5 Weeks until the 2023 Election: Winners, Losers + Predictions

The next election is 5 weeks away on Saturday, 14 October 2023.

Shit just got real and the consequences of incremental meaninglessness from Labour alongside the crypto-fascism of a National/ACT Government mean you want to cry or scream as a voter.

NZ First’s bizarre voyage into antivax culture war graffiti isn’t the vote winner Winston hoped for and he’s changed tact to garden variety antiMāori bigotry to ensure he gets over 5%.

It’s as charming as a children’s burns unit.

The Maori Party continue to bubble away as the surprise of the night while ACT want to give sociopaths their favourite submachine gun back.

Labour continue to surprise everyone by their incremental gutlessness while the Greens are surprised to find all they need to do to reach what Russel Norman gained as Leader in 2011 is be slightly less spineless than Labour.

Comrades we are 5 weeks out from the 2023 election, here is the current Election Battlefield 2023 as TDB sees it.

 

LABOUR: 32% 

What’s the point of Bread and Butter politics if you can’t afford the bread or the butter?

GST off fruit and vegetables is so tedious and makes a mockery of people’s pain.

Free dental and extension of working for families are all great but it’s so little and it’s so late.

This narrative that Labour are using misinformation or disinformation has the sinister tone of conspiracy to it and rather than apologise, Chippy should start fighting.

Each of the supposed examples of propaganda, from the disabled to the minimum wage to the interest free student loans are all ACT Party fantasies and worth criticising!

Labour should double down and argue Luxon is such a weak leader he will fold to David Seymour and that’s why voting National enables a far right agenda to Trojan horse into Parliament.

Chippy should be re-setting the agenda, not accepting the one ZB and Jenna Lynch gives him!

Rather than agree to the framing, Chippy needs to double down!

The lies politicians tell bore me, I’m far more terrified by their promises!

A National ACT Government will be a far right romper stomper ideological rampage the likes this country seen since the yellow Roger Douglas leapt over the slow red Lange.

The orgy of crony capitalism and privatisation agendas brewing in the background is immense.

The self interest by the Real Estate Pimps who are donating millions to National who will remove the foreign buyers ban and give landlords the right to throw you out onto the street is obscene!

National will steal money from 2 year olds, public transport and climate change funds to give rich landlords a $250 per fortnight tax cut, that is the opposite of the Egalitarian NZ!

It’s venal and ACTs demand for a racist referendum that will incite conflict is driving NZ towards a race riot.

All the while the economic and environmental meltdowns will get worse and worse.

ACT and National’s extreme hard right policy responses to the challenges  we are about to be hit with will terminally damage a part of NZ and will generate a terrible backlash.

Labour needs to stop apologising and start fighting!

Labour have squandered a once in a Generation MMP majority and gained very little from it.

Still, their incompetence is far preferable than ACT and Nationals competence.

 

NATIONAL: 34%

Over a fifth of National’s tax-cutting plan in serious doubt

National Finance Spokesperson Nicola Willis has defended the $2.96 billion worth of tax receipts assumed from a foreign buyers’ tax, saying the forecasts, apparently reliant on a massive increase in both the number of sales over $2 million and the share of foreign buyers, were realistic. She also defended the tax’s legal status against some experts’ criticism that it would clash with either trade or double taxation agreements.

Bernard Hickey isn’t the only economist and commentator pouring scorn on National’s math, it turns out National only got international tax advice AFTER they released the policy!

FFS

Nagging questions about National’s tax plan persisted into the weekend, four days after its announcement. It became clear that the party had sought advice from trade experts about the legality of its plan to tax foreign buyers 15 per cent on the sale of homes priced over $2 million. However, it had not sought advice from tax experts until after the policy was announced.

It’s a scam that won’t work, but it masks two things:

1 – National are removing the Foreign Buyers Ban which will cripple Kiwi’s trying to buy a house.

2 – The obscenity of funding these tax cuts to rich Landlords by robbing 2 year olds, mutilating Public Transport and literally stealing from climate change budgets.

Here’s what will happen, National will remove the Foreign Buyers Ban for their Real Estate Pimp mates that will leave a permanent scar on NZ society and it won’t raise anything near enough which will justify National cutting public services.

The predictability with which the voters of NZ are being played is remarkable.

 

ACT: 15% + 2 Electorates

ACT loses another candidate just weeks out from election

ACT has lost another candidate just weeks out from the election.

The party’s candidate for Taranaki King Country, Brent Miles, withdrew last week for personal reasons, a spokesperson for the party said.

1News had asked why Miles had been removed from ACT’s website.

