Currently sitting within striking distance of the 5% threshold, Winston has directed NZ First into the crowded Right Wing market of screaming apartheid at Co-Governance.
I think that is a failed strategy for the election for NZ First because if you are motivated by manufactured apartheid, ACT is the cross you’ll want burning for you, where I think NZ First would have far more resonance is in a debate about economic sovereignty at a time when geopolitical shockwaves will be hitting us.
Winston’s mentor, Robert Muldoon, articulated a Fortress NZ economic nationalism that was ahead of its time, triggered by stagflation and geopolitical shockwaves, it parallels the same threats we face now.
Why shouldn’t we have our own basic pharmaceutical industry?
Engineering industry.
Industrial industry.
The supply side shocks caused by Covid and war are not going away, and they are being compounded by catastrophic climate change.
The arguments pushed forward by Muldoon for Think Big infrastructure resonate more importantly now than ever before.
Radical adaptation and communal community resourcing alongside a Big State approach to lynchpin infrastructure for basic self-reliance as an Island country facing enormous economic shockwaves is the only means to build the muscle mass to respond to the ever intensifying external disruption of late stage capitalism.
The need to increase military spending to 3% alongside the new costs for this infrastructure must be funded via new taxes aimed at corporations and banks.
A financial transaction tax and windfall profit tax would take the yoke of taxation off working people and place it upon the shoulders of the wealthy.
National and ACT see mass immigration as a means to create fake growth at a time when we should be focused on de-growth.
Climate Crisis is here and adaptation is now.
We need to start rethinking Isolationism as a strength and ‘Think Bigger’ as Economic Sovereignty.
This will have far deeper narrative cut through than more Māori bashing will.
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Interesting view of Sir Robert and his policies.
Some say he was the last New Zealand Prime Minister to have a conception of government defining and acting in the national interest.
Others disagree, but it is so encouraging to see him as a totem for The Left.
Well, Muldoon was a complete autocratic head in the sand failure who needed to be dragged from power before he did more damage. So, you can see he had a lot in common with the current Govt.
Agree with independent growth away from the sugar high of mass immigration/migrant exploitation and the dead end tax cut horse shit from National and ACT.
But in co-governance; if it’s so good, why hide it or try and just put it in, no mandate, like 3 waters?
Well, if you remember. It did work! Up and until Labour got into government and brought Roger Douglas into power along with Lange!
It was then that the reformers kicked in with their slash & burn, Crisis! Crisis! Reform! Reform Mantra!
And people got suckered into it!
And then, the ‘Round Table ‘Cabal’ moved in.
So if you’re talking about right wing dogma. You have to be talking about, Labour!!
Someone elses Country is worth a look. And education of what really happened in 1984-1990.
Very true Tane
All over the Western world the traditional left political parties have done the same. What has happened is that 40yrs ago the neoliberal idealogues recognised that the right wing parties could never bring about the extreme laissez faire revolution as they would be suspected immediately by the electorate and dumped. So everywhere it has been the traditional laft wing parties that have been hi jacked and used as the vehicle for the transformation of a workable capitalist democracy that used to give everyone a fair go. In the US the UK and here as all over the West the labour type parties and the US dems have leapfrogged their right wing opponents to the right and left them as the pragmatic centre. In the case of Muldoon’s National party it would be an extreme left wing party today.
D J S
Never doubted Muldoon’s patriotism … but hasn’t ” Think Big ” been thoroughly discredited….
Yep. Took us to the verge of bankruptcy. Our diplomats were about to cash in their credit cards because we had exhausted all our foreign reserves trying to prop up the NZD. We became a textbook example of how governments can’t outrun the market (at least little country’s governments can’t) and we very nearly became the Argentina of the Pacific. Thank God for Douglas and Lange who had the courage to do things differently. Suggest those who see Muldoonism as anything but insanity, read Lange’s autobiography (or go back and live 1983 again).
Err – no. To quote the economist Stuart Birks, in Birks & Chaterjee, eds, The New Zealand Economy: Issues and Policies (first published 1992),
“By late 1991, the manufacturing sector as a whole was in a very sorry state with rapidly declining employment, sales and investment. The main factor which prevented the figures from looking too serious was, in fact, the export success of the capital intensive manufactured commodities, including those from the ‘Think Big’ projects. These commodity exports increased by 83 per cent from 1988 to the year to June 1991, while exports of high value added or elaborately transformed products fell in real terms. As The Manufacturer of September 1991 reports, ‘This suggests the restructuring to date has produced minimal productivity gains – most have resulted from the “think big” projects.’”
