The Infamous TDB Political Awards 2022

James Shaw set climate crisis expectations way down with his sleepy nothings that do little.

To appreciate how nothing James Shaw’s conclusion on what to do about catastrophic climate change is, it was immediately endorsed by the National Party whose evangelical leader probably believes global warming is happening because God is hugging earth extra tight.

Being carbon neutral in 28 years is not a solution!

By 2030, over 50% of the oceans will be collapsing as bio-habitats.

By 2030, East Coast cities in the U.S. can expect to see two to three-times as many flooding incidents.

By 2030, 122million will be driven into extreme poverty as  direct result of climate change.

By 2030, 100million will die as a direct consequence of climate change.

By 2030, even if the Paris Agreement is actually implemented, we will see a planet warm to 3.4 degrees by the end of this century meaning there will effectively be no future civilisation capable of surviving on a planet that warm.

By 2030, the global annual cost of global warming will be $3trillion.

2030, the number of extremely hot days — classified as maximum temperatures of more than 35C — are tipped to climb in all capital cities.

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

At this stage the Greens are like a foreskin, in that they serve no purpose and everyone just wishes they were cut off.

Tthe big story for workers this year was the passing of the Fair Pay Agreements which will effectively see universal union membership.

The main reason why wages are so depressed in NZ can be traced back to the 1991 Independent Contracts Act which de-unionised the workforce and broke the back of the union movement. Barely 10% of the NZ workforce are in Unions and without their collective bargaining power, wages and conditions have slipped backwards.

Fair Pay Agreements finally give workers real rights and finally forces the bosses to pay decent wages.

This is a courageous policy from Labour which represents the largest rollback of neoliberalism we have seen in 30 years.

Helen Kelly will finally be proud of this Government.

ACT and National have promised to immediately destroy it if elected in 2023.

After causing the largest wealth transfer to the richest in NZs history, after giving rich prick property speculators a 1 Trillion dollar wealth grab, the plan to dampen down on the inflation this has caused is for an unelected technocrat to engineer a recession to throw 120 000 jobs onto the scrap heap?

Or put another way by Chloe, “sacrificing the lowest income New Zealanders at the alter of economic orthodoxy”.

The Green Party result in recent Polling is poor when you consider the Housing crisis and the lack of real progress on child poverty and welfare reform.

Labour Left should be bolting to the Greens.

They are not.

Anything less than 15% at the 2023 election by the Greens should be seen as failure. The demographic of the electorate favours the Greens, the issues and lack of Labour action favours them and duh – climate change.

Chloe is a unique talent. She speaks with the energy of the new voting generation in a language that empowers and challenges. She is an incredible communicator and if she had the Leadership, she could dominate political debate.

She has shone every time she has spoken on any issue and can generate political excitement the way Jacinda used to.

Chloe is the leader we wished Jacinda was.

You can always tell when the latest self inflicted mistake by Luxon has caused real political damage to his brand because the Right Wing Trolls go into super defense mode.

All the usual suspects have popped up telling us that it’s unfair to judge poor Chris Luxon for having a holiday, everyone is allowed a holiday, why be so jealous about his holiday, mumble mumble mumble Hawaii, it’s just a silly mislabelled social media post, the Left are so desperate to deflect, nothing to see here, mumble mumble mumble Hawaii.

To all of that I say, bullshit!

This has been an enormous fuck up to Luxon’s brand, and the fact National tried to hide him being in Hawaii by loading his week long social media feed to look like he was in NZ alerts us to the reality that they knew him holidaying in Hawaii while he is singing the cost of living crisis blues to a domestic audience would be politically damaging.

It’s the exact same problem he has with the tax cuts.

The fundamental problem for every right wing politician selling tax cuts is the following: Average Punter asks how much they are getting in tax cuts, and under National that’s $850 per year, and then they ask the politician trying to sell the tax cut how much they are getting, and in Luxon’s case it will be $18000 and average punters say fuck off – the poor aren’t stupid!

The exact same applies to Luxon singing the cost of living blues, all that faux concern looks like an act when he’s caught holidaying at a mansion in Hawaii for a little bit of him time with the fam.

You know, like we all do eh, especially after all the stress of Covid, we just pop on a flight for a wee break in fucking Hawaii don’t we all?

Oh that’s right – we don’t.

Having Mr 7 Properties holidaying in Hawaii while Kiwis shiver in poverty makes it hard to pretend he cares about a cost of living crisis that doesn’t impact him.

That’s why they tried to pretend Aloha Luxon was visiting working classes in Te Puke.

Let’s not forget, National purposely misled the public as to where Luxon was, not just with this one post, the entire week is peppered with posts that insinuated he was in NZ.

They knew it was politically damaging because it is fucking politically damaging. Sure he needs a holiday, but in basic respect to the very citizens  in economic pain who he’s been claiming to champion, a holiday should have been at a batch in NZ, not some obscenely grotesque affluence that 90% of his fellow citizens will never experience.

This goes directly to the character of Luxon, this is who he truly is, a rich prick who speaks fake comfort and anger to those hurting economically while he suns it up on a holiday most of those he’s claiming concern for will never share.

And the National Party, knowing it would be damaging to his political facade, repeatedly did all they could to hide the fact he was holidaying in a swanky Hawaiian beach house.

Luxon cries political tears over a cost of living crisis that never actually ever touches him.

It was outrageous of Jacinda calling David Seymour a ‘arrogant prick’.

He isn’t!

He’s a dangerous prick.

Arrogant suggests an intellectual vanity that David doesn’t possess. His sociopathy is far more dangerous than that!

This is a man who texted out a Māori health code at the height of the pandemic for shits and giggles.

This is a man demanding ankle bracelets on 11 years and when National set it at 10 years he accused them of stealing his policy!

This is a man who if a National Party are elected will be the next Finance Minister of the country with a glassy eyed vision of taking a chainsaw to the States capacity to provide the basic level of living standards in a liberal progressive democracy.

ACT have been a ceaseless political war machine for the ideological right and if they are elected with National next year, we will all be calling David far, far, far worse than arrogant prick.

Because I’m a political tragic, I had Parliament TV on in the background when Kelvin bewilderingly chose to shit all over ACT Party MP, Karen Chhour.

I disagree vehemently with ACT MPs and their dangerous conflict policies, but as a human being, Karen Chhour is no Sam Uffindell, she has not had a life of privilege and nor does she ask questions from a ludicrously sheltered life of wealth, she has had an astonishingly  hard life made deplorable by state intervention, her Maiden Speech was a harrowing tale of abuse and redemption through hard personal resilience, you can see why she has come to these perspectives…

ACT thinks this can’t really take place while there is such a focus on race and culture in the organisation delivering that protection.

As I said recently, when Grainne Moss stood down as Oranga Tamariki chief executive, ethnicity and culture should not be how we decide what is in the best interests of children.

Oranga Tamariki should be colour-blind and open to whatever will ensure a child’s wellbeing and safety.

It’s not a one size fits all thing, and having legislation that tries to make it that way doesn’t work for our children.

If that means placing a vulnerable child into the home of a family who desperately want to love and care for them, rather than doing everything possible to place the child back into the family that made them vulnerable in the first place, then that should be the solution.

As someone who has experienced three elements of placement – non family who wanted me, family who didn’t and extended family who did – I can tell you, as a young person you’ll take love, compassion and stability wherever you can find it.

That’s why ACT believes Oranga Tamariki needs reform, just not in the way that reform looks likely to be done under this Government.

…now we can disagree on how this all gets implemented, but she ain’t no Honkey from Cracker town going on about Māori privilege eh?

She’s a Māori woman who has faced the grim reality of the State, and at the very least, her perspective deserve to be respected.

Which is not what Kelvin did.

Bloody Kelvin.

There are a few different Kelvins.

There is the humble servant to his community whom he does tirelessly serve in his electorate.

There is the funny, personable Kelvin who is full of clever insights when he’s talking to small groups.

Then there is the Kelvin who is painfully shy when on camera to the point you cringe.

And then there’s reading poetry on Election Night 2020 Kelvin where he almost goes on the spectrum of misreading the room.

When he said…

“cross the bridge that is Te Tiriti o Waitangi from her Pākehā world into the Māori world”.

…I actually choked on my coffee.

There was no reason nor need to denigrate Chhour’s identity in answering her legitimate question about Oranga Tamariki and his doubling down was just as bewildering…

“no good looking at the world from a vanilla lens”.

…ok. Ok. Ok.

So much dumb all at once, the only redeeming feature in all of this is that Kelvin clearly reflected on it over right and immediately apologised the next day.

That’s the only redeeming feature here.

The true irony in all of this, is that ACT’s actual policy would be disastrous to Māori and would spark a race war if ACT tried to implement it all.

The $7billion they intend to cut out of welfare and the closure of the Ministry of Māori Affairs alongside eliminating the Māori seats are all policies that will trigger mass protests the likes we haven’t seen, and ACT are active about promoting these conflict policies.

Chhour has every right to question the State on social service providers that have scarred her childhood, and her Party urgently needs to be challenged on their conflict policies that I absolutely believe could spark civil disorder, but denigrating her identity to do it as Kelvin did only handed ACT self righteous ammunition to fire back with.

Bloody Kelvin.

3 Waters, co-governance, free speech, all needless fuck ups while the real mahi isn’t getting done. The Labour wonks and geeks seem to think rearranging the bureaucratic structure of services is how we win continued electoral support, rather than focusing on the end user experience for those services!

When you go to the Emergency Department, you don’t care that the back room has been centralised, all you care is that you will be seen in a short amount of time and your care is safe and will heal you.

Labour have spent far too much energy doing Sim city rebuilds of bureaucratic reform and and not nearly enough on dealing with people’s material well being.

‘Well Being’ for Labour seems to be a Māori sign language advert produced in Wellington with a diverse cast of actors.

We have ended up cheerleading esoteric issues like land rights for gay whales.

People are struggling and things are getting worse, not better. Structural problems that won’t be solved by rearranging the bureaucratic deckchairs on the Titanic!

#nzpol pic.twitter.com/uK3TTahmwE

— Martyn Bradbury (@CitizenBomber) October 13, 2022

Most influential political activism – Taxpayer’s Union – Corporate Consultants

No one has been as successful at political shit stirring and influence quite like the Taxpayers’ Union.

The connection between corporate farmers, the feral Groundswell and right wing spin drs who have conspired to undermine 3 Waters are doing so because this has ultimately always been about cost and the way corporate farming escapes the true price of the water they take and pollute!

Watching how this has been twisted into a race war by those who don’t want to pay for their pollution is as sad as the emotional manipulation driving the Ram Raiders debate thanks to crime porn clickbait from a ratings chasing Corporate Media.

We have been played over co-governance when the drivers of this movement were always corporate farming profit margin based masquerading as democratic concern.

Watching the Taxpayers’ Union manipulate the agenda as well as they have deserves a standing ovation from the House of Machiavelli. They have been as effective as the corporate consultants to Labour who take a billion a year to play Sim City bureaucratic deck chair rearrangements.

No! Way!

Council of Trade Unions denounces protest?!?

Council Of Trade Unions Calls For End To Anti-mandate Protest

“The NZCTU understands that the right to participate in protest actions is a fundamental element of freedom of expression and a sign of a healthy and functioning democracy. The NZCTU proudly upholds and exercises these rights to protest in NZ.

“The current protest in and around the Parliament precinct however is not simply about the right to protest and we do not support it continuing, nor do we support the basic anti-mandate call being made by the protestors.

“We are concerned by the undue ongoing disruption it is causing workers and their families, including school children and students. The protest is having a negative impact on workers in the vicinity being able to do their jobs safely, and without abuse.The protest has involved harassment of the public, it has prevented workers from moving around and from accessing public transport, it has blocked roads and put emergency services at risk.

“We are further concerned at the tone of much of the protest, calling for violence against our elected representatives and the media. Let alone the conspiracy theories and unscientific assertions being circulated in an effort to undermine our public health response. These are not actions consistent with a free and open democratic society.

“We therefore ask that the protest at the Parliament precinct end immediately,” says Richard Wagstaff

If you wanted a clearer picture of the Cognitive dissonance that is plaguing the Middle Class Woke Marxists, it’s the Council of fucking Trade Unions, an organisation built by protest, an organisation that actively uses protest, attacking another protest because it’s not the right kind of protest.

