The Daily Blog Predictions 2023
2022 chewed us up and spat us out.
We turned on each other with all the grace of your average drug cartel, the economy faltered for many and the gated community of Paywall Viva managed to sum up the widening cultural gap between the propertied class and everyone else.
Greta beating the snot out of Andrew Tate managed to save the year.
We limp to the end of 2022 and trip over 2023 with a sense of relief and gnawing fear, because if you thought shit was tough this year, I suspect we ain’t seen nothing yet.
Crime, the media’s addiction to crime porn ratings and the knee jerk of a Covid trauma fatigue population who feel economically anxious have combined to form a bitter cocktail of spiteful misery and we are all about to get a double at happy hour while the planet burns.
Season’s greetings!
Here are TDBs predictions for 2023.
NZME War against Labour
The brutal manner in which Thomas Coughlin branded Willie Jackson’s Q+A interview a ‘train wreck’ and the appalling behaviour of Heather Du Plisse Allan hanging up on Minister Michael Wood are signals that NZME is gearing up to be very politically aligned against the Government this election.
More people watched the interview after Coughlin’s article and didn’t see the ‘trainwreck’ at all and as Morgan Godfery righteously points out in his very excellent column…
At the beginning of the month the broadcasting and Māori development minister appeared on TVNZ’s Q+A to discuss the plan to merge State television and radio broadcasters. In an ordinary year that interview would probably pass without furious follow-up. The minister outlined plans to force online giants like Meta and Google to pay for the news they share on their platforms. In Australia and Canada these plans are already in motion. The minister also discussed the rationale behind the merger, joking with host Jack Tame that in the absence of a stronger state broadcaster global forces – for example, investor preference for entertainment over information – could see him fronting Celebrity Treasure Island.
It was a good line, but one journalist immediately declared the interview a “train wreck”. The complaint seemed to centre around Jackson’s casual style and the use of the word “your” and its constitutional and organisational implications.
If that focus on the ‘your’ seems like nit-picking, it is. But it neatly demonstrates how media narratives are turning against the Government and its most minor mistakes, even when the minister in question is widely understood as central to his party’s success in 2023.
…Willie’s interview was not a train wreck.
Heather’s abusive manner and tone towards someone as decent as Michael Wood is actually below the basic respect that should be shown a Minister in a political interview.
The blood is now in the water.
NZME will be relentless in its attack campaign in 2023 because they as a company see their corporate interests better aligned with National, and the only response the Government must make is Jacinda returning to the Mike Hosking Breakfast show. He is the hardest radio interview in the game (except for Kill Him on RNZ of course), but Jacinda must square off against him because he is the most difficult radio interview.
NZME’s coverage of the election will be Fox News level.
Waitangi Day Pivot – Co-governance into cooperation
When you go to the Emergency Department you don’t care that the back room is centralised or run by Māori, all you care about is you will be seen quickly, you will be safe and you will ultimately be healed!
Attempting to redesign power dynamics on how resources are shared at a time of economic anxiety and fragility is a stupid concept that will only reap electoral scorn.
Part of the problem here is Labour’s refusal to front foot the issue which has allowed a vacuum that the Right have exploited.
As Audrey Young pointed out last year, the only one attempting to debate and defend co-governance was Willie Jackson, the rest of Labour are too frightened to enter the debate because they don’t know how to balance the nationalistic desires of activist Māori who want a seperate Parliament and poor white people whose economic desperation sees everything they don’t get as separatism.
We constantly forget that there are numerically more white children in poverty than Māori, and we need far more universalism to bring everyone own board or these political attempts get hijacked by the Right as the end of Western Civilisation.
Jacinda MUST use Waitangi Day to put forward her actual vision and clearly define what co-governance is.
If she can’t draw a line under this on Waitangi Day, the Right will continue to dog whistle race baiting around the issue.
Jim Bolger has called for Jacinda to define what co-governance is to avoid this very threat.
I believe Jacinda must pivot from co-governance to cooperation.
We are one big family here, we do need a collectivist drive towards community values and I personally fear nothing from Māori having a strong identity with their own worldview, we must focus less on the injustices of the past and focus directly on the ongoing injustices here!
We need universal services that are fully subsidised that brings everyone along without generating resentment.
- GST off food.
- Free public transport.
- Free breakfast and lunch in every school.
- Free dental.
These ideas do more to counter the ongoing poverty and impacts of colonialism than giving Iwi more voting powers than pakeha.
We need to work together to overcome the challenges of the past, but that requires the courage to actually tax the wealthy more and redistribute that money.
If Jacinda can not clearly articulate a vision for moving co-governance forward and pivoting it to co-operation she will lose the middle and ACT/National will win.
Deepening domestic gated culture decoupling
This recession will split NZ into two very definable ‘Zealands’ and no where is that divide best represented culturally than the new paywalled VIVA.
You would wonder at the wisdom of launching a paywalled culture section for rich wankers at the birth of a recession but by doing so, they’ve inadvertently highlighted a naked economic truth of the coming recession, those with property equity and those who don’t or who have nothing.
