I’ve got a question that IS worth while pursuing. How do we get the citizens of Aotearoa to understand the governance crisis we’re facing and unite in a movement to overthrow the current administration? May I suggest that waiting to see what happens at next year’s election is not going to suffice. This is a crisis that’s been building, slowly but surely, over forty years or more. It’s been a long time in the making and now it’s right at the door. Best we get our heads together and develop a response that sees this administration out of parliament and buried. A good start is to identify the enemy, and I don’t use that word lightly. The enemy is not solely the motley collection of parliamentary ‘representatives’ beavering away at the beehive, these are actually the real enemy’s representatives. The real enemy to our democracy and livelihoods are the corporate masters. Let’s make no mistake over where the threat is coming from, the coalition politicians are their well reimbursed puppets, not the brains behind the operation. This is a massive corruption operation passing itself off as governance. Somewhere in the middle of this onslaught is the overtly benign but actually dangerous Atlas Network, whose New Zealand operation is administered by The NZ Institute.
This is a our challenge on the Left. I recommend the article and the comments below to all your readers.
As a member of the Labour Party policy council please ensure that the MP's (who were always in my 43 years in the Party generally ignoring of party members opinions, bar some who were often in a minority) are listening to alternative economic thinking. I find it offensive that inflation is of greater importance than people being in jobs. NZ currently has 150,000 young people under 25 not in work or training. That is a national disgrace based on a theory which both major parties subscribe to.
Excellent analysis as always. Thank you Craig. One of the most frustrating comments I hear so regularly is how this is all the fault of the RBNZ who raised interest rates to high!! Almost no-one in the media is mentioning the gutting of the public sector, the decimation of all infrastructure projects and the pulling of any investment whatsoever by the sorry excuse of a government. And Willis and her cronies rabbit on about zombie economic theory with not one mention of the multiplier effect!!
Neither Luxon nor Willis know anything about gardening. To get green shoots you need to water the ground with the fiscal hose. But the fiscal hose is covered in cobwebs from lack of use and the seeds of an improving economy remain ungerminated in the soil.
Scarcity of money and resources is the greatest con visited on people everywhere for the last 500 years. Distribution of these things is the problem, not scarcity.
It's always someone else's fault. It's the previous Labour government or the RBNZ or Trump's tariffs. They're like spoiled children, blaming and whining. Willis and Luxon might at least grow some spine, get some guts, and admit that they stuffed up and they are at fault for at least some of the mess we are in.
I have a theory which is not specifically related but continues to creep into our weak economy. How come we Kiwis don't see that the benefits that would accrue from just being a little more loyal to NZ companies? Shop at Woolworths and the emphasis is on Australian products. Same with Bunnings, Harvey Norman etc etc. Why don't we all change to Kiwibank and support Air New Zealand and other NZ companies?
This Coalition Govt is supporting ' Overseas Investment ' where so often this involves losing our best companies, shutting off taxation revenue via transfer pricing and shipping profit offshore. Do we not understand that overseas investors want more out than they invest?
👍💯 Where possible shop small and shop local 👏 BUT those on restricted/low incomes don't have a choice unless these businesses can match the prices of those you mention⁉️ Decades ago Aotearoa lost huge manufacturing capacity (& therefore local jobs) when foreign imports were welcomed in - shoes, glassware, clothing etc etc was replaced by cheaper imports & manufacturing became uneconomical - seems we don't learn from recent history 😱 Australian products replacing local 🤷 Even buying the NZ version in those same places would help IF we can, and before we lose the choice...
Thank you Craig. When I hear you speak and read what you write I always see a man of integrity. A foreign word to the current group of lobbyists masquerading as politicians working for Kiwis. They are demonstrably not. This is a hostile takeover of NZ in order to asset strip it. Drive the councils to bankruptcy in order to force asset sales. So long Ports of Auckland. Sell EVERYTHING including our National parks and roads. Everything until NZ is stripped back to a police force and a military. That's it. No more Public services or housing, welfare, libraries. Everything that makes us a civil society. The capital class just wants to reduce wages to increase profit. End of story. We bottom feeders and dropkicks will live in a precarious society, in fear, taking ever lower wages, in a futile attempt to keep our heads above water. Without an ounce of honesty or integrity this is where "our government " is taking us. 93 bills in parliament this month alone. Swamp the zone. Just like Trump.
And the recent sale of a Fonterra subsidiary is celebrated. While there will be an initial dividend to farmers, the later dividends from the operating business will go overseas. All businesses sold to overseas companies lessens NZ in the longer term. And do we think that Miles Hurrell, CEO of Fonterra will have a salary decrease because his responsibilities haven't lessened? - I, for one, sincerely doubt it.
🤔 That's their PLAN 😱 Our mission, should we decide to accept it, is to push back in every forum using every lever we have, to make sure it doesn't work.💪
👍 And by "WE" I mean from the ground up - individuals sharing & caring amongst friends & whanau; people like Craig & Dr Payinda & Dame Anne Salmond & Mountain Tui & Bernard Hickey & Dame Marilyn Waring etc etc etc (there are so many if we look 😇) alerting us, educating us, empowering us with HOW to scuttle the plan; WE putting pressure on Opposition parties of all stripes to fight tooth & nail to both resist & expose NOW plus develop plans of their own ready to implement if WE give them the power in 2026 - plans based on what WE insist is what WE want 💪
Hi Cindy. Yes I read and listen to all the people you mention. And I salute them them all for the part that they play in informing us all. There is almost no main stream media now. We have RNZ and Newsroom. It's seems everything else is subscription. This is a problem. 860,000 registered voters didn't vote. The right loves that. This is a problem. They gerrymander and lie to us. This is a problem. The right always own the untrue narrative that they are better managers of the economy. This is a problem. The right has practically unlimited funds at the moment. Far more than is legally accounted I have no doubt. I mean let's be honest. Dishonesty is a feature of this coalition. Why would they be honest about party funding as an exception. This is a problem. If the left thinks it is going to fight for the center on the strength of a capital gains tax we will probably lose. This is catastrophic. And quite possibly terminal for the NZ that we used to know. The only way to win is to mobilize voters and get people on the roll. Because the right always turn out to vote. That's what I do. To the best of my puny ability.
ps. I live in Northland. The right owns this seat. It is a natural left or TPM seat. But the people don't turn out and vote.
Yes, the greatest asset the ruling class has is the non-voting population. Long since identified as the best way of winning any and all elections - stop more disadvantaged people voting in their own interests and better still get them to not vote at all.
Getting people on the roll is a first step, followed by getting them to vote being the next. But given Labour is now fully ensnared by the death cult of neo-liberal economics who will they vote for to enable election of a government focused on people and planet?
Like any change the first thing to settle on is - "Where are we going?" . So can you say out loud the answer to that question? Then "What will it look like when we get there?" - in other words what is the vision?
With these two questions answered HOPE may be used to get people enrolled and get them out to vote but this will demand leadership and inspiration. Where will they come from - certainly not nervous, incrementalist, stale Labour.
@Craig Renney i really like the analysis of the progression of the forecasts through various points in time.
Could you do the same with say the half year & pre election fiscal updates? I feel it would be interesting to see the progression of GDP, Govt borrowing % debt, tax take forecasted surplus etc over the last 2 yrs through the change of govts & respective policy settings.
For instance it’s an easy stick to beat us with talking about an absolute number of debt servicing ie 9 billion, but as a relative measure how have the forecasts changed between now & then?
because the current govt is gaslighting us so much, what I am trying to get my head around is how much of Labours previous forecast to surplus was to do with their own spending growing the economy, how fragile was that plan given the Monetary policy setting the RBNZ was pursuing (ie would the recession have been engineered anyway), & what emperical evidence is there the Fiscally restrictive actions of this govt have worsened the situation due to the removal of stimulus which would have counteracted the RBNZ so that the absolute figures are the same but the relative figures have taken a back slide?
