I’ve spent the last 2 months travelling the country hosting pub debates around New Zealand and I wanted to express some thoughts.
Every single day, new National, ACT or NZ First policy gets released that will cause social carnage + voters don’t care because they are embittered Jacinda saved NZ from a mass death event!
We are a tiny, low-imagination-horizon juvenile settler country with all the cultural maturity of a can of day old coke cola.
Research shows Jacinda and Labour’s leadership saved 20 000 lives. Damien Grant in his column over the weekend deriding our covid response doesn’t understand the concept of a shared sacrifice because as a Libertarian, he doesn’t understand the concept of sharing.
It’s Old Zealand vs New Zealand this election, and let’s be crystal clear, National + ACT + NZF will be the worst Government in NZ History.
This self inflicted wound of a possible new Government has been driven by the rage of frightened voters who have had their pain and ignorance manipulated for far right interests using social media hate algorithms.
The Left have been ineffectual at scaring the Public Service into productivity and Labour’s incremental glacial change does nothing to heal the cost of living pain many feel because the capacity of the state to do anything meaningful has been underfunded by the right for decades.
Labour’s cowardice to tax the rich mixed with toxic woke middle class identity politics has burnt the left and provided culture war ammunition that the right have crucified us with.
Meanwhile the planet boils as catastrophic climate change becomes an immediate reality.
If you think National + ACT + NZF is the solution, we as a Nation have a problem.
We are a lesser people for this Election and the worst angels of our nature have been aroused by political interests and astroturf rural dissent.
National get caught hiding the fact that only 3000 people will get their $250 per fortnight tax cut, while apologising for falsely framing everyone would get that tax cut, Luxon accidentally framed it that way again. He’s a one trick pony without a trick or pony.
After refusing to rule Winston out, then ruling Winston in, National begged the country not to vote for Winston.
I’ve never seen such an appalling set of stupid decisions all made in combination to create a toxic brew of egos.
Winston is threatening Jack Tame for asking him hard questions.
National will stop building State Houses.
ACT want to rob you of January 2nd stat holiday.
National can not fund their foreign buyers tax but will allow foreign speculators to price the next generation out of home ownership.
NZ First just dumped a candidate who compared Covid vaccinations to Nuremberg trials.
National will give Landlords the power to throw tenants out without notice.
NZ First will misuse the Terrorism Suppression Act to designate domestic groups for paramilitary policing.
National will start riots and bloodshed at Funerals attempting to take Gang Patches from funerals.
National will rob 2 year olds, mutilate public transport and literally steal from climate change funds to give Landlord’s a $250 per fortnight tax cut!
ACT will start a race war with their racist referendum.
National and ACT will steal 2 years of our pension from Gen X.
Winston claims Māori aren’t indigenous.
ACT want to spark domestic meth cooking so they can pimp for big Pharma.
National will give bosses the right to sack after 90 days.
National, ACT and NZ First will all punish beneficiaries.
National, ACT and NZ First have used Māori as a punching bag.
National, ACT and NZ First will slash the public services while claiming they aren’t slashing public services.
National, ACT and NZ First will abandon all climate change legislation and allow the planet to burn.
National, ACT and NZ First are taking millions in donations from the mega rich.
National’s ‘plan’ isn’t trickle down economics, it defies political gravity and demands trickle up! They are taking $2b from the poor and giving it to the rich! This isn’t a plan, it’s Egalitarian vandalism!
In the first 100 days, redneck knee jerk left tough on crime rhetoric will be imposed that will cause an explosion in violence by the State which will shame kiwis!
National, ACT and NZFirst will throw thousands out of state homes with no where for them to go, while cutting 15 000 public service jobs while cutting 140 000 off welfare with sanctions!
If this is honestly your political preference because you are embittered Jacinda protected NZ from a mass death event and saved 20000 lives; have had your co-governance ignorance manipulated; and fear of crime exploited – then we have a problem as a Nation!
