More than 100,000 New Zealand teachers, nurses, doctors, firefighters and support staff went on strike Thursday, demanding higher pay and better funding for public services, a clear sign of dissatisfaction with centre-right government.
Workers marched with placards and banners in towns across New Zealand, chanting and listening to speeches. Protests in Wellington and Christchurch had to be cancelled because of dangerous weather conditions.
In a joint statement last week, the unions billed the strike as the largest in decades with more than 100,000 public servants taking part.
Middlemore Hospital emergency doctor and Association of Salaried Medical Specialists Vice President Sylvia Boys told the crowd at Aotea Square in Auckland the government had been elected on promises to reduce the cost of living while maintaining frontline services and it was “fair to say these are the issues on which they are failing dismally.”
“The cost of living has worsened, and in health and education we have seen cuts across the sector. We are losing more talent than ever before,” she added in her speech, which was published on Facebook by the ASMS union.
The government has disregarded the protests as a union-orchestrated political stunt, even though the protests emphasize growing public frustration over the administration's direction.
Opinion polls suggest declining approval for the ruling coalition, but the opposition has not yet pulled ahead.
Since coming to power in 2023, the conservative government has lowered new public spending in its attempts to return the government's accounts to surplus. They said the cuts would mainly be in the back office operations and would keep interest rates low, while ensuring New Zealand keeps its reputation of being a good place to invest.
The economy has faltered, shrinking in three of the past five quarters, while record numbers of New Zealanders continue to leave the country. Inflation has eased from its peak but has edged up again in recent months.
Public Service Minister Judith Collins said in a statement on Wednesday that the proposed strike was unfair, unproductive and unnecessary.
“It is a stunt targeting the Government but the people paying the price are the thousands of patients who have had appointments and surgeries cancelled, and the hundreds of thousands of kids who will miss another day at school,” she said.
The government said that it was ready to negotiate.
More than 333,000 people have been forced from their homes in Yemen since the beginning of August as fighting has escalated, including more than&nb...
A court in Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad has sentenced human rights lawyer Maria Bontsler to 12 ...
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to double tariffs on Mexico unless it stops more than a thousand mig...
European leaders gathered in Dublin on Thursday, 12 November, for the ninth European Political Community (EPC) summit, with security, defence and energy high on the agenda. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held talks focused on peace, trade and regional cooperation.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a stark warning at this year's COP31 summit, saying the climate crisis iss advancing faster than governments' efforts to contain it.
Iran will not let a single particle of its enriched nuclear material leave the country, and any new U.S. attack would be met with strikes on distant American bases, Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei has said.
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang is stepping down amid reports linking him to a woman suspected by U.S. authorities of spying for China, throwing the future of the $4 trillion chipmaker into uncertainty.
Here's your AnewZ Daily Brief for 11 November. Today, we cover Russia-Ukraine peace talks, political tensions in Washington, strikes in Spain, espionage allegations involving Nvidia's CEO, and climate negotiations at COP31 in Türkiye.
More than 333,000 people have been forced from their homes in Yemen since the beginning of August as fighting has escalated, including more than 24,000 in the past week alone, the United Nations said on Thursday.
A court in Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad has sentenced human rights lawyer Maria Bontsler to 12 years in prison on treason charges, after prosecutors accused her of passing sensitive information to Ukraine.
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to double tariffs on Mexico unless it stops more than a thousand migrants who are walking north towards the United States, warning that they will be denied entry.
A gunman shot dead his building’s manager and wounded four other people in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, before barricading himself inside his apartment and taking his own life after a standoff with police, officials said.
European leaders gathered in Dublin on Thursday, 12 November, for the ninth European Political Community (EPC) summit, with security, defence and energy high on the agenda. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held talks focused on peace, trade and regional cooperation.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment