1 Year until 2023 NZ election – MMP Spectrum Splintering

Exactly what TDB predicted would happen has happened, we are seeing fracturing of the political spectrum post Covid, look at the smaller parties, that’s 7% to fringe parties PLUS the 13% don’t knows – that’s a 20% electorate angry enough to become politically engaged in a country where civic apathy is the default setting.

The startling level of apathy being shown in the local body elections suggest a fractured angry electorate where the fringes will determine the final landscape.

The latest TVNZ Poll has National stalled, Labour grind up 1, the Left and Right of ACT and Greens are static, Māori Party is under polled here and NZ First is in hunting territory for the election.

TDB is predicting a fractured MMP spectrum and a full Parliament where overhangs and odd quirks erupt mirroring the spastic pain and anger of the post Covid electorate.

We are going through a shared Post Traumatic Stress Disorder where polarisation and rationality rule.

This will be an election of cults and wounds.

People will vote with their feelings in 2023, not their thinkings.

The level of rhetoric is going to become an insanity.

These are going to be challenging times for New Zealand.

Here is the state of play 12months out from the NZ 2023 election.

 

POLITICAL PARTIES:

LABOUR:

Labour have failed utterly to be transformative in any true sense of the word. The total focus of this Government has been in trying to save the country from a once in a century pandemic.

Their extraordinary management of Covid saved 5000 lives, in a country as small as NZ, 5000 extra deaths over the 2000 we’ve already lost would have caused a shockwave throughout our communities, a tidal wave of grief we’d struggle to overcome emotionally and economically from.

Sure, pumping billions into the banks for property speculators to make money from our collective suffering is disgusting and represented the largest transfer of wealth to the richest ever seen in NZ, but Labour saved our lives and deserve another gratitude vote.

Yes there were fuck ups in the covid management and Trevor Mallard managed to radicalise 5000 stormtroopers for Qanon, yes there are more kids living in cars than when Labour first won in 2017, sure there are now 27 000 on emergency wait lists and a million dollars a day spent on kettling beneficiaries into dangerous Motels, sure to all those things, but Labour tribalism is such that any of those criticisms are ignored.

Labour are now dominated by the Professional Managerial Class and Public Service wokeness but they are good for 35% on Election Day so the same nothingness and meaningless trite bullshit passed off as social policy won’t be challenged in any sense, which is why the collective dynamic of the Greens and Māori Party will be forced to negotiate a far more progressive policy platform than cautious Jacinda and Grant will attempt.

The only hope for transformative change from Labour will be what the Greens and Māori Party are able to hardball them into.

Labour are good for 30%-35% on Election Day.

 

NATIONAL:

The latest TVNZ Poll has National stalling and Labour grinding up despite the worst phase of their 5 year Government.

The problem is Chris Luxon who has all the personality of a smiling gumboot.

It follows after Luxon’s Te Puke via Hawaii blunder and his constant u-turn blunders where he gets caught out on detail that underpins his justifications for change.

His desire to punish teenage beneficiaries misread the middle and his flakiness under the big ball always underwhelms.

Luxon believes in evangelical prosperity theory meaning his 7 properties are proof positive Jesus loves him. This false certainty of knowing he is blessed is what National are selling a frightened electorate, his self certainty, not the numerous counter-productive policy positions National keeps taking.

Because Luxon is only interested in the first class customers (those who can’t fly are ‘bottom feeders’), he’s too intellectually vain to bother with policy and prefers ‘management’ and in Christopher’s world,  the little people do the policy stuff.

This is dangerous because David Seymour desperately wants a life beyond politics so will pass radical policy so he can hand on hart tell Free Market Satan he did all he could to mutilate the State before leaving ACT.

I think Jacinda will smash Luxon during the campaign. Despite some of the worst media and press they’ve received since coming to power alongside extreme economic problems looming, Labour are still solid mid 30s, that’s extraordinary.

I think National’s ceiling is 35%, their challenge is to stop ACT being in double figures while trying to win the middle, something they are finding very difficult to achieve.

Worst case scenario for National is an ACT at 15%, that leaves National in the very low 30s.

I think David Seymour will be dazzling on the campaign trail despite his race war inducing conflict politics.

The rapid polarisation of NZ politics means there isn’t much middle left for National to hollow out with empty words and false promises, a truth Labour are finding out right now.

National and ACT won’t be able to get to 51% on their own, they will need NZ First getting over 5% or the TOP leader winning Ilam and bringing in a few MPs off the coat tailing.

Remember, Luxon was elected not because he was the best candidate, but because Judith Collins hate club pack voted against Simon Bridges.

That is becoming clearly apparent now.

Luxon will be removed as leader if National doesn’t win the next election.

National are good for 30%-35% on Election Day.

 

ACT:

As The Daily Blog has been pointing out since the election, the extreme hard right policy of ACT is simply not appreciated by the majority of kiwis.

But it’s there, oh sweet Jesus is it there.

That’s just the start…

• Cut and freeze the Minimum wage
• Interest back on all student loans
• No Kiwsaver subsidy
• Cancel winter energy payment
• Dump all climate crisis legislation
• no more best start payments for families with new borns
• cut welfare payments
• no tax credits for research and development
• cuts to working for families
• $7b a year cut in public services
• Abolish Maori seats

Oh and ankle bracelets on children, don’t forget that!

This is Romper Stomper Hard Right insanity that makes Qanon look reasonable and because there is no way National can win without ACT, every vote to National empowers ACT.

David Seymour is a very funny, very clever, very talented politician who desperately wants what the humans call, ‘l-o-v-e’.

He doesn’t want to be in Parliament for one second longer than he has to.

He wants to get out of politics and get paid enormous money in the corporate world and maybe find in-laws he can disappoint.

In short, David feels honour bound to mutilate the State so that it’s too wounded to ever grow back.

It’s called the Milton Friedman Prune.

David is a man in a hurry to try and get a life before politics robs him of one, so when he puts out these blistering policy directions that would cause enormous damage and carnage to the social infrastructure that so many people desperately require every day to survive, you best fucking believe he would do it in the blink of a sociopath’s eye.

ACT are good for 10%-15% on plus 1 electorate on Election Day.

 

GREENS:

Labour’s capitulation to Professional Managerial Class Corporate Cheerleader Neale Jones has meant nothing meaningful has occurred on Housing, and this was always the danger of Marama taking the vacant baubles of Office.

There was never a meaningful plan to change and all the failure can be dumped on her as the Minister for Homelessness.

With more people living in cars than in 2017, with more people on emergency housing wait lists and a million paid a day to a Motel Industry monetising misery while State Housing Builds remain anaemic, all Marama has to show is some virtue signalling of chocolate wrappers in Māori.

If Labour won’t throw Marama under the bus, National and ACT will certainly push her in front of one! The juxtaposition of Marama virtue signalling while people in poverty go backwards distills all the elitist middle class pandering into an easy to generate meme that fuels resentment.

Meanwhile, James Shaw was re-elected co-leader of the Greens with no fanfare whatsoever which begs the question, if James wins the co-leadership and no one notices, did it really ever truly happen?

James Shaw re-elected Green co-leader six weeks after ouster.

He says, “Blah blah blah blah blah blah, something something, gonna try real hard to get more Green MPs around the Cabinet Table but we don’t have no power, blah blah blah”.

So he’s complaining about being tricked by the Labour Party?

That’s his actual argument, he is explaining why they are getting nothing done because Labour didn’t really need them WHICH WAS ALWAYS THE REASON THEY SHOULDN’T HAVE AGREED IN THE FIRST PLACE!

If you are dumb enough to get tricked by the Labour Party, aren’t you too stupid for Politics?

So what the hell was that phantom coup all about then?

You just can’t trust a bunch of fucking Greenies to ever carry off a political coup successfully, they always get squeamish about the blood.

As we enter election year, the Greens are about to be blamed for all of Labour’s failures to be transformative on housing, inequality and the environment.

This is why the Greens shouldn’t have accepted the deal Labour offered, it set them up for failure.

The Greens can’t preach of better times ahead next year if their time at the helm saw things get worse for people!

There is a total disconnect between what the Greens are celebrating in homelessness and what the Minister spends her time promoting on social media and the total social policy failure that is happening on Rotorua’s Golden Mile.

The Greens are great at alienating voters, canceling people for crimes against woke dogma and a love for bikes that borders on sexual fetish.

Not good for much else unfortunately.

I think the Greens will be lucky to get 7% on election night which would be fortunate for them because their record in Office deserves less.

Greens are worth 7%-10% on Election Day plus 1 electorate.

 

MĀORI PARTY

With Adrian Rurawhe under pressure to accept the Speaker’s expectation to stand down from their electorate,  Te Tai Hauāuru opens as a real possible gain for the Maori Party. This on top of their incredible party vote which hit 5% in the Roy Morgan Poll suggests a massive political change is occurring within Māoridom.

Part of this is demographics, Māori are a decade younger than Pakeha, part of it is the reconnection with civics the vaccination drive provided and part is the grotesque racism spewed out over co-governance and 3 Waters.

Māori represent the highest proportion of non voters, and the race baiting rhetoric is dragging those non voters over to being engaged, something we haven’t seen in the past.

If the Māori Party can hold up their Party vote they will become the Queen maker and the relationship between Māori Party President JT and Willie Jackson will become the most important one politically.

JTs absurdly over the top response to Matt Nippet’s recent journalism however undermines a lot of the good work they’ve built while dog whistling for more Māori vote.

The polarisation of staunch Māori vote who are insulted by Right rhetoric on co-governance and 3 waters will drive a larger Māori Party vote while generating political backlash by bringing NZ First back into Parliament.

Māori Party are worth 3%-5% plus 2 electorate seats on Election Day.

 

NEW ZEALAND FIRST:

Winston has done a deal with The Necromancer. The Necromancer is a Dirty Politics operative who can’t be named, but their foul stench surrounds a People’e Initiated Referendum  that is being planned to coincide with the election next year against Co-Governance. Winston intends to ride the race baiting against co-governance and 3 Waters all the way back over the 5% threshold.

This is currently ACT Party territory and Winston and The Necromancer intend to rob their vote, the only way ACT can fend Winston’s push to take some of their 10%+ support is by ruling Winston out of power altogether.

NZ First are worth 3%-5% on Election Day.

 

Tamaki’s QGod antivax Umbrella:

The good news is that Brian’s current umbrella of Sue Grey’s antivaxxers and his Destiny Church QGod squad aren’t nearly enough to get over 5%. However if they added Matt King’s vanity project and the anti abortion New Conservatives, that cavalcade of political circus freaks could get over 5%.

Thankfully they are all toxic narcissists who couldn’t work together if their lives depended upon it, if they do though, don’t underestimate how many feral Qanon antivaxers who have been brainwashed by social media hate algorithms there really are out there.

Tamaki’s QGod antivax Umbrella are worth 2%-5% on Election Day.

 

TOP:

The Opportunities Party leader Raf Manji has a chance of winning Ilam now Gerry Brownlee has stood down. Sarah Pallett won the seat in 2020 during Labour’s red wave, but Manji was competitive against Gerry back in 2017. If Manji can steal the seat off Pallett and against a weak National newbie, TOP could enter Parliament AND bring in 2 MPs off the Party list.

TOP are talking about Housing and the political tax impasses that prevent Housing from being built, if they can convince the public that he can win in Ilam, then a vote for TOP isn’t wasted. If National were smart they would consider talking to TOP and offering them an Epsom deal in Ilam.

Expect to see some incredible policy ideas from them this weekend which might cause some genuine political attention.

TOP are worth 1 electorate plus 2 MPs coat tailing off MMP list.