Wealthy Asian-NZers and their upper middle class Pakeha mates vs the rest of us economically and culturally.
This recession will once again expose the bleeding gums of our inequality while the wealthy continue to play in a broken city. Capitalist hospitality will morph into the elitism that can afford it, for them there will always be oysters and bubbles for lunch while food bank demand explodes.
This recession will erect gated culture like paywalled content for the prevue of those who can afford that escapism.
It’s arrival is a harbinger of a divided culture in a time of intense dislocation.
It is an important ingredient for revolution.
Adrian Orr will start economic year with 100 point rise
Orr will lift the OCR 100 points in February as inflation will show no sign of abating as scarcity from China’s Covid outbreak causes massive supply chain shut downs and the possibility of civil unrest in the worlds largest economy.
Economists were all predicting that China’s opening post Covid would generate a desperately needed economic bounce, but no one seemed to recognise that China’s next phase of Covid response would be handled so badly.
This wave of infection that is upending Chinese life will cause wide spread shut downs and generate a scarcity of products that will drive prices skyward as the West continues to import inflation as they move away from Just-in-time supply chains to Just-in-case supply chains.
If Orr doesn’t return to the market with a big stick to scare the bejesus out of consumers, he will have lost all the credibility capital he has already burnt last year.
Medicinal Cannabis boom as Middle Classes go bust
With the middle class getting hit with property price falls and rising economic anxiety, expect medicinal cannabis to boom once the middle classes realise how easy it is to gain a legal prescription and buy weed legally.
It will be bongs in the ‘burbs in the land of the long white cloud.
Watch for the National Party backlash once they understand what is actually happening because I don’t believe for one second that any National Party MP knows you can just walk into a Green Drs now and buy actual cannabis bud. None of them understood the Psychedelics Bill they voted for that allowed synthetic cannabis to be sold under Key, so I don’t expect any of them to know about buying real cannabis now.
TVNZ/RNZ Merger will pass, gold plated holiday package for PSA members won’t
As Labour freak out at how unpopular they’ve become, they are looking to jettison unpopular polices. I think the TVNZ/RNZ merger will pass but the Unemployment Insurance package will get dumped because it costs billions to implement for merely empowering public servants to enjoy gold plated holidays.
Allowing Wellington Bureaucrats to enjoy taxpayer funded holidays between jobs at the public service will be a tough sell in a recession where as the merger can actually be justified as a necessary upgrade of the public broadcasting infrastructure.
Today FM experiment in talkback and ZB election advertising
I think we will get a better picture of Mediaworks Talkback experiment, Today FM in 2023. They’ve spent millions on rebranding after a woke purge of Magic Talk and yet they recorded the lowest Talkback radio ratings in NZ broadcasting history.
My guess is that Today FMs ratings have to go up in 2023 because I don’t think numerically they can go any lower!
At 1.7 share they were the worst rated talkback ever, until they dropped in the last book to a gasp inducing 1.4 share!
Surely there’s no way they can drop below a 1.4 share right?
Mediaworks management have countered criticisms that they have mismanaged Today FM by telling staff that they wanted the angry male talkback audience to leave so that they can appeal to women and young people who hated MagicTalk. This strategy suggests however that Today FM won’t bother competing with ZB or RNZ for audience and will instead attempt to cannibalise Mediaworks other radio brands of More FM and The Edge to boost ratings, which won’t help Mediaworks overall.
This matters because Today FMs ratings collapse has generated a bonanza for ZB. Expect advertising on ZB to surge politically during the election after Wayne Brown proved spending on ZB is so successful you can win the Auckland Mayoralty with little else.
Counterspin show trial
After the Stuff middle class docudrama ‘Fire & Fury’ last year, the cops were knee jerked into ‘doing something’ about the Counterspin duo and launched a dumb and poorly executed arrest of them which they have now turned into a show trial which will unfold in February this year.
Their first defence will be that they didn’t have to hand over passwords because they have Journalistic privilege, that means the Court will be asked to form a view on whether or not they are journalists which will quickly become a show trial farce of their ‘journalism’.
If this is not handled properly it will create a propaganda coup for the conspiracy far right and turn into a fucking circus.
What happens if they convince the Jury they are journalists and do they have journalistic privilege?
Arresting them was an ill thought out knee jerk response.
Report into China
NZ will have to call out China for operating a Police base here and the Chinese Businessman who is NZ will have to call out China for operating a Police base here and the Chinese Businessman who is apparently running the property also has connections with political figures here like John Key.
Expect Winston to take the report to the mountain top regarding anti-Chinese Government sentiment and expect National to be very, very, very quiet about it.
Russia vs Ukraine
I was one of the few punters to predict Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine and noted that it was the attempted coup in Kazakhstan last January that was the final straw for Putin.
I argued that his personal Christian faith alongside his own perspective of himself in the pantheon of Great Russian leaders drove a conflict he believes is the only means for Russia to be great again.
