TDB was very vocal right from the beginning that a National/ACT/NZF Government would be a toxic brew of beneficiary bashing, Māori bashing, Worker bashing, Renter bashing, climate denial, Qanon culture war revenge fantasies as social policy hard right racist Government, but not even we thought they’d also pimp for Tobacco and conspiracy theories.

This is a Government directed by two right wings.

One is anti-science hate and the other is pro-science hate.

The tail wags the dog.

If only all those ‘leftists’ on Twitter who were so incremental when we were actually in power and who were mostly involved in handing the right cancel culture war ammunition were as focused on economics then as they all seem to be now

We’d probably still be in power!

We now can see the full hard right racist agenda of this Government and the obscene direction they intend to take for their political donors.

This fight against the most right Government ever elected will demand a level of resistance that crosses into civil disobedience because it will require mass civil disobedience protests to fight this Government’s hard right racist agenda.

The very soul of NZs egalitarianism is at stake here and if we don’t recruit and broaden our appeal as a movement, we will lose 2026 and the vandalism this new hard right Government passes becomes the new benchmark.

As someone who has set up new political parties for the Left, ran leadership coups for the Left and helped put together Labour’s 2017 election strategy with then Chief of Staff Matt McCarten, here are my thoughts on what we need to do as a movement to win in 2026.

Labour:

Keep Chippy. He has walked back comments about not going ‘left’, he meant not going woke.

If we can marry Chippy’s leadership qualities up with a policy agenda that is actually left wing, we could win back the treasury benches in 2026 (or earlier if they implode).

Look, I’m not saying there wen’t some gains over the last 6 years: Free school lunches, trust tax, new top income rate, free prescriptions, most state houses in 50 years, record investment in housing, healthcare and investment, regulate property managers, clean car discount, apprenticeship scheme, benefits to wages, FPAs – all great first steps, but after 6 years of ‘first good steps’, you realised you were just jogging on the spot!

We were promised transformative, what we got was less left wing than the British Tory Party!

Labour are over run by the Professional Managerial Class, they see the solution is better bureaucratic structures rather than an upgrade of the Capacity of the State and so spent 6 years recreating bureaucratic structures without the necessary upgrade of capacity.

Labour refused to explain what the hell 3 Waters or Co-governance meant because Jacinda hated conflict (her Cabinet meetings were nicknamed ‘The Good Ship Lollypop’ because she wouldn’t tolerate any negativity) and wouldn’t engage on co-governance or 3 Waters which allowed astroturf dark money to take over the debate and manufacture it into an existential race issue.

Fundamentally Labour needed to tax the rich to pay for the social infrastructure we needed, but because Labour at heart are intellectual cowards, they refused to engage in that, which left voters asking, ‘why bother voting for Labour’.

Labour have to make the argument for a bigger capacity State funded by taxing the mega wealthy. They have to show where the money will come from and they have to show they will have a plan ready to go.

 

Green Party: 

They did very poorly within context. Labour lost 24points, the Greens barely picked up 4 points of that.

The worst mistake the Greens could make now is to misconstrue this result as proof positive their alienating woke middle class dogma was somehow successful, it wasn’t.

Greens only gained because Labour were so spineless.

The Greens need to step back and consider the future because resistance to what National/ACT/NZF are about to attempt will be desperately required.

They need to be on the streets with every protest moment building their credibility deep within the activist community.

Renters, Beneficiaries, Workers, Māori and Environmentalists should be their branding. The Wealth Tax was a a strong idea and they need to stick with that.

It is obvious Chloe is the future leader and that transition should occur after the Summer.

A Green Party led by Chloe is a 15%+ Party.

 

Māori Party:

The backlash to this being the most racist election ever held generated an enormous drive within Māoridom to step up for themselves. Nanaia being beaten by a 21 year old highlights the power of demographics that now rule Māori politics. 70% of Māoridom are under the age of 40 and they won’t put up with the Right using them as a political punching bag any longer.

When ACT start their racist race war inducing legislative process to rewrite the Treaty Principles, the resistance will be based from these Māori electorates and will generate immediate friction.

