In 2023, the Wellington City Council commissioned a review of its balance sheet which identified that the Council had a significant insurance risk associated with underinsurance in the context of a major disaster. The review recommended the sale of the full Wellington Airport shareholding and establishment of a perpetual investment fund to manage the Council’s…
Category: Panel Discussion
Pay Equity Snap Panel hosted by the Wellington Socialist Society
The National-led coalition’s shock gutting of pay equity legislation, passed under urgency just days after being announced, has taken woman workers back decades. The new legislation goes well beyond repealing the 2020 amendments to the Equal Pay Act of 1972: in a number of important respects, it takes women back to the 1970s. In 2012,…
The Left in Local Government – Limits and Opportunities
The Canterbury Socialist Society are back for 2025 with our first event, a panel exploring the political left in the context of local government. Local Government in Aotearoa/New Zealand is fairly opaque. The level of powers devolved to local bodies is less significant than in much of the world, but is nonetheless broader than often…
Te Tiriti and the struggle for socialism
The Saturday keynote panel of the Second New Zealand Federation of Socialist Societies National Conference – Labour Weekend 2024 brings together experienced Tino Rangatiratanga activists Catherine Love (Te Ātiawa, Taranaki, Ngāti Ruanui, Ngā Ruahinerangi), Kassie Hartendorp (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa), and Dougal McNeill to speak on “Te Tiriti and the struggle for socialism.” Wellington City…
International Indigenous Solidarity Panel: Palestinian and Tangata Whenua – hosted by Justice for Palestine & Wellington Socialist Society
Indigenous resistance in Palestine and in Aotearoa responds to the violence of settler colonialism, and it is initiated in both cases by British colonialism. There is a common whakapapa. But indigenous resistance has a commonality beyond what it fights against. The commonality exists in indigeneity. This panel of young, indigenous activists from Palestine and…
The Labour Party: Which Way Forward? – A Wellington Socialist Society Panel Discussion
There have been three periods of major transformation in Aotearoa’s political economy: the 1890s, the 1930s, and the 1980s. Founded in 1916, the Labour Party was responsible for the latter two transformations, while the Liberal Party – in many ways the precursor to Labour – was responsible for the first. Aotearoa’s right-wing parties have never…
Panel Event – The Socialist Society: Where have we come from, where are we going?
“Marx was not simply the best or most consistent or radical socialist, but rather the most historically, and hence critically, self-aware. By “scientific” socialism, Marx understood himself to be elaborating a form of knowledge aware of its own conditions of possibility.” – C Cutrone, “Capital in History: The need for a Marxian philosophy of history…
Second New Zealand Federation of Socialist Societies National Conference – Labour Weekend 2024
Kia ora Neighbours – both members and supporters of the New Zealand Federation of Socialist Societies. The Wellington Socialist Society is pleased to announce the second New Zealand Federation of Socialist Societies National Conference to be held in central Wellington (venues TBC) over Labour Weekend (26th-27th October), 2024. Registrations are open now. Please visit the…
The Ernie Abbott Memorial Lecture
Wellington Socialist Society & Wellington Trades Hall are proud to present: THE ERNIE ABBOTT MEMORIAL LECTURE “Ernie was an ordinary man who believed that we all should have the right to a safe workplace with decent pay and conditions. He paid the ultimate price for those beliefs.” – Helen Kelly On 27th March 1984, an…
Our New Prometheans – WSS presents: The Radical Philosophies of Silicon Valley Elites w/ Paris Marx
“The reform of consciousness consists only in making the world aware of its own consciousness, in awakening it out of its dream about itself, in explaining to it the meaning of its own actions… Hence, our motto must be: reform of consciousness not through dogmas, but by analysing the mystical consciousness that is unintelligible to…