We have all hoped that Putin has miscalculated based on the poor performance of his army, but I fear he bullied his ill prepared Army into a conflict he intends to drag on for as long as possible to maximise global chaos because in the rules based order, American hegemony rules supreme, where as in a world of Chaos, Russia is stronger.
Hopes that this appalling war will end any time soon are misplaced.
The Ukrainians rightfully refuse to accept any peace deal that doesn’t see Russia out of all Ukrainian land alongside a war crime trial and reparations.
Russia will refuse to accept any peace deal that doesn’t keep all their annexed Ukrainian land.
The American Military Industrial complex will refuse any peace deal because they are selling billions in weaponry and the American Economy is headed towards recession which always means war.
Russia and the Ukraine are base ingredient producers whose scarcity of base ingredients will drive global production higher at the same time China collapses due to Covid.
Either there is a Palace coup to kill Putin or he will remain in power and keep sacrificing Russian lives to create a stalemate of violence and global disruption.
The Ukranians are exhausted despite the vast intelligence and new generation weapons provided to them while Russia will continue to mutilate their own army for a blood drenched impasse.
This isn’t going to get better any time soon.
Iran vs Israel
As part of Russia’s desire to sow global disruption is the possibility of Russia providing Iran with any technology required to test a nuclear weapon which Israel has made clear is a redline for military action by them.
In exchange for drones and the desire to enflame the Middle East, a desperate Putin could well gift that technology to Iran knowing how damaging that would be for American interests.
Domestically Iran is struggling with an unprecedented internal uprising sparked by women protesting the regimes brutality while Israeli and Palestinian violence over the last 6 months has reached a crisis point that is ready to erupt into open conflict again.
The Middle East is a powder keg waiting to go off.
China vs America
The fear now must be that the Chinese Governments appalling incompetence at vaccinating their population, preparing their population and building health service resilience over the time that their Zero Covid policy had bought them will trigger civil disorder within China.
The Chinese people give up true freedom and agency under the Community regime because the Communist regime provides harmony and prosperity, but if mass crisis strikes due to Party incompetence, it could trigger protests and the threat of open rebellion.
Xi backed down in the face of mass unrest and u-turned the Zero Covid policy without ensuring the country was ready for it.
That could result in as many as 2 million deaths.
That’s a lot of pain that has to be channeled somewhere.
With an economy tanking, a property market still under stress and a mass death event caused by Government incompetence, will Xi turn the force of the State upon itself, or will China embark upon a nationalistic military adventure with Taiwan to distract from the Covid crisis?
America vs itself
With GOQ taking over the House, expect a torrent of ridiculous inquires to investigate nonsense for pure political spite.
Expect to hear a lot about the Hunter Biden Laptop story and Fauci’s connections to Covid virus funding at the Wuhan Lab, all of which is already public knowledge, but the details of which haven’t had nearly enough coverage in the mainstream media.
Despite a far better turn out than Democrats expected at the midterms, the political landscape inside America remains dangerously feral.
While Americans were convinced to fight for Democracy over the naked unhinged fascism of Trump election deniers, the fact it got this far at all is deeply disturbing.
The damage his presidency caused America is unprecedented and his presence remains a threat to the most powerful Democracy on the planet.
The spectre of White Christian Fascism hangs over America still.
Global and Domestic Qanon terrorism
Germany’s Federal Prosecutor General is now investigating the suspected right-wing terror group, which calls itself Reichsbürger, for allegedly planning an attack on the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, as part of a violent coup to overthrow the government.
The investigators’ trail leads to a member of a former Germany royal family as the purported figurehead, a former parliamentarian from the far-right AfD political party, and of particularly concern to the investigators, to former members of the German military’s special forces.
…they had a member of the Royal family involved!!!
Covid will continue to make us sicker and sicker and sicker and could get w-a-y worse
Every time you catch Covid, you risk catching long Covid.
This is not a fucking flu!
We still don’t appreciate the true damage Covid causes us health wise. Each new variant will bring waves of sickness, that will make us weaker, and weaker, and weaker and weaker.
The real impact on our health hasn’t been calculated because Government’s urgently need their economies open and grumpy populations out of restrictions.
The immediacy of functioning economies over rules long term health costs, but those costs will quickly start to mount and cause never ending drag on the global economy.
That’s the best case scenario.
Worst case scenario is the perfect storm we’ve created by refusing to vaccinate the entire planet leaving a pool of billions for the virus to mutate within.
The truth is there is every possibility that Covid could mutate into something far more dangerous and lethal which will require the same level of lock downs until vaccines are generated.
People keep predicting Covid is over because they want it to be over, they keep saying we will never tolerate another lockdown but the reality is that if there is a new variant and it bypasses our current immunity while killing more of us, of course we will go back into lockdown.
The Get Tough on Crime Cheerleaders Musical
Here they come, the Something-must-be-done-Get-Tough-On-Crime cheerleaders, all promoting terrible things to be done to the worst people.
Violent crime is such a glorious vote winner.
