Category Archives: Occupy Poverty

Mana Party: “Feed The Kids” – Glen Innes Branch AGM

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We were pleased to be invited to attend the Mana Movement Glen Innes Branch AGM last Thursday 15th November at Te Kura Kaupapa Maori O Puau Te Moananui-a-kiwa in Glen Innes, Auckland.

Having attended and covered many of the Glen Innes Housing Defense protests in G.I. (as Aucklanders call it) it was important to us to have a chance to hear the korero (talk, messages) from the speakers present, many of whom have openly supported Occupy in New Zealand, since our inception.

As with such events, it is the finishing touches that really count, and we were extremely impressed by the organisation and generosity of the members, many of whom were familiar faces from protest actions.

Despite being “outsiders” we have been embraced by the G.I. community, with Mana granting us spontaneous filming, photographing and reporting rights, even allowing us to livetweet the event.

It is, to our knowledge, unprecedented for a political party, to be so open and transparent at an annual General Meeting. We certainly weren’t extended the same privileges at the recent (ruling) National Party Convention!!

What impressed us the most is how down-to-earth the proceedings were. Informal yet intimate setting, combined with grassroots marketing ingenuity; instead of glossy brochures and expensive advertising, hosts furnished the attendees with bags of kai (food) and asked us to make sure it went to people who needed it, if we ourselves didn’t.

That finishing touch reflected the drawing in Parliament of Mana Movement’s “Feed The Kids” bill – a piece of legislation that aims to bring New Zealand in line with other foreign countries by having our public education system be responsible for providing basic nourishment to children within school hours.

Web search “Child Poverty In New Zealand” to read about our appalling track record, with 100s of 1000s of children living below the breadline. Congratulations to Mana for seeking to address this and as they say, truly “Walking The Talk”.

Highlights from the livetweet:

Here is the video interview with John Minto – highly suggest viewing it from mobile phone!! Because for unknown reasons when we “rotated” it to the correct appearance in the video editor it cut the video in half! The conversation is great though and well worth listening to. Kia ora everyone involved in the AGM. You did a great job.

30+ Auckland University Students Occupy Staff Rooms Demanding Fees Freeze

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(UPDATED) Just chatting on the phone with a student who is currently barricaded inside the Clock Tower of Auckland University, occupying the staff rooms in solidarity with anti-austerity protesters worldwide.

Their message to the world is that New Zealand has the 7th highest university fees in the developed world, with fee increases averaging 4% per year while the funding for most courses has been raised only 0-0.5%.

With 15% of students living in poverty, Auckland University students have decided to fight back.

It is a little known fact that Auckland University students were the first occupiers in New Zealand; occupying the clock tower 2 days prior to the inception of Occupy Wall Street in New York on September 17th, 2001.

For fast updates and pictures direct from the source, follow @FightTheFeesNZ on Twitter.

Today’s action is undertaken on October 15th (NZDT) which is the one year anniversary of the establishment of major occupations throughout New Zealand.  It is the second “Fight The Fees” action in a week; the first being a takeover of Princes Street on Wednesday October 10th, 2012.

After arriving at a “public meeting” to discuss the fee increases this afternoon, the students discovered all the doors were LOCKED to deny them the ability to participate in the meeting.

Subsequently, they entered and barricaded themselves into the Clock Tower staff rooms in protest.

There are currently reports that two female students have been assaulted by four campus security guards, and that the students chanted their way out of the Clock Tower and all the way to the doorstep of the Vice Chancellors Office, which was lined with police.

Solidarity to our brave students; we will continue to post updates as they come. Kia ora!!

Resources For Occupy New Zealand Occupations This Weekend

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Please print / share / spread the images & information about TOMORROW’S!! nationwide decentralised Occupations!!

Relying on you to be the voice the corporate media won’t give us! Thanks so much to all involved internationally in #GlobalNOISE #13O #O13

Event Press Release:

Celebrate the 1st birthday of the Occupy movement in New Zealand by re-occupying! High-profile, low-profile or mobile; your choice!

Occupy anywhere! Occupy everywhere! Film it, photograph it, blog about it & submit it to Occupy New Zealand      Pass it on! <3

 

Fight The Fees 1: ONZ Cover Student #O10 Action

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Continuing their year of protest demonstrations, Auckland University students have followed up their extremely high-profile “Blockade The Budget” actions with their new campaign to “Fight The Fees”.

