By all appearances, Christopher Luxon’s government of losers is winning. These villains have ridden to power on a wave of donor money and division. They’ve passed radical bills and plastered the word “delivery” across every press release. But beneath the PR polish, their agenda is riddled with corruption, contradictions, and a strategic incoherence so profound it may yet spark the very revolution they fear.
This government claims to champion “hardworking Kiwis” — yet their policies punish them. They say they’re about “fiscal responsibility” — while giving billions in tax cuts to landlords and overseas investors, funded by slashing school lunches and public health. They talk “common sense” — while tearing up Treaty obligations, ignoring environmental collapse, and rewarding extractive industries. If this is victory, why does it look and feel so much like theft?
For a so-called ‘conservative’ government, it’s remarkable that all they seem willing to conserve is the wealth of corporations and the investor class — not the security or prosperity of the nation. None of them seem fit to babysit our kids, let alone steward our collective wealth. Look at them — feeding the banks while starving the economy. Financial parasites gorging on public lifeblood.
The contradiction is clear: you cannot govern for the many while serving the few. And when the few grow too fat, the many start to notice. Luxon’s “coalition of the willing” — ACT, National, and NZ First — has become a coalition of betrayal.
Their economic policies widen inequality. Their cultural policies fan division. Their environmental policies border on nihilism. They have no vision for national development. They are not delivering prosperity — they are delivering the public to profiteers, like livestock to the meatworks.
But in their arrogance, they may yet spark the very revolution they fear. Not with violence — but with memory. With clarity. With coordinated refusal. They have made Treaty principles a national conversation again — but framed it in fear. They have reminded workers that tax cuts for the wealthy mean hospital beds for the poor go empty. They have revealed themselves for what they are: the polished front of an extractive machine.
History teaches us something vital: when legitimacy fails, sovereignty returns to the people. Not with permission — but with purpose. The people are not the servants of government. We are the source of its power. The law must serve the people — not enslave them.
Natural law predates Parliament. It transcends party manifestos. It holds that all human beings possess dignity, and that governments exist to protect life, liberty, and the wellbeing of future generations. When a government violates this deliberately and persistently — it loses moral authority. At that point, resistance is not optional. It is a sacred obligation.
This is not protest theatre. It is political history repeating itself — and moral law asserting itself. This is the foundation of all legitimate revolt in history — from the Declaration of Arbroath, to Te Whiti o Rongomai, from the American Revolution to Hōne Heke. Revolt does not always wear the mask of violence. It wears the mantle of truth. It lives in refusal, in reorganisation, in the birth of new law rooted in older justice.
This government, with ACT and NZ First in tow, is not merely wrongheaded. It is actively unmaking the social contract. It is looting the commons. It is elevating private profit over public good. It is deliberately sowing division to mask extraction. And the so-called “losers” of this agenda — Māori, renters, teachers, young people, elders, the working poor — are in fact the backbone of this country. They are the people upon whom every genuine democracy must be built.
Labour, sadly, offers little that is wildly different. They started the fraud in 84, and show no sign of substantive change.
So, the task now is not to critique parties, but to displace their false framing with truth. To assert our sovereignty. To begin the next phase of our nation’s journey: the creation of a living constitution.
A constitution that binds the powerful and protects the powerless. That honours Te Tiriti not as checkbox but as foundation. That enshrines economic dignity, ecological regeneration, and public wealth as rights — not privileges. That declares: we are not here to be farmed by capital, but to live, flourish, protect, and build.
Labour is not the solution. As long as they repeat the lie that “there is no magic money tree” or that “government finances are like household budgets,” they too are complicit — controlled opposition under another name.
Each one teach one. Learn. Share. Organise.
We have a magic money tree — it’s called the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. And it has been locked away from public purpose since 1989.[1]
Unlock it. Invest in ourselves. Rebuild our nation.
Everything we need is already ours.
[1] Reserve Bank Act 1989 — established operational independence for inflation-targeting, removing public credit from democratic control. See: https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/
Tadhg Stopford is a Historian and Teacher. Join him at www.thehempfoundation.org.nz
Good piece thats why I am voting green If they put up a great candidate in my electorate which I sadly believe wont happen ,so I might have to invoke my heritage and jump on the Maori roll and vote in the local seat .Any way it may well be Green and brown for me .I will never again vote NZ first as they are now a full blown swamp party .
Has anyone else noticed that Bishop is now fronting national more than Luxon in the last few weeks .May be the skin head gang leader is getting ready to do a Key and do an runner after the budget .Seems odd that he was with willis when she was showing off her budget at the printers when you would expect Luxon to be there smiling like the idiot he is .