It doesn’t matter that crime is historically lower than at other times and is a mere ramification of the stress Covid generated, it scares the bejesus out of people and National smashing Labour with a 32% swing the Hamilton West by-election highlights how powerful it is.
If you thought post-covid social damage generating the Ram Raids were bad, you ain’t seen nuttin yet!
Buckle up, the stresses and strains going on everyone with a mortgage and pushing prices beyond peoples ability to pay will cascade down causing an explosion in desperation and need mixed with misplaced algorithmic bravado and social media notoriety mixed with depression and full blown alcoholism to create an explosion of violent crime.
You thought shit was bad now?
Imagine 150 000 job losses and 10% food inflation with a 30% jump in rents! Things are about to break and that is going to frighten people into demanding a response from the State that is disproportionate.
Some Politician, either Luxon, Winston or Seymour, will finally break the political consensus and demand NZ Police be armed at all times and the frightened News viewers will scream “Yas Kween”.
The recession is going to quickly become a crisis & why the journalism of Maria Slade will matter
Dozens of countries are facing defaults this year and Western Reserve Banks are being forced to crank up interest rates to stop inflation becoming uncontrollable.
In NZ Adrian Orr has promised to sacrifice 120 000 jobs to save the Economy.
Last year Maria Slade at the NBR did a series of eye watering exposes on Financial Companies who were reeking of Ponzi scam.
How silly have NZers been with low interest debt?
Let’s find out!
The best case scenario is a short sharp recession, the worst case is a 1929 meltdown.
Capitalism must change because the biosphere it exploits is dying…
The Earth, as we know it, is fucked. We’re currently at 417 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, up from 280 ppm pre-capitalism. And that’s still not enough to satiate the shrieking, sucking mouth of the market.
Russia sees the melting Arctic and has decided this is a wonderful opportunity to extract the region’s hitherto inaccessible oil. Burning this will melt the Arctic further, making more oil available, in a virtuous circle of suicide. While making false promises in the fight against the climate crisis, America took the lead in crude oil production last year. Right behind us are the world’s other oil producers, from the despots of Saudi Arabia to the bland democracy of Canada. It’s like a “Murder on the Orient Express”-style mystery, where humanity is killed by every passenger.
It’s getting pretty close to night-night time for ocean life, most of the insects on Earth, half of the birds, too. Oh, and a third of the trees. When this will take out people is hard to predict, just as you never know which piece you have to remove to cause everything to collapse in a game of Jenga.
If you find this distressing, consider the more distressing fact that even if we develop massive amounts of green energy and stop global warming, capitalism will still probably destroy a livable biosphere.
…we are so far off the maps in terms of pollution and what that dramatic sharp increase in heat will do to our biosphere.
Nothing else matters in politics right now more than radical adaptation for the climate crisis that is upon us.
Watch for more climate refugees and the inability for some places to rebuild in time for the next storm as agricultural calendars are irreversibly disrupted.
The 2023 Election
LABOUR:
Labour have failed utterly to be transformative in any true sense of the word. The total focus of this Government has been in trying to save the country from a once in a century pandemic.
Their extraordinary management of Covid saved 5000 lives, in a country as small as NZ, 5000 extra deaths over the 2000 we’ve already lost would have caused a shockwave throughout our communities, a tidal wave of grief we’d struggle to overcome emotionally and economically from.
Sure, pumping billions into the banks for property speculators to make money from our collective suffering is disgusting and represented the largest transfer of wealth to the richest ever seen in NZ, but Labour saved our lives and deserve another gratitude vote.
Yes there were fuck ups in the covid management and Trevor Mallard managed to radicalise 5000 stormtroopers for Qanon, yes there are more kids living in cars than when Labour first won in 2017, sure there are now 27 000 on emergency wait lists and a million dollars a day spent on kettling beneficiaries into dangerous Motels, sure to all those things, but Labour tribalism is such that any of those criticisms are ignored.
Labour are now dominated by the Professional Managerial Class and Public Service wokeness but they are good for 35% on Election Day so the same nothingness and meaningless trite bullshit passed off as social policy won’t be challenged in any sense, which is why the collective dynamic of the Greens and Māori Party will be forced to negotiate a far more progressive policy platform than cautious Jacinda and Grant will attempt.
The only hope for transformative change from Labour will be what the Greens and Māori Party are able to hardball them into.
Labour are good for 30%-35% on Election Day.
NATIONAL:
The latest Polling has National stalling and Labour holding on despite the worst phase of their 5 year Government.
The problem is Chris Luxon has all the personality of a smiling gumboot and they don’t have any credible policy..
Luxon believes in evangelical prosperity theory meaning his 7 properties are proof positive Jesus loves him. This false certainty of knowing he is blessed is what National are selling a frightened electorate, his self certainty, not the numerous counter-productive policy positions National keeps taking.
Because Luxon is only interested in the first class customers (those who can’t fly are ‘bottom feeders’), he’s too intellectually vain to bother with policy and prefers ‘management’ and in Christopher’s world, the little people do the policy stuff.