The spokesperson said ACT would not comment further.

Miles previously stood for ACT at the 2020 election.

It means five ACT candidates have now withdrawn in recent weeks — Elaine Naidu-Franz, Darren Gilchrist, Scott Boness, Anto Coates and now Miles.

Naidu-Franz, the party’s Rangitata candidate, immediately resigned after online comments where she likened vaccine mandates to Nazi concentration camps came to light.

What in the name of the zombie Jesus is happening over in ACT?

The deep dumpster dive of poorly vetted ACT candidates having to suddenly drop out is as eye rolling as it is terrifyingly hilarious.

Eye rolling because taking deep dumpster dives into peoples Social Media history is so fucking tedious and woke pious!

Terrifyingly hilarious because the cavalcade of political circus freaks ACT have attracted is because of ACTs extreme rhetoric and this sense that ACT are extremist is now either exciting a shell shocked numb electorate or repulsing them.

ACTs candidate selection board resembles a panel of lepers judging a beauty contest.

As ACTs power builds, the vested interests that generate pressure groups and fund factions are growing.

The Gun Fetishists will get their favourite sociopath machine gun back while dumping the Gun Registry.

Corporations wanting Public Private Partnerships are getting everything they want.

The stealth privatisation of Phramac has begun with their Number 4 Party Pharmaceutical Pimp.

Managing these extremists is difficult because they all want bone cutting reforms and pure amputations of the State.

Critics of Seymour have taken him literally and not seriously, his latest threat to National of giving them only Confidence if David doesn’t get his extremist agenda highlights just how extreme the gulf between ACT policy and National policy really is…

ACT’s David Seymour floats confidence-only partnership – no supply

ACT has floated the possibility of a new kind of governing arrangement if National refuses to cooperate during post-election negotiations.

Party leader David Seymour has threatened to resort to a confidence-only deal, which would require the larger party to seek ACT’s backing for all government spending – or “supply” – decisions on a case-by-case basis.

Recent polls suggest National and ACT could form a government together, but National having to also rely on NZ First – who ACT has ruled out – is also a real possibility.

National has also begun ruling out – or in some cases merely rejecting – ACT policies.

Seymour says if National is not prepared to “fully share power”, his party would consider a minority-government position.

“We’re prepared to do it if the alternative is taking the baubles of office and letting our voters in New Zealand down. So yep, I’ve done it before – I turned down being a minister to do End of Life Choice,” he says.

However, his version would be a different flavour to what NZ First’s Winston Peters has threatened in the past:

“I think we’d be able to be clear that, you know, while they have the confidence of the house, if they want to pass Budgets they are going to have to rely on another party,” Seymour said.

“I think it would probably be just confidence.”

This would mean that although ACT would help National form a government, they could refuse to support its spending initiatives – a break from the traditional “confidence and supply” agreement which sees the minor party guarantee to support the larger’s Budget.

…if Labour, Greens and Maori Party are the Coalition of Chaos, then National, ACT and NZ First are the Alliance of Arseholes and they are fighting before the election is even held!

People don’t understand how wide eyed ACT are about implementing harsh reforms that will cause enormous carnage, that they are openly threatening National should be an enormous red flag that ACT has intention of moderating any policy!

We are facing a situation where the Country will be held to ransom by an extremist hard right Party and the political media want to scream about an advert Labour got wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!

How is it that an extremist hard right Political Party can openly threaten National and hold the country to ransom and the political media are bickering about truth in social media adverts???

 

 

GREENS: 11% + 2 electorates

The Greens have finally found a winning strategy. Be slightly less gutless than Labour and hoover up all the disgusted Labour Left vote. Good for 10% and Welington Central and Auckland Central.

 

Māori Party – 3.9% + 4 electorates

The true demarcation of power in a liberal progressive democracy is between the 1% richest + their 9% enablers vs the 90% rest of us.

The richest protect their wealth from any new taxes and our social and physical infrastructure suffers.

The political project of the Right is to starve the State of revenue so there is nothing to redistribute in the first place.

The Māori Party identify this and have put together a Tax Policy that is as close to Socialism as we are going to get!

Tax rates

Currently the top tax rate – for earnings over $180,000 – is 39%.

The party would also:

And introduce:

Labour is here to manage under regulated capitalism (and let the free market do the rest), the Greens are here to try and add the cost of pollution into the price (and let the free market do the rest) while the Māori Party are actually here to disrupt capitalism!

