The Freedom Shop Aotearoa

The Freedom Shop are excited to announce we're partnering with the Garrett Street community to bring you a mini film fest on the topic of political activism. We'd love to see you there! There will be a discussion following each movie. All movies will be held at Level 2, 13 Garrett Street, Te Aro, Wellington.  

The Freedom Shop are hosting another movie night and we would love to see you there. LINDA LINDA LINDA (Nobuhiro Yamashita, Japan, 2005) 13 Garrett Street, Te Aro, Wellington Thursday 18th September, 6pm. Fundraiser for Burmese punks - Koha entry. Since the military overthrow of a semi-democratic government in 2021, Burma has been immersed in a civil war, three million people have been displaced, many now living as refugees in surrounding countries. Over half of the country has been liberated by opposition armed groups, but the regime hangs on, using air strikes, forced conscription and brutality to control the main cities and areas of economic value. Amongst the opposition is the punk movement that has led protests, organised Food not Bombs groups, food gardens, social centres and other projects, both inside and outside the country, all run on the smell of an oily rag. Your dollar goes further when it’s in the hands of punks. We are screening Linda Linda Linda – a low-key, ...

Come to Aro Valley Hall from 9am on Saturday 9th August for a day of exhibitions, music, inspiring talks, food, drinks and solidarity with all those who want to work for an independent, nuclear free Aotearoa. The Freedom Shop will be there and we'll be stocking some books from the speakers of this event - an incredible line-up including Maire Leadbetter, Mark Derby, Helene Ritchie, Graeme Clarke, David Robie, Karl Geiringer, Glenn Colquhoun, Inshirah Mahal, Valerie Morse, Trace Hodgson and Sonya Smith. We hope to see you there!  Lots more info here: https://www.solidarity.co.nz/new-zealand-issues 

 Submissions on the RSB are open until 1pm 23 June.  The Regulatory Standards Bill has to be rejected.  The RSB recommends that Parliament removes any requirement for  all future and existing laws (apart from Treaty settlement Bills) to comply with Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Bill Of Rights Act. The Treaty Principles was about changing the principles of Te Tiriti, the Regulatory Standards Bill (RSB) is about removing Te Tiriti.  The obligations listed in the RSB are nearly all related to private property rights: human rights and Te Tiriti obligations are not considered at all. And that is what this Bill is about - it is about the ACT party's endless focus on private property rights and the prioritisation of corporate profit. What is ironic is that if this had been law in the 1800s, the entire country would still be totally Māori as a clause in the Bill states: legislation should not take or  impair  property without the owner’s consent unless cer...

 A community screening of anarcha-feminist filmmaker Lizzie Borden's dystopian masterpiece, which explores themes of race, queerness, intersectional feminism, police brutality and surveillance, and the role of independent radio in political revolution. Fierce, intelligent guerrilla filmmaking from the depths of the Reagan era, which invites conversations about radical change, and has relevance to tino rangatiratanga and decolinisation movements in our own hapori whānui. We would love to see you there! WHEN: 7pm Wednesday 28th May. WHERE: 13 Garrett Street, Te Aro, Te Whanganui-a-Tara.

 On the 1st of May 2025, the Freedom Shop in Wellington turned 30! We began in upper Cuba Street in the NORML shop and since then have been in various places around the city: the Cake Shop, Oblong, sharing space at Rebel Press, and then for several years at the Opportunity for Animals - now we're in the front of Book Haven (next door to Opportunity for Animals). Come and check us out.   

There are a lot of new books in the shop at the moment, just arrived from PM Press and AK Press. There are old favourites including some Frantz Fanon, Silvia Federici along with ever popular The Adventures of Tintin: Breaking Free, Pangayaw and Decolonising Resistance: Anarchism in the Philippines as well as Anarcha-Feminists in the Philippines, Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution and a couple of new books for us, Against Doom: A Climate Insurgency Manual and Physical Resistance – a history of UK anti-fascist organising. There's also, as always, Tina Ngata's Kia Mau: Resisting Colonial Fictions on the shelf, plus Murdoch Stephens new book Visas Now! Aotearoa's Response to Global Refugee Emergencies. A lot of reading as we head into the colder weather.  

Like many, I get a daily chuckle out of the news story that keeps on giving – the school lunches disaster. This was supposed to be an easy win for the free-market coalition: an opportunity to showcase how much better National and Act are at financial management, how wasteful Labour was and generally how everyone wins when you let competition and the free market rule. Except they picked the wrong target group. School kids. Had this been about meals delivered to rest homes, we would have never heard about the problems. The residents would have complained to the staff, some staff may have complained to management and management may have written a strongly worded letter to the food company. But the rest of us would never know and the government could have claimed the money savings as a success. But kids are different, in particular teenagers, who are very good at two things: complaining about how tough they have it and posting things on social media, especially pictures of food. Amplified ...

The presence of Chinese warships in the Tasman Sea has been a great boost to cheerleaders for the new arms race. Globally and locally, there have been calls for increased military spending from the whole range of the commentariat spectrum, from academics to Donald Trump. The British Labour government just slashed its overseas aid budget in order to have money to buy more guns.    Locally we are being told to increase our defence spending to two percent of GDP. We are told we’ve ‘underinvested’ in defence, and that a response is needed to the worsening ‘security situation’.   Defence minister Judith Collins recently said we have to “make up for the 35 years of feeling that we’re living in this wonderful world where nothing bad could happen”.   Contrary to the minister’s suggestion that we’ve been sitting on our hands, in the last 35 years we have splurged on new military gear including, but not limited to, two ANZAC frigates, a new amphibious and mi...