This is dangerous because David Seymour desperately wants a life beyond politics so will pass radical policy so he can hand on hart tell Free Market Satan he did all he could to mutilate the State before leaving ACT.
I think Jacinda will smash Luxon during the campaign. Despite some of the worst media and press they’ve received since coming to power alongside extreme economic problems looming, Labour are still solid in the 30s, that’s extraordinary.
National’s challenge is to stop ACT being in double figures while trying to win the middle, something they are finding very difficult to achieve.
Worst case scenario for National is an ACT at 15%, that leaves National stuck in the 30s.
National are good for 35%-37% on Election Day.
ACT:
As The Daily Blog has been pointing out since the election, the extreme hard right policy of ACT is simply not appreciated by the majority of kiwis.
But it’s there, oh sweet Jesus is it there.
That’s just the start…
- Cut and freeze the Minimum wage
- Interest back on all student loans
- No Kiwsaver subsidy
- Cancel winter energy payment
- Dump all climate crisis legislation
- no more best start payments for families with new borns
- cut welfare payments
- no tax credits for research and development
- cuts to working for families
- $7b a year cut in public services
- Abolish Maori seats
Oh and ankle bracelets on children, don’t forget that!
This is Romper Stomper Hard Right insanity that makes Qanon look reasonable and because there is no way National can win without ACT, every vote to National empowers ACT.
David Seymour is a very funny, very clever, very talented politician who desperately wants what the humans call, ‘l-o-v-e’.
He doesn’t want to be in Parliament for one second longer than he has to.
He wants to get out of politics and get paid enormous money in the corporate world and maybe find in-laws he can disappoint.
In short, David feels honour bound to mutilate the State so that it’s too wounded to ever grow back.
It’s called the Milton Friedman Prune.
David is a man in a hurry to try and get a life before politics robs him of one, so when he puts out these blistering policy directions that would cause enormous damage and carnage to the social infrastructure that so many people desperately require every day to survive, you best fucking believe he would do it in the blink of a sociopath’s eye.
ACT are good for 10%-15% on plus 1 electorate on Election Day.
GREENS:
With more people living in cars than in 2017, with more people on emergency housing wait lists and a million paid a day to a Motel Industry monetising misery while State Housing Builds remain anaemic, all Marama has to show is some virtue signalling of chocolate wrappers in Māori.
Sadly James has delivered even less on the climate.
The Greens can’t preach of better times ahead next year if their time at the helm saw things get worse for people.
Greens are worth 7%-10% on Election Day plus 1 electorate.
MĀORI PARTY
With Adrian Rurawhe under pressure to accept the Speaker’s expectation to stand down from their electorate, Te Tai Hauāuru opens as a real possible gain for the Maori Party. This on top of their incredible party vote which hit 5% in the Roy Morgan Poll suggests a massive political change is occurring within Māoridom.
Part of this is demographics, Māori are a decade younger than Pakeha, part of it is the reconnection with civics the vaccination drive provided and part is the grotesque racism spewed out over co-governance and 3 Waters.
Māori represent the highest proportion of non voters, and the race baiting rhetoric is dragging those non voters over to being engaged, something we haven’t seen in the past.
If the Māori Party can hold up their Party vote they will become the Queen maker and the relationship between Māori Party President JT and Willie Jackson will become the most important one politically.
The polarisation of staunch Māori vote who are insulted by Right rhetoric on co-governance and 3 waters will drive a larger Māori Party vote while generating political backlash by bringing NZ First back into Parliament.
Māori Party are worth 3%-5% plus 2 electorate seats on Election Day.
NEW ZEALAND FIRST:
By ruling out Labour, Winston is appealing to much of that sub 5% threshold vote that is still looking for political representation. He has a plethora of issues to catch and ride to the mountain top that can all become populist.
It will take an act of God to stop NZF getting over 5%.
NZ First are worth 4%-6% on Election Day.
Tamaki’s QGod antivax Umbrella:
Thankfully these antivax sub 5% lunatic fringe are all toxic narcissists who couldn’t work together if their lives depended upon it and their vote will gloriously get wasted as none of them will manage to get over 5%.
Good-bye Sue Grey, Matt King, Destiny and New Conservatives.
They will all come under 5%.
TOP:
The Opportunities Party leader Raf Manji has a chance of winning Ilam now Gerry Brownlee has stood down. Sarah Pallett won the seat in 2020 during Labour’s red wave, but Manji was competitive against Gerry back in 2017. If Manji can steal the seat off Pallett and against a weak National newbie, TOP could enter Parliament AND bring in 2 MPs off the Party list.
TOP are talking about Housing and the political tax impasses that prevent Housing from being built, if they can convince the public that he can win in Ilam, then a vote for TOP isn’t wasted. If National were smart they would consider talking to TOP and offering them an Epsom deal in Ilam.
Expect to see some incredible policy ideas from them this weekend which might cause some genuine political attention.