The problem that Think Big just had not yet paid off by 1984, when the Rogernomes were still able to claim that it had been a waste of money. Since Piggy was so unpopular for other reasons, that myth has never been revisited, save by Birks and a few other policy obscure wonks that the MSM have never heard of.
Yep – took us to the verge of bankruptcy. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Santayana.
Well you’re wrong!
That was the spin the Cabal was spinning to get away with the takeover of the NZ economy and appointed themselves as captains of industries to sell off parts of it to the highest bidders. They repeated the Crisis, Must Reform, Without Pain No Gain bs too mantra over and over again so much at that time(1984-1990) that people accepted it and believed that it was true.
You need an education on what really happened.
Watch ‘Someone Elses Country’.
Lange & Douglas and Prebble amongst others.
What Muldoon did then is what the West and others are doing now. Isolationism and Proto-Fascist & Nationalism is on the rise.
The world is heading into a 2 tier global system and lil ole NZ is rapidly approaching a crossroad.
Globalisation is dead.
Have a read of Lange’s autobiography Pa. It gives a good insight into the parlous state of the NZ economy. I was there in 83 – that should be sufficient education on what really happened.
think big has been throughly slagged off by neo-lib privateers but that isn’t the same as being discredited.
Labour won the last election due to two things
1. Covid
2 .Judith Collins
Without those two things — Labour is stuffed — NZ First will pick up a few Labour votes…therefore re-entering Parliament, becoming Kingmaker — unless Labour gives out an few bribes, such as, GST free food, Cannabis law reform…etc..etc…
They will most certainly be there with the bribes but nevertheless Winston will pick up enough votes to be the main player. He has more in common with National and ACT but you can never predict which way he will go.
Cannabis law reform, would anyone believe a word they uttered in that regards? I doubt.
I am still waiting for Act to show up and claim this one as their own and run quite successfully with it. But would i vote L next time around cause they make noises? Lol. No. Too little, too late.
Judith Collins…..and the rest of the National Party looking like a rabble that well and truly demolished the myth that they were the party that were better with the economy and economic management. There was never any real basis to make that assumption. Wankers like JLR and Gilmour etc got booted and any one with some sort of a brain left. Supporters kept going about a party with people who have run businesses. Unfortunately they meant David Brent and ‘The Office’
The politics of the so called left at the moment in New Zealand are still more right wing than the politics of the Holyoake , Muldoon era….Some thought Muldoon a dictator, but he was more socialist compared to the rabble we have now….As Douglas has said many times when his reforms are discussed…..” what part of my reforms have been replaced “ ….Winston will do very well next election as he is anti reforms , anti co- governance and looks after the elderly…..As David Richwhite said as he shafted the New Zealand tax payer for millions……It’s win win…
Isolationism will work only if the majority working people (those who work for a living, not live off the workers) take over control of the country from China and the US.
And from their proxies in NZ, the comprador capitalists and their petty bourgeois allies who are hostile to workers.
3% more spending on the military while it is under the control of the compradors is a dead loss because it arms the class enemy.
Defending Aotearoa as a workers’ republic requires the armed working people fighting a defensive guerilla war against imperialist occupation and the rule off its proxies.
We are back to the old story of colonisation vs decolonisation which underlies all the big debates about class and in Aotearoa in the world.
The decolonisation and national liberation of Aotearoa by the working class and working farmers, will be possible when men and women, whites, blacks and browns, unite as one revolutionary class.
Exactly. Neo liberal hegemony and post modernist philosophy have really put the proverbial into the works when it comes to collective action.
But hopefully the three successor gens to us boomers have a different take on things including post colonial issues, and will organise before it is too late.
Reactionary Bratwurst – Agree…if ACT decides that Cannabis Law Reform is needed – then it will happen overnight…so Labour can steal their thunder…Most of the 48% voters, 900,000 voters, for Cannabis, were Labour/Green voters — so, they (Labour/Greens) need to win them back…
Sealord are due to lose 10 million dollars because they have not got the workforce to proses the fish they catch. Millions are being lost in the horticulture industry due to lack of workers.. Immegrants both permanent and short term are finding NZ unwelcoming and due to this government policy. All this lost production leads to less tax take and less money to support our 1st World lifestyle. National can see this and hopefully it will not be too late before they get control again.
pay people more is what ‘market forces’ would dictate thus saving the ‘down stream costs’ of further immegration….is what a true capitalist would say…but we’ll go with the indentured slave model as usual.
