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:
National Mum and Labour Dad.
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
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.
- Māori going to the Waitangi Tribunal over cancellation of 3 waters: The moment the National/ACT Government scrap 3 Waters, Māoridom will go straight back to the Waitangi Tribunal, win the Court Case and force Luxon into his own Helen Clark moment and be forced to pass law to simply confiscate the water. This will cause an enormous eruption of violent protest.
- Mass immigration: National will simply implement John Key’s pump and dump policy of open door immigration to inflate growth rates while causing enormous stress on the groaning underfunded infrastructure and send rents soaring. This will cause enormous social dislocation and a rise in race relation tensions.
- Expansion of Oranga Tamariki Big Data Experiment: National created the Oranga Tamariki Frankenstein and wants more welfare decided by algorithm as a means to de-invest welfare. Luxon has already championed this model.
- Mass Dairy intensification: It’s all National have as an economic policy.
- Mass Property Speculation: They will remove any of the bare tinkering Labour did and help the speculators spin prices higher.
- Mutilation of the State: ACT are serious about wanting to amputate the Ministry for Women, Youth, Māori, Pacific People and Ethnic Communities while slashing the Human Rights Commission. The resulting Public Service strikes will gridlock Wellington. If there’s one thing the Public Service can do well, it is protesting for their own interests.
- War on Crime: Expect the paramilitary police expansion to occur quickly with a whole dump of new civil liberty breaching powers to supposedly keep us safe but will almost immediately be abused as they increasingly get used on the protesting Left.
- Prison riot and explosion in numbers: The war on crime will see far more in prison and National prefers puritan counter productive prisons so expect them to be crammed full and explode in a seething chain reaction of prison riots once National grant Corrections new powers to beat prisoners with. Corrections are very corrupt and once they gain new powers to bash prisoners with, they’ll be some prisoner who gets beaten within an inch of his life which that will trigger prison riots.
- Rise of more Mass Surveillance & Political violence: The protests such a radical agenda creates will demand the State turn its attention back on the Left while National supporters clutch their pearls appalled at the aggression the Left are protesting with and rally around Luxon rather than criticise the policy. They will call on Luxon to spy on the radical lefties.
- Higher Government Debt: Luxon is no free marketeer, he believes he has 7 properties because Jesus loves him, if debt goes up to pay for the extra prisons, extra Police, extra dairy intensification, extra welfare experiments, extra fake growth, then so be it, he doesn’t care. Oh David Seymour will hate it, but he’ll be so fat and full on his amputation of 6 State agencies that he’ll only be able to mount a burp as a protest.
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.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media
National – ACT for the win, less Labour does the following:
– GST off food and drink
– Legalise Cannabis
Yes Nathan. 20 GST, 20% Personal Tax and 20 Business tax.
National and ACT sorted
With policies like that, this country would be a wholly owned subsidiary of China Inc within 18 months.
Could’ave, Schould’ave, Didn’t. Vote Labour 2023
If Labour and the Greens steal the ACt and National policy platform, they will be sued.
LabGrns cannot take this policy and call it their own thinking.
It is theft of intellectual property.
Bring it on!
“National Centre of Research EXCELLENCE for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism” – really sounds like something out of Nth. Korea or the old DDR……
Firstly it could be anyone’s election, most of the swing voters have been let down by both so called left and so called right political parties who increasingly seem to have the same policies that nobody likes and both NatAct block and Labeen spends endless money on publicists and marketing to try and make their failed policies and failed politicians seem more attractive.
One of the funny things is that ACT is NOT going to abolish working for families, this is because the biggest beneficiary of working for families, are big and small business who have parents working slave wages at low skill jobs and starting dysfunctional, labour trafficking and tax avoiding business, so big and small business don’t have to pay more.
Who pays for that, the middle class, squashed in the middle on these so called high wages which are the go-to for both parties to raid for additional taxes.
Look at dysfunctional law changes….
