6 Sep 2022

The next movement for change

From Nights, 7:12 pm on 6 September 2022

A hundred years ago a workers movement changed the face of politics. What movement will force the establishment to give up wealth and power now? Where will it come from? Associate Professor Brian Roper from Otago University's Politics Departmant joins us once again.

An ‘agitator’ addresses a crowd at the Triangle (Queen’s Gardens), Dunedin, during the 1913 strike. Initially only the watersiders and shipwrights in Dunedin and Port Chalmers went on strike. They were later joined, reluctantly, by the seamen. The police nevertheless decided to act against the strike organisers. On 29 November all six members of the Dunedin strike committee were arrested on charges of intimidation and bound over to keep the peace.

'Strikers' meeting at the Triangle, Dunedin, 1913', URL: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/agitator-queens-gardens-dunedin, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 20-Jun-2014 Photo: Auckland City Libraries