🤔 I have heard stories of visiting relatives hoodwinking the children by promising " I will help you with the dishes TOMORROW!" because of course the adults know that "tomorrow" never comes 🥺 A lesson we should all learn ⁉️
In this Newsroom article https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/08/23/anne-salmond-who-is-this-government-working-for/, one commentator, Bill Hales, underneath the article wrote:
I’ve got a question that IS worth while pursuing. How do we get the citizens of Aotearoa to understand the governance crisis we’re facing and unite in a movement to overthrow the current administration? May I suggest that waiting to see what happens at next year’s election is not going to suffice. This is a crisis that’s been building, slowly but surely, over forty years or more. It’s been a long time in the making and now it’s right at the door. Best we get our heads together and develop a response that sees this administration out of parliament and buried. A good start is to identify the enemy, and I don’t use that word lightly. The enemy is not solely the motley collection of parliamentary ‘representatives’ beavering away at the beehive, these are actually the real enemy’s representatives. The real enemy to our democracy and livelihoods are the corporate masters. Let’s make no mistake over where the threat is coming from, the coalition politicians are their well reimbursed puppets, not the brains behind the operation. This is a massive corruption operation passing itself off as governance. Somewhere in the middle of this onslaught is the overtly benign but actually dangerous Atlas Network, whose New Zealand operation is administered by The NZ Institute.
This is a our challenge on the Left. I recommend the article and the comments below to all your readers.
As a member of the Labour Party policy council please ensure that the MP's (who were always in my 43 years in the Party generally ignoring of party members opinions, bar some who were often in a minority) are listening to alternative economic thinking. I find it offensive that inflation is of greater importance than people being in jobs. NZ currently has 150,000 young people under 25 not in work or training. That is a national disgrace based on a theory which both major parties subscribe to.
Excellent analysis as always. Thank you Craig. One of the most frustrating comments I hear so regularly is how this is all the fault of the RBNZ who raised interest rates to high!! Almost no-one in the media is mentioning the gutting of the public sector, the decimation of all infrastructure projects and the pulling of any investment whatsoever by the sorry excuse of a government. And Willis and her cronies rabbit on about zombie economic theory with not one mention of the multiplier effect!!
Neither Luxon nor Willis know anything about gardening. To get green shoots you need to water the ground with the fiscal hose. But the fiscal hose is covered in cobwebs from lack of use and the seeds of an improving economy remain ungerminated in the soil.
Scarcity of money and resources is the greatest con visited on people everywhere for the last 500 years. Distribution of these things is the problem, not scarcity.
It's always someone else's fault. It's the previous Labour government or the RBNZ or Trump's tariffs. They're like spoiled children, blaming and whining. Willis and Luxon might at least grow some spine, get some guts, and admit that they stuffed up and they are at fault for at least some of the mess we are in.
Fat chance, they don’t see it as a mess, the privatisation/exploitation plan is working perfectly
They’re hallucinating so many green shoots, there must be acid in the Beehive water supply
I have a theory which is not specifically related but continues to creep into our weak economy. How come we Kiwis don't see that the benefits that would accrue from just being a little more loyal to NZ companies? Shop at Woolworths and the emphasis is on Australian products. Same with Bunnings, Harvey Norman etc etc. Why don't we all change to Kiwibank and support Air New Zealand and other NZ companies?
This Coalition Govt is supporting ' Overseas Investment ' where so often this involves losing our best companies, shutting off taxation revenue via transfer pricing and shipping profit offshore. Do we not understand that overseas investors want more out than they invest?
Anyhow....
Bill Mathews
👍💯 Where possible shop small and shop local 👏 BUT those on restricted/low incomes don't have a choice unless these businesses can match the prices of those you mention⁉️ Decades ago Aotearoa lost huge manufacturing capacity (& therefore local jobs) when foreign imports were welcomed in - shoes, glassware, clothing etc etc was replaced by cheaper imports & manufacturing became uneconomical - seems we don't learn from recent history 😱 Australian products replacing local 🤷 Even buying the NZ version in those same places would help IF we can, and before we lose the choice...
Thank you Craig. When I hear you speak and read what you write I always see a man of integrity. A foreign word to the current group of lobbyists masquerading as politicians working for Kiwis. They are demonstrably not. This is a hostile takeover of NZ in order to asset strip it. Drive the councils to bankruptcy in order to force asset sales. So long Ports of Auckland. Sell EVERYTHING including our National parks and roads. Everything until NZ is stripped back to a police force and a military. That's it. No more Public services or housing, welfare, libraries. Everything that makes us a civil society. The capital class just wants to reduce wages to increase profit. End of story. We bottom feeders and dropkicks will live in a precarious society, in fear, taking ever lower wages, in a futile attempt to keep our heads above water. Without an ounce of honesty or integrity this is where "our government " is taking us. 93 bills in parliament this month alone. Swamp the zone. Just like Trump.