Your comment that Muldoon was ahead of his time with “fortress NZ” is not right. Muldoon was holding on to a vision which probably started with Savage imbedded by Hoĺland and Holyoake. A NZ not reliant just on agriculture for it’s income.
Muldoon sort to build on this with “think big” and thus build a multi faceted economy. He was rubished for this by his succesors and what he put together has been systematically dismantled by them.
And where are we now?
Back fairly much dependent on agriculture for our income.
Winston is a child of the Holyoake years, without doubt the best years for everyone in this country. Real full employment, true free education easy access in home ownership with State Advances 3% mortgages.
Bring back those good times Winston !!!
“Winston’s mentor, Robert Muldoon, articulated a Fortress NZ economic nationalism that was ahead of its time, triggered by stagflation and geopolitical shockwaves, it parallels the same threats we face now.”
The art at the heart of deception lies within the ability to seem to be fully disclosing while, in fact, of being a deviant rat cynically infiltrating and manipulating the environment to suit one’s own agendas.
Or more simply put, to be a craftsperson at being a Machiavellian Confederate. Cuckoo birds do it. They lay an egg in a nest belonging to a different species of bird then they bugger off to leave the sucker bird to do the hard work. Sound familiar?
As for Muldoon’s articulation of economic nationalism as being ahead of it’s time. No, it wasn’t. From the very early 1900’s to the second world war AO/NZ had a rudely healthy and functioning economic nationalism born of a booming agricultural export culture and had it not been for WW2 we may still have had that export advantage. Instead, the war meant our trade routes were impassable so we had to dig in to survive.
We could no longer import our essential goods from the UK, The USA and Europe so instead our government had to subsidise non agrarian industry. Of course, as WW2 came to an end, our non agrarian industry didn’t. The mighty ‘titans of industry’ weren’t going to let go of that particularly sweet and hugely profitable tit.
Pretty soon, every cheap crook and and piss head wandered into our gubbimints lobby looking for a mark.
Wrightson NMA, Carter Holt Harvey, Fletcher Challenge with its library of subsidiary companies including The Rural Bank, and many others were legitimately but amorally pocketing billions of dollars swiped out of the pockets of the farmers who worked constantly for what the above hangers on were prepared to let trickle down.
Nothing has changed.
Muldoon is/or at least was, a traitor, a liar and a crook and his pretences for caring about the citizens of AO/NZ was a callous pantomime ably played out by the snout faced narcissistic psychopath himself.
This is where it gets funny.
As the AO/NZ post-farm-gate mafia began to use supply stagnation stand-over tactics against our pre war trading partners, our pre war trading partners told us to get fucked. Hence the EUC.
And now? We have a country covered in shitting, pissing cows because our mafia had to make a run for it to China.
Aye Boys?
Very true Tane
All over the Western world the traditional left political parties have done the same. What has happened is that 40yrs ago the neoliberal idealogues recognised that the right wing parties could never bring about the extreme laissez faire revolution as they would be suspected immediately by the electorate and dumped. So everywhere it has been the traditional laft wing parties that have been hi jacked and used as the vehicle for the transformation of a workable capitalist democracy that used to give everyone a fair go. In the US the UK and here as all over the West the labour type parties and the US dems have leapfrogged their right wing opponents to the right and left them as the pragmatic centre. In the case of Muldoon’s National party it would be an extreme left wing party today.
D J S
If Muldoon had not irritated everyone with his insults, and treated the Mahon report on the Erebus “orchestrated litany of lies” he would have remained prime minister and you would have inherited your father’s farm.
D J S
Just to clear a few things up. My comments have been a bit all over the place, one minute god, Nek minit science or what ever.
I just want to say I’m not opposed to implementing Fortress Aotearoa to its fullest I’m just opposed to any combination of 20/21st century politics implementing Fortress Aotearoa.
To me it’s looking increasingly like we are going to have to have another World War in order to destroy enough of the old system that a new generation can say okay enough of that I want to try Fortress Aotearoa.
” The arguments pushed forward by Muldoon for Think Big infrastructure resonate more importantly now than ever before ”
But Muldoon was anti the neo liberal prescription and fought hard to maintain his economic approach because despite all his negative points he did care about the people.
Winston has never advocated anything but neo liberal policy and even carried on implementing it as treasurer in 1996-1998.