 

Hamilton West:

The Sharma Drama ends with Karma Nirvana as the good Dr is banished to sit with Trev.

The Right will continue to hail him as a hero while the Left will utterly ignore him.

The danger is that his narrative of bullying and victimisation that sounds so self interested to our ears will find deep resonance amongst a migrant community who in Hamilton West feel his narrative as racism everyday.

The Right will hand Sharma questions during election year and he will lob grenades under the protection of Parliamentary privilege, I also think he will find a local electorate drawn from both sides of the idealogical divide that could win him an Independent seat in 2023.

Many are writing him off, but I think he’s more popular in his electorate than most suspect.

Sharma is worth one electorate seat.

 

ISSUES:

Professional Managerial Class, Woke Culture War & free speech:

The Professional Managerial Class is an issue TDB has focused on. We’ve argued that middle class virtue signalling dogma has over run the activist base of the Left and while the Woke fight over pronouns and the militant pronunciation of Te Reo, the voters trying to pay their bills weekly are disillusioned and alienated from our cause!

This same Professional Managerial Class are over represented in the Wellington Twitteratti and the nexus of hashtag activism and Elite Radio NZ smugness that allows for Neale Jones  to exist.

We’ve seen how the Wellington Middle Class Marxists panicked and wanted an immediate Police State to deal with the protestors…

…middle class fear has always driven social policy so it’s no surprise the vast amounts of money now being sunk into the domestic intelligence apparatus.

If a middle class person is threatened on social media, Western Civilisation has ended.

My feeling is that the political polarisation we are leading into will be so extreme that it just won’t matter how alienating the woke get because people will have already fixed their identity flags to their flag poles.

The danger of woke over reach occurs when the woke get frightened. Whenever the middle classes are frightened, Politics jumps.

That fear was evident in the Fire and Fury middle class docudrama and it’s evident when they come across it on Social Media.

It’s middle class fear of crime that drives punitive get tough on crime rhetoric and politics, similarly it’s their middle class woke dogma that is triggering a desire to criminalise free speech.

The woke are frustrated that the hate laws failed after both the Minister and Prime Minister couldn’t even explain what would get people arrested, so the energies have gone into the secretive National Centre of Research Excellence for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism who will tell the Intelligence Agencies who the Eye of Mordor should be turned on.

Rather than risk political backlash by passing an actual law, Woke Academia have simply partnered up with the domestic intelligence and security services to help them target the new enemies.

With our failure to de-escalate the Dumb Lives Matter protest, we have radicalised an entire army against us and now desperately need to ascertain who is violent and who is not in a social media landscape driven by hate algorithms and desperate loneliness.

We are feeding the whirlpool into a maelstrom.

The only winners are the security apparatus budgets.

The Economy Stupid:

No amount off ticker tape tantrums can sway Fed Chair Powell any longer, the reality of unwinding $25Trillion in quantitive easing is upon us and Powell has to keep pushing the stake into the heart of these Global Zombie Corporations because there is nothing else left in this Late stage Capitalism meltdown.

All that debt, all that speculative bubble in property and stocks, all of it is about to get hit be demand side and supply side destruction.

If the Fed comes out with 100 point raises rise, the pressure will be on Orr to follow with 75 points.

What Treasury are wanting to claim is inflation is dropping because demand is dropping, but this is a supply chain and scarcity problem as well, as Consumers retreat, the natural scarcity of products also compounds issues by driving prices up even as people can’t afford them.

The super rich and super wealthy will benefit, middle classes and below however will suffer.

With supply chains broken, with geopolitical tensions bringing supply chains back to friendly territories and the inflationary pressures of bringing those supply chains home, the day of reckoning here suggests a spectacular 1929 stock market crash.

NZ House prices are predicted to drop 21%, inflation could hit double digits in December and Orr has no choice but to ramp up interest rates.

Business NZ vs Unions:

The big political fight before the election will be between the Unions and Business NZ. Fair Pay Agreements would allow a vast new unionisation agenda to sweep NZ and seeing as NZs economy is based on stealing indigenous land and never paying it back alongside a low wage economy that exploits migrant labour, Business NZ don’t want any Fair Pay Agreement process.