And the recent sale of a Fonterra subsidiary is celebrated. While there will be an initial dividend to farmers, the later dividends from the operating business will go overseas. All businesses sold to overseas companies lessens NZ in the longer term. And do we think that Miles Hurrell, CEO of Fonterra will have a salary decrease because his responsibilities haven't lessened? - I, for one, sincerely doubt it.
🤔 That's their PLAN 😱 Our mission, should we decide to accept it, is to push back in every forum using every lever we have, to make sure it doesn't work.💪
👍 And by "WE" I mean from the ground up - individuals sharing & caring amongst friends & whanau; people like Craig & Dr Payinda & Dame Anne Salmond & Mountain Tui & Bernard Hickey & Dame Marilyn Waring etc etc etc (there are so many if we look 😇) alerting us, educating us, empowering us with HOW to scuttle the plan; WE putting pressure on Opposition parties of all stripes to fight tooth & nail to both resist & expose NOW plus develop plans of their own ready to implement if WE give them the power in 2026 - plans based on what WE insist is what WE want 💪
Hi Cindy. Yes I read and listen to all the people you mention. And I salute them them all for the part that they play in informing us all. There is almost no main stream media now. We have RNZ and Newsroom. It's seems everything else is subscription. This is a problem. 860,000 registered voters didn't vote. The right loves that. This is a problem. They gerrymander and lie to us. This is a problem. The right always own the untrue narrative that they are better managers of the economy. This is a problem. The right has practically unlimited funds at the moment. Far more than is legally accounted I have no doubt. I mean let's be honest. Dishonesty is a feature of this coalition. Why would they be honest about party funding as an exception. This is a problem. If the left thinks it is going to fight for the center on the strength of a capital gains tax we will probably lose. This is catastrophic. And quite possibly terminal for the NZ that we used to know. The only way to win is to mobilize voters and get people on the roll. Because the right always turn out to vote. That's what I do. To the best of my puny ability.
ps. I live in Northland. The right owns this seat. It is a natural left or TPM seat. But the people don't turn out and vote.
Yes, the greatest asset the ruling class has is the non-voting population. Long since identified as the best way of winning any and all elections - stop more disadvantaged people voting in their own interests and better still get them to not vote at all.
Getting people on the roll is a first step, followed by getting them to vote being the next. But given Labour is now fully ensnared by the death cult of neo-liberal economics who will they vote for to enable election of a government focused on people and planet?
Like any change the first thing to settle on is - "Where are we going?" . So can you say out loud the answer to that question? Then "What will it look like when we get there?" - in other words what is the vision?
With these two questions answered HOPE may be used to get people enrolled and get them out to vote but this will demand leadership and inspiration. Where will they come from - certainly not nervous, incrementalist, stale Labour.
Thanks Craig, for telling us what we have feared is the Truth!
@Craig Renney i really like the analysis of the progression of the forecasts through various points in time.
Could you do the same with say the half year & pre election fiscal updates? I feel it would be interesting to see the progression of GDP, Govt borrowing % debt, tax take forecasted surplus etc over the last 2 yrs through the change of govts & respective policy settings.
For instance it’s an easy stick to beat us with talking about an absolute number of debt servicing ie 9 billion, but as a relative measure how have the forecasts changed between now & then?
because the current govt is gaslighting us so much, what I am trying to get my head around is how much of Labours previous forecast to surplus was to do with their own spending growing the economy, how fragile was that plan given the Monetary policy setting the RBNZ was pursuing (ie would the recession have been engineered anyway), & what emperical evidence is there the Fiscally restrictive actions of this govt have worsened the situation due to the removal of stimulus which would have counteracted the RBNZ so that the absolute figures are the same but the relative figures have taken a back slide?
🤔 I have heard stories of visiting relatives hoodwinking the children by promising " I will help you with the dishes TOMORROW!" because of course the adults know that "tomorrow" never comes 🥺 A lesson we should all learn ⁉️