I do not understand my fellow kiwis attitudes to electoral options;
I'm reminded of the quote I posted recently about DataFarming platforms and their erosion of our ability to do collective sense-making. I'm increasingly inclined to think we can't fix electoral politics without liberating our mediasphere. But maybe @theblockchainsocialist's 24 Nov 2025 guests are right that the nation-state is over as a useful focal point of democratic politics?
@jackyan
> I donʼt know how to make it but Iʼd be happy to promote it!
Plenty of people in Aotearoa could make it, but first we need to decriminalise it. With a Right to Repair bill that protects technological circumvention - for otherwise legal purposes - as a basic right in a democratic society.
I mean, computer scientists being allowed to publish and speak about circumvention is part of basic academic freedom, which is violated by current anti-circumvention laws.
@jackyan
AFAIK technological anti-circumvention rules were introduced in NZ by the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act 2008. Shame on Labour for passing this bollox, in anticipation of the ratification of ACTA, which never happened after the EU pulled out.
Yes, the EU has been leading the way on moving legislation towards respecting digital rights, for that long.
This kind of thing is why it's so hard to do satire these days. It's hard to dream up anything more ludicrous than what reality serves up. 20 years ago Ms Dirty Politics being put in charge of our preeminent legal review body would have been a joke in a Mcphail and Gadsby sketch. Not front page news.
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Just in case anyone is getting starry-eyed about Crusher Collins because she's leaving the House, remember less than 6 months ago? When she was shamelessly smearing striking public service workers for taking action to demand properly-resourced and effective public services?
On NRT: Naked cronyism - https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2026/01/naked-cronyism.html
"... we're not rid of [Judith Collins] yet, because in a parting gift (and an effort to continue her malign influence), she'll be appointed as president of the Law Commission."
@norightturnnz, 2026
https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2026/01/naked-cronyism.html
Oh FFS. This is like putting Mad Dog Prebble on the Waitangi Tribunal.
#NZPolitics #NakedCronyism #JudithCollins
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"For all the US' problems, this could never have happened in the US. Because of their First Amendment rights. But in our [UK] system, Parliament is sovereign, and it can basically do what it likes."
#LewisGoodall, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsNRFTfK0fw
... and the same is true of the NZ Parliament.
#podcasts #BoldPolitics #Bold #ZackPolanski #FreedomOfExpression #FirstAmendment
Towards the end of UK journalist and podcaster Lewis Goodall's appearance on Bold Politics, he gives an analysis of Starmerism that Hipkins and the NZ Labour strategists need to hear;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsNRFTfK0fw
In a nutshell ...
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I'm often frustrated with Hipkins, but he makes an important point here;
"... 20,000 fewer jobs in the construction sector than there were on election day 2 years ago ... where have [those workers] gone? Well, a whole chunk of them have left the country, and some of them have ended up on a Jobseeker benefit. So we're paying them to sit at home, when we could have been paying them to build the future of the country."
#ChrisHipkins, NZ Labour leader, 2025
The best time to influence a NZ government is when they're still on the opposition benches. I encourage everyone who wants to see the current regime tipped out of office this year to write to opposition MPs and pitch your visions and policies for the next government. Be as practical and detailed as you can, and you might even see some of your proposals enacted.
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"David Seymour, deputy prime minister and leader of coalition partner ACT, expressed concern on Tuesday intensification would upset people in his electorate of Epsom, the country's wealthiest, because high-rise buildings might end up 'looking into everyone's backyards and their swing sets and their pools'."
#MorningReport, 2026
This tells you everything you need to know about Rimmer's priorities.
We're supposed to be living in a democracy in Aotearoa. If the vast majority of submissions on a bill are opposed, and the government passes it anyway, and then two of 3 coalition partners distance themselves from it, there's an obvious thing the Opposition must do. They must promise to repeal it in their first 100 days. Unless there's a very, *very* good reason not to.
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Nobody needs to convince the majority of the public the NatACT First government is bad. I'm pretty sure most people already have at least one reason to be mad about it, if not several. But about half the public still remain unconvinced that a Labour-led government wouldn't be worse.