The other fight will be the Unions trying to push their gold plated unemployment tax for public servants to tag in a 6 month holiday or extra maternity leave.

If the Unions lose both these fights, the question must be asked why are they even there?

Housing, Welfare, Inequality:

I am deeply, deeply, deeply skeptical about removing the Children’s Commissioner oversight from Oranga Tamariki and replacing that oversight with 6 faceless bureaucrats sitting inside the Education Review Office…

The new commission will continue to promote and advance the interests and well-being of children and young people, but its role is weaker.

In particular, unlike the current Children’s Commissioner, it will not be able to advise on establishing complaints mechanisms for children or monitor the types of complaints made.

Stripping the new commission of any powers to deal with complaints has a much wider impact on the application of children’s rights in Aotearoa New Zealand.

If the new commission is not able to advise the multitude of organisations that work with children and young people about how to make a complaint, this will significantly limit the extent to which the government can be held accountable for any failure to protect children’s rights overall.

…Labour are doing this because critics claim Carmel Sepuloni is totally captured by her Ministry and has been ever since they arrested her mother for a show trial over welfare fraud.

Labour are doing what the Wellington Bureaucracy wants because the sins of their past have been highlighted by the Royal Commission into historic abuse by the State, and they all want to make sure none of them get held accountable in the future.

The State has used despicable tactics to hide the abuse in their care and have been instrumental in removing oversight so that they can’t be held accountable for a broken and failing model.

This matters because when Aloha Luxon isn’t holidaying in Hawaii while pretending to care about the cost of living crisis, he’s endlessly preaching that he will implement Bill English’s ‘Social Investment’ model, and what is that?

Why that’s Oranga Tamariki! That’s the ‘investment model’, use funds based on how much this ‘client’ costs the country in the future, bring forward some of that money, spend it now with immediate interventions and hey presto save money downstream.

Seeing as Aloha Luxon spent his time in the UK with Right Wing Think Tanks who spin this very type of right wing welfare experiment, it is very clear that if National get into power, more welfare experimentation will very much be on the agenda and the Wellington Bureaucracy will not want to be held accountable for that.

The Rotorua Golden Mile expose on TVNZ Sunday shows that housing the homeless is a cruel joke, National are promising to cut the disabled off welfare (despite Labour being caught doing that 4000 times already) and ACT are demanding children are in ankle bracelets.

There are more people homeless, there are more people living in cars, fewer people are owning houses and there are 27 000 on waiting lists.

If you are poor in this country, you are fucked regardless of which party takes power.

 

Co-governance cross burning vs Labour Māori Caucus:

The naked hypocrisy of the right to twist ‘One person One Vote’ into a negative egalitarian garrotte around the throat of Democracy while screaming ‘we-are-saving-democracy’ is performative art for Fascists.

If Labour require the Maori Party to form a Government, the personal relationship between Willie and JT will become the lynchpin to it holding together.

Jacinda needs to use Waitangi Day next year to spell out what co-Governance and 3 Waters means in practise because her inability to do that has allowed the right to cast it as apartheid ethno nationalism when the naked truth is the vast number of people bitching about Māori gaining local council representation couldn’t actually name anyone on their Council.

Geopolitical Shockwaves:

An economic depression generated by geopolitical friction beyond our control is going to swamp us with enormous social damage and political carnage.

Russia and Ukraine account for 15% of tradable calories, the blockade on base line minerals, food and resources will continue to damage with the possibility a desperate Putin may even resort to nukes.

Putin turning the gas off to Europe will cause untold damage in Winter and China’s November Conference demands from Xi a gesture that could see China invade Taiwanese Island chains.

Global droughts and extreme weather events keep throwing the agricultural calendars out and the possibility of mass famine throughout Africa can’t be ruled out.

