Public webinar: For a socialist program against the New Zealand Labour government's right-wing agenda

The Socialist Equality Group (New Zealand) invites readers to register to attend our upcoming webinar, to be held on Zoom on Sunday November 8 at 4:00 p.m., on the outcome of the NZ election.
 

Speakers from the SEG, the World Socialist Web Site and the International Committee of the Fourth International will discuss the right-wing agenda of the re-elected Labour Party and the necessity for a new socialist and internationalist party. They will debunk the fraudulent claims made by the corporate media and pseudo-left groups that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s government represents a kinder, progressive alternative to the extreme right-wing governments in other countries.

The meeting will examine the context in which the election took place: the unprecedented global crisis of capitalism triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. A new wave of class struggle is erupting, in response to more than a million deaths and mass impoverishment, caused by governments that have prioritised the profits of big business over human life and welfare.

Governments are responding to the leftward movement of the working class with authoritarian methods of rule and by encouraging fascist forces. Donald Trump’s threat to use such forces to carry out a coup in the US is only the most blatant example of this universal tendency.

New Zealand is in no way separate from these developments. The Ardern government has transferred tens of billions of dollars to big business and the banks. NZ corporations are carrying out savage restructuring, sacking tens of thousands of workers. Unemployment, poverty, homelessness, and inequality are soaring to levels unseen in the post-World War II period.

Following the Christchurch massacre in 2019, the Labour-led government has intensified its efforts to divert anger over the social crisis by scapegoating immigrants and whipping up nationalism. It is also strengthening New Zealand’s alliance with US imperialism, as Washington prepares for war against targets including Iran, North Korea, Russia, Venezuela and China.

The re-elected government, in which Labour has a majority of parliamentary seats, will deepen the right-wing onslaught. The unions and pseudo-left organisations seek to obscure this reality and to disarm workers by sowing illusions in Labour and the Greens.

These illusions will be shattered by the reality of worsening social inequality and reaction. The working class and young people will fight back, as they have already sought to do over the past three years, against austerity, police brutality and militarism. But these struggles cannot be carried forward without a clear socialist perspective and leadership, completely independent of all the capitalist parties, the union bureaucracy and their pseudo-left apologists.

The Socialist Equality Group urges workers and young people to register here to attend our webinar to discuss these vital issues and the way forward for the working class, in New Zealand and internationally.

Registration link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_HyfN9eqgTK25HQYo00WItQ

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