TDB – Domestic Political Predictions 2025

We didn’t have an election in 2023, we had a grudge fuck against Labour.

Labour won the Covid War but lost the Covid Peace

Covid lockdown was a unique universal event that saw everyone sacrifice equally in an unequal society.

The build back never matched the sacrifice while loneliness plus fear saw many dive down social media hate algorithm rabbit holes as alienating woke dogma fed culture war resentment..

Yes Labour spent money to save us from a once in a century pandemic, but every Government did.

The shockwave to global supply chains saw inflation surge everywhere and generate a cost of living crisis as free market dynamics kicked in.

I find it hilarious that Death Cult Capitalists like the Taxpayers’ Union and Libertarian cheerleaders like Damien Grant can bitch relentlessly about the debt Labour created combating Covid when both of them took the Covid wage subsidy that Labour offered…

Taxpayers Union Statement On COVID-19 Wage Subsidy

As confirmed by the Government today, the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is one of the many employers that have accepted the COVID-19 Wage Subsidy. This decision was made on the basis of our ethical obligations to staff during the government-mandated economic shutdown.

The decision to accept this subsidy was not as simple for us as for most organisations. Prior to COVID-19, we have stated on the record that we would never accept taxpayer funding. That commitment was, of course, made in a time few New Zealanders could possibly have anticipated COVID-19 and the ensuing economic situation.

Businessman took wage subsidy despite believing company would survive without – won’t pay it back

An Auckland businessman says he claimed the Government’s Covid-19 wage subsidy for his business despite believing it could survive without it, but he has no intention of paying it back.

Damien Grant runs Waterstone Insolvency, which specialises in winding up companies, and he is also an occasional columnist .

He’s also a fireworks importer who last year argued against a proposed ban on personal use by the general public.

Speaking this morning to TVNZ1’s Breakfast, Mr Grant said he is a strong critic of the Government giving out the subsidy to struggling businesses – but also said he took the subsidy for his own company.

…so when the Right bitch about the debt Labour created to fight Covid, they don’t mean the money they got, they just resent the money poor people got as well.

With free market acolytes it’s always capitalism for us and socialism for them!

Because I’m a politics geek, I read the manifestos and I warned you all in 2023 that a National, ACT, NZF coalition would be a hard right ruthless Government with a privatisation agenda that would venally benefit their donor interests at the cost of the common good.

No one wanted to hear that because everyone was so bitter post Covid and wanted to blame Jacinda, but allow me to pause and note that the  ‘I told you so’ Express has turned up early.

This Government’s appalling promotion of legislation that slavishly worships their donors interests while implementing a blitzkrieg of abuse of power tactics to ram it through with as little oversight as possible, has manifested an extreme anti-Māori, anti-Treaty, anti-Worker, anti-Renter, anti-beneficiary, anti-environment agenda that Chris Luxon is just too weak to oppose as Winston and David run rings around him every single week.

The real danger for this cavalcade of political circus freaks is that the venal emptiness of laws that only benefit their donors kick in now just as the Economy predictably tanks from this Government’s Austerity program.

They have borrowed more than Labour did for their tax cuts while underfunding all public services by giving them less than they actually needed.

When National claim they have put more money into Health, that’s technically right, but it masks the truth that National gave more than the last budget, but the funding they did give didn’t match inflation or the ageing population so it is a cut back, and this sophistry is being played out in every public service.

By spending a year burning down everything Labour built, National have zero to show for it making 2025 their year of consequences. Voters will look at the $12 a week tax cut they got and compare it to all the increased costs National have put on every where else and realise they’ve been fleeced.

Look, New Zealanders aren’t that smart (we are great at milking cows, playing rugby, cycling, swimming, masking alcoholism and hiding our alarming domestic violence rates, but not so much inside the Brains Department if you know what I mean. Bless) and can have their resentments easily manipulated, but if a Kiwi thinks you have maliciously deceived them, they turn like a packet of crumpets in a moist ill ventilated rental.

2025 is when this Government’s hard right free market privatisation agenda kicks off and more Kiwis will realise they’ve been taken for a ride.

Here are The Daily Blog’s  Domestic Predictions for 2025.

 

The next Treaty debate and Waitangi protests 

It’s 185 years of Colonial Oppression we are celebrating for this year’s Cheaty of Waitangi, and what a year to celebrate!

