There was always an additional comment in any external journalism on there being a Chinese spy inside the National Government, and it was a bemused point that Kiwis seemed remarkably laid back about this fact and there was always some wandering aloud about if we actually understood the magnitude of what having a Chinese spy inside the Government meant.
It wasn’t until New Zealanders started reading this external commentary that we suddenly demanded some faint accountability because nothing motives New Zealanders quite like the opinion of outsiders.
Let’s hope the external perspective of The Washington Post awakes New Zealanders to the impact of the International Far Right Think Tank The Atlas Network, whose agenda is funded by the petrol industry and far right billionaires to blunt climate change advocacy and progress.
New Zealand, once a utopia for Trump-weary exiles, turns to the right
The populist National-led government is undoing many of Jacinda Ardern’s progressive initiatives, including gun control and environmental protections.
ACT has boasted that it “punches above its weight” in the coalition, saying that even though it has only 11 lawmakers in the 123-seat Parliament, it is responsible for half of the government’s actions. But Seymour wants more. Asked if ACT has an outsize influence over the government, he said: “We have some but not as many as I would like of our policies being advanced.”
During coalition talks, Seymour won concessions for American-style charter schools; a “three strikes” law extending prison terms for repeat offenders; and a deal to rewrite the country’s Arms Act, revisiting a ban on military-style rifles after the 2019 mass killing. He is pushing for a referendum on New Zealand’s founding document with Indigenous Maori that opponents warn will be divisive.
Some researchers also attribute Seymour’s rise and the recent political shift to aggressive campaigning by right-leaning interest groups with ties to the United States, where think tanks backed by conservative donors have been a brain trust for GOP administrations since the Reagan era.
They point to one neoliberal nonprofit in particular: the Atlas Network.
The Atlas Network has nearly 600 global partners — including the Heritage Foundation, which leads Project 2025, and climate deniers. Its stated goal is helping “freedom-oriented idea entrepreneurs” lobby for lower taxes, smaller government and less regulation. Behind the scenes, neoliberalism scholars say Atlas Network alumni campaign against climate policies around the globe from Argentina to Australia.
“It’s like a permanent soft coup. They’re ready to go at any moment in any country as soon as the opportunity arises,” said Jeremy Walker, a political historian at the University of Technology Sydney who studied the links between neoliberal lobbyists and fossil fuel companies in Australia. Others have charted the activities of Atlas Network partners in South America and Europe.
Atlas Network’s chairperson, Debbi Gibbs, is a New Zealander whose wealthy businessman father helped found ACT. Her mother is one of ACT’s biggest donors. Gibbs says Atlas Network is nonpolitical, and “the idea that there could be a centrally controlled cabal” overseeing hundreds of groups in 120 countries “is just mind-blowing.”
The most prominent Atlas affiliate in New Zealand is Seymour, who will become deputy prime minister next year.
His relationship with Atlas dates back nearly two decades. He was awarded a two-week “Atlas MBA” in 2008. At the time, he worked for the Frontier Center for Public Policy, an Atlas Network partner in Canada that has disparaged climate science.
Upon his return to New Zealand, he went into politics, entering Parliament in 2014 as ACT’s sole representative. But it wasn’t until 2020 that he gained prominence, successfully campaigning for assisted-dying laws. Gibbs, who has been on the Atlas Network board for a decade, got to know Seymour during this end-of life-campaign. She said she wasn’t officially involved but shared research and ideas from her American advocacy with Seymour.
Then when New Zealanders bristled at pandemic-era restrictions, Seymour seized upon the mood and accused Ardern of using the coronavirus to “justify more state control.”
In a speech in February 2021, Seymour cited an Atlas survey to bolster his claim that “our commitment to freedom is being lost.”
Asked about his links with Atlas, Seymour dismissed as “conspiracy” the idea that “somehow the world is organized by the Atlas Network,” saying he has been subject to a lot of theories about secretive influence efforts.
But even commentators on the right are alarmed. “Now he’s got power. We are absolutely seeing the whites of his eyes,” Wilson said. “We’re now seeing the radicalism of some of his policies.”
…that’s the Washington ‘Democracy dies in darkness’ Post there folks.
If you look at the recent ratings for transparency, the OECD was highly critical of how easy our Government can have policy bought and paid for.
We are becoming a speculators and consultants paradise where development is for them at the cost of us…
According to an OECD report released today, New Zealand needs to tame its corporate lobbying industry. The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has ranked New Zealand as the fourth-worst country among its 38 members when it comes to regulating vested interests that try to influence policymaking.
The OCED report for this country, Product Market Regulation indicators: How does New Zealand compare?, says that New Zealand is one of the few advanced economies that still doesn’t “have adequate rules that ensure transparency and accountability in the interactions between public officials and interest groups”. They warn that this absence threatens to produce an “unlevel playing field” in which big businesses can dominate and monopolise New Zealand industries, reducing productivity.
The report evaluates all the regulations in economies such as New Zealand to highlight where regulation, or a lack of it, leads to reduced economic competition. The OECD performs this process every five years, using about 1000 questions relating to each country’s regulatory framework. Overall, the quality of New Zealand’s regulations is deemed to be very close to the average in the OECD—the country ranks 20 out of the 38 organisation members.
…we are ripe for exploitation, manipulation and corruption.
Interests that mean us harm are colluding with the Political elites to enable an agenda that benefits them not us.
Which bad guy are we fighting against now, the far-right and the Atlas mob or the bankers and all the other big-money interests who control the US govt whom oversee us? Take your pick.
I mean, there’s no distinction between bankers like John Key, the baby-eating Atlas freaks, or the other enemies of the human race. They’re all in bed with and f**king each other.
On the surface it looks this way, but no, there is a distinction. On the one hand you have the established mob, led by the bankers, whom in the USA, especially, populate the corridors of power regardless of political party and despite being unelected – they have been hands on, at the forefront of political decision making for frig knows how long now. And on the other hand, you have a mass of largely ordinary people, labeled the Right or far-right, whose discontent of the established mob, differs – somewhat – from that other mass of discontented people labelled the Left. Throw in a newbie (to be) moneyed class outfit somehow associated with the far-right, looking to disrupt or takeover from the established mob…and this mob is supposed to be the problem. I Don’t think so! They are a distraction, a fall guy, something that is meant to keep our attention off the established mob that have corrupted politics for, again, far, far too long now with distraction being one of the key tools they have used to help keep them at the forefront of political decision making despite being unelected parasites.
The Chinese lost their a spies in both national and labour.
The Americans have their very very good friend Winston
Big oil have their trained and paid lobbyist masquerading as a Deputy PM.
Big Tobacco has their lobbyist Bishop in the cabinet.
Candidate vetting ought to exclude former migrant exploiters, shoplifters, lobbyists for foreigner governments and corporations, people born outside the country. Every last cent donated to a party needs to be declared and if the money is from a company or trust the ultimate beneficial donor named.
Loosening NZ gun laws at this juncture? Political suicide from an ACT lone wolf with a minority world view.
This is a great article. Thanks for reposting the Washington one. Two things. How bizarre that Debbi Gibbs once worked at BFM and was also the manager of Strait Jacket Fits until they disbanded and is also the chairperson of the evil Atlas Network for the past decade. Second thing Act “punching above it’s weight” exposed the great flaw of MMP if you have a right wing corrupt-don’t-give- a-shit-guy like Luxon as PM.