Many actions of the current National Act NZ First pose threats to our democracy but in this post I’d like to draw your attention to the creation of the new Ministry for Regulation headed up by its founder David Seymour.
The argument that our lives are encumbered by lots of regulations and government would be far more efficient if it did not have to send proposed legislation out for consultation might, on a cursory glance, have some populist appeal.
On closer scrutiny we see
1) A NEW ministry employing MORE public servants tasked with more reporting under a Minister who says he wants LESS public servants and less paper shuffling.
2) What amounts to an attack on the democratic process of consultation.
A thoughtful observer might ask – why did David Seymour want to set up such a new ministry?
Part of the answer has to be surely that he doesn’t want to consult with stakeholders in our society he just wants us to do as we are told.
Democracy is messy for the good reason that people want to have a say about the effect any proposed issue will have on their lives.
Bryan Bruce is one of New Zealand’s most important and respected documentary makers.
The devil is in the detail of the ever increasing number of noncitizens voters, and the fact that once Winnie is gone, it will be a pure, permanent NACT government in No Zealand. Buckle up, sheeple.
Well yes, Castro, but existing details such as a government minister declining to front up for questioning because she happens to finds it boring, or a government minister asking a journalist how she found him, can also be seen as demonic assaults upon democracy, big or small.
Allowing ever increasing numbers of foreigners to vote in a permanent NACT government will guarantee all of that and worse; but, yes, feel free to look at the smaller picture if you wish.
“Demonic assaults”?
“ The devil is in the detail”…
‘The devil is in David’
Covid. Sorry, but that’s a false equivalence. Satan, the devil, was a fallen angel, with sometimes, I think, the possibility that he could rise again to his former brilliance as an angel of light.
Seymour is, and never was, an angel or brilliant, just a guy who thinks that he’s smart, and shines about as brightly as a $2 shop torch with a flat battery. That in itself though, can make life perilous for others in the vicinity thereof.
Why would recent immigrants be permanent NACT voters?
@ wayne. Really…? You have to ask that question?
I just so happen to have a bridge for sale and going cheap. It connects Auckland with the North Shore and Las Vegas.
I could let you have it for, say, $3500.00 plus GST. I could lose the GST for cash.
We could meet on K Road somewhere. Remember, it must be in cash if you want that discount. And no questions asked and don’t tell anyone otherwise you’ll be up for stiff competition.
Sarcastic nastiness from the look at me countryboy.
From my experience new immigrants aren’t a lot different in their voting behaviour than those who were either born here, or have been here for decades. It all depends on their economic situation and their perspective of the world.
It is certainly not particularly obvious in the polling data.
Although you could run the argument that New Lynn and Roskill went National because of the number of new immigrants in those electorates who are small business owners.
All the political parties seem to have quite a number of relatively new immigrants among their MP’s. Perhaps more evident in National and the Greens. Both parties, for very different reasons, did well in the last election and thus got a substantial number of new MP’s, some of whom are relatively recent immigrants. Though they have to have been here long enough to be citizens.
The possibility of stupidity cannot be ruled out.
Because they buy all the bullshit that National are for small business, economic management, and Nationalism when really they’re just dirty big C conservatives interested in their own status quo and feathering their own nests. I only wish we had a real Nationalist in the fucking country. Or an effing Socialist for that matter. All just muddling middlers. Unionists and Tories have taken over the triumvirate and guess who’s missing.
This is actually what I’ve been saying for years: we are importing views and values that are not Kiwi views and values and the results are showing up in elections. Take the Chinese population of NZ as one example: they are a larger percentage of the NZ population than those who identify as Māori and they largely vote as a block(plenty of journalism showing that the CCP tells them who to vote for), and we all know who they align closely with.
This is actually what I’ve been saying for years: we are importing views and values that are not Kiwi views and values and the results are showing up in elections. Take the Chinese population of NZ as one example: they are a larger percentage of the NZ population than those who identify as Māori and they largely vote as a block(plenty of journalism showing that the CCP tells them who to vote for), and we all know who they align closely with.