The hors d’oeuvres for race baiting in 2025 will be Treaty debates early in the year (isn’t it funny how no one wanted to do Treaty debates until The Working Group’s debate last year that became the biggest watched podcast of 2024?), followed by the mains of ACTs cross burning banjo twanging redneck Treaty Principles jamboree and the desert will be attempts to rip Māori representation out of local Government elections later this year.

Watching the manner in which the Right will despoil our race relations will make you more ashamed of being a New Zealander than anything else you’ll experience in 2025.

Happy days everyone.

Economy

The damage this Government’s Austerity program has caused the Economy is far worse than understood.

National point to a lower OCR as proof of their economic stewardship, but that’s just so laughable it’s difficult to accept they are trying it on.

The inflation was generated by Covid supply chain shutdowns, as they have alleviated the inflation has dropped, but the global forces of American hegemonic capitalism is pushing inflation up as the West digests permanent trade inflation as Just-in-time supply chains become Just-in-case supply chains.

National are claiming a victory in forces they have zero influence over.

The truth is that by cutting off Government support for the building industry, thousands of Kiwis with construction skills have left NZ!

National were more focused on ideology than what was best for the NZ economy.

Key reacted to the Global Financial Crisis with a far larger state support program where as this Government has gleefully kicked the legs out from under many organisations and supply chains of labour who had Government contracts.

National believe the market will step in to fill this void.

Allowing the Free Market to provide is a myth that never worked and isn’t working now.

House prices keep dropping, the unemployment rate will soar, more and more people in need will quietly slip away from any interaction with the State, homelessness will explode as the full cost of dumping the building of public housing unfolds.

The biggest impact to the economy could be felt very shortly.

If Trump is serious about tariffs on Day One, it will mean the value of the American currency spikes up dramatically and very quickly. NZ buys its petrol in American dollars, the price of petrol will jump with price shocks that cause dramatic inflationary spikes and a crime wave.

There is nothing in the Treasury forecast that even remotely acknowledges this possibility, so they are prophesying impotent and feeble economic growth as the best case scenario.

Core inflation pressures and a strong employment rate in America has short circuited any belief in a Fed cut as inflationary pressures start forming into stagflation.

The Bond shocks in the first weeks of the year as the reality of Trump’s economic platform dawns on the market is a huge red flag in a sea of red flags.

The realities of the moment will all look far larger than the Government’s capacity to economically respond.

Treaty Principles Referendum 

White anger and migrant resentment towards perceptions of Māori rights have manifested into the Treaty Principles Referendum as the hard right attempt to trigger a Trexit Culture War to  distract form their corporate plunder.

We are seriously about to have a ‘debate’ about cementing into place 19th Century white settler privilege and pretending this is a serious good faith constitutional discussion.

ACTs 6 month hate tour kicks off in 2025 and every racist trope you’ve ever heard from your drunk uncle who loves The Platform and Reality Check Radio will get aired as if it’s considered opinion.

It’s going to be a redneck jamboree masquerading as civil discord.

Regulatory Standards Bill

The Treaty Principles Referendum is the distraction, but the Regulatory Standards Bill is the real win for the Neoliberal Right…

The long neoliberal con

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.

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 into corporate fascism or you are merely going to be puppets to them.

Dear NZ – why are you trusting Corporations to protect your democracy?

Ferry replacement friction vs 6 month hate tour friction vs Deputy Swap friction

The transfer of Deputy between Winston and David is May 31st and the stage is already set for a showdown between ACT and NZF.

Winston will have his Ferry report, David will have finished his 6 month hate tour for the Treaty Principles Referendum and the next devastating Austerity Budget will be on its way.

David Seymour wrong on cost of ferry replacement project, says Winston Peters

The new Minister of Rail Winston Peters has poured scorn on ACT leader David Seymour’s hopes of privatising the Cook Strait ferry service, and says Seymour was “wrong” about the cost of the new project.

On Wednesday, Seymour said indicative costings were “approximately half the at least $3 billion cost” of Labour’s proposal.

He shared that information despite Minister of Finance Nicola Willis’ caution about disclosing costs.

Asked on Morning Report if the government had a sum in mind, Peters said it would be “stupid” and “imprudent” to name the price.