We have decided to cancel the film screening on Tuesday 25th as there is a much more urgent meeting to attend - Peace Action Wellington have called a public meeting in response to the call by the Independent Police Conduct Authority for new standalone legislation directed at pre-emptively policing protest.   The IPCA want a law that people should have to apply to the government for permission before protesting, and they also recommend that it should be a criminal offence to protest without permission. This is apparently to make the job of the NZ Police easier. We need to fight back against this! So please come along to the public meeting: 6.30pm Tuesday 25/2 Two/Fiftyseven -  level 2  57 Willis St in the city. Further information here:  https://peaceactionwellington.wordpress.com/ (And apologies for the cancellation of 'The Coconut Revolution' - we shall show it at a future date.)

CANCELLED CANCELLED Attend instead the 'Right to Protest' meeting same day - 6pm at Two/Fiftyseven   115 Taranaki St, Te Aro, Wellington 6011, New Zealand  7pm Tuesday 25th February  There's a lot of talk about mining at the moment, so the Freedom Shop thought it's time to show 'The Coconut Revolution' again. This is the story of an eco-revolution: the struggle and win against mining and victory over Western colonial power. When multi-national mining first went to Bougainville in the 1960s, locals were told that the mine would bring development. They soon realised that this was not true. In 1988 people of Bougainville rose up in arms against giant mining corporation Rio Tinto Zinc - and forcibly closed down the mine. The Papua New Guinea Army were mobilized to put down the rebellion and the newly formed Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) fought back - at first with bows & arrows and sticks & stones, and managed to retain control of most of their islan...

  Terrific tangle of 'Toitū Te Tiriti'  shi rts and totes at the shop, along with stickers and badges.

  Chat about Prison and Police Abolition 13 January - 6pm at Whatever palace, 113 Taranaki Street. Want to exchange perspectives on prison and policing from different sides of the hemisphere?  Organizers, activists, and all interested people are invited to talk about the current state of prison and policing in their contexts focusing on how activists organize solidarity and resistance.  The aim is to learn from each other for the shared goal of a world without cages and care instead of cops.

So you’ve done your submission on the Treaty Principles Bill (TPB) and you’re feeling a little bit proud because you’ve done your bit? Sorry, but there’s bad news. It turns out the Treaty Principles Bill was just a bone that the government threw at us to keep us busy. The bill is probably never going to become law anyway. The bill that will become law (because all coalition parties support it) is the Regulatory Standards Bill (RSB) – and it is probably even more fundamental than the Treaty Principles one. While the TPB attempts to redefine what the Te Tiriti means, the RSB essentially says that Te Tiriti doesn’t matter anyway. The RSB is not at the committee stage (like the TPB), it is in the consultation phase, which means there is no actual wording of it yet. But there is a draft paper, and feedback on that paper closes on 13 January. After it is drafted it will then go through the Select Committee process (unless it is passed under urgency, which this government has done over 100 t...

Get your submissions against David Seymour's darned Treaty Principles Bill in! The deadline is 7 Jan 11:59pm - that's this coming Tuesday! Post your submissions here . For reference, below is the Freedom Shop's own submission: THE Freedom Shop Collective is a small, Poneke-based collective, now approaching its 30th year of existence, so has outlived seven New Zealand governments. Our primary project has been the successful operation of a non-profit political bookshop which encourages the disestablishment of capitalism and the state. Often dubbed ‘OG activists’ by youngsters, the collective is well-known and respected amongst Poneke’s alternative political and countercultural milieus. We oppose the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, considering the introduction of this bill to be solely based on the need of the author to fulfil an adolescent ideological obsession, and recommend the entire thing be dumped ASAP While we see this bill as dead in the water, it has the un...

WHATEVER PALACE IS OPEN! Hosted by 5ever books it's at 113 Taranaki Street open from e levenish to wheneverish from 4th Dec to 22nd Dec! It's a community space! Bookshop (with zines from us)! With workshops! Films! Discussions! Dance class! Poetry and writing workshops! Community dinners every Wednesday! Chutney making and cooking classes! Make your own lamp!... and SOOO much more!  To see what's on, there's a regularly updated calendar on the door - or alternatively (if you use social media) check out @5everbooks on instagram or facebook.

  The Freedom Shop will be closed on 19 November- we’ll be joining the Hīkoi - 9am at Waitangi Park. #Hikoi In the shop we have Toitū Te Tiriti tote bags, plus loads of Toitū Te Tiriti badges still in stock, along with ‘Māori Never Ceded Sovereignty’ badges - badges made in August after Luxton showed how little he knew of the story of this land #toitūtetiriti #MāoriNeverCededSovereignty

6.30pm at Freedom Shop on Tuesday 29 October, 2024 After decades of neoliberal economic policies, in October 2019 the population of Chile rose up in a series of protests that  grew into amass movement against inequality and for constitutional change. Pablo Abufom has been a student organiser, an activist for pension reform, and was a community organiser during the 2019 popular uprising against neoliberal austerity and inequality. He will talk about his experiences organising during the 2019 protests and the successes and defeats for the ongoing constitutional reform process in Chile. He is also keen to learn about the struggle against neoliberal capitalism in Aotearoa. Facebook Event

In the shop we've got some new badges - and we're planning more tee-shirts. The message needs to get out there loud and clear: Toitū Te Tiriti Māori never ceded sovereignty

It's cold evenings now but there's heaps of events - some online, some in real life - happening in Te Whanganui-A-Tara / Wellington this month. Of particular interest to us are two talks happening at Book Haven / Freedom Shop about street art (Wednesday 10) and Decolonisation (Thursday, 25), but there's lots of others crucial mahi going on around town. Have a read through the events listed below and hope to see you at some.