Anzac Day occurs on April 25 every year. It actually commemorates all New Zealanders and Australians killed in war and honours returned servicemen and women...

Anzac Day occurs on 25 April. It commemorates all New Zealanders and Australians killed in war and also honours returned servicemen and women.





Anzac art 1916



The date itself marks the anniversary of the landing of New Zealand and Australian soldiers – the Anzacs – on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915. The aim was to capture the Dardanelles, the gateway to the Bosphorus and the Black Sea. At the end of the campaign, Gallipoli was still held by its Turkish defenders.



Thousands lost their lives in the Gallipoli campaign: 87,000 Turks, 44,000 men from France and the British Empire, including 8500 Australians. To this day, Australia also marks the events of 25 April. Among the dead were 2721 New Zealanders, almost one in four of those who served on Gallipoli.



It may have led to a military defeat, but for many New Zealanders then and since, the Gallipoli landings meant the beginning of something else – a feeling that New Zealand had a role as a distinct nation, even as it fought on the other side of the world in the name of the British Empire.



Anzac Day was first marked in 1916. The day has gone through many changes since then. The ceremonies that are held at war memorials up and down New Zealand, or in places overseas where New Zealanders gather, remain rich in tradition and ritual befitting a military funeral.

http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/anzac-day/introduction

http://peter-petterson.blogspot.com/

THE NEWLY ELECTED NATIONAL PARTY GOVERNMENT ENACTS FASCIST 90 DAY HIRE AND FIRE LAW IN NEW ZEALAND A COUPLE OF WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS...

The newly elected rightwing National Government in NZ has introduced under urgency and passed into law a '90 day hire and fire Act' giving small employers(under 20 employees) the legal right to sack workers without notice or grievance procedure within the ninety day period.

While the provisions of the new law are attacked, the worst aspect was the law being introduced under urgency a couple of weeks before Christmas. Under urgency prevents debate in the committee stages of law making.

The only protection workers will have are those under human rights legislation.

I understand a similar situation exists in the US, but it is not enacted in law, but through employers hiring procedures.

Critics claim that compliance costs will increase, as they did when a similar law was enacted in Britain.

I can't understand how it will assist the employment of more workers; it will just make those already at risk more vulnerable, especially the young, ethnic, or foreign workers on short term visas.

The largest union in the country,the EPMU, made the unparalled and unsuccessful petition to the Governor General to intervene.

In the 1990's the then National Government introduced the controversial Employment Contracts Act(ECA) which affected NZ workers in a number of negative and repressive ways and kept National out of office for nine years. There is genuine fear here that the new law may be the thin edge of the wedge!