This next 3 years will be the making of the Māori Party.

 

NZ Left:

The Woke and social media proxification 

After handing so much culture war ammunition to the Right, our woke middle class identity activists literally drove male voters into the arms of the political right. In woke Wellington world, ALL white men are irredeemable cross burning racists, B-E-L-I-E-V-E ALL women that ALL men are rapists and anyone defending free speech is a uniform wearing Nazi who hates the trans community. Turns out that identity politics mentality alienates rather than brings together. ‘Pure Trans Joy’ probably helped cost us the election.

It’s important for openly woke to leave Facebook and Twitter and go to bluesy or threads or Masterdoon, because those platforms are padded echo chambers and the woke can scream their herts out on platforms that don’t generate ‘proxification’.

Because social media is now so ubiquitous, everyone has seen flameouts and vicious knife fights on contentious issues in their timelines and that activist screaming you are a Transphobic, Racist, Sexist, Vaccine-peddling, Satanic pedophile is enough for you to personally hate and be hurt and align yourself against that activist regardless of policy.

It wasn’t Trump saying outrageous things that attracted angry reactionary white working class vote, it was the intense reaction by middle class woke activists to Trump whom they had been insulted by that made the election so febrile.

Voters cut their noses off to spite their face because it angered people they despised.

If we on the Left aren’t talking about material progress in people’s lives (because challenging the neoliberal economic hegemonic structure is hard) and instead focus on the navel gazing of middle class identity aesthetics, those suffering economic misery walk away from us.

While we are arguing over pronouns, they are trying to find ways to pay for the rent!

So the woke need to go to platforms that don’t matter and they need to generate anonymous handles on mainstream social media that just to send out facts which aren’t connected to their identity because they are so toxic people will hate anything that comes out of their mouths.

 

The NZCTU 

Craig Renney’s late entry as a critical voice to eviscerate National’s nonsense budget was urgent and necessary, which led us all to ask,  Where the fuck has this CTU been?

Since the passing of Helen Kelly the CTU has drifted without any real purpose or direction as woke identity politics seemed to become more important to the Wellington clique than you know, worker rights.

The breath of fresh air CTU Economist Craig Renney injected in the last month of the election with research that undermined the economic credibility of National’s deeply flawed tax policy was what the Left should have been doing for the last 3 years! The Left have walked away from economics and focused on the low hanging fruit of identity politics which only divides using pure temple politics rather than Broadchurch Solidarity. The common ground between people is their class, not their identity and Craig Renney is the blueprint for how the Left wins in 2026.

The CTU need to either form around Wagstaff, Ansell-Bridges or Renney as the ‘face’ of the CTU to lead the resistance against this far right racist Government, or they all appear as a united front, but they need to work out a clear leadership role now because you know, the Right are smashing us weekly right now and the CTU should, you know, probably be against that if they want to be politically relevant again.

 

The self serving Public Service is not our friend

The fundamental difference between Labour and National is that National MPs are all management psychopaths who excel at bullying others for results where as Labour wants to give everyone a cuddle at a hui with a vegan menu in Te Reo and side-order of pronouns.

The public service fear National, they don’t fear Labour and so when Labour pour billions into the Wellington Bureaucracy, they laugh and use it for more glass palaces.

The vast chunk of Labour/Green activists are placed and work within the Wellington Bureaucracy either with NGOs, Unions or State Agencies and their own sense of righteousness never allows them to consider if they are the baddies.

If we are to pour billions more into the Public Service, we must ensure these neoliberal managers don’t divert it for their own fiefdoms and pet projects.

 

MMP tactics and Ratana 2 

The shockwave of naked racism that emboldened so much race baiting this election highlights how the Right wil always use Māori as a political punching bag for votes.

As New Zealand faces the absurdity of a referendum to redefine the principles of the Treaty and is about to have the Māori Health Authority disbanded, the question for the Left is how to work together strategically and tactically to stop the Right from winning by race baiting.