“I said [on Wednesday] it would be most imprudent, politically and business-wise, stupid, to start saying what you’re going to buy them for, because that’s the bottom line. They’ll start from there and up it will go.”

He rejected Seymour’s statement the new deal would cost a “fraction of the price” of the iRex project, and that private investment remained on the table.

“You’re talking to the minister in charge now, not the one that’s not in charge.”

Pressed by Hipkiss on whether Seymour’s sum was incorrect, he said, “Of course he’s wrong on it.

“He’s wrong on the figures that he’s used, he’s wrong on the question of privatisation and he’s wrong on the question of what it’s going to cost.

The sudden eruption of battle lines between two of Parliament’s most formidable foes is being driven by the Deputy PM swap over deadline, the economic pain 2025 will represent and most importantly, the TVNZ Poll showing almost 50% of NZFirst voters supports Seymour’s Treaty Principles Referendum.

I’ve been arguing thanks to the decline of journalism, the rise of social media hate algorithms and Seymour’s cunning, ACT can aim to be in double digits at the next election, but all to the cost of the Right.

He will cannibalise National vote and enough NZF vote to sink Winston under 5%.

This is why Winston is suddenly building the argument of rail capable Ferry’s owned by the State. Nationalist Economic Sovereignty has always been a powerful card for Winston and being willing to die in a ditch for the Ferries is the exact issue he could break from the Government ver and call an early election if ACT threatens his 5% viability.

If the Māori Party keep over playing their hand, it opens the door for Winston to appeal to Chippy.

David has a 6 month race stunt campaign to build ACT up enough to sink Winston and become far more powerful.

They both know this.

 

Austerity Budget Implosion

The Right Wing Redneck ZB Trolls be screaming that National’s budget is NOT an Austerity budget because the Government is borrowing more than Labour did.

Bullshit.

While National are technically borrowing more – IT IS FOR TAX CUTS AND LANDLORD TAX LOOPHOLES WE CANT AFFORD!

Take a look at the example of public health.

In the Budget, National allocated just 2.9% increase to health services but inflation was 3.3% and population growth 2.6% while an ageing population adds more to costs.

National gave 2.9% for health but we needed 8% to stand still, is the electorate dumb enough to fall for National’s latest manufactured public service crisis to introduce more failed free market reforms?

The Minister says we can’t afford $1.4billion for health but we could borrow $14billion for tax cuts, again is the electorate dumb enough to believe this?

We have progressively decreased taxing the richest to fund out public services until the public services fall over and the public scream ‘something must be done’ and the Right ‘here’s something’ and they privatise a little more and you get even less.

By underfunding public services and borrowing for tax cuts, the National Government Austerity Agenda has created hollow budgets and it is going to get far worse next year as the fall out from their Austerity agenda wrecks the economy.

The Political Right have traded in the common good for their donors interests.

Death

I fear death will strike politically this year and will see a possible State funeral, a Leadership reshuffle and 2 by-elections.

 

NZs next climate change generated natural disaster

We will face forest fires and possible cyclones this year which will make the disconnect between the Government’s climate agenda and the reality we are collectively facing.

 

NZs next earthquake 

Every year that passes more pressure builds on the Alpine Fault and Hikurangi Fault, the question is would the Alpine Fault trigger the Hikurangi Fault? The devastation of either one (or both) going this year would cause so much damage we may have to accept being a State of Australia. Such an event would turn the entire political, economic and social concept of NZ on its head and all bets are off in that environment.

 

A new global pandemic 

The eye rolling bit of everyone criticising our Covid response is that the millisecond the new bird flu mutates into human to human transmission and it has a high mortality rate, every single Kiwi complaining about Labour response to Covid would scream to shut the borders and will kill anyone who says otherwise.

Labour’s tax plan

This pathetic debate inside Labour over whether we should adopt a Capital Gains Tax vs a Wealth Tax is the reason Labour might lose the 2026 election.

It’s as timid as their GST off Fruit and Vegetables incrementalism that plagued them last election.

The real slap in the face to the voters Labour was relying on with their bullshit limp GST off Fruit and Vegetables fiasco is that it was such a meaningless gesture, it articulated that Labour just didn’t understand the pain felt at the bottom.

This time around the exact same dynamics will come into play with their limp Capital Gains Tax ‘victory’.