Great post. And it all becomes glaringly obvious when we see a government committed to growth, growth, growth holding back rather than investing in, facilitating and aggressively promoting a clean green billion dollar industry. HEMP. Every day I’m seeing solutions to the problems that beset us, housing, environment, jobs and sustainable energy but this regime of stale old men stay focused on reefer madness and the thinking that created it.
I heard Ms Willis say “government finances are like household budgets”, not Labour.
We will see shortly if she knows what the difference is, because there certainly is!
Labours version is “there is no magic money tree” – which seems a coded message to banksters that there will be no public credit infrastructure finance via ‘modern monetary theory”, which is 5000 years old
If thats her argument why is she stressed about a 45% deficit when the average home has a 148% deficit .Clearly she has not looked to see how much her mortgage is as a % of income .I would like to know who we owe this so called massive debt to ?
Awesome article. And great to hear some political optimism and idealism. But I wouldn’t say that what we are seeing here in NZ is new or any different from what’s happening in the UK and the US and Europe. It’s the continuing and incremental reversal of the social contract that was established in the 1930’s and confirmed after the second world war for nearly all advanced economies around the world.
It is the economic implementation of artificial scarcity to ensure private sector capital can get profitable returns. This requires regular and deliberate periods of high unemployment and collapsing asset prices to allow the cycle of purchasing and pumping to begin again.
A profitable economy does not need to look after its aging population or educate it’s young. To extract resources and exploit labor high levels of unemployment are helpful in driving down costs. Lower taxes ensure private wealth can accumulate faster – for those that already have wealth.
This is all very clear and explains the economic policies being pursued by the government. What it never explains is why people vote for it. The common sense ZB talkback eco system ensures full-throated support for this approach among broad swathes of the voting population. And this is really the greatest road block to change.
Hey… hang on a minute mate? ( As they say.)
You had me until here :
” And the so-called “losers” of this agenda — Māori, renters, teachers, young people, elders, the working poor — are in fact the backbone of this country. They are the people upon whom every genuine democracy must be built.”
I’m a farmer. I’m one of those who can feed 40 million people. Do you know about farming and what that entails? I was born to a woman who was working in a hay paddock the day before I hatched so fuck you with your Māori, renters, teachers, young people, elders, the working poor — are in fact the backbone of this country” . No they’re fucking not. Farmers are. Without farmers you have fuck all and if you look around now, today, you will see fuck all. Empty paddocks are far more ominous than empty cafe’s dahling.
No food or other agrarian produce means ( I mean duh.) no money. No target for derision. No helpless farmer to blame while you chow down on them snarlers and spuds mate.
What’s really going on is simple enough to describe.
Because our farmers have been so abused, used and exploited since from the beginning of the last century and the dawn of national those trails of abuse and exploitation must now be covered over and that’s national and its minions jobs now. To do just that. To enable the pink and plumpers to escape with their clogged arteries and half million dollar cars, to australia most likely and that’s why our politics no longer makes sense.
I’d suggest you start barking up the right tree or you and your fantastic writing is worth less than sheep shit in the gumboot. Oh wait? Sheep shit’s excellent fertiliser for the vegetable garden.
OK, go back to using a wooden shovel and an antler plough, ditch the tractor, milking machines, fertilizer spreaders etc, all manufactured items. Made by folks of all ages in a city, often renting, receiving an education from teachers so they can perform all the necessary steps needed to keep your occupation viable. Go on start walking the to or twenty kms to pick up your supplies, don’t use a car or truck. Breed a team of horses if that’s the way you want to go.
We are all in this boat together, all interdependent, it’s time to flick that infantile chip from your shoulder and stop playing the martyr.
Hi bud, sorry, you are correct. Farmers should definitely have been in that list too. Dont take that omission has reason to reject the rest. The facts remain in the same.
Glad to see more think like me.
LABOUR IS NO LONGER THE PARTY OF THE LEFT.
Long term labour two tick labour types are in for a huge wake up call.
The Greens road show is going to be interesting that’s for sure.
Not much to disagree on. But the elephant in the room is left unsaid: the electorate and the electoral system. In the wider context this raises what a good many have already highlighted : what is the meaning of ‘democracy’ in today’s post-truth world? From a dissenters viewpoint you’ve got to ask why on earth do people vote for these ideologues masquerading as competent political managers who, on the face of it, seek to serve the public good?
The point about the Luxon regime ‘awakening’ the people is crucial. As more people start connecting the dots between the government’s actions and the power of big donors, I believe we will see more grassroots movements challenging the status quo.
What music? Les Miserables?
Stirring article, despite its one huge obvious flaw.