Student-organised protest actions being amongst the most eventful and historic that we have covered in the last year, on October 10th, we happily attended to try to help fill the information vaccuum created by mainstream media and to provide an independent eye-witness account, from the ground.

Everything we saw from the students really impressed us. As usual, they had made thorough and thoughtful preparations for the participants.

Everything we saw from the university “security”, however, shocked us. We’ll let the following pictures and video tell the story.

Albert Park Band Rotunda, iconic home of the Occupy Albert Park General Assembly

Walking through Albert Park we experienced a flush of nostalgia for Occupy Albert Park; sited within metres of the Auckland University campus, and once home to a cross-section of Auckland society, encamped together communally in true Occupy style.

Banners on the Albert Park side of Princes Street, Auckland Central, New Zealand

“Shit Policie$ = Shit Edacation (sic) – National 4 a Brighta Future” mocked this large blue banner.

“Fight The Fees” – the headlining banner for the action, hung from a tree on Princes St

Strung between an ancient tree and a makeshift billboard covered in activists’ signs, this bright red banner couldn’t be missed. Photos of it have been widely circulated on the net.

“DEATH TO DEBT” screamed the banner above the sound stage.

Students had organised for the action to begin with a short set from a local band, who were well received by the crowd.

Students mixing and mingling at beginning of action

The students set up a bread and hot soup table, and fed anyone who was hungry.

It wasn’t long before students took over Princes St itself & out came the chalk!

Awesome #Chalkupy from the students in solidarity with anti-austerity protesters around the globe.

“Fight The Fees Street Party! 2PM Today!”

Soon much of the street was covered in solidarity messages.

It took a minute for cars to work out what was going on.

It appears “Unisec” campus security duties didn’t extend to traffic control!

After the #Chalkupy the students sat down to hear the speakers.

Amongst other notable speakers was Professor Jane Kelsey who wrote this recent opinion piece in the NZ Herald lambasting Prime Minister of New Zealand John Key’s perpetual sucking up to Hollywood moguls over the Kim Dotcom affair & the insipid TPPA.

As staunch as they are, the students still listen attentively to all that is said.

So peaceful. So serene.

The students proved that even despite the minimal police presence (in contrast to the 100s of riot cops that snatched & illegally detained over 40 students at the first Blockade The Budget protest) that they could self-police, keeping the protest peaceful throughout.

The police seemed understandably reluctant to get too close.

It became clear, later on, that private “security” companies and likely the University hierarchy itself, were clearly running the show.

A mountain of sand appears from seemingly nowhere…

Students begin to sand sculpt… several others watch on, fascinated, not knowing what the end result will be.

The suspense, the suspense…

The first sculpture is completed. Although it’s hard to tell from this picture, the students were building traditional sand castles… but with a twist…

Solidarity red squares!

Each castle had a flag flying from the top of it – and each flag was a red square! Showing solidarity to the student movements protesting worldwide, in defense of their education!

Bubble machines are so awesome

Someone had a bubble machine which added a unique dimension to the atmosphere.

It wasn’t until long after the action that we discovered the true significance of this picture.

Literally every single security guard there (at least 10) were constantly snapping photographs of the student protesters AND the citizen journalists. Much later, a media member saw these pics and pointed out that the security WEREN’T just photographing us – they were in fact LIVESTREAMING the protest! The question is – who was watching?

The security guards didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in traffic control or patrolling the action.

They huddled in little groups all over the place, constantly checking their footage and deciding who and/or what they needed to take more of. Upon seeing this picture; a media member exclaimed… “THOSE AREN’T SECURITY GUARDS!!” Which begs the question; then who are they? And why are they wearing “Unisec” security guard uniforms?

Who are you, “Unisec”?

Which leads us to one of the videos we took of the event. It is of Professor Jane Kelsey speaking to the crowd of students. At 3:30 into it, we went for a little stroll. And who did we find, but an as-yet unidentified guy in a white shirt, instructing the “Unisec” people. Until they spotted us filming them. When all of a sudden they lost their appetite for conversation.

Intriguing huh? We’ll be interested to see whether one of the students recognises Mr. White Shirt. Hopefully he is a University administrator. If not, there is something really dodgy going on. Has the incessant surveillance of Occupiers & other activists, spread to surveilling the student movement? The legal implications are colossal.