NZTA lowering speeds on roads. This is pretty much a tax on the middle class, as the poor will not be able to afford the fines and eventually be let off, the rich won’t care, and the middle class who are already targeted for revenue collection by police and councils for fines, will be the ones paying.
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/driver-licences/driving-offences-and-penalties/driving-offences/speeding/
A 20km fine is $120 fine, 21km is $170 fine.
“Police officers are getting more money from speeding motorists than ever before, but are issuing fewer tickets foroffences such as drink-driving and not wearing seatbelts.
A review into the country’s road safety strategy, “Road to Zero”, commissioned by the Ministry of Transport, previously found there was little accountability of spending by Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency and police, which had struggled to deliver results.
Within police, old-school attitudes promoting the prioritisation of crime over road safety had contributed to a failure to meet road policing targets, the review concluded.
The latest police annual report showed many such targets, such as seatbelt checks or breath testing, were not being met.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/128171505/speeding-drivers-remain-in-police-sights-but-tickets-for-drinkdriving-fall
Police are going for where the money is, speeding, not drink driving, fake drivers licenses/identities or seatbelts.
Waka Kotahi, are completely dysfunctional for safety. Only the most stupid political party would allow them to waste money, and their only plan is to change the law to revenue gather so they don’t have to do anything to save lives when everyone can see their dysfunctional organisation is the number 1 reason that there are so many accidents.
Kaimai chaos: ‘Massive’ pothole takes out convoy of cars
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/kaimai-chaos-massive-pothole-takes-out-convoy-of-cars/KVMHAJT2RIK5KMO3GMI44BZ3KI/
“In some cases people who did not even sit the test were able to buy a New Zealand drivers licence and get behind the wheel.
Brar was involved in at least 107 corrupt transactions between 2014 and 2016. He received over $56,000 in bribes. More bribe money was passed on to his co-defendants.”
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/365583/punjabi-singer-gets-home-detention-for-drivers-licences-bribes
No median barriers, the number 1, proven way to save lives.
‘Not fit for purpose’: Waka Kotahi road safety team faces restructure
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/national/waka-kotahi-unit-facing-restructure-deemed-no-longer-effective-documents-reveal/
WFF is for middle class families that can afford a ‘unapid’ stay at home Care Giver, generally speaking the birthing body, or the non ejaculating person of that nuclear unit. The rest of the world needs tow – 4 incomes to make ends meet.
You continue to be an absolute knob!
WFF allows lower wage costs for the employer subsidised by the state.
If you can’t see it, Gus is on the money.
Greens and Labour are completely dysfunctional on the environment and human rights. They are nearly as bad as ACT and National so can not be called an environmental party anymore. There needs to be a real NZ environmental party formed to save the NZ environment.
NZ now has the fifth largest proportion of birds at threat of extinction globally
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/475835/climate-change-a-growing-factor-in-dismal-fate-of-many-bird-species-expert
Part of that is how our environment court is so dysfunctional and our laws created to help polluters destroy animal habitats at alarming rates. Lying is completely ok by consultants in environment court, nobody checks and nothing happens if they are wrong. (apart from environmental disasters).
Unlike other courts in NZ, the cost of environmental court entry is extremely high to fight poor consents and it is not democratic. Thus creating a disaster in NZ, environmentally and for dangerous consents, like Pike River.
Waiheke Island marina construction harming nesting efforts of little blue penguins, expert says
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/468683/waiheke-island-marina-construction-harming-nesting-efforts-of-little-blue-penguins-expert-says
“A dam illegally constructed in an Auckland Council reserve is set to be lowered before Christmas, but not removed
The impact of an illegally-constructed dam has been described by the Environment Court as “critical” for New Zealand’s most endangered bird but its removal will be a slow process, with the company which built it unlawfully setting most of the terms.”