The Middle Class Marxists want a revolution that knows its pronouns! It doesn’t want the smelly lumpenproletariat spoiling the aesthetics of their dinner party activism.

Legendary working class hero Helen Kelly will be turning in her grave watching the CTU side with the professional managerial class over the economic pain of the lumpenproletariat.

You would think the CTUs shameful Unemployment Insurance that empowers white collar bureaucrats most was the lowest they could fall, but shitting on another’s protest when protest is the bread and butter of the Union movement is an extraordinary hypocrisy made possible by the middle class flunkies who staff it.

Oh and fuck Neale Jones.

Watching the slow motion disaster of the Green Party Phantom Coup ineptitude is so painful.

The Greens are so incompetent they couldn’t get laid wearing banana costumes at a vegan kink brothel.

Put aside the strategic and tactical amateurishness of these clowns, the true tragedy of the phantom Green Party Coup is that they are squabbling while the planet melts, and it is melting.

As TDB has been pointing out since we began 10 years ago, the climate crisis is an existential threat to our species and it’s only getting worse…

‘Soon it will be unrecognisable’: total climate meltdown cannot be stopped, says expert

Blistering heatwaves are just the start. We must accept how bad things are before we can head off global catastrophe, according to a leading UK scientist

…how bad will it get?

Under our feet As vast, thick sheets of ice disappear from high mountains and from the poles, rock crusts that had previously been compressed are beginning to rebound, threatening to trigger earthquakes and tsunamis. “We are on track to bequeath to our children and their children not only a far hotter world, but also a more geologically fractious one,” says Bill McGuire.

The left love Michael Joseph Savage. Every Labour MP who wishes to push their left wing credentials have photos of him hanging in every electorate office and Minister’s room.

Savage is lauded as the creator of the welfare state in the wake of the Great Depression.

He was swamped when he went into public as NZers gushed over how he had saved them all.

The most hilarious truth, provided by insights from John A Lee who served in Savage’s Cabinet and was the anti-Phil Twyford of his day, (in that he actually built Houses) paints a very different picture from the mythology the left have given Savage .

The truth is that Savage was incredibly centrist and not a radical at all. Backed up by the neoliberal Walter Nash and conservative manipulator Peter Fraser, Savage did all he could to stop transformative change, it was actually Savage’s Caucus who forced his hand repeatedly to be transformative.

The exact same dynamics are at play inside Jacinda’s Labour Government and the Māori Caucus has been one of the few factions to successfully navigate these tensions.

You’ll remember that when the Boomer King Wayne Burns won, I said the following…

I would expect a ‘report’ to come out suggesting a vast leap in rates to cover the perilous position Auckland has been left in and that those rates will terrify and enrage ratepayers.

…well fuck me brothers and sisters, the ‘I-told-you-so-express’ is on time again!

Gasp at the horror!

Auckland Council $270m budget hole: Mayor Wayne Brown responds, says 12pc rates rises unacceptable and won’t happen

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown says the prospect of steep rates rises is not acceptable and will not happen as a result of a huge financial hole in the council budget.

Brown was responding to a story in today’s Herald saying stubbornly high inflation, wage rises and interest costs have seen the projected budget hole of between $90 million and $150m balloon to $270m.

He confirmed the council’s governing body needs to find $270 million quickly to cover its growing budget hole for the 2023/24 financial year.

“The $270 million budget hole is a legacy of former mayor Phil Goff papering over the fiscal cracks and passing the buck to the new Governing Body, and not being prepared to confront poor performance by Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs) and Ports of Auckland Ltd (POAL) over six years,” Brown said.

…to avoid this 12% rate rise, the Boomer King will suddenly find some Auckland asset that we don’t really need and the slash and burn of Auckland’s assets will begin apace to the same Chinese Business interests and Graham Hart interests that supported the Boomer King’s Mayoralty race.

Are Aucklanders dumb enough to get played like this?

Of course we are dumb enough to get played like this!

WE ARE BEING PLAYED LIKE THIS!

Perhaps, just perhaps, if the local elections weren’t contracted out to a private company that only saw 8 polling booths for 1.2million Aucklanders more people might have voted and averted the looming privatisation fire sale.

Auckland deserves everything about to happen to us.