We are also importing Tonga, Samoan, Fijian, Indian, Sri Lankan, Australian, British, European, American and Middle Eastern views. And many many many years ago we imported Maori views. You also have a problem with that? Where did you come from?
A “Ministry for Regulation” is chillingly Orwellian. A “Ministry for Regulation” headed by a David Seymour already trying to dictate how people should parent their children, and a man who has been trying to justify why some children should be kept hungry, appears to be an assault upon basic human rights and freedoms. Existing legal mechanisms to address law breakers and regulation infringers are utilised on a daily basis.
Where they may appear inadequate or unconscionable, then a court of law is the appropriate place for this to be teased out, and it frequently is, and it is usually done so publicly. Another layer of bureaucracy, headed by this person, is simply not necessary.
That’s exactly what I thought. It already sounds very Animal Farm.
As Bryan says, democracy is messy. Sorry Mr. Seymour, we prefer messy democracy to your cut and dried dictatorial sounding plans.
The fact that Seymour and his minions cannot see how Orwellian this new Ministry of Regulation sounds and how utterly repellant, suggests they lack the political, historical and literary background necessary to even be in govt.
We should not be being dictated to or have our rights compromised by these cuckoos in the nest. They have basically usurped the govt. most people voted for. They need to be reined in very, very soon. Is Luxon so weak and short sighted than he doesn’t know this? Does he think he will be able to control them for long once they have weakened every entity which might stop them? He is so used to underlings agreeing with his every utterance, he has forgotten to listen to the underlying whispers.
In the end it will be Luxon and his so-called National MPs who bite the dust first and get swept aside.
Question is, who will it be who does that?
I hope the Governor General is listening too.
Joy. Orwell’s “ 1984”; I’ve loaned it to somebody who asked me for it, and who rarely returns lent books. Doesn’t matter, we can live it out under Seymour.
Last government did similar, replacing the always highly qualified independent Commissioner for Vulnerable Children, with an assortment of back room pronouns from the public service.
Was it ‘1984’? Haven’t read either of them since late ’60s.
But don’t think Seymour has read either of them, ever. Or he’d know how grotesque he sounds and is.
He really needs to read ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’ to see how people ought to behave.
He is Rabbit, trying to organize all the silly unruly, real people (friends and relations) around him.
Winston Peters thinks he’s Owl (Wol) but I think he’s more like Eeyore. A poor sad old thing.
Pooh and Piglet represent the general population. A bit messy but well-meaning and quite flabbergasted by Rabbit’s officiousness.
Jacinda is Kanga.
On second thoughts, Seymour might be Tigger, especially in the story In which we find Tiggers don’t climb Trees. Over-confident and not well qualified. That means VV must be Roo. Silly.
We need a Christopher Robin now because the Christopher Hipkins and the Christopher Luxon were found to be faulty and we’d like to send them back to the manufacturers. Especially the Luxon, it’s too slimy to hold onto.
THANKFULLY Seymoure has not been able to breed .Imagine another generation of mini Davids .As a boomer I am ASHAMED at the generation of self centered uncaring arseholes we have given NZ .Sadly this is the worst thing us boomers have done to NZ .Apart from the crazy old fart Winston the current government is made up of our off spring .SORRY NZ
Seymour has no real work nor life experience. Like being gifted Epsom, he has never needed to achieve on his own behalf. He is embarrassing.
Yes, and the lack of life and work experience isn’t limited to Seymour either. The Greens have had one or two shockers, as have the Nats – I put Bill English in that category too.
Looks as if he’s going to load yet another level of bureaucracy onto school principals/ admin in addressing truancy issues, with the only particularly clear outcome being the recording of absenteeism. Any assumption that getting pupils into schools results in them receiving a quality education is proven wrong, day by day, by the ignorami in Parliament.
That sums Seymour up perfectly. Thanks.
gordon walker. I take exception to you blaming an older, wiser, hard-working, self-sacrificing, and more independent generation for the entitled misfits currently peopling the Beehive. There’s doubtless a myriad of causes for the spoilt brat syndrome of some MP’s and weirdo city councillors, but the paradigm changed post Roger Douglas, IMO, another little state house boy who pulled the ladder up after him, and what has trickled down since is best confined to lavatories. All major parties have contributed to possibly the most foolish thing of all, the dumbing down of the education system, and their inability to see that this is in nobody’s best interests is mystifying, to say the least.
