We warned you! The ‘I-Told-You-So’ Express is on time again – National start the privatisation agenda
HERE WE GO!
TDB warned you and warned you and warned you that the Atlas inspired privatisation agenda is what was coming next and that you had your post-Covid bitterness manipulated so corporate interests can rob the common good.
You didn’t listen.
Well, well, well – what do we have here?
Christopher Luxon hints National will campaign on asset sales in the 2026 election
The Prime Minister has hinted National will campaign on asset sales next year, saying an election win in 2026 would be the mandate he needed to push ahead with asset sales next term.
Christopher Luxon has ruled out selling off state houses but says he is open to having a wider conversation with voters at the next election and pursuing other asset sales next term.
He told reporters on Tuesday morning an election result would be an acceptable mandate, and he does not see a referendum on the issue being required.
Asked if he planned to campaign on it next year, Luxon said “we’d take it to the election and it would be part of our programme that we’d want to talk about and be upfront with New Zealanders about”.
Act leader David Seymour put asset sales firmly on the table in his State of the Nation speech on Friday, saying privatisation needs to be talked about more openly and posed whether the healthcare system could be a good starting point.
You can lead a sleepy hobbit to a blog, but you can’t make them think!
We warned you and warned you and warned you that this was the secret agenda.
Well, now you goin’ git some Kiwi.
Now. You. Goin’. To. Git. Some.
You have allowed your post-Covid bitterness fuelled by Redneck ZB Trolls, Libertarian fan bois and Culture War Boomers to be manipulated into agreeing to a secret Atlas inspired plot to corrupt the common good for corporate profits…
And who, in turn, are the junktanks? Many refuse to divulge who funds them, but as information has trickled out we have discovered that the Atlas Network itself and many of its members have taken money from funding networks set up by the Koch brothers and other rightwing billionaires, and from oil, coal and tobacco companiesand other life-defying interests. The junktanks are merely the intermediaries. They go into battle on behalf of their donors, in the class war waged by the rich against the poor. When a government responds to the demands of the network, it responds, in reality, to the money that funds it.
…Oil, coal, tobacco, right wing billionaires, the fucking Koch brothers and dark money influencing our political system so much so that we see the exact same agenda being rolled out here!
This has always been the game.
Manipulate your bigotry, weaponise your impatience, use race stunts to distract you and implement policy that empowers the corporations funding all of this.
The Atlas Network threatened The Daily Blog late last year (I told them to go fuck themselves) and the deplorable backdown by TVNZ by allowing them a bullshit right of reply on the last episode of Q+A was TVNZ Journalism at its most spineless and pathetic.
The greatest win by the Atlas Network will be the Regulatory Standards Bill.
The Treaty Principles Referendum is the distraction, but the Regulatory Standards Bill is the real win for the Neoliberal Right…
While all the media and popular coverage seems to have been directed towards the Treaty Principles Bill, David Seymour and Act are poised to achieve another substantive victory that has been over 20 years in the making.
The Regulatory Standards Bill, first introduced to Parliament in 2006 and reintroduced last year by Seymour in his role as the Minister for Regulation, is under the public consultation phase (quietly started on the day of the arrival of the hikoi in Wellington).
It will be taken up by parliament in early 2025.
As detailed by Melanie Nelson, the passage of this bill (an agreement in the coalition Government’s negotiations) will help Act to realise a longstanding goal of their neoliberal policy agenda, which is to enshrine the rights of individuals, particularly property holders and business owners, over the collective good of all New Zealanders.
“The focus on the Treaty Principles Bill risks overshadowing its dull but dangerous cousin, the Regulatory Standards Bill, which is currently open for consultation,” she writes. “The Regulatory Standards Bill is the brainchild of the Business Roundtable (now the New Zealand Initiative) and has been attempted three times previously by the Act Party.”
If passed, the bill will establish a hand-picked regulatory board to ensure that law-making complies with its regulatory “principles” and to deal with complaints of violations (the public can even call in their complaints via a newly established tip line).
…ACT have tailored an economic straight jacket that will make it impossible to counter corporate interests ever again.
If this passes, Corporations will be able to stop any environmental or taxation policy they don’t like.
The radical nature of this should terrify every New Zealander.
I didn’t believe most Kiwis voting National, NZF or ACT had much idea what exactly they were voting for and I don’t think the vast majority of Kiwis have any comprehension just how far right this Government actually is.
Setting up a legislative body dominated by corporate interests to test future laws against would be the end of NZ as a functioning democracy.
Sure it would be Government elected by the people, but it be run by law decided by corporations…
This regulatory board would have sweeping oversight over all proposed government regulations, with the ability to make non-binding recommendations.
Furthermore, all proposed legislation or ministerial statutes (with a compliance review of all existing laws within 10 years) would fall under the purview of the new regulatory board, severely curtailing the ability of the government to regulate harmful business practices or corporate exploitation, even if such regulation is in the public interest.
More seriously the current version of the bill has removed any role of the courts to provide regulatory oversight or interpretation; a move that seems to be explicitly targeted at blocking any incorporation of Te Tiriti into the regulatory discussion.
…so the Courts would be effectively bypassed by this new regulatory board.
At some stage New Zealand, you are going to have to either resist this slide to corporate fascism or you are merely going to be puppets to them and now National are looking at Privatisation of assets as well!
Wake up Kiwis!
It is important now The Atlas Network is so active and influential in our political system that we acknowledge and highlight the many tentacles of The Atlas Network so we are aware of the influence.
