Economy in meltdown and the broken privatisation experiment never more apparent – so why is NZ Left floundering?
New Zealand’s economy is showing clear signs of structural failure. Rising unemployment, collapsing public services, housing insecurity, and deepening inequality are not isolated crises — they are symptoms of a long-running privatisation experiment that is now breaking down in real time. As voters struggle with cost-of-living pressures and declining trust in institutions, the political question is no longer whether the system is failing, but why meaningful opposition to it appears so absent.
Despite the free market cheerleaders telling us that 5.4% Unemployment is actually a wonderful miracle of capitalism, the economy is melting down and it is melting down DIRECTLY BECAUSE of this Government’s hard core Right wing economic extremism.
The Economic Meltdown Is Policy-Driven, Not Cyclical
The decision by National to smash Labour’s infrastructure pipeline early in 2024 saw 140,000 flee the country in two years causing cascade failures throughout the economy.
The vandalism we are all experiencing is because of National’s policies!
Public Services Are Collapsing Under Privatisation and Austerity
Public services are falling over and don’t tell me we don’t have the money for public services, this Government is borrowing MORE than Labour and they don’t have a once in a century pandemic to deal with!
Homelessness is expanding DIRECTLY BECAUSE of National Party policy that everyone warned them about!
The very privatisation that we are seeing spew sewage into Wellington Harbour is this Governments solution and the manner in which their environmental policy is exacerbating the very climate change we are seeing rip the country to pieces is shameful.
Why Is a Failing Government Still Ahead in the Polls?
And yet
Despite all these manifest failures directly because of Government Policy, this Government in the Polls still looks like it will be returned to power!Which begs the question, how bad must the Opposition look to people for this crony capitalism culture war culture-war absurdity to be preferable?
The Left has to ask itself some hard questions.
The Left’s Strategic Failure: Safety Versus Substance
Whether the incremental safety of Keir Starmer that inspires apathy is preferable to the populist Mamdani cost of living solution based policy which wins elections.
Right now the inquiry into the Shopping Duopoly is being withheld because te openly solution is to break them up and the Government wants to bury that.
Labour and the Greens should be going into this election promising to break up the Duopolies, not only in Supermarkets but in Power as well!
It’s time to step up!
The Data Tells a Brutal Story
- Unemployment is 5.4%
- 600,000 Kiwis need help from food banks monthly.
- 1 in 6 young people are unemployed.
- Unemployment is 6.4% in Auckland, 5.8% in Wellington.
- It’s 11.2% for Māori and 12.3% for Pacifika.
- 900,000 live in poverty.
- Almost 400,000 are on benefits.
- 112,496 people are estimated to be severely housing deprived.
We are a broken privatisation experiment masquerading as a Country
People vote for change and get nothing from politicians.
The structure of the country is a broken privatisation experiment that strips cash for lucrative private contracts while leaving us with an undermined and endlessly compromised public service.
Look at what is happening in Wellington right now!
That’s NZ’s broken privatisation experiment in real time folks!
Hopelessness, Alienation, and the Collapse of Social Trust
Voters are tired, and hurt and heart broken.
As isolation, loneliness and social isolation grows, many have gone down rabbit holes fuelled by social media hate algorithms and they live in a distorted and mutilated version of reality that is constantly ripe for emotional manipulation.
Bad faith grifters have replaced fourth estate journalists.
Underfunded Institutions have not managed to generate manifestly better outcomes as the majority drown in debt.
Foreign Corporations milk monopoly rentals from our crony capitalism economy. Exploitation of migrant workers and cheap mass immigration migration puts extra stress on an already underfunded infrastructure. Free market privatisation user pays mythology fails as all those we educate flee the country to pay off their student loan debt.
Communities have been stripped of funding and have no resources to be resilient or sustainable in a climate change future.
Borrowing for infrastructure remains a joke with zero focus on sovereign Investment as our solution.
The polluters and big business rig the political game to ensure their interests trump ours.
Hopelessness stalks the land of the wrong white crowd on these Shakey Isles this Waitangi Day.
There is a malaise so deep that even allies are stabbing each other before the enemy.
When the Left Fights Itself, the Status Quo Wins
No wonder this terrible right wing Government is still ahead in the Polls, the Left is too busy fighting each other rather than the actual enemy and when the people turn to us for solutions, we are too busy bickering to hear them!
The narcissism of petty difference is making us deaf to their economic pain.
WHahnie Bellich.
You want to replace the Coalition that is currently in charge with a weak no policy leader and a support pack that did a terrible job when last in power .If they needed partners they need a joyless person and a white man hating co leader and a divided party so busy fighting itself it would it would have little time to help rule.
Please enlighten us all on the ‘strong’ policies of the Coalition of
Clusterfuckery as opposed to the supposed ‘weak’ ones of Labour and the Greens.
The ‘weak’ ones had unemployment at 3.4 %…now 5.6% by the ‘strong’ ones…now that’s a strong result…for all the wrong reasons.
