast a ballot, the usual billboards featuring the faces hardly vote winners - further erosions yet these groups can occasionally make 4 Fightback Issue 5 2014 National politics of work rights, including such basic following Israel’s latest bombing in for Maori and National was for “eve- rights as meal breaks, attacks on civil Gaza, and within a fortnight the Green ryone.” Of course, the campaign was liberties though granting more powers Party had echoed the call.