In the Middle East, Israel will continue to threaten an unprecedented military strike on Iran if the Iranian’s successfully test a nuclear weapon.

Covid still has the potential of coming back with vengeance.

Political Domestic Terrorism:

I fear the combination of intense political polarisation, a steep economic depression and the explosion of disinformation via social media hate algorithms could generate political violence in the 2023 election.

The immediate threat of political violence comes from the far right. The QAnon movement in NZ is disconnected from this dimension of reality, they believe in Sovereign Citizen Sherifs who are ’empowered’ to hang enemies of free people. They are fucking lunatics who are capable and philosophically compelled to commit an act of political violence.  Add to them far right white supremacist bad faith actors and Alt-Right extremists and you have radicalisation combining with fear grifters to generate a febrile landscape of existential fears that can only be combated by justified political violence.

Out of this cauldron of self loathing and projected cultural hate is the possibility of a lone wolf actor or small cell group committing an attack on a Politician.

 

Climate Crisis:

The Climate Crisis is happening far faster than feared…

World’s oceans, greenhouse gasses at highest levels in 800,000 years, climate report warns

“Alarming year for extremes”: 2021 saw record-high greenhouse gas, ocean heat and sea levels rise, new report finds

Major sea-level rise caused by melting of Greenland ice cap is ‘now inevitable’

…the speed and extreme nature of the heatwaves and floods that are destroying the planet in real time are damaging the ability for the economy to function…

Cars. Batteries. Solar panels. Food. Global shortages and soaring prices are almost certain as China’s seemingly never-ending heatwave sears on.

It’s the most extreme heat event ever recorded in world history. For more than 70 days, the intense heat has blasted China’s population, factories and fields. Lakes and rivers have dried up. Crops have been killed. Factories have been closed.

More than 900 million people across 17 Chinese provinces are subjected to record-breaking conditions. From Sichuan in the southwest to Shanghai in the east, temperatures have been topping 40C.

…and remember, this only gets worse and worse and worse.

We aren’t doing anything meaningful on climate change, each country passes the buck to the next country, and the future is actually far more dangerous than we are currently anticipating…

‘We’re going to pay in a big way’: a shocking new book on the climate crisis

In An Inconvenient Apocalypse, authors Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen write that society needs to be better prepared for an inevitable collapse

…the scale of the geopolitical shockwaves coming our way will be enormous…

Increasingly dysfunctional society and climate catastrophe leading humanity to ‘cliff edge’

Spiralling wealth inequality is leading to dysfunctional societies unable to cope with existential threats such as the climate crisis, experts have warned.

A two-year research project examining different future scenarios indicates that at present, societies around the world are at growing risk of “extreme political destabilisation”, with declines in public trust, while the climate crisis intensifies.

…I’ve been following the IPCC reports on climate change from the beginning, and the criticism made against the IPCC was that due to its strict need for only unilaterally agreed science to make the official report, it was always underplaying the urgency and severity of the climate crisis.

There was always a section in each report where the science was presented that wasn’t universally accepted but included to show the reach and scope of debate.

Increasingly over the years, the worst case scenarios in the IPCC are playing out in real time.

The scientists were wrong, but only in their optimism.

You understand that each year that passes now will get worse or remain as starkly bad as they are now right?

You get that it doesn’t go back to normal after this right?

The extreme weather will get worse and worse.

More extreme than these extremes now.

Consider this baseline extreme normal now.

Sure the war run Ukraine is hurting food prices, but that’s damage on the baseline reality of a mega drought that has interrupted the agricultural calendar of major food producers.

The radical adaptation required to get us ready for what’s coming will splinter the political spectrum whether we like it or not.

This summer we will face unprecedented forest fires and could see a repeat of our sky turning orange because of the Australian bush fires.

If you think being carbon neutral by 2050 is the solution, you are part of the problem.

 

Overseas Vote:

The MIQ over subscription by tens of thousands hints at the incandescent rage many of our diaspora felt trying to get back into their legal home country during the Covid lockout.

There is no way their torture won’t have political ramifications.