Right now in NZ we have 25 000 people on the social housing wait list, we spend $1million per day Kettling beneficiaries into unsafe motels, barely 50% of our students were regularly attending class in term 1, Home ownership is at its lowest rate in 70 years, there are 200 000 children in poverty, 55% of Kiwis are struggling financially, we are facing the worst food inflation for 30 years,  there’s 100 000 homeless and the planet is melting before our eyes!

Normally the wealthy can rely on the fecklessness of the Greens or the cowardice of Labour to do nothing meaningful on Tax Policy, but John Tamihere is a heavy hitting working class boyver boy who is going to make Chippy tax the rich!

Left Wing Pakeha have every reason to vote for Māori Party Tax Policy this election.

 

NZF – 4.5%

Māori are ‘not indigenous’, Winston Peters claims

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters made the claim that Māori are “not indigenous” while speaking at a public meeting in Nelson on Sunday.

“Here’s the rub if you are Māori. We’re not indigenous,” Peters told his supporters.

“We come from Hawai-iki. Where’s our Hawai-iki? We think it is in the Cook Islands. We think it’s in Rarotonga … but we’re not from here. And you go back 5000 years, we came with our DNA from China. Not like 55,000 years in Australia.”

Asked after the meeting by Stuff if he could see that that view might be upsetting to some, Peters referred to it as “the truth”.

Wow.

“Māori ain’t indigenous because they only came to New Zealand 800 years ago as opposed to 50 000???

What level of chicanery, fat-bloke-down-pub level nuttiness is this?

First of all, of course Māori are indigenous to NZ FFS.

Where the fuck are they supposed to be indigenous to?

Hawai-iki? Did he really say that?

Look, this Winston is a very different cat to the one we knew and loved.

His dependence on the conspiracy theory vote and the dawning realisation they aren’t actually nearly enough to guarantee his return to Parliament is forcing him to make these types of outrageous claims on Race in a desperate bid to stay over the 5% threshold.

NZ First should be 8% They are hovering around 5%.

The crazier the Voices for Freedom get and the more power they take over of the structures inside NZ First to push their candidates up the list, the more alienating they become.

Having candidates who believe there are nano robots in vaccines is a bad look and Kiwis aren’t that conspiratorial.

They are however racist and Winston is throwing this raw meat out into the election because his antivax lunatics are turning away as many voters as they recruit and that keeps pushing his vote around and might fail him on the night.

Inflammatory race baiting in a political landscape this frayed and angry is a dereliction of duty in terms of political leadership and shows that Winston will literally say any hateful shit he thinks might win him enough votes so that he can once again hold the country to hostage for his knighthood.

Hateful shit like this from the lips of one of the most prominent Māori Politicians of our age dishonours Peter’s mana, Māori mana and New Zealanders mana.

His hateful, spiteful, malicious comments, thrown out purely for the celebration of bigotry and the harvest of demeaning toxicity, are a sad gasp of desperation from a Political movement that started with New Zealand First and ended with White Supremacy Last.

Winston is the brown politician European New Zealanders can love to champion because he says the racism they can’t.

What a deformed blight on a chequered career.

 

Sub 5% Feral Antivax God Squad vote – NOTHING!

What’s interesting looking at the TU Curia Polling is how little support for antivax extremists there really is. We have thought they were some shadow electorate with real clout, when the truth looks like they are radicalised loners who are shrill with little real electorate support.

 

The Economy

The domestic Chinese property crisis alongside the flawed Covid opening alongside the extreme climate events alongside the rising unemployment alongside a crashing economy are terribly problematic for NZ because we are so exposed to China.

When our books open this week, all eyes will be on NZ to see how steep the shut down in China is while exposing out exposure to them.

It will cause a run on the NZ stock market, those KiwiSaver accounts will get smashed and the sense of economic crisis will be intense.

National under John Key sold NZ a ‘all our cows in one Beijing Paddock’ strategy  and unfortunately we handed our cows over cheaply to China and they have grown their own massive new dairy farms.

This is a fundamental shock to the model big Dairy have sold NZ for 20 years and it’s going to explode next month.

The problem is that as an autocratic leader, Xi sees his interests as China’s interests. An economic recession would be disastrous to those interests making the need for a nationalistic flag waving invasion of Taiwan islands or blockade the type of play left.

Let’s see how bad the trade with China is, let’s see the reaction of that exposure on the NZ Economy and let’s keep up the diplomacy and dialogue because the last thing anyone needs in the Pacific is conflict.

