Troy Bowker vs Sinead Boucher, is the oligarchy in action

The clash between Troy Bowker and Stuff isn’t just a business dispute — it’s a window into how wealth can be weaponised against media organisations. When billionaires can buy the infrastructure that keeps journalism alive, the line between market power and political influence starts to blur.

The spite-driven move by Troy Bowker to attack Stuff because he hated their editorial stance is extraordinary when you consider it…

In a chess-like masterstroke, Bowker – who has robust views of the media and is no fan of Stuff – had acquired the land and building that houses Stuff’s print plant from Australian media firm Nine last year.

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The Petone facility prints several Stuff newspapers, including Wellington’s daily paper, The Post.

When wealth can be used to punish media you don’t like

Bowker told Media Insider last month (March 2025), that he would be serving Stuff the required one-year notice of termination next month, and that it would have to vacate the building by 30 April 2027.

“I wish them luck finding a new premise and relocating their significant printing assets,” he said at the time.

…just so we understand, a rich prick who hates Stuff’s editorial stance, buys up Stuff’s printer plant so he can kick them out.

Shouldn’t this be getting a lot more scrutiny? This isn’t about property. It’s about power over who gets to publish.

This is the Oligarchy in practice, and because New Zealand’s left are beholden to identity politics, they don’t have the language to express class war like this!

Bernie Sanders 2025 Edition of Fight Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here, makes the point that the Billionaire Class, Big Polluters and Corporations have transformed under Trump into a naked plutocracy:

• Three of the richest individuals (e.g., Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg) hold more combined wealth than the bottom half of the U.S. population — roughly 170 million people.
• Three of the richest individuals (e.g., Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg) hold more combined wealth than the bottom half of the U.S. population — roughly 170 million people.
• Multiple reports cited by Sanders and in broader discourse show the global richest 1 % increased their wealth by $33.9 trillion since 2015 — a figure used to illustrate oligarchic wealth trends.
• The top 1% of U.S. households gained 101× more wealth than the median household over decades, translating to wealth per top 1 % household roughly $8.35 million vs ~$83,000 average household assets (Oxfam data referenced in discussions Sanders highlights)
• Around 150 billionaire families spent nearly $2 billion on the 2024 U.S. elections, which Sanders describes as evidence of oligarchic influence over American politics.
• Billionaires are a tiny fraction of the population — about 0.0005 % of Americans — yet played a disproportionately large role in political spending in recent elections.
• Oxfam and similar sources note that billionaire wealth jumped over 16% in 2025, bringing total billionaire wealth to $18.3 trillion — the highest ever recorded — and exacerbating inequality.
• About 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, a statistic Sanders regularly uses to illustrate Americans’ economic insecurity.
• Tens of millions of Americans lack adequate health insurance — e.g., 85 million uninsured or underinsured — compared with soaring billionaire wealth.
• Sanders and his allies often cite homelessness figures like ~800,000 homeless people in the U.S. as part of the inequality narrative.

The book (via review) specifically calls Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” — a $1 trillion tax-cut package — the largest transfer of wealth upward in living memory, concentrating benefit among the wealthy and exacerbating inequality. In NZ the Mordor of Oligarchy has infected our Shire as well!

• Top 1% wealth share:
  The richest 1% of NZ households own ~18.8% of total net worth

• Bottom 50% wealth share:
  The bottom 50% of households together hold just ~4.3% of total net wealth.

• Wealth ratio (top vs median):
  Median household net worth ~NZ$170,000, while the top 10 % have median net worth ~NZ$3.2 million — nearly 19x higher.

• Top 0.1% wealth growth:
  The very richest households increased their share sharply over the past decade — the top 0.1% saw wealth grow faster than the rest.

Look at how that money is donated politically:

• Party donations concentrated at top incomes:
  In recent elections, ~60% of total political donations came from businesses and individuals earning in the top tax brackets, while lower-income donors account for a small share.

• Lobbying prevalence:
  Corporate and industry groups (banks, property developers, dairying sector) are among the most active lobbyists in Wellington, shaping tax, housing, and planning policy.

This isn’t just America — oligarchy is here too

The big polluters, the billionaire class, the corporates and the speculators own New Zealand politically!

Now we have alt-right billionaire Jim Grenon owning NZME and pushing culture war revenge fantasies while rich pricks like Troy Bowker actively attempting to hurt media he doesn’t like!

Right wing billionaires like Nick Mowbray and MAGA property pimps like Matthew Horncastle are the new generation of Oligarchy in New Zealand and they are leading us into a very dark hate filled future.

Do you really want to be enslaved by the rich?

Do you hate Jacinda, the Trans and vaccines so much that these rich pricks are your preference?

How easy is it to manipulate your petty bigotries Kiwi?

Because once wealth can decide which media survives, democracy doesn’t disappear overnight — it gets quietly edited, trimmed, and reshaped by those who can afford to do it.