The naked fucking reality you clowns is that we need BOTH Taxes, not just one or tother, BOTH!

AND MORE!

For the love of Christ Labour, are you going to actually do something meaningful or not because making it an either or tax shows you’ve learned nothing John Snow.

The task at hand comrades is to reset the tax yoke from the poorest and reset it on the richest.

• We need properly funded public health.
• Properly funded public education.
• Properly funded public housing.
• Properly funded infrastructure.
• Properly funded mental health services.
• We need free public transport.
• We need free dental.
• We need to nationalise Early Childhood Education and make it all free.
• We need to nationalise retirement villages and build more public housing for the elderly.
• We need to fund a 3rd state backed Supermarket to break the duopoly.
• We need properly and fully funded addiction programmes.
• We need Marae Civil Defence funding.
• We need a whole new First Responder Mental Health Teams fully funded service.

There is an enormous amount of money required to actually solve the problems we face and that requires a bold new vision for tax.

We need:

• A Capital Gains tax that doesn’t include the family home.
• A Wealth Tax at the top 1%
• A sugar tax to help fund free dental
• A super tax on Vice profits from smoking, alcohol and gambling.
• $100million ring fenced for addiction services from a legal cannabis market.
• 5% Estate Duties
• First $10000 tax free
• Lower GST from 15% to 10%
• Remove GST altogether from basket of essentials (tampons, toilet paper, fresh fruit and vegetables, tooth paste)
• Financial Transaction Tax
• Pollution Tax
• Land Tax

If the Left actually want to rebuild the current public services and fund genuine solutions by growing the society positively, it is going to need more money.

We must lift the tax yoke off the poorest and put it on the richest!

Bring GST down, subsidise cost and make the wealthiest pay.

Arguing over which tepid tax to gingerly embrace is not a solution and will lead to more Labour Party incrementalism.

The other thing the Labour Party strategists are not seeing is that a strong egalitarian tax policy will bring those middle class Labour Party Auckland voters that Labour haemorrhaged to the Greens back.

For a Party that keeps saying it wants to win Labour they don’t seem to understand why they lost

Labour fucked Auckland over the lockdown, and then added insult to injury by not recognising any of that pain with a build back that justified the sacrifice.

Labour lost working class voters because GST off fruit and vegetables and the petrol prices going back up were a slap in the face and they lost the middle classes who looked at their joke economic platform and intellectually gave their vote to the Greens for their wealth tax.

If Labour had a strong tax policy that gave to the poor while taking from the rich, they would gain back the middle class voters who moved to the Greens WHILE winning back the working classes who didn’t bother too vote.

For a Party that keeps saying it wants to win Auckland back, they don’t seem to know where Auckland is.

A strong Labour Party Tax policy would win back middle class Auckland voters, give working class South Auckland voters a reason to vote and it would take the Greens down a peg or two to a manageable 9% because doesn’t that Party List start getting flakey pretty quick?

 

Social Investment Big data fascism and the rise of a new generation of stolen babies 

I have been warning and warning and warning that the Big Data Social Investment fascism would lead to an eruption of uplifts from a weaponised OT.

And it begins…

Government Coy On Police Plan To Target ‘At Risk’ Children For Social Investment

Police want ‘at risk’ children as young as nine to be targeted for social investment to prevent them becoming criminals.

It is one of two ideas nominated by police for inclusion in the government’s social investment work programme, ministerial documents released to RNZ under the Official Information Act show.

In a May briefing to Police Minister Mark Mitchell, police floated the idea of “targeted prevention support to 9 to 12-year-olds to prevent them entering the youth justice system”.

Social investment involves using data and evidence to identify people with the greatest needs and was first championed in 2015 by former Prime Minister Bill English, who believed early intervention could save the government money over a person’s lifetime, and it is back on the agenda, driven by Finance and Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis, who once worked for English.

The briefing, ahead of the first ‘Social Investment Ministers Group’ meeting on 22 May, said three-quarters of youth crime was carried out by the “10 percent of young people who have the greatest exposure to hardship and disadvantage”.

These children were most likely to have been exposed to family violence, poverty, had contact with Oranga Tamariki, and have parents who had experienced drug or alcohol addiction, poor mental health, or had been in prison, the paper said.