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“ After refusing to rule Winston out, then ruling Winston in, National begged the country not to vote for Winston.”
For a country with an MMP consensus-based, coalition-dependent, electoral system, it’s quite dispiriting how inept New Zealand’s politicians are.
They’re simply bad at politics.
The planning for a social democratic Third Party run in 2026 should start right now.
Agreed.
Maybe TOP plus the tax-reform minded Labour folk (peeling off thanks to all those “captain’s calls”), plus the section of the Greens that’s less hooked-into culture wars & more economically/wealth distribution minded?
We have two already, they’re called the Green Party and Te Pati Maori
Exactly and I agree 100%.
it is the reason I gave up on Labour 9 years ago and Joined the Greens in 2019.
Labour are a lost cause for progressive left economic change.
ACT will get things done.
I laughed at that. It sounds like the videos I’ve seen over the past couple of years about how brilliant Trump is. From his cult. “He gets things done,” and the, “He did this, he did that,” and invariably it’s nonsense. But it’s words to cling to.
Yeah, like put force together a super city and hasn’t that gone down it’s sink hole!
Act will get things done like stealing dead babies identities for passports, they will get that done.
Real change! It’s coming!
Loose change?
MHK Haha!
Thanks for keeping us informed and entertained over the last couple of months @ MB. I’ll leave the last word with you. It’s how it should be. But cant help myself in saying the last word will be with voters. Don’t beat yourself. Labour and the Greens will hold their own in the electorates and attract a good proportion of the party vote, sufficient to make it a close race. On the polling not enough? Oh well, well see just how accurate the more recent polls are at predicting the result.
That saddest part is National are so f’ing useless that Labour start looking the less worse option in terms of major parties. How is that possible! At least under labour you get a semblance of CGT on property, and all this shit about landlords reducing rent if they get tax relief is something not even Nicola Willis believes. It’s stupid treating interest the way they are because they are gutless on speculation but here we are. Yes Labours GST policy is stupid.
Nationals tax cuts are a farce and ACTS tax cuts come with such a cost we will pay big time. I’d like to see the state sector given a good rark up but Seymour is only really doing it to let any industry run wild. It’s not about good management. The Treaty stance and the gun stuff is just f’ing stupid.
The Māori have some policies like, the prison one, that are nuts and although I have time for Shaw, Swarbrick, and Genter, the fact that Davidson is co leader of the Greens just leaves me cold.
TOP just feels like you are almost not voting and the rest are just idiots.
I was propelled out of my virgin couch by my usual and habitually repetitive feelings of fears, regrets, misgivings then, more agriculturally, my bladder then latterly my bowels then to read The Guardian, more specifically since I’m a photographer as well as a farmer and infamous lothario with a donkey shaming appendage. In The Guardian there is a photo essay titled ” What, no Eiffel Tower? A bohemian’s Paris – in pictures” https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2023/oct/12/eiffel-bohemian-paris-menilmontant-thomas-boivin and suddenly something rang an alarm bell in an area of my brain I’ve not yet killed off, as one fucking well should if one’s to be accused of living a full life.
What have we become? What, have we become? Where are we? Are we here? If we are, then where are we?
I see more compelling evidence that we’re not here more than of compelling evidence that we are and I can confidently write that because I span two distinct epochs which means I saw the end of one and the beginning of the other. An analogy might be, and if I offend someone then I don’t give a fuck. Imagine going out of an evening to a restaurant for dinner with friends then to a Club and meeting someone gorgeous?
You get on naturally and comfortably and enjoy each others company but there’s one difference to today.
Everyone’s stark naked. Everyone, everywhere’s naked. No one thinks to wear clothes to go out of an evening. It’s never been a thing to do. So, a bottle of wine later, maybe a spliff in the car park then back home for an aperitif then it’s time to go to bed, as one does. But she, your beautiful companion, stands up without that much of an excuse, only a benign, neutral sort of smile then puts on heavy clothing and leaves with nothing more than a peck on the cheek. Top set.