Posie Parker Protest

Mike Munro is a former chief of staff for Jacinda Ardern and was chief press secretary for Helen Clark, he argues the election is so close it could hang on a single moment, a single event…

Election 2023: Mike Munro – with Labour and National neck and neck in the polls leaders must beware a Brethren-sized blunder

It’s hard to escape the feeling that this year’s ding-dong election scrap could well end up turning on a single incident.

With the contest so tight — the left and right camps are virtually level-pegging — you begin to wonder how one side will gain an advantage over the other.

Assuming for a moment that the impact on voting intentions of issues like the cost of living and crime is already baked in, what might a game-changer look like?

An act of campaigning genius? A monumental blunder? A ripsnorter scandal?

…I think that moment could well be Posie Parker attempting to repeat her public meeting fiasco in Albert Park earlier this year.

Parker has announced her return to NZ and it will be 3 weeks before the 2023 Election.

That is dangerously close.

When the woke turned into a violent mob and chased Posie Parker literally, figuratively and metaphorically from the Town Square, they called that mob reaction, ‘Pure Trans Joy’.

They ignored the precedent the woke had now set.

If Posie Parker attempts to hold another public appearance at Albert Park, every far right nutcase who is under the belief that the Trans Community are all pedophiles will turn up.

Every Qanon Sovereign Sheriff anti vax lunatic will turn up.

Every religious nutter will turn up.

The anti-co Governance cross burners will turn up.

You already have men pledging to turn up and ‘protect’ women.

This time immigration NZ has to step in and refuse Posie entry based on fears of civil disorder.

I know, I know, I know, bowing to the woke Lynch mob is a capitulation to the thugs veto, but a second visit would lead to a riot and we can’t ignore that now.

The woke’s reliance on cancel culture and deplatforming has generated a movement incapable of persuasion and instead now justifies street violence as a means to an end.

When respected commentators are actively defending street politics that lead to the mob violence we saw at the Posie Parker protest, we are already on a slippery slope.

The Left minimised the Mob violence WHILE justifying it!

They screamed ‘Pure Trans Joy’, while the rest of the country saw a mob assault and literally chase a woman from the town square.

I’m no fan of Parker, as far as I am concerned she is a fear grifter who loves this reaction and attention. I think she is inflammatory and grotesquely offensive, however she is a manifestation of a cancel culture where these issues can’t be debated without woke social media lynchings.

If Posie Parker returned, the woke could not help themselves and would once again turn up wanting to rumble, the problem now is the far right have seen the rules changed and can now enter the fray behind the noble defence shield of Free Speech rather than their darker motives.

There is a real possibility of political violence that spins out of control and destabilises the election.

Normally I would laugh at this being threat, but having witnessed ‘Pure Trans Joy’ first hand and the febrile political landscape we now inhabit, this will be like pouring gasoline on a fire.

If she wants to speak in a venue that can at least be managed, that would be one thing, but an open Park where anything could erupt is simply too dangerous right now.

This isn’t about free speech, the woke’s mob behaviour has seen an end to that, this is about public safety. We can’t foster riots, and that is what this is going to become if she speaks in public again.

 

PREDICTION: 

The wealthy, the billionaire Class and the richest 1% have donated $12million to ACT and National since 2021 and they are getting their money’s worth.

The anger many feel towards Labour post-Covid means National and ACT can stand any policy up and barely anyone will scrutinise it in their rush to punish Labour for every sad thing that has happened to them since Covid.

We are all now as unforgiving as the woke.

Because we are hate voting this election, we are going to accidentally elect the most far right Government since Roget Douglas.

I say accidentally because I suspect the vast number of voters who voted Labour in 2020 and who are now voting National or ACT have very little idea what their policies are, they just want to say ‘Fuck you’ to Labour.

National have promised to give rich Landlords a $250 fortnight tax cut funded by stealing from 2 year olds, mutilating public transport and literally stealing from the climate change fund.

The obscenity of this turns to farce when you consider the foreign buyers tax won’t generate anything close to what National claim it will!

Normally National have to hide their blatant self interest the way you trick a dog into taking its pills by hiding it in something tasty, but National are so convinced that hatred of Labour is all they need, they haven’t even pretended to dress the venality of their tax cut for the rich funded by the poor as anything more than it is.

Which it isn’t.

It’s active state sanctioned vandalism of the egalitarian society.

Orgy of Privatisation and Crony Capitalism: 

You know the only winners in National’s road, road, roads policy?

The oil companies.

By moving away from petrol charges to miles driven, National hand the petrol companies a huge win and when you consider the early signals of the vast crony capitalism National are about to embark upon…

…we face an orgy of privatisation and crony capitalism!

Dr Bryce Edwards devastating critique into who is donating to National and the disgusting level of self interest is remarkable and shocking!