All in all, despite the uniformed stalkers and wannabe spies, the action was really fun. Covering the student protests is both edifying and entertaining. We are constantly impressed by the depth of thought that goes into each one. Thank you for inspiring us, students. Looking forward to seeing you again next event. Kia ora koutou, nga mihi nui.

OCCUPY NEW ZEALAND MEDIA TEAM.

National Day Of Action Against Welfare Reform #O5

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It was our pleasure to attend the Auckland event of the National Day of Action Against Welfare Reform in Henderson today.

Despite the unseasonable rain there was still a good cross-section of the public in attendance and it was great to see some fresh faces – both first-time protesters and first-time citizen journalists, gathered to witness the dissent against the impending cuts.

The cuts are of course an austerity measure, to squeeze the last dollars and cents out of the already-deprived underdogs of society; those with young dependent children, sick, disabled or elderly, who are most affected.

We captured some fantastic video of speakers which we will be editing and uploading A.S.A.P. In the meantime, we’ll let the pictures do the talking. Solidarity everyone!

Auckland Action Against Poverty Rock The NZ Equivalent Of The RNC #AAAP

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and of course we were there to document it for you. :)

Following on from the intimidating police numbers demonstrated at yesterday’s #BTB #Showandtell action, the boys were out in force and so were the cameras.

MSM huddled under the storefronts behind police lines and the most active videographers were the police cameramen with their top of the line equipment.

In contrast, we used: 1 cellphone, to provide the below footage (a crappy hand-me-down at that lol). Unfortunately we had no livestream today as Redstar’s gorgeous son was present however I’m sure tons of vids will be on You Tube in short order. (Search Auckland Action Against Poverty or National Party Conference Protest)

As usual a livetweet of the protest was also broadcast on Twitter

We arrived at Federal Street to find a curious sight. Barricades, of the heavy plastic variety, anchored by sandbags. As you can tell from the pavement it was absolutely pissing down for the most part, the sidewalks slippery but it was fortunately not too windy or too cold.

The above terribly blurry photo that would usually hit the trash can immediately is of what appears to be the same police camera chick as yesterday except that today she was filming US…. the citizen journalists…. not just the protesters like yesterday. Perhaps her appearance in our last blog post made her want to reciprocate. Sorry police camera chick its nothing personal. But anyone who runs around with a camera should accept that they’re going to get filmed, as we do and are, regardless of whether they are in a uniform or if they are just random students and stay at home mums and self-employed people and other members of the public; like we are.

The student-provided Legal Observers from yesterday were back, which is a massive relief to those of us who know how important it is to have impartial legalese-savvy eye-witnesses on the ground at events like this. Kia ora to you guys thank you so much. But they weren’t the only ones who were back…

But we were also back. And we made a far more impressive sight. Check this out :)

As the march approached and passed us we were all cheering, catcalling and whistling. Excellent atmosphere welcoming staunch democratic protesters who came out in solidarity despite the miserable weather and intimidating show of police numbers.

We think this may be the first march we’ve seen where the numbers of police present dwarfed the number of protesters present. Not for lack of protesters either! Amazing to think that at last weekend’s Aotearoa Is Not For Sale march they managed to “control” 3000+ protesters with 12 police… yet required into the hundreds of police for a couple of hundred protesters? Apparently the difference is the presence of the Prime Minister. If you’re wondering why you had lack of attention to a household burglary this weekend, I wouldn’t be the first to point out that the blame probably lies at the overly-paranoid battalions of police that appear whenever a protest gets near a National Party event.

These guys were also back. The Sky Paths above the street are a favourite with the inside men behind the National Party Conference at Sky City, and their lackeys.

As you can see John Key was symbolically present at the protest, while simultaneously speaking inside the Convention Centre, no doubt making smarmy jokes about the people with legitimate grievances protesting outside, in his usual form. Time for some happy photos; of the gorgeous protesters and their signs. :)

Now for the priceless show piece. A cafe on Federal Street tried to take the piss out of protesters. Now it seems their sign got occupied!!

