So true!

Get some perspective, mate.

The result is to provide sustenance to existing economic structures and practices. The economic status quo is reinforced rather than dismantled, which is what a transformational budget would have done, or at least started. Transformation is essentially about ‘out with the old and in with the new”. This budget was more like ‘reinforce the old and resist the new’.

No wonder the left are pissed off.

I am NOT surprised, things are unfolding more or less as I had expected.

The pedestrian Left gets taken in by the same old rouse from Labour every time, and then when they are inevitably betrayed, they weep and wail like it was the first time.

I said it before this election and I’ll say it again, Labour doesn’t win elections because of disconnect in the electorate, they win them because the Ruling Class realise that their natural tool, the National Party has gone blunt and can no longer get the job done.

The Hard Left fought the previous government to a stand still on the TPP so Labour was brought in to finish the job. Jacinda Ardern was plucked from obscurity for this very purpose. That is why Jacinda and Co *literally ran* to get the TPP signed, metaphorically leaping over god knows how many more pressing issues in the process – it is the ONLY thing this government has done with urgency. It tells you exactly who they’re trying to impress.

After that was done, we discovered that after 9 years in opposition, they had no concrete plans at all. How can that be? Because they are crystal clear on their role and function if absolutely no one else is on the Left; they don’t need any plans, because they will be told what their plans are by the Ruling Class, on a bloody need-to-know basis. And in the absence of any orders to the contrary, carry on carrying on with the Neo Liberal Agenda and the Washington Concensus.

The Permanent Public Service actually runs the government day to day, year to year and government to government, and they are hand in glove with Big Business. If you stand in front of the Bee Hive for any length of time on a work day, you can see the Business Lobbiests come and go. They generally come out smiling. You quickly realise that if they stop coming out smiling, they will stop coming at all, and when that happens, the government will fall.

That’s how the government of NZ really works, in essence. All the rest is simply theatre.

Case in point; we’ve needed a Banking Royal Commission for years. Everyone knows that, the government best of all. Occupy Auckland told us that much! But it’s only the sheer weight of dead trees coming out of the Australian Press that can’t be ignored that would force us to have one if ever, out of sheer embarrassment. If the Government actually governed, it would be New Zealand leading the charge. But the Government does not govern. The Ruling Class governs.

After a while, after enough heartbreak, outrage and betrayal, the Hard Left will once again start protesting, and the Ruling Class will realise this government is finished too, and they will bring in a new one, and then a new government will push the Capitalist ball further down the field. It really doesn’t matter, chocolate or vanilla, blue or red, both teams are owned by the same Club.

We’re deluded if we think this is Democracy, it’s nothing like it. The only way to change this is to make the majority Proletariat the new Ruling Class, but it seems no one here knows how to do that. Not even the Hard Left knows how to do that I have discovered, so round and round we go.

Neo-liberalism has impacted NZ for 30-plus years. It’s tentacles reach into every part of our nation’s economy, social services, and as well psyche.

It’ll take more than 6 months to overturn the neo-liberal regime. Let’s give them some room before jumping over their heads.