Last election Greens did poorly in their usually high overseas support vote because Ardern’s global stardom eclipsed the Greens, this election however the frustration is directly at Jacinda’s policies so I think the Greens will take that vote back and then some.

Our diaspora are furious and if the Green Party rhetoric is too moderate for their anger, ACTs throw-open-the-borders-and-let-the-freed-market-decide-death policy is for you.

ACTs policy has the whiff of judgmental vengeance to it that is the perfect cocktail of payback people locked out of their own home want to inflict on those refusing to open the door.

My guess is that our diaspora are far more motivated to vote in 2023 than we have ever considered and their anger at being locked out will be sharp.

 

Specials on the day:

I think you will have so many people voting who don’t normally vote that the specials will be huge on the day, this, along with the unpredictable overseas vote this election could throw any election night result out the window when the specials and overseas votes are counted.

 

Demographics & Higher participation rate:

This will be the first election in NZ history where Millennials and Gen Xers are a larger numerical voting block than Boomers, because lockdown impacted so many, I think people who normally sit voting out will have a real passion to make their voice heard, even if that voice is an anguished scream of fear and nonsense.

Political Polarisation:

Because the Political spectrum is so hung and the polarisation so extreme, nothing is being collectively done to solve the myriad of problems we are facing post-Covid from crime, to cost of living crisis, to climate change, to inequality and poverty. No big ideas and no real solutions to the challenges we are collectively facing as New Zealanders.

Our focus is on hating the person who offended us on social media. I just don’t think we comprehend what a distortion of reality Social Media generates and the new subjective rage it manufactures.

We will end up with a result both sides will refuse to accept if they lose.

 

CONCLUSION:

I think the MMP Spectrum is about to shatter.

There is a chance for NZF, Tamaiki’s QGod antivaxx fanatics, a coat tailing TOP and even an independent all getting into Parliament!

We have lived through a political period of time since MMP that has managed to dilute and temper the idealogical extremes of Left/Right politics in NZ. The need to compromise and pull punches is fundamental to the MMP dynamic HOWEVER that completely gets thrown out the window if there is no political centre left.

The political centre has been hollowed out so much under MMP that Labour and National are almost indistinguishable in their acquiescence to neoliberal mantra.

The far left and far right have enormous pent up political tension that will rupture once Labour or National are dependent on their numbers for a majority.

ACT’s rise is fuelling a toxic polarisation of politics.

The true economic damage from Russia for our collective defiance to Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine has barely begun and China will feel obligated to ratchet up tension before the November Conference.

Add to this the evolving Covid variant and extreme climate events, and I think we can make the possible predictions:

• This will be one of the highest turns outs because politics has impacted everyone regardless of who you vote for.
• The Polarisation will become obscene.
• ACT will cannibalise National vote because Luxon won’t be able to be as openly race baiting as ACT will be.
• The political spectrum will shatter and fracture with NZ First and possibly some Qanon anti-vaxx anti-abortion Christian Fringe both crossing 5%.
• An act of political violence is possible.

Because MMP has always brought in moderating forces 3rd parties, the pent up political expression of the Right and the Left has been building for almost a quarter of a century and will finally be expressed next year and with the amplification of anger will result in an election that will see resentment whichever side wins.

When you dog whistle up the worst angels of our nature by manufacturing existential threats to democracy, you generate a confrontation that you are ultimately responsible for.

I think the Conflict Policies of a National/ACT Government would be disastrous for this country.

For the Right: 

I don’t believe for one second that the vast majority of Kiwis have any true comprehension of just how hard right a National/ACT Government would truly be.

Luxon can’t even get his own tax policy straight and David Seymour is already bullying him into backing down!

If it’s a National/ACT Government, it will be Seymour calling the shots.

The quick yellow fox will jump all over the lazy blue log and David Seymour will get all his crazy policy passed without Luxon caring.

For the Left:

The most important political lesson I’ve ever learned in NZ Politics is from the Laila Harre School of change.