That, was an analogy of sorts. The Guardian photo essay jolted me into what I can only describe as reality.
Before neo-liberalism with its maze of psycho-manipulative secret agendas which simply enables banks, without explanation, to exploit us and we have companies and corporations many are foreign owned who are boldly corrupt and exploiting us too. The latest shrinkflation thing with jams is shocking for its arrogance and extended middle-finger fuckyouery. Roses Ginger Marmalade was like Meth to me. Anathoth’s Blackberry was also. But! They’ve shrunk the bottles and now they charge a little more! They were honest and naked when we met, then they took me home then got fully dressed and left???
Our politics, right? I use the word ‘our’. But they’re not ‘ours’. Our politicians whom we pay $millions to act in our best interests don’t, I mean, that should be fucking obvious by now surely? Four foreign owned banks stealing $180.00 a second nett 24/7/365? What the fuck’s that about?
Our awesome stuff and things we bought and paid for with our taxes, WHICH IS WHAT TAXES ARE FOR YOU FUCKING MORONS WHO THINK TAXATION IS A BAD THING ! That gave us an easy lifestyle in our beautiful AO/NZ are now privately owned. Ask the power companies how that’s working out for them.
roger douglas of the nasty, naked, national party came at us via our fully clothed Labour Party then he and his mates from both sides of what is now our one sided politics came up behind us and fucked us.
And now? Everything and I mean literally everything seems like an abstract reflection of what was an old and gleefully enduring society and in there somewhere I must vote. But what the fuck am I voting for? What’s even more unsettling is that I don’t actually have to vote at all. Isn’t that an indication of just how derailed, of how being vulnerable and powerless is the new normal? It isn’t normal. It isn’t commonsense. It IS extremely dangerous though.
CB you are getting a bit rural there, where AI has a special reproductive meaning. I notice that everything is the opposite to what we are promised. Everything to do with managing in an orderly way seems more difficult. Even phoning the SPCA I find. And it is the ‘thing’ to tell voters lies, and we expect it. You can’t beat that one back a bit; when there were going to be 10,000 homes built in 3-4 years; when we knew there was a shortage of supply and not enough builders and carpenters and apprentices.
And we are a mountainous country and sell off our both our fertile flat land and hill country to overseas predators. We have to spend money on Auckland so we are on the tourist lists for the world with ‘world class’ features to bring in the richies and also hold lucky-dip fairs for them, but without apple bobbing. Our electricity supplies and water are going away to others just when we need them.
A recent advert about power outages and notifications in Nelson[Tasman advises to be ready and states some of the electricity retailers, including Contact, Meridian, Pulse, Genesis, Nova, Electric Kiwi; so many where only one or two were needed, it’s artificial competition – a mirage. We of course are going to be milked to power our vehicles – cars or bikes, and be part of distorting politics in the world looking for lithium, rare earth stuff.
Our high paying jobs are going to overseas predators. In Nelson within a short time of getting a local polytechnic CEO, he was off to Oz. That is one reason why they are so tough on us we are a stepping stone for all sorts of overseas ‘ambitious’. We used to be a drawcard for the world for the meritorious efforts to limit class differences. Then Roger Douglas found a new way to shine on the speaking circuit. And we made him a Sir for knifing us in the back. My Agatha Christie crime story says that people knifed in a certain way can keep going naturally for quite a while before they collapse. It will come, time and tide wait for no man. it is said.
You are so amusing, but I’ve got out of the habit of reading long things.
Shorthand, National is quite good about economics, if it wasn’t the end of time. The Greens are good about climate change reality but they close down capitalism. We want to keep our whiteware.
So that’s why there are so many white cars around!
“The Left have been ineffectual at scaring the Public Service into productivity and Labour’s incremental glacial change does nothing to heal the cost of living pain many feel because the capacity of the state to do anything meaningful has been underfunded by the right for decades “.