Alongside this orgy, National are lining up Public Private Partnership scams, removing foreign buyer bans and opening the immigration floodgates.

National’s only economic plan is to open the country to foreign buyers, slash the State and privatise the rest.

The Crony Capitalism National will unleash will make Labour’s sins look childish in comparison.

National will hack at the State to carve out deals for their mates while ACT will hack at the State for ideological purity.

The number 4 on ACTs Party List, that pale faced former Pharmaceutical Pimp Candidate. The steam off a sadists glasses vibe guy, the sort of person who would be found with an unexplainably large amount of children shoes, him – tell me that guy ain’t there to privatise Pharmac for his former industry?

 

Union Busting:

National and ACT will dump the Fair Pay Agreements and give Bosses the right to fire before 90 days.

This is a direct assault on the Union Movement and empowers the low wage economy National donors have become addicted to.

Expect migrant worker exploitation to explode throw the roof.

 

Class War on Renters:

Real Estate Pimps have donated millions to National and in return National have lifted the Foreign Buyers Ban and will give landlords the right to kick tenants out with no notice. National and ACT will also role back Tenants rights while reopening Landlord tax loop holes.

There is a class war on renters but we don’t have the political vocabulary to articulate it.

 

Speculators Paradise: 

By opening NZ up to foreign speculators while reopening landlord tax loops holes, National and ACT are opening NZ up for sale to their overseas wealthy mates.

 

Environmental Bonfire of the Vanities:

National and ACT will reverse oil and gas bans and steam full ahead at the Climate Change Iceberg. They will allow Agriculture another 5 years of doing nothing (that will be a total of 25 years of doing nothing) while slashing public transport and climate change budgets.

They will greenwash everything and lie about the rest.

The planet will burn and National and ACT will pour petrol on it.

 

Amputation of the State:

National and ACT have promised 14 000 job cuts and the amputation of 5 ministries and the Human Rights Commission. They will slash and burn the State and hack away at it with the ideological fervour of self-flagellating puritans.

 

Race War:

As a bottom line, ACT are demanding a referendum to renegotiate the Treaty with Māori and then just foist that upon Māoridom!

What in our 184 year history makes anyone believe that Māori will just accept that?

This referendum will generate an enormous social backlash and the hikoi to Wellington will become our largest protest march. Parliament Lawns will be Occupied, the real possibility of civil disobedience will erupt and all because ACT want to play race baiting games unleashing the worst angels of our nature.

 

Gun Fetishist Fantasies: 

The Gun lobby have deep control over ACT now and the killing off of the Gun Registry (an act the Police Association says is crazy, which really is saying something coming from the Police Association), and allowing the sociopaths submachine gun of choice back on the streets is truly the foreplay of a charmless man.

 

Private Prison Empire and Prison Riot:

National are promising to throw State Tenants onto the street while ACT promise a billion dollars to build more prisons!

You know the ‘Private prison’ solution is around the corner.

Our current publicly funded prisons are close to snapping point and the incompetence of technology and staffing of the home monitoring system that can be tricked by fucking tin foil are all red flags that the system can’t manage the prison popualtyioin they have, let alone pouring thousands more into it!

The recipe for an enormous prison riot is building.

The only counter to this madness is a Labour/Green Minority Government with a Supply and Confidence arrangement with Maori Party that will force through the radical reforms we need to adapt to the climate change and rebuild an egalitarian community post covid.

There are 3 basic motivators in politics.

Fear.

Anger.

Hope.

National, ACT and NZ First are attempting to harness anger.

The post Covid world is bitter and furious at everyone and everything.

Social media hate algorithms have generated a debate of piss and vinegar and an unhinged rage has settled on parts of the electorate that borders on openly psychotic.

For National, ACT and NZ First – Māori’s get too much, Covid was just a flu and saving 6000 lives wasn’t worth the lockdown.

Labour and Greens are attempting to harness fear.

Fear of how far right ACT and National are and how extremist NZ First are.

ACT want guns back on the streets while amputating the State, National want to give rich landlords tax cuts funded by robbing 2 year olds, mutilating Public Transport and stealing from climate change budgets while NZ First want toilet police to check genders in public bathrooms and has a candidate who thinks there are nano robots in the vaccine.

This extremist cavalcade of political circus freaks would unleash a level of right wing policy not seen since Roger Douglas.

This election is between anger and fear.

Anger at what Labour/Greens did or didn’t do vs the Fear of what ACT, National and NZ First will do.

As for Hope, it has been strangled and dumped in a polluted river this election.

 

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