“We propose targeting support to 9 to 12-year-old children experiencing hardship and disadvantage to ensure they are on track to succeed and prevent them entering the youth justice system in the next five years.”

Police could identify these children through family harm incidents they attended, or because they were siblings of children and young people who had already offended, the paper said.

It suggested that targeted support could reduce the likelihood of offending, increase school attendance, improve long-term outcomes and reduce long-term social costs such as ‘justice system cost and benefit dependence.”

Police themselves would not implement such a programme – that would be left up to another government agency – but could support the approach by identifying and referring children they thought would benefit, NZ Police said in a statement.

…let’s be clear.

The Big Data Social Investment model is about intervening to stop a problem child from costing the state downstream.

That means OT needs to have its uplift function weaponised once the Wellington Bureaucrats switch the Big Data model on.

That means uplifting kids at the drop of a hat.

The danger of removing Section 7aa from OT was that 7aa forced OT to negotiate with Iwi service providers before uplifting a child.

Removing 7aa means OT can uplift at will with zero negotiation with Iwi stakeholders.

Now the State is focused on using Big Data against children, it will see a tsunami of uplifts.

The State taking a child from a parent is the most extreme power imbalance we have in a liberal progressive society. If we uplift children into State care where they statistically stand to be abuse more than if they had been left in the community, you have a very damaged and broken system that requires more oversight, not less!

What the Social Investment Model intends to do is unapologetically supercharge the uplift process and weaponise it against those Orac warns us will cost the State more money down stream.

We need more oversight here, not less and the willingness of this Government to embark upon this radical yet invisible welfare experiment should be ringing alarm bells everywhere.

Prison + Crime

National are so ideologically hateful they will add 10 000 into NZ prisons for minor offences…

Ministry of Justice warns NZ First-National coalition commitment risks doubling prison population

ACTs Free Speech Bill

Oh for there love of christ, what new right wing nightmare is this…

Government to change free speech rules for universities

The coalition is tweaking university regulations to curb what it says is an increasingly “risk-averse approach” to free speech.

The proposed changes will set clear expectations on how universities should approach freedom of speech issues.

Each university will then have to adopt a “freedom of speech statement” consistent with the central government’s expectations.

The changes will also prohibit tertiary institutions from adopting positions on issues that do not relate to their core functions.

…wait? WHAT!

There are two issues here.

The first is yay, New Zealand Universities need to prioritise freedom of speech on Campus.

This matters!

We have seen gender critical feminists attempt to debate Trans issues on campus and they have been shut down by precious woke activists, so you can’t pretend free speech on campus isn’t an issue (thanks to our precious woke activists).

We need our universities to have powerful new ideas and be bastions of free speech because they are trusted spaces that have the mana and intellectual rigour to be environments for such debate, so great that they will have to focus on promoting free speech HOWEVER in the next breath, ACT declare that they will ban the very Institutions they are demanding Free Speech from to be able to use their own free speech…

The changes will also prohibit tertiary institutions from adopting positions on issues that do not relate to their core functions.

…and that is the second issue.

You can’t demand free speech and then garrote it in the same argument!

This isn’t about Free Speech, this is about gagging Institutions from participating in civil society, that’s the very OPPOSITE of Free Speech!

This is a Trojan Horse that pretends to be about promoting Free Speech while removing it!

It’ll be fun to see how compromised the Free Speech Union’s position on this becomes.

ACT’s Free Speech Bill is nothing but a garrotte to strangle the very free Speech they claim to be protecting!

Atlas Network’s growing influence

What is most concerning about the legislation being pushed out this year is that it is all out of the International Right Wing think tank Atlas Network playbook…

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!

The Atlas Network have managed to gain a partial Broadcasting Standards Authority ruling that TVNZs expose on their influence in NZ required a right of reply as some type of vindication against the criticism levelled towards them.

They have used this tactic numerous times and have gone as far as threatening The Daily Blog last year.

As their wildest fantasies come true through this Government’s legislative agenda, expect The Atlas Network to lift their threats and blackball any journalist who mentions them.

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.

The list of Atlas adjacent tentacles:

• ACT
• Groundswell
• Taxpayers’ Union
• Kiwiblog
• Curia Polling
• The Campaign Company
• Free Speech Union

Plus everyone below via the NZ Initiative…

 

NZ Union Movement will continue to flounder

I don’t think we are going to see any innovation from the Unions and now big new ideas for the economy from them. They are so shell shocked that Identity Politics failed the Democrats against Trump they have lost any sense of what the Union movement should actually be doing.

