In a first for the inmates of Rimutaka Prison – one of New Zealand’s largest carceral sites located thirty kilometres north of Wellington – a house constructed with prison labour was recently added to the stock of Housing New Zealand. The house was lifted over the razor wire and out of the prison compound by crane, and politicians and prison officials were on hand to make the most of the moment.

In the late 1970s in New Zealand, a group of young people in their twenties left their middle-class lives and got working-class jobs, joined working-class unions and lived in working-class communities. Why? They were activists and communists and they wanted to bring radical politics to the working class, to shift their focus from the university campus to the industrial workplace.

At the start of the election campaign, the Labour Party’s position on immigration was clear. Armed with a raft of new policies and an inflammatory vow to stop ‘tens of thousands’ from coming to New Zealand, Labour signalled loudly that reducing migration was one its key electoral pledges. With the recent turnover in leadership and accompanying guarded sound bites on immigration, one could be fooled into believing that the party has softened its stance.