Eh? Does Muldoon form part of your thinking?
Roger Douglas cams from a well off business owning family. They owned Red Seal supplements. Very bourgeois not poor at all!
Shona. According to Wikipedia, Douglas grew up in a state house in the vicinity of One Tree Hill, Auckland. Have a look for yourself. I’ve long known that about him, and assumed that’s part of the reason he went the way he did. There’s the John A Lee way, which is a much better way, but Lee came from more grinding poverty, and Douglas, I think, is another shortie, which is not without its own psychopathology, IMO.
Thanks for the insight Gordon but the problem is a little deeper than that. NZ has managed to avoid major conflict – really since the Vietnam war and, apart from Covid 19, there has been little since WW2 that has shaken our population and forced us to consider what is really important to us as New Zealanders.
After the terrors of WW2 and it’s predecessor, international efforts were made to avoid similar such conflicts and, by and large, this has been successful.
Enter the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the skirmish in the Middle East (Kuwait), more issues in the Middle East (Iran/Iraq – then Saddam Hussain), the war in the Balkans (Serbia uber ales was not going to sit with Croatia and Bosnia), and more recently the Russian invasion of Crimea and Ukraine and most recently the Iran back-Hezbollah shenanigans in Israel and the previous 50 years of relative world peace have been severely eroded and these actions. This has had the by-product of supply lines becoming inconsistent with the related costs variances and impacts on inflation. But much more importantly, this recent round of explicit hate has turned us against one another- including within countries (just look at the situaiton in the US).
The way forward is far from simple or set.
One can assume Seymour is like his buddy Tim Jago. That kind of people don’t consider having normal relations and producing children to be ‘breeding’, they prefer to corrupt other people’s kids.
Ahh, we can’t have any of that ‘populism’ can we?
Where ‘populism’ is when large swathes of the population have had a belly full of diktats from Wellington and having to pay for it in the form of high taxes and economic stagnation.
I just want political parties to tell us what they propose. Then we vote on it.
Then they do it- even if they make a few mistakes at least something gets done.
That’s where Labour went wrong with 3 Waters. Never ending consultation.
Also child poverty. Jacinda said “this is why I got into politics” then she was too timid to implement clear recommendations to end poverty that she said she agreed with.
That would be good Michael particularly when Luxon said he would ” govern for all New Zealand “. Sadly that was a lie.
” Luxon said he would ” govern for all New Zealand “. Sadly that was a lie. ”
Politicians don’t lie Nasc.
All of New Zealand in Luxon speak means the Top feeders and the ” entitled ” ones….. not the bottom feeders.
Well we’ve heard a lot about economics over the last 4-5 decades. During that time NZ has gone backwards. Nor are our self-styled economic geniuses being invited to lead the IMF or the World Bank. This may be because they don’t know what the fuck they are doing – which would go a long way to explain their results.
Hahahah, yeah bro. The fact that we’re being crushed by petrol and diesel prices has nothing to do with you American-lovers and your slavish support of the Zelensky/Netanyahu regimes, of course it doesn’t.
What do you call what’s happening now, if it’s not your ‘dicktats for Wellington’? sic.
Only difference is, that this time it’s a true would-be dictator who is issuing all these instructions.
We aren’t taxed highly and some entitled people think they are too special to pay their fair share.
Every economy is struggling at the moment. Do you never read any international news or discuss things with people who live abroad?
Who said ” Everything’s connected to everything else?” And I use the word ‘thing’ advisedly.
Between 1970 and 1980 I can remember an AO/NZ busting out all over. Our economy was booming along and peace and prosperity reigned. And as such, we had a plump range of assets and services built by us, for us.
In crawled roger douglas from up Old Labour and hatched a plan borrowed off milton friedman. We could already see how disastrous milton’s con jobs had fucked the UK and the U$A in thatcher and regan but never the less, we trusting ignorant fuckwits welcomed little roger with open check books.