In NZ, our woke Union activists are great at organising militant mummy blogger cyclists protesting to Free the Nipple, not so good at challenging the neoliberal economic hegemonic structure.

 

NZ Media landscape will continue to implode

I predicted Today FM would close, I predicted TV3 News would die, I hosted the most watched Treaty debate last year and I won Gold for best current affairs podcast, so what the fuck do I know, but we will see more media companies go to the wall this year as they attempt to create paywalls around their content, which ultimately undermines their influence,

The only bright spark will be Waatea Digital who have managed to jump to digital media far better than most companies have managed.

 

Culture wars, polarisation and social media hate algorithms will continue to eclipse real debate 

Meta removing fact checking will have ‘catastrophic consequences’ – disinformation expert

Experts are concerned changes to content moderation and an end to third-party fact checking on social media platform Meta will leave users open to abuse and disinformation.

The Daily Blog has had many posts (usually ones critical of Israel) challenged and removed by Facebook’s fact check policy so we know first hand the ease with which that process has been weaponised, but dumping Fact Checkers altogether to create a mob editorial committee so that social media hate algorithms become the de facto voice of truth is dangerously unhinged at a time when Social Media and excruciating loneliness is corroding actual reality alongside Democratic Institutions that require good faith citizens instead of bitter cynical patriots.

The ease with which full blown conspiracy theories will be set alongside truth and promoted on platforms with the ubiquity of Facebook will propel polarisation into new extremes.

All the fuses are lit now.

NZ First Covid Inquiry won’t give anti vaxxers the mass hangings they want  

No one in NZ was held down against their will and forced an injection!

No one!

With every medication, you have the absolute right of a free willed individual to say no.

But during a once in a century pandemic, the State has an obligation to demand vaccine mandates for workers who might spread the virus. That said, we were hardly asked to storm a beach on Gallipoli were we? For most of us it was ‘stay on the couch’, so let’s tone down the ‘Jacinda was a dictator’ stuff eh?

I stand by the mandates while acknowledging the damage they caused some.

For some of our brothers and sisters, their stance on the vaccine was the very first time in their lives that they felt othered in their own country and it was an intense alienation that has warped them.

I argued passionately that we needed to de-escalate the Dumb Lives Matter protest at Parliament because while I utterly disagreed with their lists of people they were going to hang, they were impacted by our mandate policy and they had the right to have their pain heard and acknowledged.

Labour refused to do that and Trevor Mallard goaded them into the violence it became.

That 2022 protest didn’t happen in a vacuum, it happened as the cost of living exploded and many on mandates had still not found work.

If we had rebuilt properly after Covid, those peoples economic pain and anxiety would not have been as easily manipulated as they were by disinformation and anger.

Those people are now lost to the Left forever. They have swelled the numbers inside NZF and now act as a genuine political faction while Liz Gun and other Fringe movements still poll 1%.

We have all lost whanau who have disappeared down rabbit holes fed by social media hate algorithms.

The intense loneliness that lockdown generated has mutated into a very damaged and demented understanding of reality that burdens the believer in ways that consumes their entire identity.

The problem for NZ First who have seduced the Antivaxx electorate is that those activists want to hang Jacinda for ‘crimes’, NZ First’s inquiry can;’t give those activists what they want so watch the speed with which this fickle bitter electorate turn on Winston the moment they ain;t getting a public execution.

 

Local Council elections, naked racism and extremism 

2025 is going to be a very angry year in terms of race relations in New Zealand.

We will see the 6 month Treaty Principles Referendum Bill create unprecedented friction.

Local Body Elections will face the challenge of having Māori representation stripped from them.

And NZ First will push ahead with attempts to remove the Treaty from dozens of pieces of legislation.

These attacks on the Treaty will coincide with deep economic pain as the Government’s austerity budgets hollowed out to borrow for tax cuts start to collapse important public service infrastructure.

Public Service Infrastructure that many Māori, Pacifica, working class, renters, beneficiaries and pensioners rely upon.

Communities will be asked to fight back at a time when they feel most economically vulnerable.