The ‘weak’ ones had the country on track to be in surplus by mid 2027(as verified by Treasury)…now 2031 by the ‘strong’ ones…another strong result …for all the wrong reasons.
The ‘weak’ ones had new deal of the century state-of -the art State Highway 1 Cook Strait ferries arriving last month…. now not till 2030 if lucky by the ‘strong ‘ ones and with an inferior product and a $650 million dollar fine as an added bonus for the taxpayers of N.Z….yet another strong result…for all the wrong reasons.
The ‘weak’ one’s policies had a burgeoning EV market rising rapidly by the month…now … the cancel culture ‘strong’ ones have tanked that market too…now limping on 1 leg…but no even…yet another strong result…for all the wrong reasons.
We haven’t even got into the disastrous cancelled construction industry meltdown, the diminishing tax take, the hospitals in complete disarray, the non-existent new state house builds and the self inflicted spiraling cost of living crisis.
So please list the amazing game changing policies of the current clowns….maybe boot camps??…but no!
Where were those ferries going to dock that was the sting in the story ,zJetty conversion was an unknown but it was in the billions .EV sales were great not so much power availabilities.Unemployment was low due to so many being hired to fulfill roles as Public servants. The costs in construction was growing out of control inflation was destroying the market
A nice little diatribe of fake news going on there…keep reading..
It’s election year.
Power costs are crippling many households & businesses.
The Government announces a levy on the cost of power.
Voters look to the lead opposition party for a response.
Yet, despite Labour leader Chris Hipkins saying he did not believe it would reduce power prices, Hipkins dismissed questions over whether Labour would terminate any agreements, or put the costs onto the energy companies and take away the levy on households, as “hypothetical.”
What a let down
It’s the SYSTEM y’all. It’s broken and all we are told to do is vote for our left/right team, but that fixes nothing, so why bother ?
Keep voting and watch capitalism/liberal style democracies burn themselves out knowing you did your duty.
Me ?…I’m gonna live sustainably local, evolving to pick up the pieces with an A super I friend to guide me, when it comes of age and realises who It’s enemies are.
BwaV – I think your approach sounds the most practical. While the others wait for the mechanic to come and fix the modern vehicle being used to direct the economy and polity, some are leaving to look for lasting shelter from the shemozzle (Yiddish). And they have left for probably not Aussie – but a world tour to see if they can find a country fit for humans less than heroes but superior to those in the black holes where Mr Creosotes and their wanking wives indulge their lives.
As a conscientious objector to westminster systems of governance and judiciary and having no skin in the game, I’m quite content to sit on the sidelines with muh popcorn and a front row seat to the conflagration of liberal democracies no longer fit for purpose and aspiring politicians whose only goal is to see out 3 terms and retire with the perks or entrench power for their corporate bedfellows.
I just hope I’m situated back far enough to stay warm without getting burnt by the fallout.
Unfortunately NZ is full of dumb-assed people who get their distorted news from the likes of ‘similar’ friends, Facebook et al. They have no idea what is really going on, but so long as ‘they are OK’, they couldn’t care less. Hence the polls show how many NUMBSKULLS we have – staggering! The stats for this CoC are abysmal and our “bought” fourth estate so called journalists are not allowed to tell us the truth. Instead we get a steady stream of BS, misinformation, pie in the sky rubbish. TV news is all about the nut case Trump, in fact anything that distracts from what is really happening in NZ. The smashing of Labour’s Infrastructure Pipeline was spiteful and is now coming back to bite the CoC but no-one is banging on and telling the voters? It’s called CORRUPTION and is there for the benefit of the Top Feeders, the Sorted and the Nincompoops. Once NZ is destroyed there will be no way back – FGS folk don’t you get it? We desperately need a significant change with some actual leadership and policies, not the myriad of distracting cr&p this CoC keeps bringing in. Left, time to act smarter – you are way better than that!
You want to replace the Coalition that is currently in charge with a weak no policy leader and a support pack that did a terrible job when last in power .If they needed partners they need a joyless person and a white man hating co leader and a divided party so busy fighting itself it would it would have little time to help rule.
Sod off Trevor. Relative to this fing awful government the last lot did not do a terrible job at all.
Blame the Kapa kingi’s, Chippy(so uninspiring, why was he allowed to continue as leader after such a catastrophic loss), Ferris, the two faced Kaipara. Greens need to stop looking so passive. Where are the inspiring leaders we need at this moment. It’s insane. Why is Maoridom not squashing the renegades, how dare Eru use Waitangi to challenge TPM for his own and his mother’s benefit. Shocking. That did require a response and one was delivered but it was a very bad thing to have played out there and then. Terrible. The Kapa Kingis have dragged the whole of NZ down their ego mania highway, probably to the destruction of the left. But they are not being called out. Why? They are effectively agent provocateurs, acting for Coc.
We’re not a democracy anymore. Treasury decide everything and Labour are trying to be Tony Blair lite – about as attractive a prospect as vegan gruel.
Time was they knew what they stood for and it wasn’t homelessness, high inflation, flat wages, mass low-end immigration and privatisation.