He never pressured Adern or Robertson to implement the ideas of the TWG or looked remotely interested in any kind of fortress or winding back neo liberal cruelty or austerity.
Winston remains a pain as far as I am concerned. His letter of no confidence to the Governor General at the last General Election showed the depths he can sink to. He could have gone out on a positive note but that little effort soured his departure for a lot of people that were even somewhat fans of his at various stages.
It must be said though that the NZ First inspired Provincial Growth Fund has achieved a lot, in my territory of Te Tai Tokerau anyway. State Highway round abouts, business hubs, infrastructure such as the Mangonui harbour board walk and scores of replaced and new wharves and jetties in the Kaipara, Hokianga and other tiny hamlet inlets few would have heard of. Marine transport is making a comeback, and a freight depot in Moerewa.
The thing is to decouple PGF from NZ First and get bloody Labour and Greens and TPM pushing such projects.
NZ First might be able to throw a spanner in the works for a sensible tax policy that would provide a base for carrying out essential things.
I think Gordon Campbell over at scoop puts it well when he refers to Luxon ” wittering on”
about low tax and lots of improvement in government activity – incompatible.
Gordon Campbell: On National’s Incredible Disappearing Tax Policy
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2208/S00008/on-nationals-incredible-disappearing-tax-policy.htm
During the years of the Key government one hardy perennial of political journalism was that whenever the Labour Opposition would suggest a policy alternative to the status quo, the hard bitten response from the Gallery realists would be “But how’re you gonna pay for it?” National in Opposition has been almost entirely spared that level of sceptical scrutiny. Until now, that is. Until now, Christopher Luxon had largely been left free to witter on that it is entirely feasible to (a) repay debt faster (b) cut taxes significantly and (c) maintain, or even increase the current levels of spending on health and education and (d) do all that at once…
Quite right, Martyn. As I’ve been saying for some time NZ First should push an alternative economic approach — call it “think big” or call it “economic nationalism.” But also, NZF may be the only party with the — with the — maybe I’d better say nerve, rather than the obvious next word — to raise the whole “woke gone overboard” atmosphere being pushed by the Greens and by a sizable chunk of Labour. That could be a real vote getter, I say.
Corrected – obscure policy wonks.
Bring back car less days. Mouldoon was even trying to save the planet back then.
Labour can shut NZ first out by introducing a bold climate change policy/ rebate for the working poor.
Every car of 2005 and less vintage & done 200k on the clock should be able to be traded in for a govt sponsored EV car.
Not a bad idea, EVs are ridiculously over priced at this stage. But our family has one, and an electric lawnmower. Many people, bar double cab Ute fans, know EVs are the future combined with home solar panels and inverters & grid connection, or small local networks-storage batteries not being such a thing as they once were.
This Govt. was instrumental in closing fossil fuel refining down, so imo have some obligation to assist working class people into EVs.
Winston Peters is a fool. He lost all respect from me when he jumped on the anti-vax bandwagon. But the guy was never really left wing in the first place. He sold off Contact Energy as Treasurer, slashed the sickness benefit, and tried to bring him a superannuation scheme that would have privatised pensions.
As for Think Big, people forget that a lot of these projects had heavy private sector involvement. For example, parts of the Clyde Dam were designed and built by private contractors, and not the MOW, similar to what happens now.
You need money and lots of it to smooth the way to meaningful climate change without destroying our economy in the short term. You need money and lots of it to build think big projects. We had access to vast sums of borrowed and printed money but it’s been spent. You can’t keep printing it or we’ll be needing a suitcase full of money to buy a loaf of bread. We’re stuck. Already labour is questioning National on how they will finance tax cuts. It’s belt tightening time not belt loosening time. If peters has big ideas he’ll have to show how they’ll be paid for. Fortress Aotearoa won’t come cheap either.
Well said.
So how many hospitals will you close then. National slashed spending on health by over 20% in the 1990s causing scores of hospitals to close. Mark my words, this will happen again.
A history of shady behavior yet people still vote for him.
By the time the govt gets around to changing a few details around donations all their coffers will be full ready for the next election to undo all that
The old politician’s party has just dribbled to three percent on the basis of being found not guilty of funding fraud.
He’s been a help for what amounts to the Left here in NZ.
How do Social Democrats assess him?
The grunkle that defined the best we could hope for beneath Roger Douglas’s dripping lower lip these thirty-eight years. Refuse to say forty till it turns.