Year in Review (Part 1) 2025 Meditations, 2026 Predictions

Here were my predictions for 2025 made 17/12/2024 and how they turned out, along with my forecasts for 2026.

TV in 2025: Freeview as a platform for free-to-air television will be hastened to an early termination by the stakeholders ahead of scheduled time – they will set a firm shut off date. 

I was: WRONG. This never transpired, however there were events strongly related to the imminent demise of Freeview, viz: the sell-off of TV3 to Sky by Warner Bros Discovery (now subject to a take-over bid by Netflix), and the Broadcasting Standards Authority grab for control of the internet. Sky’s ownership of TV3 means they now have a centre of gravity in the Freeview consortium. The BSA needs to expand into online platforms for its own financial viability given Freeview could fall over within the next few years and this was the external existential pressure that convinced the woke coven control freak Karens to penetrate into virgin territory.

TV in 2026: Will double-down, like a fool, because the trajectory is set and the audience figures are being buried with the Boomers. Freeview as a platform for free-to-air television will be hastened to an early termination by the stakeholders (Sky, TVNZ, MTS, RNZ) ahead of scheduled time – they will set a firm shut off date, maybe in 5 years. TVNZ and Maori TV are the only key partners in the consortium with a real incentive to keep it going, but they will face a resentful and unsustainable burden if the other partners pull out. A shut-down could be accompanied by a regulatory must-carry requirement on Sky for the existing Freeview stations. The abandoned frequency band will be sold off to internet traffic presumably, and I’m unsure who would “own” the continued use of the frequency or whether it reverts to Crown/Iwi(?). That hopeless, snaky, Paul Goldsmith, who so badly handled the BSA over-reach and botched the appointment of his crony picks to sabotage the Human Rights Commission will have to get his chops around legislation in 2026 to deal with these issues – let’s see how he fumbles that up with his trademark cocktail of negligence, avoidance and indecision.

Radio in 2025: 100 years of RNZ. Kim Hill podcasts? The decline of TV might be slightly helpful to radio as people now have to go to the radio to get news updates and regular bulletins – there is nothing on TV anymore – so radio audiences could increase marginally.

I was: WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. AI tells me the NZ radio audience declined marginally 2024-2025 from 3.425m to 3.4m, but it is essentially stable not increasing. The centenary of Radio New Zealand was marked with no celebration at all from my searches, an austerity casualty, or indeed fatality. There are five Centenary Scholarships of $8k each which entail intern enslavement. So for surviving a hundred years as a venerated cultural institution RNZ gets $40k total outlay for some kids to make coffee. And Kim Hill doesn’t have a podcast on RNZ that I am aware of (relationship is ice cold, whatever happened there?).

Radio in 2026: The audience is stable. More than stable: captive. I was in motorway traffic this last week and came to understand that radio and podcasts are the obvious things that all these suburban commuter schmucks will be listening to, slowly dying metre by metre and minute by minute in their idling cages as they roll into another day closer to their children grabbing their decrepit hand, forcing the pen into it and signing the euthanasia paperwork. John Campbell on Morning Report is a great brand fit, better than Corrin and his wannabe Hosking staccato, but the resulting woke-ification from Campbell will further push audience to ZB without gaining anyone additional for RNZ.

Politics in 2025: Tension as the Deputy PM transfer to Act looms. If in the lead up to May NZF are at or below 5% Seymour may want to go to trigger a snap election to wipe them out. Also if NZF are at or below 5% Winston might want to have a snap election to pre-empt a further fall of NZF and stop Act rising. There are many reasons either of them could pull that trigger and a Mexican stand-off over the ferries is already an emerging reality. The crisis will be over the lead up to the budget – usually delivered in May – the script writes itself. However if NZF is over 5% handily I don’t think the pressure will be there, will depend on the polling in March and April. Chip will cruise through to the crisis point and it will be too late for Labour to change leaders.

