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For the first time in history, the Trotskyist movement is standing a candidate in a New Zealand general election. The Socialist Equality Group (SEG) is fielding Tom Petterson because the working class confronts a crisis of historic proportions, and because no party contesting this election offers it any way forward. Our campaign is not a bid for office within the existing order. It is an intervention to expose the bankruptcy of every party of the capitalist establishment, and to raise the necessity of a socialist and internationalist leadership of the working class.
We call on workers and young people to support this campaign, and to register to attend our public meeting on November 1, at 1:30 p.m. in the Dowse Art Museum (James Coe Centre), 45 Laings Road, Lower Hutt.
This election is taking place as world capitalism enters the most dangerous period since the Second World War. The economic crisis that erupted in 2008 was never resolved and has intensified following the COVID-19 pandemic. The ruling classes of every country have responded with a relentless assault on the living standards of working people, the promotion of far-right and fascist forces, and the drive to violently redivide the world.
The fronts of a third world war are opening before our eyes: the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza, the criminal and expanding war against Iran, the seizure of Venezuelan oil and the militarisation of the entire Indo-Pacific in preparation for war against China. The danger of nuclear war is a real and present one.
At the same time, the working class is fighting back. Mass strikes and demonstrations by youth and school students have erupted in France, millions are protesting against the housing crisis in Spain, and strikes are unfolding across the United States and throughout the world.
New Zealand is no exception: Last October more than 100,000 teachers and healthcare workers took part in the country’s biggest strike in nearly 50 years against the government’s attacks on wages and conditions—a struggle which was strangled by the union apparatus.
What is lacking is not the capacity of the working class to fight, but a leadership with the program necessary to unify workers internationally against the source of austerity and war. The trade union bureaucracies, the social-democratic parties and the pseudo-left “socialist” groups all function to subordinate the class struggle to the interests of the bourgeoisie. The building of a new, revolutionary leadership is the central question of the epoch.
Read our full election statement here: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/10/14/cjbj-o14.html
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Event venue
The Dowse Art Museum, 45 Laings Road,Lower Hutt, New Zealand
Tickets
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.