WAATEA NEWS COLUMN: Election 2026. Why this election is so important
I think 2026 will be one of the most important elections in modern NZ Political History.
The extreme nature of controversial policy pushed by ACT and NZFirst against a very weak and brittle Chris Luxon has unchained some of the more brutish MMP dynamics in favour of the hard Right.
The manner in which ACT, NZFirst and National have progressed such an extreme anti-Māori, anti-Treaty, anti-renter, anti-worker, anti-disabled, anti-beneficiary and anti-environment agenda with such far reaching implications without the usual checks and balances we demand in a democracy has frightened, angered and infuriated many.
Cementing into place 19th Century White Settler Privilege against a new generation of Māori brought up with the knowledge the Treaty is something to honour and not settle, is not a solution. The next generation of Māori will not accept being treated as second class citizens in their own country any longer.
That’s a truth that the Political Right want to not only ignore, but mutilate politically as well.
For their rump base, the NZ Right play to the polarisation of social media hate algorithms by race baiting with their adjacent right wing influencers.
It’s less dog whistle these days and more canine playing the sax.
If the Right win a second term, the economic amputations and re-ordering of the State they are embarking upon become impossible to overturn, if the push towards privatisation by stealth continues for a second term, the Government most certainly will begin the last great sell off of what remains as State Assets.
If the wider political Left in New Zealand can not rally to stop rich people flogging off our assets to their rich mates at the expense of us all, if we can’t stop such naked venal self-interest at the cost of us all, well we deserve what is coming.
Election 2026 may be the most important political fight we have left.
If they win, this travesty of a govt. will sell off everything that’s left and we’ll be told they’ll fix it, so we never have to be bothered voting ever again.
It will take a great weight off many peoples’ shoulders, I’m sure. Btf, Trevor, Ada and Zelda. What a relief!
Many, many NZders won’t realise what they’ve lost till it’s gone, unless they wake up fast, in the next few weeks at the latest.
Some of us have been appalled at how quickly a country can fall into fascist dictatorship. We’d heard about Germany from our parents and teachers. That seemed hard to believe. It was so far away and long ago.
Hard to relate to.
Now we see a similar decline in a matter of years, most visibly in one year. Plenty of bread and circuses in the form of celebrity culture, religion and mind-bogglingly ill-educated and arrogant people whose whole system of govt. is being washed away by a few stray waves, a house of cards. Their much-vaunted Judiciary/SCOTUS given god-like status, their divine president also a little tin god with too much power and a set of rules which appear to be futile in stopping him. We’ve been told for nearly 200 years how superior and exceptional these people are and how much better they do everything, than we do.
All you need is someone to blame and people so mesmerised by themselves they fail to see the truth. Everyone loves to feel they can blame someone else for their problems. Then someone to exploit that dissatisfaction until it becomes hate and anger.
For readers here who incline right, that’s what Seymour is making you think right now backed up by weak, pathetic Luxon who is every would-be dictators dream. A man with no ideals, no morals or conscience, motivated by huge personal vanity.
Before you leap in and shoot me down Btf, Trevor and whoever else, look at yourselves first.
Do you not know when you are being used?
I agree this election is vitally important for both sides. But it’s more important the current govt wins in order to continue to execute some great plans and initiatives. A reversal to Labour will kick us back into the dark ages of decisions driven by the Greens and TPM with no economic considerations or any clue how to improve our wealth as a nation. You simply can’t yourself into wealth, you have to produce and sell commodities. Imagine how shit life would be in Australia if they didn’t have their mining and other valuable commodities to trade.a Voting for Labour is a vote for poverty. Unless you aspire to shopping at Op shops for the rest of your life. I know most of you Chardonnay Socialists don’t aspire to that, but you like to pretend you revel in poverty…poverty is cool. No it’s not.
Well said Jonzie. As a country we cannot afford to slip back into the country being run by Labour with no direction. It would be good if National had a bigger slice of the pie and was able to negate the racial and economic excesses of the 2 Coalition partners.
That’s funny. Labour had a ‘direction’ and plans, the ferries, Dunedin hosp, 3-waters etc.