I was a bit WRONG and a bit RIGHT. There was a moment of tension in that sweet spot before the budget when Winston was big ballsing it over the ferries and people were beginning to speculate, but he got his way without a showdown and the condition of at or below 5% wasn’t there either – NZ First were handily over the threshold and remain so. Hipkins cruised through with the inertia of complacency that epitomises both Wellington and the Labour Party.

Politics in 2026: I cannot see the coalition of corruption falling apart in the run up to the election, unfortunately. It does not benefit any of those parties to implode it. Winston is already dialling up rhetoric and Shane Jones has signalled an attack on immigration (which is hypocritical given NZF has allowed it all to happen in every regime they have been a part of over the decades). Seymour continues a septic, racist line of division as if he were in opposition which is counter to any rationale of good government and goes further and beyond anything that NZ First has done as Act does not have Winston’s conservative respect for institutions. The Nats are stuck with David Brent for Leader even though no one likes him. The Nats have no oxygen in the crawl space between Act, NZ First and Labour. I wish Hipkins would be rolled as Leader because he is a dweeb who proved himself an incapable and poor Prime Minister. It speaks to the lack of talent and lack of any ideology that Hipkins remains Leader. Hipkins is a loser who does not deserve to win regardless of whether Labour has a larger party vote than National – Hipkins is fundamentally weak with no gravitas, the pinnacle of mediocrity.  Hipkins is the Labour version of Luxon if we are honest and that is reflective of the shallowness of the political class in this country. The Greens and their eclectic policy priorities of trans-rainbow-LGBTQIA+24/7, cycle lanes and prisoner voting rights are obscure policy marginalia for the electorate who want green things in a green way, not Marama shouting at them and Chloe wagging her finger – they really do rely on Labour being weak to have a good day at the office.

Odds would favour a General Election in November. My forecast result is the Right on 49%: Nats 31%, NZF 10%, Act 8%; and the Left 48%: Lab 34%, Grn 12%, TPM 2% (3% other). It will probably come down to overhangs if it is 48/49. So all eyes on TPM and the Maori electorates.

How will the Te Pati Maori crisis resolve? If Ferris goes fully Mana Motuhake (he has said he’s sick of fighting JT and his lock on the party) and has a by-election in the New Year he could well win and then things get very interesting. I’ve argued that it is rational to do so as Hone Harawira did successfully in 2011 – and was re-elected. Mariameno Kapa-Kingi has her court date in February before Waitangi Day and I think the judge will (continue) to rule in her favour, but that will not change the caucus scenario or change JT’s lock on the power structure; so, she may be confronted with the same choice as Ferris only she’s spent all her available funds for campaigning on lawyers. If there is some sort of truce/pact (as I wrote about in my previous blog) that allows for non-aggression and accommodation without competition in this election then maybe, just maybe, there will be a mix of independent and TPM candidates returned in the six seats that will cause a two or three seat overhang and give the Left a clear majority without having to beg Winston. It could also be a hung parliament however.

Treaty in 2025: Cannot see Seymour’s Bill doing anything other than rark up animosity on all sides as the select committee submissions grind out… until May. The timing to have an early election does tend to culminate at that May juncture. The MACA proceedings and the MACA amendment is something to track – the hui-a-motu will be tracking everything as those embers spread. Ngapuhi being the biggest unsettled Iwi have a disproportionate impact with policy and engagement as time goes on, so the focus will turn to them.

I was RIGHT. The rarking led to the Toitu Te Tiriti march on parliament being a massive event. The capitalisation of that was then wasted as the Maori Party descended into inter-ego lawfare and the Nats used the opportunity to squeeze through the atrocious MACA confiscation under urgency without any effective opposition. The Regulatory Standards Bill also passed under the same circumstances. Public concern about overturning the Maori-Pakeha consensus that had been built up over the last thirty years was circumvented at the crisis points – a disdain and discomfort, an anxiety, but not an explosion point of protest, no rupture.  One of the long-term effects of this statutory racism is that it undermines the rule of law, undermines people’s confidence and trust in the legitimacy of the law and clarifies the hypocritical and predatory nature of the settler state. The government policy with Ngapuhi is to wait them out and give them discrete legislation to return smaller parcels of land ad hoc without any dramas.