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/12/19/953508/dam-delays-half-soon-half-later-maybe
Harbour of doubt: The tiny creek that drains Auckland of its waste
“St Lukes mall, one of the single biggest contributors of sewage into Meola, and likely among the biggest overflow points in the country.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/117958444/harbour-of-doubt-the-tiny-creek-that-drains-auckland-of-its-waste
Dairy firm wants ocean wastewater outfall
https://www.odt.co.nz/rural-life/dairy/dairy-firm-wants-ocean-wastewater-outfall
(passed now).
Environment watchdog has never brought a prosecution
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/03/10/1074422/no-prosecutions-ever-from-environmental-protection-authority?fbclid=IwAR2Al3Zn0Tsj6MSHVOJRI6dD-CgEbOwKaw2aJgyT792nAueHBXitYW6u33I
EPA’s ‘inappropriate’ reaction to student’s speech
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/117378375/epas-inappropriate-reaction-to-students-speech
State of the Gulf: Auckland Council report finds estuaries choking in sediment, shellfish dying
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12342221
NZ Government Secretly Funded Water Bottling Companies
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1904/S00055/nz-government-secretly-funded-water-bottling-companies.htm
No plan to tackle environmental degradation by increased tourism – Commissioner
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/405767/no-plan-to-tackle-environmental-degradation-by-increased-tourism-commissioner
Dome Valley landfill.
“The waste industry needs to up its game. There are other alternatives, look at what is out there. This is a symptom of a failing waste industry – what are we coming to?” she said. “I believe we should do it differently and better.
“We need to protect this important Wayby and Dome Valley environment because of its high rainfall, waterways, high ecological values, wetlands, extensive aquifer and connection to the Hoteo and to the mighty Kaipara Harbour.”
https://www.localmatters.co.nz/environment/landfill-site-unstable-and-too-risky-environment-court-told/
Moving endangered species does not work out in NZ.
DOC accidentally kills 800 rare snails
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/5942401/DOC-accidentally-kills-800-rare-snails
NZ needs to stop their short term thinking and profiteering of the environment. The safest place for endangered animals is preserving their existing habitats in NZ and stopping pollution to them.
Wow! What a HUGE article!
A Bomber fan said the other day on the post re latest TV1 polling–“The level of rhetoric is going to become an insanity. Love your work–don’t ever stop.”
Well…I have to agree; The Daily Blog is just getting started, 2023 General Election coverage will be–foot to the floor, intravenous meth mandate for writers, quad turbo boost with nitrous mega tanks, multi wheel last chance power drive–it will make Mad Max Fury Road look like pensioner day at the Countdown carpark.
Co governance.
Seymour…A life after politics.(On the taxpayer)
Get me stoned then try and keep me away from sugar. Yes. Irony.
MMP was installed to dilute our focus on reality. MMP is a psychological weapon used by our exploiters to have us believe we have some kind of power to augment change by whom we vote for, and why, when really, all we can do is pick about in the barn yard as the sky lowers while the foxes move in.
This is an interesting read on that matter.
RNZ ( Of all places.)
Prof Daniel Pick: the fascinating history of thought control
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018860057/prof-daniel-pick-the-fascinating-history-of-thought-control
If you think we have control over the management and direction of our AO/NZ then you’re either wonderfully ignorant which must mean you’re rich and comfortable or you’re a fucked up alcoholic junkie living from the bins and sleeping in public shrubbery.
I used to think we had a fighting chance. We could share enlightenment and then act accordingly. We would all suddenly, as if by some divine miracle, see what we had at our feet then realise that, that was at critical risk of escaping us. But no. They let us eat cake, and we did. And what a nasty, dry, tasteless, sickly sweet thing it is.
The Blunt Heads sold us beans and we harvested nine multi billionaires while everyone hates our farmers while chomping down on chops and chips while spending farmer money sifted off before that money made it’s arduous journey back to the farm gate to perhaps further develop our means of earning foreign money while improving our agricultural performance based upon new learning leading to a better understanding of the wondrous complexities of our beautiful Home Planet. But oh no. We have big bold brave Auckland. A shiny turd with a spike and a shit bridge. And those house prices. I mean Oooooeeeeeee Son. Those house prices. Wow. I mean WOW! When you see a city which sports towering bank buildings along prime waterfront real estate we should know we’re in trouble.