And now, today? 600,000 people living in dire poverty with many having poorly paid jobs they can barely survive on while costs are ratcheted up because some scumbag or other needs their 20th ‘investment’ property or their fourth Range Rover. 200,000 kids going hungry and will now go hungrier under little lizard lips seymour’s brutal and sadistic mandate to not help feed kids at school. Roger Douglas’s slithering disciple is going in for the kill and we should be extremely fearful of what he has planned for us but knowing us, we’ll all just pull our pants down and just roll over.
The only thing we have left to sell now, thanks to seymour’s Big Daddy Douglas is our Aotearoa / New Zealand. Sickly Seymour is coming for our country. Our turangawaewae. Any defence of seymour will identify those more than willing to sell their souls and humanity for their insatiable greed and the instant gratification that’s born of their narcissistic sociopathy.
Solution. And fuck off, yes. I am that arrogant that I do believe I have a solution. Get over it.
Our farmers and Maori are the true and literal strength needed to protect our AO/NZ from becoming a segregated plaything for the global rich. If our farmers don’t act in conjunction with Maori to strike until the now rich die in common places with modest wealth we’re all fucked.
As my old Aunt Vera used to say; ” Mark my words ” .
It’s where Libertarianism leads to. Less regulation is sometimes warranted, for example, in improving efficiency. Efficieny is good, isnt it. Reduces waste and makes us all the more productive. Well, that’s the Libertarian argument when its wedded to neoliberalism. No wonder it has popular appeal.
Cutting the red tape also has supporters from those who just see some regulations as plain silly, a complete waste of time. Some of the traddies I have met think like this. Maybe they have a point.
But cutting red tape in the pursuit of efficiency should not be at the expense of well being, safe and sound construction and personal safety.
@ Bozo.
Yeah, I understand what you’re writing but your logic lacks purchase in the real world. Regulation leads to restriction which leads to quelling the freedumbs to create, breed and prosper. Sadly, that’s bullshit.
A lack of restrictions has seen us become dominated by a tiny population of narcissistic sociopaths and that’s why 600,000 people living with hardship and 200,000 kids living in poverty of a first-world country with only 5.2 million people.
Unrestricted economies are doomed to destroy that which makes the money. Neo-liberalism is a farce. Neo-liberalism more resembles something in the nature of communism blended up with a concoction of fascism and capitalism which is really both the previous extremes of communism and fascism in Drag.
Now this is where it really goes off the fucking rails.
Aotearoa / New Zealand. What is it really in terms of economy and placement within first world economies? Does fucked spring to mind?
49,500 farmers feed over 40 million people. And that’s just feeding the fuckers. It doesn’t include the wool that comes from sheep and so does sasuages, and the lanolin the farmer doesn’t get paid for. That’s a freebe.
So. 49,500 people farm their farms to feed 40 million people and farmers are our primary industry. And, there are 5.2 million people in total on Aotearoa New Zealand. Are you keeping up with the stats? Or are you still thinking how can that be? Tourism is what does it.
Now, this is where I mention the 14 multi-billionaires, the 3118 multi-millionaires each with a starting price of $50 million and then there’s the banks. Four of the fuckers and foreign owned too. Taking $180.00 a second after tax 24 hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five fucking days a fucking year. You still there? Are you paying attention?
The stats above make for our AO/NZ being unique. We’re profoundly different than literally anywhere else in the first world and it’s simply because 49,500 farmer people earn more than is adquietly needed to give us the privialedge of being labeled a first world economy DESPITE there being 5,150,500 other fuckers doing fuck all. How is that? How does that fact escape closer investigation?
I can tell you. There are regulations and there are [regulations].
Farmers? Yes you. You poor bastards. Here’s what you must do.
You must do nothing. No rams in a party mood, no bulls, no milk, no wool. Take holiday. All you’d have to do is wait. And not for fucking long I can promise you.
All this pointless shit I read here is embarressing. 99% of you have nothing to say of any value and the other 1% are likely stoned and don’t give a fuck.
The current political management we have is a building and deliberate disaster. The fuckers who rip farmers off are now getting desperate to hide their trans-generational crimes against the very same farmers who give us our food and our wealth. Those same criminals must now hide their crimes of theft born of misappropriation and of frauds enabled by deceit.