TOP are worth 1 electorate plus 2 MPs coat tailing off MMP list.
AI, quantum computing, hypersonic missiles and Space weapons are all on the agenda as America, Russia and China all compete for supremacy. Expect more robots with guns. Technology will continue to provide a lifestyle for the Billionaire elite that makes them DemiGods as Capitalism mutates into mere parasitic survival plutocracy on a burning planet.
The rise of AI art will kill the human artist and extinguished the human experience of being human for a replicated AI version. We have always viewed AI as the rise of intelligence within the artificial, but what if it has a more symbiotic relationship with its host? What happens to human beings when our art and dreams are created by AI?
Who starts to influence who?
Who is dreaming and who is the dreamer?
Conclusion
There is a grim amusement in reading the panicked Professional Managerial Class suddenly realising their consultancies and bureaucratic Sim City rearrangement games alongside the activist woke middle class virtue signals have turned into political poison for the Left.
The Professional Managerial Class in Wellington didn’t sense a cost of living crisis because most are now on the property ladder and their well paid jobs inoculate them from the pain of the community.
We have a Parliament of Landlords and a self serving public service coupled with an identity politics woke-washed consultancy industry married together in one big polygamous non binary orgy of self interest.
When you go to the Emergency Department, you don’t give a fuck if the back room is centralised or run by Māori, you only care you will be seen in a short time, that you will be safe and eventually healed!
When the Government proudly tells us they have spent hundreds of millions on basic services, we all envision that as front line money, but it isn’t, it’s for these Bureaucratic Sim City games where wonks endlessly move the bureaucratic infrastructure around with no one representing the interests of the end user.
The Hamilton West byelection debate I hosted had an interesting moment, the Labour Party candidate was boasting about how much money had gone into Mental Health which had the audience roar back in divisive laughter because the experience of those in the community with mental health issues is that the service is in crisis.
Instead of directly challenging the inequalities of capitalism, the middle class activist base have pushed for identity politics representation über alles.
This has snookered the Left as we end up militantly championing esoteric issues like land rights for gay whales.
We are not focused on the material well being of people.
No struggling family trying to pay the bills are sitting around the kitchen table cancelling people for misusing pronouns.
We are not focusing on reducing the cost of living for our people by using new taxes against the actual rich of NZ society.
The demarcation of power in a liberal progressive democracy is between the 1% + their 9% enablers vs the 90% rest of us. Identity Politics however is focused solely on skin colour, gender and genitalia. If your starting point politically is all white men are evil, we aren’t going to the 51% democratic majority required to hold power.
Right now the Political Right are using deplorable race baiting tactics, bash the dirty filthy beneficiary rhetoric and get-tough-on-crime cheerleading to ride a wave of Covid contempt that has algorithmically manifested into a dark treacle of social media hatred that borders on domestic terrorism.
If the Left doesn’t articulate a new narrative to generate a circuit breaker we will find it difficult to explain to voters why they should actually vote for us in 2023.
I believe a National/ACT Government would represent the implementation of the most damaging conflict policies and amputation of the State we have ever seen in this country.
If you all honestly believe that Māori would not openly rebel if we simply cut the Ministry of Māori Affairs as ACT want, I don’t think you understand politics in NZ.
The 30 year neoliberal experiment in NZ cut the State back to the bone and the political project of the Right ever since is to tax-cut starve off revenue for the State so it can’t redistribute it in the first place.
What we saw with Covid is that you desperately need a State with capacity. So many of the problems we encountered was the shear slowness of an underfunded, under capacity public service.
With the economic recession, the geopolitical shockwaves and catastrophic climate change upon us, we must have a debate about the capacity of the State!
That is how the Left have to re frame 2023 – vote for the Right and get an amputation of the State, vote for the Left and build new capacity for the challenges ahead.
We need more Drs, more nurses, more teachers, more Police, more State houses, more infrastructure NOT LESS!
We need to debate for a bigger capacity State using the example Covid just gave us.
We need more Scientists, Drs, nurses, teachers, Police, more State houses and more infrastructure alongside policy that directly subsidises the cost of living like removing gst off food, free dental, free public transport, free food in schools and we will fund that extra increase through targeted new taxes to rebuild the capacity of the State.
The obviousness of our need for a Ministry of Works that actually builds shit is painfully clear to everyone by now.
We need to actually sell the 2023 election in those explicit terms – vote Right and amputate the State, vote Left and rebuild the capacity to actually face the challenges ahead.
These new taxes will be a sugar tax for free dental, a financial transaction tax to lower GST on everything, a bank windfall profit tax to build more State houses, a social media journalism tax.
Taxes aimed at speculators and the wealthy to fund services for the egalitarian country we want NZ to be.
Let’s have the courage to actually argue and win over our fellow citizens for solution based policy that actually builds the capacity to have the extra drs, nurses, firemen, police, and teachers.
Let’s champion policies that subsidise people’s cost of living by redistributing from the few to the many.
The voters of NZ are still waiting for the Transformative change we promised them in 2017.
