MEDIAWATCH: Linking the NZ Right to overseas alt-Right Billionaires wanting to corrupt our Democracy
The Daily Blog has been attacking ACTs links to the International Free Market Extremist Atlas Network so much so that the Atlas Network reached out and threatened The Daily Blog.
The Daily Blog linked the Atlas Network connections to the local free market extremist NZ Initiative and their connections to the Taxpayers’ Union, Free Speech Union, Groundswell and the Campaign Company.
It was after my focusing on those links on The Daily Blog that Libertarian Newspaper Columnist, Damien Grant, cancelled the sponsorship of the award winning Working Group Political Podcast.
Let’s be very clear what the agenda is here, the mighty George Monbiot from the Guardian laid out the Atlas Network playbook last year…
And who, in turn, are the junktanks? Many refuse to divulge who funds them, but as information has trickled out we have discovered that the Atlas Network itself and many of its members have taken money from funding networks set up by the Koch brothers and other rightwing billionaires, and from oil, coal and tobacco companiesand other life-defying interests. The junktanks are merely the intermediaries. They go into battle on behalf of their donors, in the class war waged by the rich against the poor. When a government responds to the demands of the network, it responds, in reality, to the money that funds it.
…Oil, coal, tobacco, right wing billionaires, the fucking Koch brothers, dark money influencing our political system so much so that we see the exact same agenda being rolled out here!
This is the reality of Late Stage Capitalism on a burning planet, radicalised culture war Billionaires colluding with big oil polluters to strangle local democracy stopping their exploitation.
The only other NZ media who are taking Atlas and their agenda seriously is MATA whose latest offering of the influences at work here is a must watch.
Mihi’s fourth estate journalism does us proud…
…I really respect that the rest of the Press Gallery went silent and allowed Mihi to keep asking her questions.
That was fucking classy of all of them.
Comrades, we are in so much danger right now.
Māori have cultural memory of the first wave of white settler capitalist exploitation resource taking, they have the flax roots knowledge of what sustainability and environmental protection looks like, it is no wonder that international right wing think tanks always aim to attack indigenous rights first to enable the next generation of exploitative resource stripping.
On a global warming planet, the Treaty can protect all our rights when corporations come with their vampire capitalism.
For too long we have allowed polluters to dictate the terms. That has to change.
The Regulatory Standards Bill is the real win for the Neoliberal Right…
While all the media and popular coverage seems to have been directed towards the Treaty Principles Bill, David Seymour and Act are poised to achieve another substantive victory that has been over 20 years in the making.
The Regulatory Standards Bill, first introduced to Parliament in 2006 and reintroduced last year by Seymour in his role as the Minister for Regulation, is under the public consultation phase (quietly started on the day of the arrival of the hikoi in Wellington).
It will be taken up by parliament in early 2025.
As detailed by Melanie Nelson, the passage of this bill (an agreement in the coalition Government’s negotiations) will help Act to realise a longstanding goal of their neoliberal policy agenda, which is to enshrine the rights of individuals, particularly property holders and business owners, over the collective good of all New Zealanders.
“The focus on the Treaty Principles Bill risks overshadowing its dull but dangerous cousin, the Regulatory Standards Bill, which is currently open for consultation,” she writes. “The Regulatory Standards Bill is the brainchild of the Business Roundtable (now the New Zealand Initiative) and has been attempted three times previously by the Act Party.”
If passed, the bill will establish a hand-picked regulatory board to ensure that law-making complies with its regulatory “principles” and to deal with complaints of violations (the public can even call in their complaints via a newly established tip line).
…ACT have tailored an economic straight jacket that will make it impossible to counter corporate interests ever again.
If this passes, Corporations will be able to stop any environmental or taxation policy they don’t like.
The radical nature of this should terrify every New Zealander.
I didn’t believe most Kiwis voting National, NZF or ACT had much idea what exactly they were voting for and I don’t think the vast majority of Kiwis have any comprehension just how far right this Government actually is.
Setting up a legislative body dominated by corporate interests to test future laws against would be the end of NZ as a functioning democracy.
Sure it would be Government elected by the people, but it be run by law decided by corporations…
This regulatory board would have sweeping oversight over all proposed government regulations, with the ability to make non-binding recommendations.
Furthermore, all proposed legislation or ministerial statutes (with a compliance review of all existing laws within 10 years) would fall under the purview of the new regulatory board, severely curtailing the ability of the government to regulate harmful business practices or corporate exploitation, even if such regulation is in the public interest.
More seriously the current version of the bill has removed any role of the courts to provide regulatory oversight or interpretation; a move that seems to be explicitly targeted at blocking any incorporation of Te Tiriti into the regulatory discussion.
…so the Courts would be effectively bypassed by this new regulatory board.
At some stage New Zealand, you are going to have to either resist this slide to corporate fascism or you are merely going to be puppets to them.
Wake up Kiwis!
It is important now The Atlas Network is so active and influential in our political system that we acknowledge and highlight the many tentacles of The Atlas Network so we are aware of the influence.
Nicola Willis was the director of the New Zealand Initiative from May 2016 until February 2017, meanwhile another former NZ Initiative acolyte, Political Report Luke Malpass who was a Researcher for the Initiative is an investment that just keeps giving for the Hard Right Free Marketeers…
…Most people have no idea the Finance Minister and Senior Political Editor are part of a Free Market Network working as corrosively as possible before anyone notices.
The list of Atlas tentacles:
The free market privatisers and those who wish to amputate the State for the sheer glee of it have tricked you into looking the other way over culture war distractions so you don’t comprehend what they are doing to our democracy.
Comrades, we is getting played by people who do not have your interests at heart in any way shape or form.
Thank you MATA, your courage matters now.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
That video is damning however, we know Seymour’s crackpot theories and anti democratic behaviour is why he and his party remain a joke in politics.
Mihi Forbes does excellent journalism unlike her ex-Duncan Garner who jumped on the Atlas Network gravy train although he was always a Maori bashing hater even when he worked for that morning breakfast show what the name???
Seymour was so traumatized by Forbes truth he resorted to insults.
It’s what the right do.
Ngai tahu and tainui are the right wing conspiracy hate group you’re froffing about. Hilarious. Judean peoples front of bussy Doyle
I’m not sure of the right panacea here – laxatives?
Binders a right wing troll.
Mihi Forbes has Seymour reverting to cliched insults. He’s not that lost for words usually, but Mih left him speechless apart from babbling insults. What a journo! She’s as good as we’ve got.
The idiot running around ripping the covers of Jenny May Clarkson and Ruby Tuis’ books is more than likely to be a CoC voter. These bookstores need to put some poster up like they do for the shop lifters and have his photo so he can be named and shamed, he’s a coward.
Take a good look at the lists of the Atlas Network and The NZ Initiative and understand that these are the corporations and respective heads that control this Government and their policies. Democracy is dead… donors count for everything and your vote is worth nothing. Watch Jack Tames latest Q & A with this regimes MoF and watch the blatant lies and default blaming to cover for the continued gross economic mismanagement which is laying the platform for complete privatisation and corporate takeover.