The 5,150,500 are in effect cornered rats and they’ll do anything to keep their dirty secrets secret. Aye boys?
( Ooooo look….? red dot…? )
Garbage.
A demonstration of a complete lack of understanding.
Brilliant post again Countryboy. How do I know? Every time Bob is triggered to respond to you. Bob is jealous of you being a wordsmith. His complete lack of understanding, the garbage he writes can only be put down to his very poor schooling or his cognitive deficit disorder, either way, one word, one line posts demonstrate his poor cognition.
Funny, because although regulations are not popular, most of them are there to protect the public. Not that Seymour cares one whit about the public – at least not the ones that don’t have any money.
rnz. Where else.
Attendance action plan includes daily data, traffic light system
“The government has announced a traffic light system with “clear obligations” for students not attending school, along with increased data reporting.”
What’s seymour going to do? Send in a special op’s Kids Swat unit to force them to read, write and rithmatic?
David Seymour
‘Not every ailment means you should not attend school’ – Government’
The stumpy fascist comes out beating up on your kids. And you probably voted for the fucker.
The Presbyterian work ethic mates with B grade fascism.
These fuckers have to go. Now. Today. We can’t afford to give them another 2.5 years.
You know what this is, right? This has nothing to do with kids going to school, or not. This is a *psyops approach to force us all into compliance. This is bigger than kids wagging school to rob dairies to feed themselves. We’re being set up. Who voted for these fuckers?
Psychological operations (United States)
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Psychological_operati…
* Psychological operations are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their motives and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and large foreign powers.
Are the yanks up and in seymour? I wonder if that’s what’s going on??
The riskiest direction given CB was
” Updating public health guidance to help schools and parents to decide if a student is well enough to attend school ”
Politicians and BOTs to decide on a medical diagnosis for children.
Can you just see the mum’s and dad’s using Little David’s Health App. checklist on wee Jimmy as he’s turning blue and writhing ?
Mr Seymour is a well trained Atlas Graduate according to their online photos, reports and captions. So he comes from the filthy ideological tradition of Hayek, Friedman, the Chicago Boys, Pinochet, Thatcher, Reagan, Douglas, Richardson and a thousand later imitators.
Brutal neo liberalism is his game–war on the poor, Bennie and Māori bashing, shrink the state, expand contracting out, militarise the cops, private prisons, suck up to Western Imperialism etc.
This creepy guy with his excessive interest in school kids and the lifestyles of their parents is only there because the Natzos handed Epsom to Act on a plate years ago. He will be found out eventually and booted for sure–he has lied about home ownership, his ancestry, and has a motley crew of MPs indeed including gun lobbyist Mrs McKee who has been caught with her tweeds down lying about semi autos.
Control Ministry would be the name for his new pet Ministry–no Māori name needed eh Atlas Dave.
Ae! He’s a pathetic little runt when it all comes down to it. Which is rather depressing in a way. How could we “us” have let this interloper in – other than revenge voting. But then there’s Brooke van Vixen as well – she ALMOST captured my great nephew (abused in state care). An evil bitch even though she’s so self-unaware she wouldn’t have a clue. Fark! How did it come to this. The revenge voter and apathy has a lot to do with it.
But on the positive side of life (‘cos that’s just the kind of specimen I am even without P Piss Prozac and Pot), one hopes Winston might come to his senses and pull the plug. SLIM chance, I know.
Was thinking the same about Winston, once he has to hand over Deputy PM possie to Atlas Dave he could well turn on them. Pre the last election he had a letter prepared for the Governor General withdrawing support for PM Ardern, which he never sent in the end, but he is certainly capable of being the worm that turned.
Replace the Westminster System and sack The Crown. Adopt A.I to design alternatives and teach it to think like an indigenous person as opposed to a stale pale male.
Democracy is far from perfect but we can’t allow its weaknesses to be an excuse to revert to the tyrannies of indiginous tribalism.
Fortunately we rid ourselves of the tyrants at the last election.
Yes Bob, Nathan Guy, Maggie Barry, David Carter, Paula Bennett, Amy Adams, we got rid of.