Treaty in 2026: Most of the controversial Treaty damage has been done this year, so 2026 will be by default focussed on the Resource Management replacement bills. MACA is constantly before the courts across a range of cases so the High Court decisions on the new MACA will roll out during the year potentially giving rise to consternation one way or another. TPM will have their Treaty policies held up as a would-be litmus test for what a Labour-Greens government would do, so there is extra pressure on them not to goof this up.

Ukraine in 2025: If Trump pulls the plug on Ukraine I can’t see the EU continuing to support them at an increased level necessary to survive. A negotiated end with territorial concessions is the most likely outcome.

I was WRONG. The EU are mad for war, that is the truth, they are rabid dogs. There was a short video circulating of some of the EU leaders in an armoured train carriage leaving Ukraine and they snatch a cocaine vile and instrument off the table just as the media enter. I hoped it was fake. Alas, it was true – from Associated Press. Junkies running a war. No one wants to say anything. The Emperor has no clothes is not so bad as the Emperor is Tony Montoya. When Zelinsky had that White House spat with Trump and Vance he went back to Europe to demand more from the EU thinking he had leverage. The reaction from the EU was bellicose, belligerent, swaggering, strutting, puffing, arrogance – like they all had a line of Charlie. And to my horror I recognised the bluff and bluster as the same as the eve of the First World War. The speeches in the UK parliament were terrifying, and it was happening all over Europe – they were relishing a grand war with Russia – mad for it. A century later and nothing had changed, nothing – the leaders of Europe rushing to war, over-full of self-confidence in a mad, psychotic, hysterical rage, swept up in a vortex of certain victory – all buoyed up on the notion: fuck Trump, fuck the USA, we don’t need the Americans! [A moment later] Trump ordered military satellite support to Ukraine to be turned off, thus depriving the Ukrainians of targeting and navigation capabilities, and 48 hours later, with their tails between their legs and a total change in their demeanour, the European dogs of war whimpered and simpered and came to heel, shame-faced, humiliated. Cretins.

Ukraine in 2026: This year surely it will end. The last parts of the Don-Bass will be taken by Russia and then the negotiations will really begin. The involvement of Black Rock in the meetings may be evidence that Zelinsky has “privatised” state assets to them that are in the Don-Bass so that he can use them as leverage in negotiations with Russia. Whatever is happening something is definitely happening. By mid 2026 – when it suits Russia on the ground – there will be a truce and a peace treaty by Christmas that is almost exactly what Putin was offering in the aborted peace negotiations in April 2023… except Ukraine loses the whole Don-Bass. What the fuck was it all for!?

Gaza in 2025: They just can’t keep slaughtering can they? Bibi asked Biden for six months to do the job when it began – and they’ve had twice that time and still cannot clear Gaza City and the northern zone. A stalemate in Gaza could last all year, Israel now has Syria to worry about.

I was RIGHT. It is a stalemate of sorts – one forced on the parties by Trump in an incredible synchronised set of ceremonies and hostage releases.

Gaza in 2026: The stranglehold however continues and will likely continue all year because Trump has no incentive or motivation to particularly help the Palestinians beyond bare existence, and the Israeli electorate are genocidally inclined going on recent opinion polling. My hope is that the massive amounts of rubble – millions of tonnes – can be used effectively and pushed out into the Mediterranean to form breakwaters and port facilities that will serve them into the future. Attempts to establish a puppet Palestinian Authority regime will be met with a wave of assassinations by Hamas and it will not be feasible for Israel to engineer a regime change.

Next week is part 2 of the Year in Review – a hurtfully self-critical analysis of my 26 blogs this year, without pity, without mercy.