But spiteful, narrow thinking National dumped those plans without having replacement plans that were as good or better, ready to go.
That makes a nonsense of your statement. Do you actually read any news, ever?
Jonzie – not worth the air you breathe which hasn’t helped the windmills of your mind to bring forth any sense. How sad that our educated democracy has ended up being revealed as wholly holey when people like you can put together such foolish statements with vigour. Natetc won’t achieve anything good if re-elected, and they will go on poisoning further wells than they were busy about this term.
Confusing ever more so our life is now, don’t hold onto useless hopes Jonzie, act for yourself, think wisely, and try to do something with your time that will have good consequences for us in this country.
‘Windmills of your mind’ with great psychedelics and Barbra Streisand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfNhe63S798
Jonzie. Funny how the op shops are the only shops open now to shop at given the record number of high profile retail stores closed under National. It makes a complete joke out of you and your capitalist post. As for Australia and it’s mining, categorically incorrect. It’s population is the economic driver, even a moron can see that but it’s clear you don’t even reach a moron level.
Well said Jonzie, so very true, so terrifying, the prospect of a Left Wing coalition, we cannot allow such a coalition to play with our lives. We are people not guinea pigs.
You have been outed as an AI programed troll bot so fuck off
Now, now Derek no need to be nasty.
” I agree this election is vitally important for both sides. But it’s more important the current govt wins in order to continue to execute some great plans and initiatives ”
Yep the execution and slow death of all working people who clean the wealthy’s toilets and mansions , work in the factories , fast food outlets and corporate supermarkets to name a very few.
Just look at the attacks against working people and their kids and parents by this regime over the last two years with another year to run.
The expendable slaves of Jonzie and his elitist mates.
You only vote and donate to the Nasties when you are actually one your self
The majority of Kiwis hate and despise this government but luckily for Jonzie they have no one to represent them or are so cynical will refuse to vote for LINO that only cares about the Jonzies and its business supporters / donors.
At least the trends overseas is showing a fightback against the agenda’s of right wing regimes that have waged war here in New Zealand against many of its own people.
Both Nats and Labs are refusing to address the grotesque globalist neoliberal mammoth devouring all the wealth – and demanding control and more entitlements – in the room.
It’s incredibly important to avoid a Left Wing catastrophe. Can you imagine a group consisting of Labour, Greens, Maori? Too terrifying.
Now that the right wing is totally munted its the left wing coming in on a prayer
Probably more important to avoid the Right wing corruption and punitive policies that has set the country back decades. The horrific actions taken by National, NZ First and ACT has become so terrifying, thousands have fled the country to a better life in Australia with a greater economy, higher wages and respect for it’s people. It’s time to clean the country of this fascist right wing government, only then will this country start to progress forward rather than slip backwards, as it has on every metric.
Those believing this horrific right wing government have done well clearly have a cognitive deficit.
Good one Clive, apt as anything.
The media is the driver and it’s influence on voters susceptible to fuckwittery will ultimately determine the election result
It’s a journey with a wretched Ring to throw privatisation and the Money-First Cohort MFC out, and a new PPP in – Practical People with Principles. R.R. Tolkien will become a leitmotif; the Greens can be the Elvish.
Adopt the spirit of Lord of the Rings as a feature a focus of thinking.
… the story began as a sequel to Tolkien’s 1937 children’s book The Hobbit but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings…
Note that much of this was written during WW2. That horrible reality that one would wish was fantasy, might be the clue – reverse the narratives, WW2 become fantasy and LOR be the lived reality!!!