We really only need one political party. The general public of AO/NZ party. Then everything else would become merely administrative. Like Iceland.
You seen this documentary yet?
Wikipedia:
‘Inside Job.’
Inside Job is a 2010 American documentary film, directed by Charles Ferguson, about the late-2000s financial crisis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Job_(2010_film)
Here it is on YouTube. The first seven minutes or so are a must -see.
https://youtu.be/T2IaJwkqgPk
And Helen Clark was so proud of MMP.
And Key. But he was proud of his offshore accounts.
Christ on a bike in lycra!! Is David Seymore actually capable of a life outside populist politics? I’d love to see it.
I suppose he could earn a crust as a media rent-a-voice or political commentator on Seven Sharp or The Project, or even a policy analyst at Treasury
(Now now OwT!. If you can’t say something noice, don’t say anything at all – Slap! Biff!)
And this. You must watch this. Just because it’s U$A centric doesn’t mean it doesn’t go on here. Kind of disgusting if you think about it.
Russell Brand.
“As a member of Congress openly brags about a staffer leaving to work for Wall Street, have we reached the point where the political system isn’t even hiding legalised corruption anymore? ”
https://youtu.be/XweHvbME9o8
Martyn I know you have to defend what passes for The Left in this country, and put the boot into The Right. But why demean an otherwise worthy blog site by smearing opponents of this government’s ethnostate agenda as “cross burners” or by accusing ACT of “race-baiting”?
It’s clear which of NZ’s political parties is most racist, as shown by their “caucasity” tweets and their website claim of Maaori genetic superiority. We all know where ideologies of racial essentialism have taken us in the past.
There are good reasons to attack Seymour and ACT, in particular their delusion that the private sector is inherently better than the state sector. The stellar success of mixed economies like Denmark, Germany and Austria give the lie to that nonsense. That is where the boot should go.
On the other hand, Seymour’s bold plan to axe the demographic ministries sounds to me like the best idea in NZ politics for a long time (admittedly the bar is not high). But maybe I’ve overlooked something – perhaps you can tell us exactly what essential services result from the billions spent annually on the demographic ministries. Do the other regular ministries refuse to deal with women, ethnic minorities and young people?
And as always Martyn Ignores HEALTH.
It is a GIANT SLEEPING MONSTER.
70% of NZ knows someone who is paying full price for a medicine.
30% has a family member paying full price for a medicine.
Those figures come from a horizon NZ poll.
Middle class NZ just doesn’t give a damn and you Martyn are just as guilty as they are for ignoring the problem hoping it will go away.
Despite Ian Powell’s blog posts on the subject you do not include any of his ideas in your 100 days list.
We gave labour a mandate and they fucked us over. Voting for the least likely to fuck me over is not a democracy I want to be part of. I’m out
” Labour have failed utterly to be transformative in any true sense of the word”
I disagree. They’ve been transformative in several respects – all of which are bad.
They’ve transformed homelessness
They’ve transformed crime rates
They’ve transformed mental health
They’ve transformed school attendance and education outcomes
They’ve transformed us into a racially splintered society
Oh, and one positive: They’ve transformed the balance sheets of major consultancy companies for the better.
Yes Andrew. And to seal Labour and Greens fate, transformative tax policies from ACT will be required.
20 GST, 20% Personal Tax and 20 Business tax.
National and ACT sorted!
If things remain this bad for LINO. I’m gunna have a reckons they is gunna try to screw the scrum with calling for an early one after coughing up what’s left in Robos bazooka.
A bit of a dash for cash in times of need for everyone who wants some. Like a leaving party.
I think there’s about $11b left of the bazooka fund. If they splash that cash around and then call for a quickie. It just might save their asses??
