A Global Progress panel discussion will be open to the public, with free entry, at the Backbencher in Wellington on Thursday, 1 November.

Global Progress is a network of Centre-Left thinkers and strategists who meet to share progressive policy ideas.

The rise of populism and identity politics will be talking points.

Progress New Zealand founder Josie Pagani says it will be the first time Global Progress has met in New Zealand.

“We will analyse the rise of populist parties into government, the politics of identity and nationalism, social liberalism, and what redistribution means in the digital, globalised economy.”

Date: Thursday 1 November 2018
Time: 6pm-8pm
Venue: The Backbencher Pub, 34 Molesworth St, Wellington
Please RSVP here to attend the event (free of charge).

Josie's op ed in the Dominion Post:

"As economist Simon Wren-Lewis wrote in October, the interests of people who have what economists call 'human capital' (that is, knowledge, or education) are different from the interests of financial capital and people with no capital at all. They are more likely to want to replace traditional class-based networks and replace them with meritocracies. Because education generates an income, they will be less supportive of tax-based redistribution than workers.

It's no accident that when Progressives Activists are asked what they are willing to compromise on, they are more likely to nominate taxes than identity issues.

If parties of the left become less interested in representing working people, it becomes easier for parties of the right to capture the working class vote, especially when those voters feel exhausted by strident polarisation, a culture of outrage and offence-taking, and inability to compromise.

The only way to beat that appeal is to rediscover economic policies that help working people."

Read more here.

Josie was on RNZ's The Panel, where she talked about challenges for fund raising in the international aid and development sector.

Listen here.

Josie was on TVNZ's Q+A, rescinding to the Government's budget.

Watch here.

"The tax debate that matters is about redistribution and the proportion of our economy that is transferred through the tax system to reduce inequality or at least reduce poverty. Given the double-whammy pledges not to introduce new taxes and also to run surpluses, the Government's only options to reduce inequality are to reprioritise spending, use its capital rather than its "grocery" budget, and to be bold in reforming social spending."

Josie's New Zealand Herald preview of the 2018 budget is here.