From wikipedia on Tolkien: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien#Views Government:
Tolkien held deeply skeptical views of political authority, writing that “the most improper job of any man, even saints, is bossing other men”.[95] He distrusted both mass democracy and centralized state power, writing that “not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity”.[96][95] In one of his letters, Tolkien described his political leanings as “more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control, not whiskered men with bombs)”.[T 11][96][97] He explained that he was “not a democrat, only because humility and equality are spiritual principles, not political ones”.[96]
Tolkien believed small-scale, community policing was more effective than state-control.[96] He also believed that power itself, even when well-intentioned, carries a corrupting influence… The books also portray the desire to dominate others as the original and enduring temptation of evil…
We need to adopt new thinking, it is too late to rely on our previous notions, we didn’t study them, follow them closely enough. We need to think and put trained people in charge who take the task to heart of acting on behalf of humanity’s interests, and that includes all learning to control our own actions and opinions better, so needing fewer police, less violence or oppressing others, and limiting negativity in ourselves.
Hipkins, Chloe, and the Maori Party need to draw battle lines and get passionate! Otherwise the dulled down electorate won’t wake up from their couldn’t care less complacency! Also we need a wealth tax. If we don’t NZ will just be a remote retirement village in the South Pacific run by the motivated greedy b*ggers. And of course the young will continue to leave for more optimistic places.
” The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. ”
Yes, It’ll be the second coming of Roger them the Douglas ” We haven’t finished the job ”
The Second Coming
By William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
“It wasn’t until the 1960s that the “golden age” of Western society began. It was then that the “showcase of capitalism,” accessible to ordinary people, workers, and the intelligentsia, emerged.”
“It was then that a huge middle class emerged, the pillar of stability and democracy. However, it arose not through the development of a free market and democracy, but thanks to the state, which forced capitalists, plutocrats, and bankers to share their wealth with the common people. The state forced capital to invest in science and education, culture and art, infrastructure development programs, and the military-industrial complex. It taxed them, taking up to 90% of their profits to finance state programs.”
We are regressing …….. “at the beginning of the 20th century, the life of European and American workers was hell, a veritable prison. It was a “sweatshop,” draining people for the benefit of capitalists. It’s enough to recall the classic works of that time, for example, by Jack London or Theodore Dreiser.
There were no pensions, no insurance, no unemployment benefits. The workday was unregulated and could last up to 12–16 hours a day. Workers were exploited as long as they could work, then thrown out and new ones hired. There were many people “behind the fence,” and the birth rate was high. Child labor was for pennies.
The era was extremely brutal. Workers’ attempts to stage strikes and demonstrations were suppressed by force. The police and army opened fire to kill. Capitalists actively collaborated with the mafia (organized crime) to suppress the workers.
Therefore, socialist sentiments were strong among workers in Germany and the United States, and there were strong socialist parties.” https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/what-the-usa-owes-russia?
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The (present) system is broken …..
A little while ago I did a couple of searches ,,, the results were quite shocking.
I wanted to find out how much physical NZ cash was in existence ,,,, and how much NZ money was in our system.
From memory there was 9-10 Billion of physical cash ( notes and coins ), which is a paltry amount compared to the total amount of money in our system which was $450 Billion ,,,, all the extra cash exists only on computers,,, it is literally created out of thin air by the banks when they make loans ,,,, it is less real than Bitcoin ,,, especially when you take into account this money disappears back into thin air when the loan is repaid,,,, with only interest paid on the loan remaining in existence.
Who do the banks lend money too? ,,,, and what do the borrowers typically do with this money? …. They lend it to people with good incomes / assets,, and most of it is pumped into our real estate / property market.
Which lead me to another search ,,,, and treasury helpfully had the info ….
In the year 2000 the total value of all dwellings ( houses, apartments etc ) was approximately $ 270 Billion ,,,, by i2022-2023 at the peak of the property market this figure was 1 Trillion and 700 Billion ( it’s come back 10% or so since then) , we do not have 6X the amount of residential dwellings built since the year 2000 ,,, we would be nowhere
close to even have doubled the amount of residential dwellings ,,,, the insane and harmful growth in the value of residential dwellings is due to the way we allow the banks to create our currency.
In my opinion Labour or National is just window dressing when you run a system like this as the average worker is either locked out of home ownership,,, or impoverished by it.
And when the Govt runs a deficit it has too borrow the money ,,, which is created by banks out of thin air ,,, and the Govt pays interest to the bankers.