I believe the answer lies in our existing MMP system and requires a new Rātana alliance.

The Rātana movement into politics in 1923 helped seal gains for Māori and Pakeha with Michael Savage in 1936.

Savage was gifted a potato, a broken gold watch, a pounamu hei-tiki, and a huia feather as symbols of the new alliance.

The potato represented loss of Māori land and means of sustenance, the broken watch represented the broken promises of the Treaty of Waitangi, and the pounamu represented the mana of the Māori people, if Savage was able to restore those 3, he would earn the right to wear the huia feather.

It is time for Labour to earn the right to wear that feather.

What was fascinating about the Māori electorates this election was how tactical Māori voters were, once again proving why they are one of the smartest tactical voters each and every election.

Overwhelmingly Māori in the Māori electorates voted Labour Party vote and Māori Patry candidate vote and this has generated the focus on the power of the MMP Overhang the Māori Electorates generate.

If there was a Rātana 2, the Labour Party and Māori Party could strategically work together and push a tactical voting plan that calls for voters in the Māori electorate to all give their candidate vote to the Māori Party candidate and their Party vote to Labour.

This would end up creating up to 7 overhang seats in the Parliament which would cement an enormous block that could (with support from the Greens) become an unbeatable tactic that would ensure victory.

If this new alliance could demand better material conditions for those on the socio-economic bottom, working class aspirations and Māori aspirations could combine to finally deliver the promise to Rātana made in 1936.

If Labour want to wear that huia feather, they must rethink their MMP tactics and strategy.

 

Appear on media outside echo bunkers 

The woke left have become so reliant on cancel culture to end the argument for them that they have lost the art of debate and have lost the ability to argue our case. That has led to echo chambers and left wingers incapable of winning people over.

 

Pure temple identity politics vs Broadchurch class politics 

The solution to the woke identity politics alienation and the cost of living crisis are universals.

Rather than die in ditches for tribal pure temple dogma, the Political Left actually have to make people’s lives materially better!

We look to the State to provide market regulation and a pooling of resources for the best outcome.

Universal provision of well funded public services scares the bejesus out of the Right and the neoliberal public service who prefer to manage contracts than actually do the mahi.

Universal provision of well funded social services is the harvest we all share in a democracy!

If we provide real ways to reduce peoples living costs we can get everyone to buy into the system because for the first time in their lives they see a State focused on reducing their costs not increasing them in an economic system that is rigged for the rich.

The Woke are great for organising mummy blogger free the nipple bike lane protests, not so good at challenging the neoliberal hegemonic structure.

 

Vision 

Bernard Hickey has argued, “We could have gotten $200 billion in extra tax revenues if only there had been a fair tax system which meant that capital gains were taxed at the same rate as every other type of income.”

In a liberal progressive democracy, it doesn’t matter what role you play in the complex super structure of our society and economy.

It doesn’t matter of you are a garbage collector, a dr, a nurse, a drain layer, teacher or tradie – if you all stopped doing your jobs the system can’t work.

Everyone deserves to share the collective harvest of civil society with public services and policies focused on the public good enshrined in the intrinsic civil liberties each individual has.

Wealthy individuals who become mega rich thanks to the landscape generated by those values are required to pay more back into the system they have benefited from beyond the bare necessity of ruthless accountancy practices.

These rich pricks have designed the system for themselves, ‘you can’t tax unrealised capital gains’ the Right scream, like bullshit we can’t!

If it means the mega rich have to sell a mansion or two to pay the tax bill, so fucking be it!

The obligation of the Government is to regulate Capitalism so that we the people benefit from the competitive dynamics of competition!

There are 14 Billionaires in NZ + 3118 ultra-high net worth individuals, let’s start with them, then move onto the Banks, then the Property Speculators, the Climate Change polluters and big industry.

You should be angry, NZ Capitalism is a rigged trick for the rich and powerful. The real demarcation line of power in a western democracy is the 1% + their 9% enablers vs the 90% rest of us!

Do not allow their smears of ‘Envy’ dilute the righteous rage you should all be feeling!