The fact Luxon won’t even appear at Waitangi tells you the level of cowardice Luxon’s inability to steer NZ away from the naked rage of cracker racism.

Wayne Brown will win the Auckland Mayoralty and Tori Whanau will decide not to run for the Wellington Mayoralty.

 

Challenges for Labour

If Labour can’t sort out their tax policy, they will underwhelm the way their bullshit GST off Fruit and Vegetables did. For the left middle classes they will see the Greens as more intellectually left and keep voting for them in Auckland and the working classes will see no reason to vote at all. If Labour are serious about winning back Auckland they have to have a solution to taking the tax yoke off the poor and placing it on the richest to fund all the social infrastructure we need.

 

Challenge for Māori Party 

The danger of the Māori Party over cooking the Hangi with their ever more radical demands for from Labour is that it opens the door between NZF and Labour.

As Winston eyes up possible conflict with the Government over the Ferry’s and Kiwirail ahead of the Deputy swap over in May 31st, the political calculations change.

The current Māori Party strategy is to use any leverage at the next election to demand enormous concessions from Labour and the Greens, which is fine and dandy AS LONG as those demands are universal wins for all Kiwis, but if they are only wins for Māori, it opens the possibility that the Māori Party will over cook the hangi, and force Labour into cutting a deal with NZF and the Greens in support.

The Māori Party must take the momentum of the Hikoi success and look to build a future for ALL Kiwis, not just Māori.

The difference between the MANA Party and the Māori Party is that the MANA Party knew there were more white babies in poverty than Māori babies and policy reflected everyone.

MANA’s policy was ‘Feed the Kids’ it wasn’t, ‘Only feed the Māori kids’.

The Māori Party have a swagger because they believe they have snookered Labour, but if the concessions the Māori Party are interested in gaining from Labour only help Māori, Chippy will be on the phone to Winston.

 

Challenge for Greens

To ensure the Greens are not taken for granted by Labour, they need to be in talks with the Māori Party now for a joint agreement on bottom-lines when negotiating with Labour if they are successful in 2026.

The problem is the Māori Party’s ever growing list of radical positions that only benefit their definition of being Māori could open the door between NZF and Labour.

If the choice is Greens giving supply and confidence to Labour and NZF to defeat a National,ACT, NZF Government, then that has to be seriously considered.

If Greens already have a working joint statement agreement with the Māori Party, that makes a move by Labour and NZF far less possible.

One must never forget that to get Labour to do anything mildly solution based requires smashing their head against a wall with a gun to their head while screaming, ‘DO IT”

Labour are the Party of incremental cautious nothings, to get them to take truly progressive policies  seriously is only possible if you directly threaten them, that’s why they will always try to weasel out of doping anything meaningful with the support of NZF.

The Greens need to be talking to Māori Party now.

 

 

Challenges for National

Luxon is so weak he gets played by David and Winston every single month.

His bullshit CEO KPI routine and his, “What I would say to you”, response to every single stupid decision he makes has become a joke.

He clearly doesn’t look like he is enjoying the job any longer and I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t step down this year or gets rolled by the more ambitious members of his Cabinet.

The economy imploding alongside his charmless personality alongside getting played by Winston and David all add up to a lame duck Prime Minister going no where.

 

Challenges for ACT

This is the year ACT can really lean into their race baiting Treaty stunt and take National and NZF voters. ACT will exploit that division to ram through free speech laws that actually censor and put in place a new Corporate led body to define law in only narrow property rights. Expect ACT to hit double digits in polling this year.

 

 

Challenges for NZF

Winston can’t give his Antivaxxers the public hanging. they want from the Covid inquiry so he will double down on the Trans bashing by pulling public funding from any community sports team that has a Trans player.

Casey Costello will get caught out pumping for the Tobacco industry.

Shane wil get caught out pimping for Mining, Fishing, Trucking.

The real danger for NZF is that  almost half support David Seymour’s race baiting Treaty Principles stunt so there is a real threat ACT could take NZF under the 5% threshold.

 

 

Challenges for the Political Left in 2025

The fundamental problem for the Left is that out alienating middle class woke activists have driven males into the arms of the Right with their pure temple dogma. If the Left want any chance of winning 2026, they have to win men back to the Left,

 

Challenges for the Political Right in 2025