I can see that happening Denny. Alas, not much else
“the vast number of people bitching about Māori gaining local council representation couldn’t actually name anyone on their Council.”
The rest of us would like ANY representation whatsoever on our councils, but we do know special interest groups _are_ listened to by councils – *they’re the only ones council talks to* – so entrenching Māori special interests with extra voting rights to boot is twisting the knife.
Oh fuck right off yah bigot!
Issues.
Credibility. Labour’s got little, the PM has even less. A front women for the real leader, Willie Jackson, with virtually the entire Maori caucus in ministerial major decision making roles exerting massive influence but have come up bone dry in the one area screaming out for their attention and focus for their people, housing!
Strategy
As if to drive the final nail into their coffin, these out of touch turkeys are going hike petrol by 30 cents (or something similar thinking they’re clever) per litre to kick 2023 off. Is Michael Wood in fact a Zombie with an impeccable side part? I think he is!
Too many aspirations plus empty promises from academic political students and bureaucrats and nothing to show. And let’s not forget, Covid did not exist for the majority of term 1 and the people gave their thanks in election 2020. And Auckland hasn’t got started showing their appreciation for nearly 4 months house arrest! No more credit left!
National. Picture a stereotypical Nat leader and snap, you get Luxon, dull, white, arrogant, multiple property landlord entitled rich prick. And as the UK’s right wing have caused that economy to shit the bed with self indulgent tax cuts, it’s exposed Nicola Willis’s one track tax cut trick for rich Nat supporters as the farce it is. Only difference is National wouldn’t borrow to cover for the less well off. Only pluses are they are not woke nor useless Labour.
Greens are fine, cornered wokedom, it’s supporters will vote for them no matter what and let’s be fair, they are terminal non achievers! But so long as pronouns remain a cause, they’ll live on.
ACT, fringe party with potentially damaging plans soaking up Nats and anger.
Maori Party, racially charged, pure and simple. I cannot see what they would achieve that Willie Jackson’s party hasn’t and without his pragmatism!
I agree, this time around a splintering of votes will likely ensure neither major party has the influence they have historically held!
I disagree with one comment, or maybe a couple, but the biggie.
“but have come up bone dry in the one area screaming out for their attention and focus for their people, housing!”
Yep, housing is important but a quick trip out to Murapara and other such areas will quickly show you that thoise locals don’t value their housing so much.
In my opinion what will lift all New Zealanders inclusing maori further up the ladder is a decent basic education. Something that is sadly lacking today and has deteriorated markedly under this current government. The reason why is no easy issue but whatever labour has done over the past 5 years has produced a negative result.
Maybe ideology has no place in education and maybe, just like a decent house, the foundation is more important that the shiny bits.
‘… and screaming everyone is racist’
As J. Tamahire screams that it’s racist that his charity donations are looked at…
Alan are you Mike Hosking?
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/07/mike-hosking-apologises-to-john-tamihere-on-air-after-allegations-of-defamation.html
Two comments.
A bit of tired rehearsal that National is no more than a cypher for Act. Of course that suits your narrative about how terrible a change to National/Act would be.
Similarl,y Labour won’t be just a cypher for the Greens and the Maori Party, though that narrative also suits your left wing approach.
Labour will go for something a bit more dramatic than you suppose. It won’t be primarily a policy for the poor, but one for the middle class. A write off of at least half of all student debt provided borrowers stay in New Zealand for 3 years. A progressive write off of 15% per year. The objective will be to increase Labour’s vote from the contested middle. Building on what Helen Clark did with interest free loans in 2005, which in fact got her across the line. And also to reduce level of the Green vote, by swinging some of into Labour.
Such a policy will soak up much of the money that might be needed from some of your listed policies, such as modifying GST.
Free dentists great idea but some are waiting 18 months for dental care due to shortages in trained dentists.