You jest with a vengenance surely!
Forget stale pale male, or are we saying the likes of Willis, Van Vampire, Costello, and ‘Cold dead hands’ McKee aren’t every bit as scary or flat out wrong?
If you look at David Seymours Ministry of Regulation, you have to ask yourself if a certain book from Orwell inspired him.
And if so, has the clock struck 13?
100%. The clock struck one, a rodent ran down, hickory dickory David.
We also have public schools for sale, roads, more state housing land and social services we need to keep an eye out as the coalition of chaos will be rewarding their mates in appreciation of them donating millions with substantial contract.
Luxon said social investment was in his parties DNA. And it’s easy to make targets appear better than they are by making people ineligible (changing the criteria) as they did with HNZ/Kainga Ora waiting lists. To add to this families will be kicked out of motels therefore becoming a burden on already stretched whanau and communities. All this at time when times are tough not good policy. Look at tricolas face she’s realized the enormity of her tax cuts but is saving face.
Yes, and here is an example of those imported views and values is Parmar Parmejet from the act party comments quote from her interview on Moana last night.
“So, the thing is, if you don’t get exposure to some cultures, some ethnicities, obviously you’re going to form some views about them. This is going to create mistrust and create friction. But when people work together, they understand each other, where they’re coming from, it’ll create that environment of harmony. And that is what I would like to see.”
Parmjet sounds like she is talking about herself she’s the one that needs to do some reflecting and get some exposures. She comes across as arrogant, pompous and I know best but has no qualifications in this field she has a science degree hence talking about exposures like exposures to a chemical or pollution.
Well done watching her. She comes from a crippling caste system and nor has she had a Kiwi university experience and she doesn’t know what she is talking about. They can all theorise until the sacred cows come home, but words come easy,
Well done watching her. She comes from a crippling caste system and nor has she had a Kiwi university experience and she doesn’t know what she is talking about. They can all theorise until the sacred cows come home, and they do, but words come easy as politicians know and usually – unlike poets – they have paid minions to write them for them, and to tell them what to say. As such they have less value than the night soil which can at least grow the vegetables which nurture.
The devil isn’t in the detail it’s in David.
The good news is NZ is starting to realize this is an appalling dictatorship government.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350237521/nz-politics-live-poll-sees-slight-dip-national-act
And gobshite Newstalk ZB horrible husband and wife duo continue to be found out spewing bile racist comments. First it was Hosking on Tamahere and now his idiot wife..
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350239551/bsa-finds-kate-hawkesby-comments-maori-and-pasifika-misleading-and-discriminatory
Unfortunately a large number of idiots that listen to ZB will only remember the bullshit espoused by this hack.
Yep that would be Bob the first, he idolizes Hosking.
Yes, Chris and TDB warned us voters were going to turn and they were right and now we are facing the worst government in our entire history. In the meantime, Luxon is slyly preparing for the next election with his targets noting they are six-year targets this implies he’s hoping to get back in to finish us off. And we know he will blame his coalition partners while at the same time leaving a mess of debt and environmental destruction.
The Coalition Government are following through with their promises which is admirable following 6 years of promises not kept.
They are and those policies and this dictatorship government will bring the country to it’s knees.
All measures will decline.
Like the last time they were in power, increased poverty, teachers, nurses, doctors and tradies all leaving for Aussie en masse.
Promise to make smoking easier/cheaper. Was that a campaign pledge?
Yes Bob thinks that admirable, alongside putting more machine guns into the community, real admirable. But then Bob has always been insular in his thinking. He has no social justice, just sarcastic taunts, his post just another in a long line of fascist statements.
The blood stains of this governments policies will be loud and long.
Gun shootings, lung cancer and suicides due to loss of employment, just to name a few. This government have blood on their hands.
I’m truly surprised many of the comments here forget we had a PM who ruled the country by regulation for almost nine years. Only problem was, he forgot regulation is a subsidiary form of law. So when he went too far, some smarty pants took him to court and won, embarrassingly. Anybody remember Piggy? What’s the bet Dumb David will do the same? He’s not half as smart as Piggy Muldoon was.