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  • Should the Reserve Bank target unemployment as well as inflation? Will the new government abolish the dual mandate?

    nonaBack in 1989 – near the end of the fourth Labour government – the inflation-busting Reserve Bank Act was passed. Labour has shifted well away from the Rogernomics of that decade, and in 2021 Grant Robertson added maximum sustainable employment to the bank’s mandate - with the support of coalition partner NZ First.

    Read more: Should the Reserve Bank target unemployment as well as inflation? Will the new government abolish...

  • The next three years – the job ahead for Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori

    The Fabians had a session on Nov 14th reflecting on the elections. Our panel of Simon Wilson, Senior Writer at NZ Herald, Bridie Witton, Stuff Press Gallery Reporter and Ollie Neas, freelance writer used the election results as a springboard to target some of the key issues for Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori as they head into opposition.

    Coverage can be found here

  • Rob Campbell on Pae Ora Health Reforms

    Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Pae Ora health reforms with you.

    Since I was sacked by the Health Minister I have taken time to reflect on the experience and to make a considered assessment of what I learned in the process. My intention tonight is to share that with you, making the assumption that we share common ground in wanting to have an effective, efficient, excellent and equitable public health service.

    If anyone does not want that, I don’t really have anything useful to share with you.

    Read more: Rob Campbell on Pae Ora Health Reforms

  • Interview transcript: Ambassador Wang Xiaolong with NZ Fabian Society

    Hello, my name is Mike Smith, from the New Zealand Fabian Society. It's my great pleasure today to interview Ambassador Wang Xiaolong from the People's Republic of China to talk with us about China's values. I heard Ambassador Wang speak at a meeting convened by the Institute of International RelationsNZIIA last year and in the course of that meeting, he addressed the question of China's values and said, "China's choice for values, social system and path to modernity is made by our own people, based on our own history, culture and realities. All these choices have proven to be suitable and effective to solve China's problems and meet the needs of the Chinese people".

    Read more: Interview transcript: Ambassador Wang Xiaolong with NZ Fabian Society

The passing of Ian Shirley brings to mind that period in time before bad Roger got us so totally off-piste. Within a few years of Ian fronting concerns about the endemic homogeneity of the then welfare state, how it lacked capacity to hear the concerns of Maori, the poor, women, new migrants, suburbia and new ghettos, Roger had us responding to attacks on the welfare state that were far more distracting. We were turned from supporting many claims for equality and emancipation – addressing power structures that denied rights and equal opportunity to diverse communities, to defending the gains, and even the edifice, assumed post-1938. The welfare state was blamed for many things and the market was offered as the centre of opportunity. Neo-liberalism took over the narratives and the issues Ian had raised were dissed as 'identity politics'.


Ian had his rumble with Muldoon in a context where models of community development were increasingly challenging conventions of power, privilege and prerogative. Muldoon knew this. He could see a concerted front emerging from the communities left out of the patriarchal, post-colonial, increasingly middle-of-the-road heterosexist consensus that was the prevailing welfare hegemony. We had the beginnings of a period of building the critique, raising issues forging a second approach to an active state, and we were getting organised by experiences in the anti – movements, against Vietnam, nuclear testing, racist tours, restrictions on abortion and more.
The extraordinary thing was that Ian and the scope for community development, agitation, activism, building unity locally and collectively were flourishing, pre-Roger! I remember few here from my vintage - Jose Sawyer, Beth Firmage[BN1] , Betty Wark, Will Ilolahia. We can rattle off many names across the period who had profile, forging debate. Now, after 40 years of battling neo-liberalism, we call this nostalgia!
There is one further thing to learn here. We know the issues remain and indeed that almost all have become worse and more damaging. There is even more sociology about that informs these critiques. We have detailed evidence on domestic violence and youth suicide, but the danger is that the 40 years have divided us into fighting these things as distinct battlegrounds. Indeed, we now have the invidious divisiveness of 'my concern is more pressing that your concern'.
We know the reasons, but do we have a clear idea of where changes must come from? The movement that Ian was part of grew from a consciousness emerging in communities that clearly understood how oppositional powers operated, using multiple levers of influence to keep their privilege intact; to obfuscate and repress challenging voices. Such powers loved divide and rule tactics. Muldoon thrived on it and the neo-libs have been at it all along. A liberation movement must have places to join-up, collaborate and put its confidence in a leadership front. Ian’s career saw the gains coming from academic endeavour. I suspect his first love of communities organised from the ground up needs to be restored as a shared strategy.      

 PRJ

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