We have a few more great pics that we’ll add later but this is all we can do for now. Hope you guys enjoyed the coverage and congratulations to Auckland Action Against Poverty for hosting such an awesome event. There was one tense moment that we haven’t described here yet; where protesters stood on the barricades with banners and between the four paddy wagons present and the over-the-top police presence we really thought that it might end in mass illegal arrests (and undoubtedly many people later released without charges) however a genuine congratulations is in order to the NZ Police for above all remembering that there were children present and allowing the event to come to a close naturally, with no arrests. Thank you for that. Also for listening to the korero about police privatisation occurring internationally. You may not realise it yet but despite everything, when austerity comes to cut you guys, we will be marching for you as well. We are activists for ALL New Zealanders & in solidarity with the international Occupy movement – regardless of who your employer is. Kia ora.

Judith Collins Says From Bright Red Vintage Convertible: “They want to portray me as a rich little white woman”

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The recent NZ Listener article about ACC Minister Judith Collins is off the charts. Their profile of her (May 5-11 2012 edition) features a one and a half page colour photo of her driving a bright red vintage convertible. Shocking quotes in the article include;

“I am not there to make their lives easy.” (of her opponents)

“They want to portray me as a rich little white woman from middle-class New Zealand” – this from a Minister posing in a sports car like some kind of deranged model for the quintessential mid-life crisis. Guyon Espiner describes her residence as an “immaculate Maraetai home she has scrubbed spotless”. Later in the article Guyon observes “…beyond the ranch slider and the spacious deck, the sea sparkles invitingly like the diamonds on her fingers.” WTF.

The Listener says she denies there is ‘internecine warfare within the National Party.. then quotes her as saying “It’s sort of like friendly fire”, making it clear that behind the scenes things aren’t quite so peachy as they’d have us believe.

The most shocking quote in this article though, is when it refers to a previous Listener interview with Collins in 2006, in which she claimed her tactic of leaking stories to the media required no apology. They quote her as saying;, “I do ring people up and give them stories, because, gee, I guess I think that’s my job…”. She bragged of her “friendly and open” relationships with the media.

WHAT. THE. F$%&.

Since when is it a Ministers JOB to leak stories to the media? Can someone please explain this insanity? Doesn’t that defy everything we expect of a Minister? If we’re wrong and it’s totally cool, don’t they at least have some PR lackeys that can sit around ringing morally corrupt journos, feeding them pre-set agendas masked as ‘stories’??

The deeper we get into the article, the more we despair. Especially when Collins broaches the subject of poverty. “We do have poverty but attitude is really important..” she says. “The poverty of which I speak is a poverty of responsibility. A poverty of courage, a poverty of truth, a poverty of love, a poverty of faith.”

Which makes us want to stand her in front of a hungry child & see how many of the aforementioned words fill its mouth with food.

We suspect none.

The article repeatedly brings up her willingness to have a QC sue anyone who crosses her. To the extent that Guyon writes; “You can’t call politicians liars, especially ones who might hire a QC in response.”

Well guess what Ms Collins. We are calling you on your bullshit. You want to grin $10,000 worth of teeth into a camera from a bright red sports car then wax lyrical about being misunderstood as middle-class – well perhaps you are right.

We think, Ms Collins, that you are not middle class. How do we know that? Because the real middle class is currently fighting to stay in existence.

You are in fact: the 1%. Wholly complicit in the fleecing of our country, currently underway by National.

We, he tangata, will not forget.

1000+ Homeless On Auckland’s North Shore

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By anon request, here is a scan of the North Shore Times article of April 17 regarding the amount of homeless people on the North Shore alone. The article came out one day after a Newstalk*cough*corporateapologist*cough*ZB radio debate that asked “does poverty exist in New Zealand?”

 


 

The FED Unveils It’s Plan To Devalue The US Dollar By 33%

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The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States of America has unveiled it’s plan to devalue the US Dollar by 33% over the next 20 years. The banksters want to drive inflation up by 2% per year, which over the next 20 years would result in an overwhelming 40-50% price increase on most goods and services. As if the average American isn’t already stretched to breaking point…

http://www.forbes.com/sites/charleskadlec/2012/02/06/the-federal-reserves-explicit-goal-devalue-the-dollar-33/

Greek Police Union Wants To Arrest EU/IMF Officials

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Greece’s largest police union has threatened to issue warrants for the arrest for officials from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund lenders for deeply unpopular austerity measures.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/10/us-greece-police-idUSTRE8190UC20120210