If the Political Left have all finished squabbling over who the biggest victim is and cancelling people for crimes against middle class dogma, could we get back to winning the election and being actually transformative?
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Co-Governance is not explainable for the simple reason that Maoridom have not agreed on how it should work. The reason, from my understanding, is that the various major tribes cannot agree to how the proportional representation on the Maori side of the governance structure, will be split.
Should one tribe have a greater say due to bigger land mass ownership? Whilst another tribe wants to have majority say due to a greater number of members belonging to that tribe?
Smaller tribes and urban Maori are being frozen out of the discussions and are far from happy.
Co-governance has a long way to go before all Maori tribes agree to the seating arrangements on their side of the governance table.
That is why it is being kicked down the road.
Not to mention of course, the 85% of us who are non Maori who were promised consultation this year and not given it, while an expanded 5 waters was passed under urgency containing cogovernance.
Labour will burn for this at the polls and never be forgiven.
Well said Keepcalmcarryon
If you recall Ardern at the start of her reign, as soon as there was a bit of pushback against capital gains tax, she walked back on it. That was a pragmatic and lightweight politician sniffing the wind and reacting. Compare that to her more recent performance with 3 Waters all the other apartheid-based legislation that was hidden from the voters in the previous election: She’s ploughed on resolutely in the face of massive and widespread resistance, plus tanking in the polls.
So, are we now supposed to believe that she has suddenly become a dogmatic ideologue in favour of dividing the country along racial lines? It looks to me like she’s now captive of the Maori radicals in her own cabinet.
If Labour carries on in this direction (and it looks like they will) their vote will be under 30%.
Maybe the million and a half new NZers who arrived in the last 20 years, and who possess the vote will scupper co-governance and He Puapua.
Its probable that they didn’t choose to become NZers on the basis of racialised voting rights.
Yeah sure, those Palestinian, Tamil, Uigher, Indian minorities, Africans and Muslims from Christian Nations will most likely agree with your misinformed and myopic view of what apartheid is and vote the way you see it.
Tell me something @ Martyn, not that I could ever vote NZ!st as long as the retail politician and egotist-in-chief figures in its composition (Not sure what the bromance there is – perhaps he changes Winnie’s colostomy bag and supplies the whiskey and durries).
Did Winston actually rule out Labour? or did he rule out labour AS IT STANDS, in the belief that its neo-kindred spirit is a liar?
And,here we are. Next,election,eh!,us same care,as us.
Yes, goneby100, hang in there, or maybe see you on the other side as well. 🙂 xx
1. Trump is indicted on various charges at various times, beginning imminently and progressing throughout the year. He’ll escape to the middle east (if they’ll have him). If he chooses to face the USA consequences, he’ll buy his way out of jail time. Either way, he’ll die a broken man. His wife Melania will divorce him and his daughter Ivanka has already betrayed him.
2. Putin’s publicly announced dead by natural causes Q2/3. By that time, agreements are reached back stage and the Ukraine war ends.
2.1. Scope of Russia’s war crimes begin to be revealed. The world will be shocked.
3. Russia’s new leader will be a somewhat improvement and a better communicator with world leaders including the West.
4. A major USA Bank or financial institution (a major player) will fail about Q2/3.
5. KC111 will step down citing I’ll health of himself or QC. PW will take up the reign. Maybe 2024, but 2023 would be better.
6. USA indicts many many politicians all year. It is a huge learning curve and correction for the nation. Their constitution will have many rewrites and amendments. Biden will hang in their until he is no longer necessary to keep stability.
7. Europe gets through winter OK and learns they are stronger than they knew.
8. UK cancels Brexit.
9. Prince Harry and his wife are revealed in the MSM just how ill they both are
10. NZ will have a general election and it will be tight as fk, thanks mainly to the rise in youth voting and our winter wave of viruses. We will all deserve the outcome.
Brian Tamaki’s personal tax return will be leaked and Destiny Church will be shocked. They will chose not to lynch him but the gangs won’t work with him anymore. He will be shamed and outcast. But he’ll find redemption in one of the church’s back rooms.
Everything begins with us. It is me, it is you. Nothing else happens without us. Catchup. It’s sames styles I’m seeing, fyi . Keep going, keep the message clear 🙂
Community organising and doing practical survival stuff in your own life is the only way through the 2023 “ShitStorm Extreme Edition”. The options are rather clear–assume the position and be a passive recipient of all the right wing bastards can stick up you–or fight back and resist.
• form a local group of like minded people–even 3-4 is a start, get to know your closest neighbours just for reference and possible mutual support in tough times
• join a union or support an FPA in your field of work
• support positively focused local organisations
• turn some of that lawn into a garden, grow herbs and salad greens in your apartment, collect rain water, use small solar panels to recharge your phone and iPad–one day the power will be out and the ATMs will not work!