If the Opposition want to change that, the focus of their public communications needs to shift. Away from slamming the NatACTs and Winston, and towards what they'd do differently, and why it would work.
"Our MPs have stakes in a combined $379 million of property in New Zealand.
A Herald investigation has found that’s an average of $3.16 million across each of our 120 Members of Parliament."
In the current Parliament, NatACT MPs top the rankings for who has the most valuable property portfolio, by a large margin.
"After destroying the Māori Party by putting his ego in front of the waka and pursuing a needless leadership challenge inside te Pati Māori, Tākuta Ferris is now lecturing Labour on how to win the election?"
#BomberBradbury, 2025
Still running JT's propaganda line I see Bomber, just like you did for KDC and the Internet Party. How did that one work out for us?
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"The regional approach was found to best meet the needs of contributing primary schools in New Zealand. For example, many small primary schools serve remote communities. Having multiple suppliers means the programme can deliver to these schools, while saving the taxpayer an expected $145 million in 2026.”
#DavidSeymour, 2026
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-school-lunch-programme-serves-communities-and-taxpayers
What an embarrassing climb-down for Rimmer.
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"Now what happens to Winston Peters doesn't matter. But what happens to the people does."
#WinstonPeters, Juggernaut 2, ep 2, 2025
https://thespinoff.co.nz/podcasts/juggernaut
It's hard to believe now given the smiling crocodile he's become. Political principles up for auction, doing whatever is best for Winston Peters and bugger anyone else. I think at the time he really meant this.
His corruption is perhaps the saddest political story of NZ corporatism.
"There's no god given right for a major party to stay a major party. You have to earn that."
#HelenClark, 2025
https://thespinoff.co.nz/podcasts/juggernaut
You listening to your former leader Labour? If you don't step up next year - much more ambitiously than in 2020-23 - you've earned exactly what will follow.
"Now what happens to Winston Peters doesn't matter. But what happens to the people does."
#WinstonPeters, Juggernaut 2, ep 2, 2025
https://thespinoff.co.nz/podcasts/juggernaut
It's hard to believe now given the smiling crocodile he's become. Political principles up for auction, doing whatever is best for Winston Peters and bugger anyone else. I think at the time he really meant this.
His corruption is perhaps the saddest political story of NZ corporatism.
"The Green Party has drawn a sharp line between itself and the government, pledging to revoke fast-track consents for certain mining projects if it forms part of the next government, reports RNZ’s Giles Dexter. Party co-leader Marama Davidson said the move put 'the seabed mining, hardrock gold mining and coal mining industries – and their investors – on notice'."
#CatherineMcGregor, 2025
Hey Labour, maybe the Greens can tell you where to get a spine?
I presume anyone who wants to understand NZ politics has listened to The Spinoff's Juggernaut podcast, about the 1984-90 Labour government. But did you catch up with the fact that the second season of Juggernaut is out, telling the story of the 1990s National government?
https://thespinoff.co.nz/podcasts/juggernaut
The first 3 episodes are out now.
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"The Regulatory Standards Bill has passed with the backing of the coalition parties.
National and New Zealand First agreed to pass the bill into law as part of their coalition agreements with ACT.
The bill has faced fierce pushback from the public, with more than 98 percent of public submissions opposed."
#RussellPalmer, 2025
Parliamentary supremacy at its most antidemocratic. In 2026 I will vote for a party that makes scrapping it a bottom line.
NZ has a simple choice about the kind of social safety net we want to have. Either;
* we means-test superannuation so it doesn't bankrupt the government
OR
* we provide a Guaranteed Minimum Income for *everyone*, and lift taxes on excessive incomes and hoarded wealth, so those who don't need a living subsidy pay it back in tax
Universal social subsidies for the old, and austerity for everyone else, is neither sustainable nor fair.
"And yes, our current Minister of Finance is a woman. Funnily enough, our two worst ones have been. Which only proves the point: this isn’t about gender or personality. It’s about an ideology so deep in our political bloodstream that even good people end up preaching the same sermon. The uniform changes; the script doesn’t.
They call it responsibility. We call it what it is: looting."
#Respublica, 2025
https://thestandard.nz/the-cult-of-reasonableness/
Hear, hear.