The list of Atlas tentacles:
ACT
Groundswell
Taxpayers’ Union
Kiwiblog
Curia Polling
The Campaign Company
Free Speech Union
Plus everyone below via the NZ Initiative…
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 – please donate here.
Privatization is a core fundamental of neoliberalism. No NZ party has ever challenged neoliberalism and its safe to say that Neoliberal economic policy has barely been challenged anywhere in the world, wherever it has been implemented. Meaning, whoever the fcuk was behind this policy, is the true mover and shaker of the world, not this johnny-come-lately Atlas mob.
Still, this will be a useful test to see how informed or uninformed the NZ public is (a good litmus test over the priorities of NZ MSM to boot, do they serve us or do they serve them, we won’t have to wait long to find out) and we’ll see if this government actually has any political opposition to it or is rolling over now the norm, meaning democracy be damned!
Well done Zelda!
With the landlord federation and Trump administration both paying you to produce propaganda you must be doing well.
‘It stifles the free market ‘
However can you tell me how tax breaks for landlords and tariffs on imported goods DO NOT stifle the free market?
Luxon, Seymour, Peters, Willis et al are fucked …
Gone burgers…they are either thicker than pig shit, or, they are wilfully trying to get voted out because… they have backed themselves into such a clusterfuck of a mess they don’t want to wear the next 10 years of carnage….just throw the opposition a hospital …far easier…
The right are fundamentally lazy people…predominantly silver spooners that ride off the back of others…and boy is N.Z. now paying for it voting that lot in.
They have all read the same book …’The Lazy Man’s Way To Riches’…basically… ‘acquire’ other people’s assets and then sell them for a profit.
So bad is the the economy, that they have managed to wreck in just short 12 months, that selling the family silverware is their only option to try and somehow save face….once again the easy way out….the lazy man’s way out….the downstream effects would be terrible….but they don’t give a fuck .
They are clueless, ignorant and greedy…stupid is as stupid does.
People on the right are normally successful people who work hard to earn good money so they are not beholden to the government of the day. Most of those that I know are happy to pay tax to support the society and finance health ,education and infrastructure for all .Their beef is when it is wasted by the party in power. whether that is a left or right government .
The case for privatization of some government assets is strong and the fact a R ight leaning government is promoting it is hardly a surprise
Oh Trevor once again you are delusional ,only the right are successful happy people who vote Tory and work hard. Tell that to the miners,the steel workers the factory workers who were paid for what they produced in the day called piece work ,the price of the work not negotiated but demanded by the boss, no work no pay . Then they were got rid of by mostly like Thatcher because they were not worthy of having a job. Many communities have never recovered hence the mess we are in today.I love it when only the rich work hard and deserve all they get. In reality the real workers who slog on a daily basis work just to keep the status quo . Who are the low paid minimum wage Trevor, amongst them the supermarket workers who kept your arse fed during covid So Trevor why did the right and unfortunately some of the left vote for tax cuts knowing it would impact the services that the poor and sick people depend on. We all know why Trevor because these so called right wing hard successful workers are greedy.
A bit hyperbolic….
The next left government just needs to learn from NACT First. When the left next gets in power it gives the right a touch of their own medicine and simply guts the legislative programme of the previous government. This regulatory standards bill can be gone by lunch time if we want it to be.
The second greatest political comeback in history (Trump number one) – 2026 Labour Party leader Jacinda Adern. Just putting it out there – the movie, the book ….
The election is probably near the end of 2026 and with Trump along with our local CoC getting there could be an issue.
While I liked Jacinda it’s difficult to see her being a major vote winner again and the trolls would have a field day so I doubt that she would want that experience again.
Zelda I don’t know where you come from but obviously you are not NZ born because you would know that is not the NZ way of doing things.
Same place as Bob the Fart
The back yard troll bot fart factory
jist Spin, how can we misdirect, play not this term, Privation,oops privatise, this term, fist house sitting, or other, our second elH election term, they fuckin ken they are second year total fucked.
Honestly we have foereign interferrence laws for activity such as the Chinese United Front, wouldn’t this sort of this thing be practically the same thing?
You obviously have no idea how a housing market works and fails to work.
1960s New Zealand had more State Houses per head of population than currently. Home ownership was 90 percent. An apprentice and a receptionist could save for three years and then build a brand new house with a State Advances loan at 3.5%. The govt had real assets (state houses) and safe as houses mortgages on its balance sheet. Landlordism was frowned upon. There were NO HOMELESS IN THE STREETS.
“A “Māori first right of refusal” refers to a legal provision under the Te Ture Whenua Māori Act where a Māori iwi (tribe) has the priority to purchase or lease Crown-owned land before anyone else, if it is being sold, due to their historical connection to the land, usually as part of a Treaty settlement agreement; essentially giving them the first option to buy the land before it is offered to the general public.”
This provision kinda actually protects sovereignty for all New Zealanders.
Atlas term 1. Act divide the nation. Attempt to get rid of the treaty
Atlas term 2. Privatise every last thing. Act accommodate their Atlas billionaire international mates. National have their palms greased by their local billionaire mates.
Atlas term 3. Billionaires claim the capital they used to purchase NZ at firesale prices was borrowed. They ramp up the prices of everything including education and health to repay the capital and pay the roi forever. Kiwis will be dumber and unhealthier. Kiwis will own nothing and pay super rent. Kiwis will be living Seymours wet dream.