Back when she was in Alliance, she had to force Labour at gun point to agree to maternity leave.

Can you remember and imagine that?

Having to force Labour to give maternity leave.

Laila teaches us that if we ever want the fucking Labour Party to actually serve the people and not the vested interests of the Professional Managerial Class, then you need to smash Labour’s head against a wall, pout a gun to their head and scream ‘do it’.

That’s the only way Labour will act in the interests of the people, if you put a gun to their head.

There’s no point raising benefits, MSD and WINZ and IRD claw back not of that so the beneficiary is left with the empty promise of transformation, a better way to avoid the State clawing back anything we give poor people is to fully fund universal services.

Here’s what a Labour/Green/Maori Party Government should be committed to passing in the first 100 days of the 2023 election…

1: Feed every kid in NZ a free nutritious and healthy breakfast and lunch at every school using local product and school gardens with parents paid to come in and help. The slow incrementalism touted by favourite public sector for dragger apologist Max Rashbrooke isn’t good enough because the lower middle classes are feeling the same pinch thanks to mortgage rises and universal school lunches and breakfasts would help them and reduce truancy as well. 

2: 50 000 State Homes/Council housing for life built using the best environmental and social architecture standards using the public works act to seize land (Golf Courses) and immediately start building satellite towns using upgraded public transport hubs plus Renter Rights – (rent freezes, end accomodation payments, long term tenancy arrangements) 

3: Free public transport plus vast infrastructure upgrade for climate crisis.

4: 30% stake holder in a new Government backed supermarket operation run to provide lower food prices for kiwism better prices for supplies and better conditions for workers.

5: GST off fresh fruit and vegetables and essentials like tampons, toilet paper, condoms, oral health plus a sugar tax.

6: Free Dental services for everyone through public health.

7: Fair Pay Agreements that allow unionisation and real collective bargaining power for workers outside the tiny public service clique they currently cover.

8: Taxation focused on corporations and banks  like financial transaction taxand first $20 000.

9: Offer nurses, teachers and Drs free education and living allowances in return for bonded time in our health and eduction systems. 

10: Properly funded public broadcasting with TVNZ advert free and merged with RNZ alongside properly funded journalism through NZ on Air with more money for the Arts and Science. If you can’t have good public journalism, the right wing media will destroy these other 9 advances. 

11: Re-fund night schools – One of the worst things Key did when he entered Office was destroy Helen Clark’s night school budgets. Sure that Italian Cooking class wasn’t generating Chefs, but the free night school classes allowed lonely disconnected people to have a social life. It allowed Schools to be used as community hubs and if well designed could become social health hubs and distribution points for community health outreach. We urgently need our people to have places where they can mix and mingle and engage because isolation sends them down fucking rabbit holes.

12: Legal Cannabis market to fund meth rehabilitation and create 5000 jobs and create quarter of a billion in revenue for the State plus remove cannabis crime from the Courts and Prison.

13: Focus on self sustainability and hyper regionalism over free market globalisation for climate crisis adaptation and community resilience.   

…Kiwis have to see a progressive Government ACTUALLY doing shit in the first 100 days or they won’t believe any change is coming and when you consider the economic maelstrom we are entering, the most vulnerable amongst us will be screaming for real change.

If we on the Left don’t offer voters real solutions to their material problems and instead prefer to micro aggression police the latest middle class virtue signals of hate speech, militant pronoun demands and screaming everyone is racist, we are fucked politically in 2023.

****

In previous elections, political parties and movements have tried to win voters over, in 2023 we won’t be doing that.

In 2023, voters will already know who they hate and who they will vote for, Party’s will be focused on speaking only to their tribe and making sure their tribe votes.

We will move away from Broadchurch politics and focus only on pure temple – “if you don’t believe everything we believe, fuck off’ will become the mantra in 2023.

Shit is going to get ugly. Really really ugly.

The 2023 NZ election will be a competition between competing cults & wounds.

Our brittle weakness is collectively beneath the challenge of our times.

 

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