Martyn that for me is correct and the most bewildering. I also believe we need a wealth tax of some kind. Labour’s answer was to hire hundreds of ineffective bureaucrats and have thousands of committee meetings. They are only now learning to govern and it’s too late. They had six years to make sensible change that the public could see would work. When we talk of trust Labours hidden agenda on co governance and three waters is seen as devious. The left hates Luxon but remember he hasn’t had a chance yet. He hasn’t failed. IMO Winston will call the shots most likely in Nationals favour but nothing is certain is it. Thanks for the entertainment.
You have to want change, to affect change.
Labour didn’t want real change, didn’t want to fix real problems, so nothing happened.
They just delivered failure & hot air.
Yet National had no air.
Labour have to win this because National only support the 1%. They want kids who cannot go to the bank of mum and dad to leave NZ. They will rent forever. They give them no other option.
A lot of people are going to be systematically screwed over by a National government. I hope a miracle happens tomorrow, even know I know there is no such thing.
Great stuff Bomber. The debates were an awesome eye opener to the depth of talent from all parts of the country and political spectrum. See you on the other side.
The lasting damage of the NAct policy platform, if enacted, will render future elections all but moot.
Because voting for a lesser evil will be insufficient to repair what they’re promising to do to New Zealand.
This truly is a watershed moment in our political history.
Best wishes everyone, and thanks Martyn & TDB!
ACT’s policies about beneficiaries are particularly cruel. As Victorian as their whole policy.
But, boy, does Hipkins’s campaign suck in every way. We vote around him. They rightfully thought a little cost of living short-termism would help. But it comes with no vision at all. I’m sure, if they’re voted in again the whole twotish short-term Labour Party will take it as endorsement. But we do it despite them.
Did you catch David Cunliffe commenting on the last debate — Paula Bennett leaned in to hear what he had to say.
If National win, I will probably step back from commenting for a few months, at least until the dust settles.
Catch you all whenever I guess….
“Jacinda protected NZ from a mass death event and saved 20000 lives.” Martyn Bradbury.
But you wouldn’t know that from this election.
Labour didn’t fight this election on Jacinda Ardern’s record. It was never mentioned.
Labour are so committed to neoliberalism that they were too ashamed to campaign on the fact that Jacinda Ardern was prepared to put a spoke in the wheel of capitalist profit taking with the shutdowns to save lives.
The old Labour are still committed to the fantasy of white colonial supremacy that they were too ashamed to campaign on the fact that after the Christchurch massacre Jacinda Ardern said, “they are us” of the Moslem community.
On taking the premiership Chris Hipkins carried out what was called in the media a ‘bonfire’ of Jacinda Ardern’s policies, and her achievements were scrubbed from the Labour Party’s collective memory, especially her vision for this country, as a leader in climate justice.
Jacinda Ardern wasn’t perfect by any means, no great disruptive leaders ever are. But Jacinda Ardern would never have made a “Captain’s Call” to cancel the wealth tax. That I am absolutely sure of. Even if she had been under political pressure from the wealthy big business lobbyists. Even if the conservative permanent heads were advising her to, Jacinda Ardern would not have buckled to the rich. Not least because Ardern had publicly committed herself to a personal mantra of “kindness” which such a captain’s call would have completely negated.
The Labour government didn’t lose this election because of Jacinda Ardern’s legacy but because of their refusal to defend it.
Good points Pat O’D. It seems that with everyone living longer, and perhaps like Robert Mugabe, supposedly taking monkey glands, the uglies never die they just eventually dry up or bloat and destroy themselves. But not having had a new thought or questioned themselves since they were 55 and succeeded in some way, they carry on in their self-satisfaction as a shining example of how good their chosen policies are. We need different ways for choosing our wise ones and limiting their time of management, and later influence. That would be a civil war in itself.
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