Why does the Govt not create its own money which would mean no debt and no interest to be paid ,,,,, because the international finance system ( mainly the Usa ) would crush our currency.
However Donald Trump could very crash the Usa economy and financial system ( which is a corrupt house of cards anyway ),,, and that would be the time to for us to extricate ourselves from this corrupt banksters extortion scheme…. and make our Governments relevant again…..
Although I do agree with Martyn, that the NActs are a particularly sick Government operating in this bad banksters system….
I do hope the Greens wake up,,,,get serious ,,, and have some plans for when the shit hits the fan.
A load of bullshit on this site from a load of bullshitters who speak with a forked tongue, and you must be blind deaf and dumb only Joy speaks the truth and makes sense.
Go take a laxative you will feel so much better.
Well said CIP and Joy, you have both hit the nail on the head. Our NZ economy is in grave trouble and those who won’t see it are the willing accomplices to our destruction. It’s hard to believe that two years, with this inept mob at the helm, has led to the total break-down of our country and its decent people, most of whom are being fleeced, conned and used. Too late once our assets have been sold and we ‘belong’ to another country. So NZ Left and your supporters – you need to lift your game now, ensure you come up with meaningful and funded policies and vote to get rid of this current obnoxious insanity. NZ politics is currently no better than the toxic mess in the USA! Time for the Left to FOCUS on regaining our country for our people, not the unprincipled, greedy ‘controllers’ who don’t give a stuff about us or NZ, just MONEY! There is more than enough to go around – it’s called SHARING!
You state our reality well Patrize.
Clive above ‘The media is the driver’ reminds me of the book The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan 1967. Here’s about it to carry the point further:
Marshall McLuhan argues that technologies—from clothing to the wheel to the book and beyond—are the messages, rather than the content of the communication…
By playing on words and using the term “massage,” McLuhan suggests that modern audiences enjoy mainstream media as soothing, enjoyable, and relaxing. However, the pleasure we find in these media is deceiving, as the changes between society and technology are incongruent, perpetuating an “Age of Anxiety”.
All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences, they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected,
unaltered. (p. 26).
The Medium is the Massage demonstrates the ways the mainstream media are extensions of human senses; they ground us in physicality, but expand our ability to perceive our world to an extent impossible without them. These extensions of perception contribute to McLuhan’s theory of the global village, which would bring humanity full-circle to an industrial analogue of tribal mentality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Medium_Is_the_Massage#Summary
vid on the subject from 1967 –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFwVCHkL-JU
This is Marshall McLuhan – The Medium is the Massage (1967) 51.11m
We could spend time early in this year fruitfully, learning about stuff we never realised, or
didn’t understand fully, and reviewing and revising our views.
Vids on Marshall McLuhan:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9l9s4jMhNuT3lW6ORBuZOyrPCDwIJHxF
The World is a Global Village 8.45m
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeDnPP6ntic
Marshall McLuhan on Technology and Media 1966 44.01m
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg1MvIstGUo
Australian Interview on points of McLuhan 45.31m 1977
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dawLQe1ZUA
(2m in Mr McLuhan is able to get a word in.)
Further – interesting:
McLuhan’s two most popular books, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) and Understanding Media (1964), became foundational texts of communication and media theory, and were referenced by the US editors of Wired magazine when canonising McLuhan as its ‘patron saint’ at launch in 1993.1 Nov 2025
Lost Prophet: Why Did the World Forget Marshall McLuhan?
Oxford Centre for Intellectual History – University of Oxford
https://intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk › article › lost-pro…
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McLuhan’s central theory is that human modes of thinking are altered by our predominant media of communication. He divided history into several successive eras, each characterized by its principle means of communication.
Marshall McLuhan on the Mobile Phone | Issue 87 – Philosophy Now
Philosophy Now https://philosophynow.org › issues › Marshall_McLuhan…
Good aphorism I like: ‘We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.’
Not McLuhan but could be, ‘The quote was actually written by Father John Culkin, SJ, a Professor of Communication at Fordham University in New York and friend of McLuhan.’
https://mcluhangalaxy.wordpress.com/