There’s no point making workers pay more to rebuild our resilience, tax the rich!

-Sugar Tax

-Inheritance Tax

-Wealth Tax

-Financial Transactions Tax

-New top tax rate on people earning over $300 000 per year.

-Capital Gains Tax

-Windfall profit taxes

-First $10 000 tax free

Lift the tax yoke from the workers and the people and place it on the mega wealthy and have them pay their fair share for once!

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

This is the message Labour must master!

 

Policy! Policy! Policy!

How do we use the power of the State to universally subsidise the lives of the poorest in a way that is meaningful to them? Paying higher benefits is one way but the vile MSD finds ways to claw any of this increases back the way thy did with Labour’s last pitiful rise.

1: Feed every kid in NZ a free nutritious and healthy breakfast and lunch at every school using local product and school gardens with parents paid to come in and help.

2: 50 000 State Homes for life built using the best environmental and social architecture standards using the public works act to seize land and immediately start building satellite towns using upgraded public transport hubs.

3: Free public transport plus vast infrastructure upgrade for climate crisis.

4: Doubling welfare payments and student allowances minus any bullshit claw backs from MSD plus Living Wage universally adopted as minimum working wage.

5: GST off fresh fruit and vegetables and essentials like tampons, toilet paper, condoms, oral health plus a sugar tax and a State backed 3rd Supermarket chain.

6: Free Dental services for everyone through public health.

7: Debt cancellation – student loans, welfare overpayments, beneficiary debt, easier debt cancellation.

8: Taxation focused on corporations like financial transaction tax, Ghost House tax and first $10 000 is tax free.

9: Renter Rights – (rent freezes, end accomodation payments, long term tenancy arrangements) plus universal union membership.

10: Properly funded public broadcasting with TVNZ advert free and merged with RNZ alongside properly funded journalism through NZ on Air with more money for the Arts and Science. If you can’t have good public journalism, the right wing media will destroy these other 9 advances. 

11: Expand the capacity of the state, we don’t just need more teachers, we need more schools. We don’t just need more drs and nurses, we need more hospitals! We need a new Ministry of Green Works to build the adaptation required to survive climate change. 

Ones to watch:

Arena Williams, Efeso Collins, Steve Abel, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, Barbara Edmonds.

Conclusion:

We are seeing a new hard right racist Government who are politically assaulting the most vulnerable amongst us so they can give policy wins to their rich mates.

They are implementing an anti-Māori, anti-renter, anti-environment, anti-worker, anti-beneficiary agenda and to challenge them will demand a united front.

Waiatangi 2024 will be a focal point of resistance leading into the next year, but it must be extended well beyond Māoridom to include, workers, renters, environmentalists and beneficiaries because this Government intends to implement an extreme right wing agenda that will set this country back decades while solving none of our current problems!

This Government isn’t even a month old and the level of protest at the extreme nature of their agenda actually offends many peoples egalitarian sensibilities.

We are a fair people, what National, ACT and NZFirst have all agreed to is extreme and nasty.

Kiwis aren’t extreme or nasty. Some are, they vote ACT and NZ First, but National voters will be aghast at what they’ve seen so far.

This is the time for the political Left to walk away from woke pure temple politics and embrace Broadchurch class solidarity.

Our under funded social infrastructure, our ‘me first’ consumerism, our 30 years of neoliberal mythology, our disconnection from one another, our untreated pain, our lack of hope from grinding poverty in a first world country, our damaged masculinity, the intergenerational consequences of colonialism, our unspoken rage culture, our inability to express emotion beyond anger – all of this demands questions we don’t want to hear as a society.

The Right look for recruits, the Left look for traitors.

If we don’t provide people with Hope that there is a better way of being for us all, if we don’t provide vision that actually addresses the material well being of our voters, if we aren’t prepared to debate the expansion of State Capacity by taxing the megawealthy and funding the climate change adaptation,  if we don’t do all that, this hard right racist Government will win again.

 

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 going into this pandemic and 2020 election – please donate here.

If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media.