The COVID scenario is genuinely scary though, the NZ Govt. waved the white flag too early imo but there was immense pressure on them to do so. The lockdowns saved a lot of lives before there was a vaccine or even the hope of one. A mate of mine (boomer age with health issues) said he felt like he had been hit by a truck when he got the virus a week back, and would have been dead for sure if not for vaccinations, boosters and antivirals. The non vaccinated and boosted drag us all down. Wearing a mask signifies two things–empathy & intelligence.
There are glimmers in Bomber’s futurist nightmare. Many young Māori are more switched on and becoming politically engaged and they will have an effect beyond their numbers–just as a reformed united NZ Communist Party would, and a reinvigorated central labour (union) organisation. Ideas and leading by example can be very powerful.
40 years of dog eat dog has done bad things to this country, but it is not beyond repair.
If thew power is out your connection to the inter-web will also be down. Sure you have a phone and tablet but no connection to anyone else. Those cell phone towers, servers, are all powered by electricity.
Now Starlink is a future electricity free development but to pay for that service you need to upload your non functioning bank details to Musk and he will then try his non functioning bank to withdraw your funds from your non working bank.
Maybe Musk is going to circumvent all banks by using his PayPal technology to store (bitcoins?) your money tokens so that they can be exchanged for Starlink access?
We need freedom to protect our vege crops so the gun legislation will need to be amended.
Grow up Mr negativity, semi auto firearms to protect vegetables? I don’t think so.
Community cohesion is the way to do that rather than living as alienated individual consumers. Even the most dedicated gun lover will run out of ammo eventually.
What Tiger mountain said.
Kudos TM.
Almost cut own throat reading prior to that.
Negativity a blunt blade though thankfully.
Jax
Tiger M., some academics and young union people actually did revive the C.P.N.Z. a few years ago. Party officials from China and Cuba sent congratulatory messages to the Congress.
However, this year it appeared to sink without a trace (a few months after the Alliance Party finally ceased all publications). The party bulletins disappeared less than a year after it had formed an electoral vehicle called the Left Party of N.Z., together with the Socialist Party (Bill Anderson’s old faction from the original C.P.N.Z.).
Well it is quite a detective effort actually to put together the various strands of the NZ marxist/communist movement/parties & groups since the original CP was formed in 1921.
Wiki says…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_New_Zealand
and there were splits of splits among the Trotskyite parties and tendencies, Bill Andersen’s SPA was formed from the collapse of the SUP under Ken Douglas, and on it goes. The Workers Communist League–WCL–was the earliest attempt at taking identity politics into serious account under the working class banner and so forth. The Workers Party and Struggle Groups were others. Not to mention all the student commo groups of the 90s and early 00s which is a real jig saw puzzle.
There were hundreds of skilled members in those groups, and associates of around several thousand, which were deeply penetrated by state security forces and their snitches which they protect to this day.
The point is to resurrect a strong class struggle based militant party, minimising the sectarianism and infighting of days gone by.
I would suggest that any new party must be deeply integrated into the international working class movement.
Regardless of whether it is a reorganised C.P.N.Z., a new Alliance Party, or both — it cannot be a tiny organisation that is isolated from mass movements and the mass parties (which have not existed domestically for 30 years).
That seems to be the common denominator of all those post-1980s groups that you mention. And is probably true of the Alliance as well (at least after 2004, but perhaps earlier also).
Mike Hosking Breakfast show is the hardest radio interview in the game (except for Kill Him on RNZ of course) so Jacinda Ardern should go back to a regular slot there?
You just know that she could go on there, announce that she personally has discovered a cure for cancer and Hosking would get stuck into her. His attack could be about the paper with the announcement having the word ‘rongoa’ somewhere on the page, or that the details had been kept under wraps as it was happening. Or something equally momentous.
His red neck supporters would orgasmically declare how ‘he showed her’ and ask ‘what happened to transparency?’ Siouxsie Wiles simply being on NatRadio talking about it the next day would have them in more of a lather. These are voters. The All Blacks not winning the World Cup and Ardern being blamed for that will see Labour trounced next November
People who fall for memes and regale in the utterings of Hosking always strike me as not being very critical of thought. His bias is so off the chart that anything he says is basically nonsense.
More major worldwide pedophila ring activity amongst the elite will continue to surface… most notably in the USA Hollywood, music and fashion industries.
The sex industry, particularly the online porn industry, will get a shake up for enabling and encouraging (via algorithms and constantly suggesting “harder” content) unhealthy sexual voyeurism leading to child sexual abuse.
On the topic of America v itself, it is laughable to see the Republicans can even confirm their own speaker after three rounds of voting because the likes of Marjorie Taylor Fruit Loop are voting against their own party. There needs to be some reckoning for feral conspiracy theorists, who waste public money as self serving con artists, this year. Believe what you want but if you believe in Jewish space lasers you need to be told to F off in no uncertain terms.
Wheel, not Jewish space lasers, but Chinese. I dunno if lasers, but some sort of weapon will be discovered in space where all the satellites orbit which will be found to have been put up there by China. It will be discovered this year.
My bad, North Korea, not China. My geography isn’t great.