Who is going to build these 50000 houses or fill the 4000 nurse vacancies or fill the 1500 prison staff posts or 2000 bus drivers
he list goes on without mass migration as these jobs are not being filled by the 180000 on so called job search . If someone is medically or mentally unfit they need to be on a seperate increased benefit and helped but the helpers are short staffed pity that GST off certain items would be costly both to choose and to carry out that is why no government of iether side have done it.
Some of the other suggestion are very good for any caring government to take them up
I agree with such an even divide between right and left and no one issue like covid to bounce off policies will be important but I fear personality politics will be front and centre . .
Actually NZ is so shitty to work in as a country with so many rips offs and monopolies that are rubber stamped that more migrants nurses are leaving NZ than Kiwi trained nurses.
“The email was shared with Little and Verrall and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, pointing out the 6 percent workforce exit rate of nurses from abroad compared to 4 percent of New Zealand-trained nurses.”
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/475710/health-ministers-queried-why-nurses-not-on-fast-track-residence-list-papers-show
Note we already have 2 migrant doctors per NZ trained doctor. NZ does not bother to train or retain people into these careers, as they think that we can just scoop them up from overseas cheaper – but doesn’t seem to be working out very well – especially as the real money to be made in NZ’s people trafficking of visas, is in visas of unskilled people who can’t get visas anywhere else or speak English.
When are government and advisors going to look at training and retaining qualified people with real wages and decent conditions, not just responding to the endless cries to get more low hanging ‘low skill’ labour Ponzi rort https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/124279195/its-all-fake-chinese-migrant-builders-sold-a-dream-left-exploited-and-hungry,
“The New Zealand Chinese Building Industry Association estimates 50 per cent of all residential construction work in Auckland is being undertaken by Chinese firms.
It’s easy to see why the Chinese workers came here: typically recruited from rural provinces by an agent, they are promised a steady, high-income job, a long-term visa and the potential of permanent residency. “It’s all fake,” says one worker, Yu*, who has overstayed the visa that cost him nearly $40,000 and is now working 66-hour weeks for $20 per hour cash.”
NZ government needs to stop thinking that a marketing campaign or millions to consultants and recruiters will trick nurses and higher skilled people into staying in NZ, who are unsuited to come to NZ, end up in poverty here, while more unsuitable people come daily needing essential services like health care, working for cash and paying no tax – because the NZ government allows easy visa exploitation and turns a blind eye to cash workers/cash companies/illegal workers.
Nice theories Martyn but you left out one inportant one. Most people on the right tend to not declare their feelings publicly. When they do, they get lambasted, ridiculed and mocked by the outraged lefties – this blog is a good example, but hey, we can take it. But the right will quietly express themselves in the safety of a voting booth. Remember how Trump won? There you go. And so I predict a pounding for Labour and the lefties. It will be embarrassing for Jacinda and her govt.
Mango Mussolini got in because of the bent Electoral College system.
Hilary Clinton got some 3 mill popular votes more than Comb-over.
Joe Biden got approx 6 mill more popular votes than Comb-over.
The US has the voting system it has, and to pretend that Hillary Clinton would have won if they US had a different voting system, is window washing.
Clinton lost because lefty people ibn three states wasted their votes were it matter on non candidates in order to be the purest. No matter how many people vote in California, it is the electoral votes that matters. And she did not win them because lefty people did not vote for her.
Well, big Wurst, it is reality. The US Electoral College is a hangover, 40 odd mill in California have same say as barely a mill in Wyoming–hello!
SK, referencing Trump is very apt when talking about National. Trump sucked a lot of poor/lower middle people in saying he cared. That’s kind of what Luxon is doing when he talks about helping people “doing it tough”. To be fair the same music is playing with the main party that is supposedly “left”, except at least they will increase the minimum wage.
I would say this blog is pretty even when it comes to lambasting.
Referencing Trump is very apt when talking about National?? Trump was nationalist, protectionist, anti-woke, demagogic – and for a while, intentionally funny. The Nats are globalist neoliberals, dull as dishwater, and some of them are almost woke enough to be mistaken for LINO MPs. And maybe my memory fails me, but I don’t remember Trump ever saying he cared.
Trump’s demagoguery and aggressive tweeting has more in common with the presumptuously-named “The Maaori Party” and their fans (“being Maaori is like having superpowers” said Mr Waititi last year), even if there’s a chasm between their actual policies.
if you view mental degeneration and inability to form sentences as funny then yup pope trump was a laugh riot…..I was brought up not to mock the afflicted but there’s always an exception.
Perhaps EFESO is our only glimmer of hope?
With Efeso as Mayor of Tamaki Makaurau we will at least have a person who respects, cares for, and understands the realities of 2022 Aotearoa.
Every other politician is stuck in 1989. Maybe an internet glitch?
The weird woke culture is also killing our kids as well as making them depressed and mentally ill and on huge amounts of medication at young ages.
This child was referred to mental health at age 10 just for having some worries, then with all the ‘intervention’ for years, ends up dead. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/losing-cassandra-a-teenagers-struggle-with-mental-distress-and-the-wreckage-it-left-behind/7TXCL5VUEJD3O7WITIUUHNJI2M/
Too much poorly trained intervention that is over the top is part of the problem. A huge amount of kids in my childs high school are seeing the councillor which is encouraged by the school, and they seem to be suffering more from woke affluenza than mental health issues – the woke counselling is making them feel more anxious and depressed.
Too much of the wrong type of intervention in NZ from poorly trained, wokeos who seem to make kids feel more mentally ill. (Growth industry).
The the corporates are straight on it, marketing all this counselling as part of their marketing. Do they check that the counselling they promote, is actually from qualified people with degrees in psychology and psychiatry?
Like our hospitals now filled with people who are not doctors and nurses, our mental health systems are filled with people who are not qualified and it’s not working out very well for their patients who seem to become worse as they go forward with NZ counselling and mental health services and charities.
when ‘mental issues’ reach 51percent of the population does being ‘stable’ require medication as a minority aberration.
ohhh and what the fuck is ‘normal’ anyway..100 people 100 different answers.
“Nice theories Martyn but you left out one inportant one. Most people on the right tend to not declare their feelings publicly.”
I will play devils advocate here. If you or Bob are representative of the right, I’d suggest you go back and reconsider that statement.
Bob’s feelings…”Bob the first October 1, 2022 at 9:00 am
Or Labour the most divisive Government in our history.
Also most furtive.”
Bert
I did say most bar some, like the ‘some’ that are posting here. Everyone here gets the meaning of that, except you. Aside, what Bob said on 1 October will play out at the election. Then you’ll see the result of 6 years Jacinda. The fact that a doddering rightie is even leading the AKL poll should give you a pretty good idea of the mood in NZ, and how much the Saint has lost the narrative. Anyway, good luck next year Bert. You’ll need it. And I wouldn’t be the only one thinking that. Perhaps, if you’re capable of that instead of sniping at everyone, you should ask yourself why all this is happening. Everyone else here is examining that question in emphatic fashion, instead on blindly idolising St Jacinda’s “brilliant leadership”.
Oh you continue with that boring rhetoric. The “saint” name calling and ” brilliant leadership” are your words and is sniping and everyone of your posts are derogatory. If you didn’t post no one would be disappointed .
You are a hypocrite but at least you have a friend with the same poor tastes in Bob.
Next year luck won’t be required, 3 more years coward, 3 more years!
A doddering rightie leading says all we need to know about Aucklanders and their Lattes. Auckland was once a great city. A rightie ruined it with the ” Super city” mentality. It has never been the same since. I know you live there which again says all we need to know, with your continual negative posts which everyone here sees except you. Your sarcastic posts may fool you but others only see you as an embarrassment.
“But Labour saved our lives and deserve another gratitude vote.”
Absolute nonsense. But you keep telling yourself that like a good wee sycophant.